A Sparrow Falls

  Mark was silent, not daring to say a word that might break the mood. He knew that what he was hearing was so important that he could then only guess at the depths of it.

  ‘We must try, Mark, we must try.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We will,’ Mark agreed, and something in his tone made the General glance across at him, mildly surprised.

  ‘This really means something to you.’ He nodded, confirming his statement. ‘Yes, I can see that. Strange, a young fellow like you! When I was your age all I ever thought about was a quick sovereign and a likely piece of—’ He caught himself before he finished, and coughed to clear his throat.

  ‘Well, sir, you must remember that I had my full share of destruction at an earlier age than you did. The greatest destruction the world has ever known.’ The General’s face darkened as he remembered what they had shared together in France. ‘When you’ve seen how easy it is to tear down, it makes the preservation seem worth while.’ Mark chuckled ruefully. ‘Perhaps I was born too late.’

  ‘No,’ said the General softly. ‘I think you were born just in time,’ and he might have gone on, but high and clear on the heat-hushed air came the musical cry of a girl’s voice, and instantly the General’s head went up and his expression lightened.

  Storm Courtney came at the gallop. She rode with the same light lithe grace which marked all she did. She rode astride, and she wore knee-high boots with baggy gaucho pants tucked into the tops, a hand-embroidered waistcoat in vivid colours over a shirt of white satin with wide sleeves, and a black wide-brimmed vaquero hat hung on her back from a thong around her throat.

  She reined in beside her father, laughing and flushed, tossing the hair out of her face, and leaning out of the saddle to kiss him, not even glancing at Mark, and he touched his reins and dropped back tactfully.

  ‘We’ve been looking for you all over, Pater,’ she cried.

  ‘We went as far as the river – what made you come this way?’

  Coming up more sedately behind Storm on a bay mare was the blonde girl whom Mark remembered from that fateful day at the tennis courts. She was more conventionally dressed than Storm in dove-grey riding breeches and tailored jacket, and the wind ruffled the pale silken gold of her cropped hair.

  While she made her greetings to the General, her eyes kept swivelling in Mark’s direction and he searched for her name and remembered she had been called Irene – and realized she must be the girl who had been Storm’s companion on the grand continental tour. A pretty, bright little thing with a gay brittle style and calculating eyes.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Leuchars.’

  ‘Oh la!’ She smiled archly at him now. ‘Have we met?’ Somehow her mare was kneed away from the leading pair, and dropped back beside Mark’s mount.

  ‘Briefly, yes, we have,’ Mark admitted, and suddenly the china-blue eyes flew wide and the girl covered her mouth with a gloved hand.

  ‘You are the one—’ then she squealed softly with delight, and mimicked him, ‘just as soon as you say please!’

  Storm Courtney had not looked round, and she was paying exaggerated attention to her father, but Mark watched her small perfect ears turn pink, and she tossed her head again, but this time with an aggressive, angry motion.

  ‘I think we might forget that,’ Mark murmured.

  ‘Forget it?’ chirruped Irene. ‘I’ll never forget it. It was absolutely classic.’ She leaned over and placed a bold hand on Mark’s forearm. At that moment Storm could contain herself no longer; she swivelled in the saddle and was about to speak to Irene, when she saw the hand on Mark’s arm.

  For a moment Storm’s expression was ferocious, and the dark blue eyes snapped with electric sparkle. Irene held her gaze undaunted, making her own paler blue eyes wide and artless, and deliberately, challengingly, she let her hand linger, squeezing lightly on Mark’s sleeve.

  The understanding between the two girls was instantaneous. They had played the game before, but this time intuitively Irene realized that she had never been in a stronger position to inflict punishment. She had never seen such a swift and utterly malevolent reaction from Storm – and they knew each other intimately This time she had Missy Storm in a vice, and she was going to squeeze and squeeze.

  She edged her mare in until her knee touched Mark’s, and she turned away from Storm, deliberately looking up at the rider beside her.

