Stars Over Sarawak (11 page)

 At this his face relaxed and a faint smile appeared, illuminating his eyes.

 'How very naive you seem for a woman who has been married — and suffered by the sound of it. Every marriage is a risk — a hell of a risk!'

 'Andrew'll never hurt me,' she affirmed, making a vigorous shake of her head. 'Never!'

 'I hope you're not destined for disillusionment.' He spoke casually now, as if the subject no longer held interest for him. The sandwich in his hand was bitten into and for a while no words were spoken between him and Roanna. But his final sentence had impressed itself deeply on her mind and that faint tinge of uneasiness returned. Anger came hard upon it, anger against Carl Denver for causing the uneasiness. Why did he keep on inflicting his own cynicism upon her? It would almost seem that he was deliberately endeavouring to deflect her from marriage. This was of course an absurd idea, as he was not the man to concern himself unduly with the fate of others.

 He was sitting so still, his dark face fixed in thoughtful lines. Again she had the impression that he was a lonely man ... a strong man yet one who would respond to someone he could really respect, be the person man or woman. Had he no special friend? That he had many friends and acquaintances was certain, for Malcolm had told her this. He was highly thought of in his work, both for the oil company and for the government; a popular man who, it would appear, had everything he wanted from life.

 And yet... Roanna lowered her lashes swiftly as his attention was returned to her.

 'What are you thinking?' he inquired unexpectedly.

 'It was nothing important.' She spoke in hesitant, uncertain tones, for that frowning and curious stare was exceedingly disconcerting. She had the uncomfortable sensation that he could almost read her mind.

 A long silence followed; the atmosphere seemed all at once to be overcharged with a strange unfathomable element that set the air vibrating. Roanna put down her cup and rose to her feet. For some quite indefinable reason she felt she must get away from Carl. He watched her go; she felt his keen eyes upon her even after she had put some distance between them.

 What was this physical and mental sensibility which had so suddenly and unexpectedly affected her. She was acutely aware of several conflicting emotions — fear and pleasure, uneasiness and excitement. Carl Denver's voice was attractive all at once; his dark and cynical features were indelibly impressed upon her mind. The thudding in her breast denoted an increase in her heartbeats, causing a breathlessness she had never experienced before.

 On her return he was standing ready to begin work again and, leaving the rucksack, they proceeded to climb, having to scramble at times through dense undergrowth, disturbing the birds and snakes and the biting insects.

 Roanna took notes, trying not to notice the itching when she had been bitten. But when she glanced down and saw several leeches fast to her legs she let out a little squeal that interrupted what her companion was saying.

 'What's wrong?'

 'Look!' She shuddered and pointed. Her legs were still very sore from the scratches they had received earlier and the leeches appeared to be drawing blood from them.

 'Don't panic.' Abrupt words and brief. 'Follow me.'

 'Aren't you going to get them off for me?5 she cried, running after him.

 He made no reply, merely striding back to where the rucksack lay on a ledge of rock. From it he took out a packet of cigarettes, put one in his mouth and lit it with a gas lighter, Roanna watched, bewildered, as well she might be since Carl did not normally smoke.

 'What—?'

 'Now, keep very still,' he ordered, coming towards her. 'I'm going to burn them off, and if you move—'

 'Burn them off I' she echoed as he sat down on the ledge.

 'It's the simplest way. Sit down.' She obeyed and, taking her leg he put it across his own. 'Move and you'll get yourself a burn to go with all the other blemishes on your legs.' The glowing cigarette was held to the leech and it dropped off at once. The operation was repeated until they had all dropped to the ground. 'Fine. You're all right now. What you could do with is a pair of trousers.'

 'Jeans ...? X wish I had some with me.' But he himself was in navy blue shorts and an open-necked shirt with sleeves rolled up to above the elbows. 'I'm going to be most inconvenienced by the lack of clothes.'

 'You should have thought of that before electing to come on a jungle trip like this.' Roanna was rubbing her legs and he watched her for a moment, totally unaware of her feelings. For she could still feel the touch of his hand on her flesh — its warmth and the slight dampness of perspiration which made it stick fleetingly to her calf. 'However, I might be able to get you some clothes when we arrive at Pa Tali Longhouse.'

 'You might?' with some surprise in her glance.

 Carl nodded his head.

 'The last time I was there they had a suitcase left by a previous visitor— No, don't ask me why she left it,' he went on to add as he saw Roanna open her mouth to interrupt. 'Typical feminine absentmindedness. I shouldn't wonder. Apparently she had two or three cases and this small one was left behind. I was shown its contents and if I remember rightly you'll find them most useful.' A faint smile — merely that twist of the lips that took away the thinness but not the severity.

 'That'll be marvellous. Do you really think they'll still be there?'

 'I don't suppose the girl will have returned for them. She was only a visitor — perhaps from Brunei — taking her one and only look at a longhouse so that she could talk about it on her eventual return to England.'

 It was almost dark when at last they returned to the camp. Tangan and Agwai greeted them with smiles and within a quarter of an hour or so the meal was on the table, which on Carl's orders had been brought into his own large and airy tent. The lamp gave off an excellent light and there was a certain element of cosiness and intimacy about the meal — at least for Roanna. As for her companion, he seemed absorbed in some rock samples which he had laid out on a small folding table beside the larger one from which they ate their meal of tinned pork and apple sauce, with crisp potatoes which Tangan had fried in oil. This was followed by tinned fruit and cream, then biscuits and cheese and coffee.

 'You said you can type?' Carl spoke at length, his attention still on the rock samples. Chemical analyses of these would be carried out in the laboratory, he had told her; they would also be dated from the breakdown of radio-active elements.

 'Yes, I can type.' She was eager and willing, since it were far better to work than to lie on her narrow camp bed, in the blackness of a jungle night, unable either to sleep or to occupy her mind with a book.

