Miranda refused to finish theirs. But when Thomas brought in the coffee, Charles rose to his feet.
‘Look here, Caroline,’ he exclaimed awkwardly, ‘will you excuse me? I mean—well, I really think I ought to go and see if Elizabeth’s all right …’
Caroline nodded. ‘That’s all right, Charles. You go ahead. The children and I can manage perfectly well.’
Charles breathed a sigh of relief, bestowed a warm smile on his two youngsters, and then made a hasty exit.
‘Why can’t we go with Daddy?’ asked Miranda, still rather tearful.
David nudged her in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Don’t be stupid, baby! They don’t want us. They want to kiss and cuddle and that sort of thing, don’t they, Caroline?’
Caroline hid a smile. ‘If you say so, David,’ she answered mildly, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
Later, Caroline got the children ready for bed while Thomas was clearing the table, and then, with his assistance, settled them beneath their mosquito nets. Fortunately Thomas spoke very good English although his manner of phrasing things wasn’t always right, and she was glad of his help. She dreaded to think what would happen if either of the children wanted to go to the bathroom during the night. However would they manage to get back beneath their mosquito nets? She shook her head. Oh, well! That was a problem they would have to face if and when the occasion occurred.
Neither Charles nor Elizabeth had reappeared, and Caroline hoped that this was a good sign. At any rate, Elizabeth hadn’t made another scene and turned him out of the bedroom.
After that, the bungalow was very quiet. Thomas had wished her goodnight and left for some private destination of his own, and Caroline sat in the lounge for a while wondering what one did in the evenings here. It was scarcely nine o’clock and yet bed seemed the only sensible conclusion.
Turning out the lights, she eventually went to her own cubbyhole of a room. Thomas had left her suitcase standing at the foot of the bed, and she lifted it on to a plain stinkwood chest that would apparently have to serve as a storage container for her underwear. The only other furniture in the room, apart from the iron-framed bed, was a tall hanging-closet, which, when she opened the door, smelt so strongly of disinfectant that she was deterred from hanging anything inside; and a kind of marble-topped wash-stand, on which stood a basin and a jug of rather brackenish-coloured water in which floated a motley assortment of flying insects. The floor was covered by a kind of cheap linoleum, and there was a rag rug beside the bed. All in all, it was not a very inspiring apartment, but at least the bed felt comfortable when she bounced on it.
Scooping away most of the insects, she managed to rinse her face and hands before taking off her clothes and putting on her nightdress. Quite honestly, she wished she had brought some pyjamas with her. There was something rather vulnerable about a nightdress when one couldn’t be sure that one’s bed might not be invaded by ants in the night.
Thrusting such disquieting thoughts aside, she turned out the light and climbed into bed. She supposed Elizabeth ought to be grateful that there was electric light here, run from a community generator. They could quite easily have found themselves with only oil lighting and no kind of refrigeration for food.
Lying there in the darkness, Caroline found her thoughts turning back to her meeting with Gareth Morgan. She had known this would happen, and that was why she had been loath to go to bed, but sooner or later she had to face the fact that whatever he had once felt for her, now he despised her and any crazy ideas she had had about effecting a reconciliation should be forgotten.
All the same, her reasons for coming here had not changed. The pity of it was that she had been unable to come any sooner. Anything she said now he would disbelieve even were he prepared to listen, which he so obviously was not. Why was it that one never recognised the value of something until it was out of reach?
She rolled on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. Could she ever be excused for her behaviour of seven years ago? She had only been seventeen years old, after all, whereas Gareth had been thirty even then. Perhaps that was why he had been so easily deterred. Perhaps he had considered himself too old for her. But it hadn’t been that. It had been her own stupid belief that without a secure background—without money—no love could hope to survive. From an early age her mother had drilled it into her—the old adage: when poverty comes in the door, love flies out of the window. And she had believed it, believed it blindly. Hadn’t her own father left her mother when she was small for those very reasons? Hadn’t he taken off with some flighty young thing who had a job of her own and wouldn’t saddle him with a home and family to support? Hadn’t she seen the marriages of people around who were finding it hard to make ends meet and who indulged their frustrations in rows? And she had determined not necessarily to marry for money instead of for love, but rather only to love where money was.
Time had passed, changing things, changing Caroline’s ideas, and bringing with it the realisation of exactly what she had lost. But by then it had been too late to regress. Gareth had placed himself out of her reach, and she had had to go on alone and make a life for herself.
And she had succeeded admirably. She had gone to college and become a qualified teacher, obtaining for herself a good post at a large comprehensive school. She was well liked among the staff and popular with the pupils, and after her mother died two years ago she had managed to get a small flat and become independent. From time to time she had had word of Gareth. His married sister lived in Hampstead, not far from where Caroline and her mother had lived, and whenever Caroline went back to visit old friends she had heard of Gareth through them.
Eventually, the thing that Caroline had once wanted to happen became reality. Through the headmaster at the school, she became friendly with Jeremy Brent, the headmaster of a well-established boys’ preparatory school in Kensington. He was everything she had once looked for in a husband—rich and attractive, of a good family with excellent prospects, and what was more would inherit his father’s baronetcy one day. He was instantly attracted to her and lost no time in asking her out and showing his interest was serious. Caroline should have been delighted, she should have been proud that a man like Jeremy wanted her for his wife, but something stopped her from falling in love with him. She knew that some part of her still hankered after a man who within a year of their separation had married and was still married to someone else. She used to tell herself that she was a fool, that if she wasn’t careful she’d end up like her mother, a lonely and embittered woman, but nevertheless, although she became engaged to Jeremy she delayed the inevitability of marriage.
Naturally, Jeremy became impatient. There was absolutely no reason why they should not get married right away. As well as his service flat in town, and his apartments at the school, he owned a small house in Sevenoaks which would suit them ideally until they started a family. He offered her a cruise to the West Indies for their honeymoon, and an unlimited account at Harrods to buy her trousseau. But still Caroline hesitated.
And then, early in the New Year, she had learned that Gareth’s wife had left him, that they were getting a divorce, and suddenly she had known that this was why she had been delaying her marriage to Jeremy.
She had half expected that Gareth would come home, to England. She knew his parents were dead, but there was his married sister in Hampstead who hadn’t seen him for years. But Gareth didn’t come to England, and as the weeks passed Caroline had become impatient and restless. Then, when the opportunity arose to accompany Elizabeth Lacey and her children out to Tsaba, she had not hesitated. She had told Jeremy the truth—that she was very much afraid she loved someone else—and that before settling down with him she had to make sure.
Jeremy had not seemed too surprised. He had