  ‘I hadn’t realized you were so tall,’ she murmured. ‘How tall are you?’

  ‘Six foot two.’ Mark only dimly realized that something mysterious, which promised him many awkward moments, was afoot.

  ‘Oh, I do think height gives a man presence.’

  Storm was now laughing gaily with her father, and trying to listen to the conversation behind her at the same time. Anger clawed her cruelly and she clutched the riding-crop until her fingers ached. She was not quite sure what had affected her this way, but she would have delighted in lashing the crop across Irene’s silly simpering face.

  It was certainly not that she felt anything for Mark Anders. He was, after all, merely a hired servant at Emoyeni. He could make an idiot of himself over Irene Leuchars and she would not even glance aside at any other time or place. It was just that there were some things that were not done, the dignity of her position, of her father, and family — yes, that was it, she realized. It was an insult that Irene Leuchars, as a guest in the Courtney home, should make herself free, should flaunt herself, should make it so blatant that she would like to lead Mark Anders along the well-travelled pathway to her steamy – she could not continue the thought, for the vivid mental image of that pale, deceptively fragile-looking body of Irene’s spread out, languid and naked, and Mark about to – another wave of anger made her sway in the saddle, and she dropped the riding crop she carried and turned quickly.

  ‘Oh Mark, I’ve dropped my crop. Won’t you be a dear and fetch it for me?’

  Mark was taken aback, not only by the endearment, but also by the stunning smile and warmth of Storm’s voice. He almost fell from the saddle in his haste, and when he came alongside Storm to hand the crop back to her, she detained him with a smile of thanks, and a question.

  ‘Mark, won’t you help me label my cases? It’s only a few days and we’ll all be leaving for Cape Town.’

  ‘I’m so looking forward to it,’ Irene agreed as she pushed her mare up on Mark’s other side, and Storm smiled sweetly at her.

  ‘It should be fun,’ she agreed. ‘I love Cape Town.’

  ‘Grand fun,’ Irene laughed gaily, and Storm regretted bitterly the invitation that would make her a guest for four months in the Courtneys’ Cape Town home. Before Storm could find a cutting rejoinder, Irene leaned across to Mark.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she said, and turned her mare aside.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Storm demanded.

  ‘Mark is taking me down to the river to show me the monument where Dick King crossed on his way to fetch the English troops from Grahamstown.’

  ‘Oh, Irene darling,’ Storm dabbed at her eye with the tail of her scarf. ‘I seem to have something in my eye. Won’t you see to it? No, don’t wait for us, Mark. Go on ahead with the General. I know he needs you still.’

  And she turned her small perfect head to Irene for her ministrations.

  With patent relief, Mark spurred ahead to catch up with the General, and Irene told Storm in honeyed tones, ‘There’s nothing in your eye, darling, except a touch of green.’

  ‘You bitch,’ hissed Storm.

  ‘Darling, I don’t know what you mean.’

  The Dunottar Castle trembled under the thrust of her engines and ran southwards over a starlit sea that seemed to be sculpted from wet black obsidian, each crest marched with such weighty dignity as to seem solid and unmoving. It was only when the ship put her sharp prow into them that they burst into creaming white, and hissed back along the speeding hull.

  The General paused and looked at the southern sky, to where the great cross burned among its myriad cohorts, an
d Orion the hunter brandished his sword.

  ‘That’s the way the sky should be,’ he nodded his approval. ‘I could never get used to the northern skies. It was as though the universe had disintegrated, and the grand designs of nature had been plunged into anarchy.’

  They went to the rail and paused there to watch the moon rise out of the dark sea, and as it pushed its golden dome clear of the horizon, the General pulled out the gold hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket and grunted. ‘Twenty-one minutes past midnight, the moon is punctual this morning.’ Mark smiled at the little joke. Yet he knew that it was part of the General’s daily ritual to consult his almanac for sunrise and moonrise, and the moon phases. The man’s energy was formidable.

