Read Online Bonds of Matrimony by Elizabeth Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

plains gave way to the majesty of Mount Kenya, that most beautiful of mountains, where the old gods of Africa took up their residence and promised the highlands to the tribes of their choice, only to be defeated at the hands of the white man despite the rumours that their time was still to come. Perhaps it was, Hero thought, as she stared down at the changing land below, and she could not entirely regret it. The land made its own demands on the people who worked it, forming them to its requirements as much as they did it, and who were the gods if they were not the personification of the land and its most prominent features?
    'There's Embu down there,' she said aloud. 'We must be about half-way there.' 'Feel like that coffee yet?'
    Hero wished now that she had got it when he had first suggested it. Near the mountain, there were spirals of air and frequent pockets that made the plane rise and fall without warning, doing disastrous things to her stomach. She unbuckled her seat-belt and stood up uncertainly, pausing to see if she could detect any difference in the plane's performance when she moved about. It didn't seem to make the slightest difference after all, but that didn't stop her being infuriated by Benedict's grin as she slipped past him, thrusting the curtain aside to go into the tiny galley.
    When she came back with the coffee, he was studying the map.
    'Lost the way?' she asked.
    'I was looking for Nanyuki,' he answered.
    'It's on the other side of the mountain,' she said. The aeroplane flew through another pocket and dropped several feet, making her fall into her seat with more haste than grace. 'Must you do that?' she demanded.
    'It must be your added weight up here in the nose.'
    'I thought you said it didn't matter!' she exclaimed.
    'It doesn't. Did your mother teach you to cook as well as make coffee?'
    'Of course,' she said, re-fastening her seat-belt just in case he should be wrong and it was she who had caused the sudden fall in height.
    'There's no of course about it. I know many girls out here who can't boil an egg for themselves!'
    He would! He certainly hadn't wasted his time in Kenya, she thought, darkly. But then he knew Betsy, and one didn't have to look any further if one wanted a girl who couldn't cook or do anything but enjoy herself. Betsy had been waited on, hand and foot, all her life.
    'My mother had other ideas,' she said. 'She didn't approve of asking anyone else to do what one can't do oneself.'
    'And her daughter?'
    Hero strove to keep the note of reproof out of her voice. It wouldn't do to criticise Betsy. 'I agree with her. I prefer to do things for myself.' 'And for your husband?'
    Hero took a hurried sip of coffee. 'When I have a husband - a proper one, I mean - naturally I'll cook for him and—' She broke off, not liking to think what else she might do for him.
    'And?' he went on.
    'And—' she began. 'Well, naturally, I'll serve him as best I may. Wouldn't you expect that from your wife?'
    'Possibly. You're an intriguing mixture, Hero Carmichael. Mostly, you're as English as I am, but then you come out with something delightfully old-fashioned and Greek like that.'
    'My mother was Greek. Naturally I have some of her ideas—'
    'Naturally!'
    She sat up very straight. 'If you're going to be beastly--! But I suppose you'll marry somebody modern, someone you can show off socially, and I wish you joy of her! If you stay out here, she won't need to be able to cook!'
    'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'There may be servants to be had at the moment, but life is changing, even here.'
    Hero disdained to answer. She drank her coffee down at a single gulp and gasped as the hot liquid burned her inside as it went down.
    'Serves you right!' Benedict said easily. 'You're so sure you know all that there is to know about me-'
    'I do not! I know you're ever so clever, and I know now what you're doing in Kenya, but I don't know anything else about you.' She added, 'And I don't want to!'
    'Then don't keep