 'You don't mind doing some typing this evening?'

 'I'd love to.' She endeavoured to hide her enthusiasm, but she feared she was unsuccessful as he seemed to be faintly amused by her answer.

 He. had managed very well to eat his dinner with the one hand, as a fork sufficed for the main course and a spoon for the sweet. But when he tried to butter his biscuit he appeared to have difficulty and at last said, in a voice of exasperation as the biscuit slid all over the plate,

 'Butter this damned thing for me, will you?'

 She obliged at once, and also cut him a slice of cheese from the piece. It was a mistake, for he glowered at her and told her shortly that he wasn't quite helpless ; he was perfectly able to use his knife for cutting.

 'I'm sorry,' she murmured, biting her lip.

 'To get back to this typing,' he said presently. 'As soon as we've finished this we'll make a start. I'd like you to type out — roughly will do — what you've taken down today. I can then go over it and cut out what I don't want. You can then make a presentable copy for me.'

 'Yes, I'll do that.'

 There was an added intimacy in working late, in the lighted tent, with all around outside the immense jungle, dark, mysterious and at this time of night, exceedingly forbidding. Roanna felt as if she and Carl were the only two people alive, and as the evening progressed she became more and more aware of him as a man — a man to be noticed and not merely dismissed, a man whose personality was so dynamic that he seemed to affect the very atmosphere around him. The superlative qualities of physique and looks, of a voice finely-timbred and cultured, of self-assurance and complete self-control — all these combined to place him high above any other man Roanna had ever met, including Andrew. Of course, she quickly told herself, Andrew was a different type altogether. And it was his type that appealed to her — at least, where the question of choosing a husband was concerned.

 Ten o'clock came all too swiftly and Carl, sitting at an improvised desk, glanced up from the typed work he had been perusing and said it was time they finished.

 'We've done excellently,' he added, and Roanna's mind went instantly to something Malcolm had once said to her. Carl Denver was the first to praise where praise was due, and the first to criticize where criticism was due. 'Thank you very much, Mrs. Barrett.'

 'It's been most enjoyable; much better than lying in the dark trying to sleep.' She had just finished a page and so she placed the cover over the machine, noting Carl's frown as she did so.

 'You must have a lamp,' he said. 'Why didn't you ask me for one?'

 'I didn't think you had a spare one.'

 'I always carry plenty of spares.' Faint mockery now, but she could not take offence. Carl Denver just couldn't help his nature, and she waited for what she knew would come next. 'It's only women who disregard the possibility of emergencies. They embark on schemes and projects with that supreme but misguided optimism peculiar only to the female sex.'

 'You think that had I come on this trip I'd have left half the necessary equipment behind?' A tart note to her voice which actually brought a laugh to his lips.

 'You did, Mrs. Barrett,' he reminded her with gentle satire. 'You haven't even a spare pair of pants,'

 'Oh!' Colour rushed to her face and without thinking she glanced down at her dress. But she was now properly clothed, having changed into her own things immediately on returning to camp. 'Mr. Denver, you are most ungentlemanlike to mention — mention—' She stopped as he gave another small gust of laughter. 'I'm completely clothed,' she added with an attempt at dignity which was in fact rather comical. Her companion thought so, apparently, for he continued to display some considerable amusement.

 'Shy, are you?' He shook his head in a disbelieving gesture. 'I'd come to believe that shyness in a woman was an old-fashioned quality that had disappeared with our grandmothers.'

 'I'm not really shy,' Roanna protested, making a task of removing the machine from the table on to the stool it had previously occupied when they were dining. 'It's only when you say things — things like that.'

 'I can't see that the word pants is what would make you blush and stammer with embarrassment.'

 She looked up at him.

 'I don't understand you in this mood,' she said, the words spilling out almost of their own volition. The situation, decided Roanna, was becoming far too intimate and once again she tried to give her thoughts to the man she was going to marry.

 'No.' Luxuriously he leant back against the foam covering of the folding armchair in which he sat, and stretched out his long legs in front of him.. Having placed the typewriter on the stool Roanna straightened up and stood looking into the piercing amber eyes of the man who was now affecting her more than a little dangerously. 'What mood do you understand me in, then?'

 'Your cynical, mocking mood,' was the swift and candid reply. 'It seems to suit you more than this — er — bantering mood.'

 One eyebrow lifted, but for a long moment there was silence in the tent. His expression was enigmatic, his thin lips fixed in a straight, inflexible line.

 'I expect,' he said at last with a glance in her direction, 'that my cynical mood as you term it is my natural one and that's the reason why it suits me better.'

 Her eyes flickered questioningly. Was he teasing her? she inquired, but silently. The merest lift of one corner of his mouth in a sort of twisted smile was his sole reaction, and it told her nothing at all.

 'Shall I go now?' she asked, unaware of the breathlessness in her voice but fully aware that she had not the least desire to leave his tent just yet.

 'You're tired?'

 She shook her head at once.

 'Not a bit. I could have continued with the typing.'

 'You've done enough of that for one night. I'm having some supper; perhaps you'd like to have a bit of something?'

 She smiled at him and glanced at a chair.

 'Yes, please.'

 'Sit down, then.' He called out something in the Malay language and Tangan came at once, his dark' eyes flitting from Carl to Roanna and then back again as he waited for the order to be given. Carl spoke in Malay; the man replied and smiled and then withdrew. There was nothing servile about him, nor was there anything of the master about Carl. Tangan and Agwai were merely his employees and as such they commanded respect just as much as Carl commanded respect. The two Natives were used to his ways, having been with him on every trip he had made into the jungle. Later, when they went further up river, their services would be very necessary in cutting a way through the jungle and, when camp was made once again, in putting up shelters and tents and making the meals.