  They had worked until just a few minutes previously and had been at it since mid-morning. Mark felt muzzy and woolly headed with mental effort and the pungent incense of the General’s cigars which had filled the suite.

  ‘I think we overdid it a little today, my boy,’ Sean Courtney admitted, as though he had read the thought. ‘But I did want to be up to date before we dock in Table Bay. Thank you, Mark. Now why don’t you go down and join the dancing?’

  From the boat deck, Mark looked down on to the swirling orderly confusion of dancing couples in the break of the promenade deck. The ship’s band was belting out a Strauss waltz and the dancers spun wildly, the women’s skirts flaring open like the petals of exotic blooms and their laughing cries a sweet and musical counterpoint to the stirring strains of the waltz.

  Mark picked Storm Courtney out of the press, her particular grace making it easy to distinguish her; she lay back in the circle of her partner’s arms and spun dizzily, the light catching the dark sparkle of her hair and glowing on the waxy golden perfection of her bare shoulders.

  Mark lit a cigarette, and leaned on the rail, watching her. It was strange that he had seldom felt lonely in the great silences and space of the wilderness, and here, surrounded by music and gaiety and the laughter of young people, he knew deep loneliness.

  The General’s suggestion that he go down and join the dancing had been unwittingly cruel. He would have been out of place there among the rich young clique who had known each other since childhood, a close-knit élite that jealousy closed ranks against any intruder, especially one that did not possess the necessary qualifications of wealth and social standing.

  He imagined going down and asking Storm Courtney for a waltz, her humiliation at being accosted by her father’s secretary, the nudging and the snide exchanges, the patronizing questions. ‘Do you actually type letters, old boy?’ And he felt himself flushing angrily at the mere thought of it.

  Yet he lingered by the rail for another half hour, delighting in each glimpse of Storm, and hating each of her partners with a stony implacable hatred; and when at last he went down to his cabin, he could not sleep. He wrote a letter to Marion Littlejohn, and found himself as warmly disposed towards her as he had been in months. Her gentleness and sincerity, and the genuineness of her affection for him were suddenly very precious assets. On the pages he recalled the visit she had made to Durban just before his departure. The General had been understanding and they had had many hours together during the two days. She had been awed by his new position, and impressed by his surroundings. However, their one further attempt at physical intimacy, even though it had been made in the security and privacy of Mark’s cottage, had been, if anything, less successful than the first. There had been no opportunity, nor had Mark had the heart, to break off their engagement, and in the end Mark had put her on the train to Ladyburg with relief, but now loneliness and distance had enhanced her memory. He wrote with real affection and sincerity, but when he had sealed the envelope, he found that he still had no desire for sleep.

  He had found a copy of Jock of the Bushveld in the ship’s library and was rereading the adventures of man and dog, and the nostalgic and vivid descriptions of African bush and animals with such pleasure, that his loneliness was forgotten. There was a light tap on the door of his cabin.

  ‘Oh Mark, do let me hide in here for a moment.’ Irene Leuchars pushed quickly past him before he could protest, and she ordered, ‘Quickly, lock the door.’ Her tone made him obey immediately, but when he turned back to her he had immediate misgivings.

  She had been drinking. The flush of her cheeks was not all rouge, the glitter in her eyes was feverish, and when she laughed it was unnaturally high.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh God, darling, I have had the most dreadful time. That Charlie Eastman is absolutely hounding me. I swear I’m terrified to go back to my cabin.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ Mark offered, but she stopped him quickly.

  ‘Oh, don’t make a scene. He’s not worth it.’ She flicked the tail of the ostrich feather boa over her shoulder. ‘I’ll just sit here for a while, if you don’t mind.’

  Her dress was made of layers of filmy material that floated in a cloud about her as she moved, and her shoulders were bare, the bodice cut so low that her breasts bulged out, very round and smooth and white and deeply divided.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she demanded, very aware of the direction of his eyes, and he lifted them quickly to her face. She made a moue of impatience as she waited for his reply. Her lipstick was startling crimson and glossy, so her lips had a full ripe look.

