No Other Haven by Kathryn Blair

he said. “One has to be in the mood to enjoy these places.”
    “And you’re not ... often?”
    “About once a month.”
    “And Lindsey?”
    “She wouldn’t mind if we didn’t come at all, would you, Lindsey?”
    “I like dining out, but it’s been so hot today, and I keep cooler at home.”
    “I haven’t noticed the heat,” remarked Adrienne. “Have you, Stuart?”
    “Not particularly, but you’re wholly South African and I’m half. Lindsey won’t feel it when her blood thins.”
    “If she does, you’ll have to take her back to England.” She saw him cast a quick, oblique glance at Lindsey, before she added, “Mrs. Conlowe came home very pleased with the trip out to ‘Elliotdale.’ I expect she told you that some time soon she wishes to run down to the new site for Conlowe Limited? When she does, I hope you’ll let me go with her, Stuart?”
    “Would you be interested?”
    “Very.”
    “Then of course you must go.”
    Adrienne was watching him over the rim of her glass as she asked Lindsey, “ What do you think of the site?”
    “I ... haven’t seen it.”
    “No?” The astonishment was staccato , well-timed. “Don’t English women take an interest in their husbands’ business affairs?”
    “There’s n o thing to see but waste land and the foreshore,” said Stuart carelessly. “We’re not building till I’ve been to Johannesburg.” He drained his glass. “We must go now, Adrienne. Can we drop you on the way?”
    “Thanks,” with a mock hangdog gesture over her shoulder, “but I’m tied to the Millers till midnight.” Adrienne was not tied to the Millers. She had accepted their offer of a lift to the Club, but once there could find no further use for them. She had come hoping to mix with Tim Baumann’s crowd, but she had learned that Tim was not here tonight. Tony was dragging round with the dreary little blonde wife of a wealthy sugar planter, and she had no time for the two or three men who offered her a drink. They were either married or poor—poor, at any rate, by Adrienne’s standard.
    Tim Baumann, the tinned sausage manufacturer despised by Mrs. Conlowe, might be vulgar, and his wife, Rita, coarse in speech and dress, but both were open-handed, especially to the social set whom they lumped together as “class.” Adrienne had this quality, and so did Tony; therefore both were welcomed into the Baumann entourage, which consisted mainly of young folk out for a good time and not particular how they got it .
    Adrienne was finding it increasingly difficult to live on the three hundred a year provided by her father, even with extras like commission from Tony on introductions and the substantial cheques handed over by Rita Baumann when Adrienne was able to persuade members of the upper hundred to condescend to one of their parties. Her last dress bill was staggering, and she was being dunned in other directions for stiff amounts that she had no imm ediate hope of meeting. All had to be placated with instalments and promises, lest Mrs. Conlowe learn that her gentle companion had slipped into a category she contemned even more than vulgarity.
    It was a hard life, reflected Adrienne, trying to live up to Mrs. Conlowe’s conception of Horace Cadell’s daughter. She was not ignorant of the older woman’s endeavors to get her married, but oddly, matrimony had attracted her little till Stuart came to Port Acland and began behaving as though he meant to stay. Marriage with him would be worth having! Money, position, a handsome husband. What filthy luck that he had brought a wife with him—so recently acquired, too. From the day she had happened on Stuart outside Rickerman’s, Adrienne felt cheated.
    Then she met Lindsey. The “nice” type of girl, definitely unsophisticated and badly scared over something—that was obvious last Sunday during the incident with the snapshots. Stuart took care of her as if she were a precious young sister; his attitude towards her was not in the