  He knew he must get her out of his cabin. He knew that he was in danger. He knew how vulnerable he was, how powerful her family, and he guessed how shallow and callous she could be. But he was lonely, achingly grindingly lonely.

  ‘You can stay, of course,’ he told her, and she drooped her eyelids and ran a sharp pink tongue across the painted lips.

  ‘Have you got a drink, darling?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be, don’t ever be sorry.’ She swayed against him and he could smell the liquor on her breath, but it was not offensive and, with her perfume, blended into a spicy fragrance.

  ‘Look,’ she told him, holding up the silver evening bag she carried. ‘The “It” girl with every home comfort,’ and she took a small silver jewelled flask from the bag. ‘Every comfort known to man,’ she repeated, and parted her lips in a lewd but intensely provocative pout.

  ‘Come and I’ll give you a little sample.’ Her voice dropped to a husky whisper, and then she laughed and swirled away in a waltzing turn, humming a bar of the Blue Danube and the gossamer of her skirts floated about her thighs. Clad in silk, her limbs gleamed in the soft light and when she dropped carelessly on to Mark’s bunk, her skirts ballooned and then settled so high that he could see that the black elastic suspender-belt that held her stocking tops was decorated with embroidered butterflies. The butterflies were spangled with brilliant colour and in exotic contrast to the pale soft skin of her inner thighs.

  ‘Come, Markie, come and have a little itsy bitsy drinkie.’ She patted the bunk beside her and then wriggled her bottom across to make room for him. The skirts rucked up higher and exposed the wedge of her panties between her thighs. The material was so sheer that he could see the pale red-gold curls trapped and flattened by the silk.

  Mark felt something crack inside him. For another moment, he tried to reckon consequence, to force himself back on to the course that was both moral and safe, but he knew that in reality the decision had been made when he had allowed her to stay.

  ‘Come, Mark.’ She held the flask like bait, and the light reflected off it in silver splinters that she played into his eyes. The crack opened, and like a bursting dam, all restraint was swept aside. She recognized the moment and her eyes flared with triumph and she welcomed him to the bed with a little animal squeal, and with slim pale arms that wrapped about his neck with startling strength.

  She was small and strong, quick and demanding, and as skilled as Helena MacDonald – but she was different, so very different.

  Her youth gave her flesh a sweetness and freshness, her skin an unblemished lustre, a luscious plasticity that was ma
de more startling by her pale pigmentation.

  When she slipped the strap off one shoulder and popped one of her glossy breasts out of the top of her bodice, offering it to Mark with a sound in her throat which was like the purr of a cat, he gasped aloud. It was white as porcelain and had the same sheen, too large for the slim fragile body but hard and firm and springy to his touch. The nipple was tiny, set like a small jewel in the perfect coin of its aureole, so pale and delicate pink when he remembered Helena, dark and puckered and sprinkled with sparse black hair.

  ‘Wait, Mark. Wait,’ she chuckled breathlessly, and stood quickly to drop the boa and dress to the cabin floor in one quick movement, and then to slip the sheer underwear to her ankles and kick it carelessly aside. She lifted her hands above her head and twirled slowly in front of him.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Oh very much yes.’

  Her body was hairless and smooth except for that pale red mist that hazed the fat mound at the base of her belly, and her breasts rode high and arrogant.

  She came back to him, kneeling over him.

  ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a good boy,’ she crooned, but her hands were busy, unbuckling, unbuttoning, questing, finding – and then it was her turn to gasp.

  ‘Oh, Mark, you clever boy — all by yourself too!’

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘I had a little help.’

  ‘And you are going to get a lot more,’ she promised, and dropped her soft, fluffy golden head over him. He thought that her mouth was as red and voracious as one of those low-tide rock-pool anemones that he had fed with such delight as a child, watching it softly enfold each tidbit, sucking it in deeply.

  ‘Oh God,’ he croaked, for her mouth was hot – hotter and deeper than any sea animal could ever be.