Read Online They Met in Zanzibar by Kathryn Blair - Free Book Online Page A

any of them staying on Motu. The Professor doesn’t live for his plantation; he exists for the pests he finds and classifies. If he had money he could equip a modern laboratory. And Gracey ... well, if he had to transfer to another house there’d be nothing to stop his dressing up for dinner and wearing natty whites. They’ll both sell - I’m certain of it.”
    Jim Maldon pitched his half-smoked cheroot out of the open doorway. “I’m not like either of ’em. My chief interest for fifteen years has been this plantation. I’ve lived it, breathed it, slept it, given up everything else a man values just so that I could be here, doing a planter’s job on my own acreage. I’m not selling, Steve.”
    Steve jabbed out his cigarette with some force, but he spoke in the almost casual tones he had been using ever since broaching the matter. “Think it over from every angle before making a final decision. If you’re the only individual planter you’ll have trouble all round. You’ll have to take shipping space on one of the smaller freighters and place your copra with an agent, which means you may have to wait for months for your money, and that the price will probably be lower than the company’s. Then you may have trouble with your workers.”
    “I don’t see why. I treat them well!”
    “Your lot will feel out of it - small fry compared with the company labourers. The company will build another school and probably engage a Malay doctor, and your families won’t qualify for either. You’ll have them drifting away.”
    “I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” said Jim stubbornly.
    “Can you see yourself living here, surrounded by company property?”
    “No, I can’t, but if it happens I shall have to put up with it.” He got up and went to the cabinet, poured two fingers of whisky and splashed soda into it. From where he stood he looked across at Peg’s carefully averted face. “You’re saying nothing, Peg.”
    “It’s not really my business, is it?”
    “It is, partly. When the worms get me this place will be yours. If I refuse to sell and can’t get labour or a good price for the copra, the value of the plantation will go down and you’ll find I haven’t left you much, after all.”
    “I’m not interested in what you’ll leave. I want you to do whatever will make you happiest.”
    “You mean that?”
    Steve was standing now. “Yes, she’s young enough to mean it,” he said in jaded accents, “but she has no conception of what might happen here, and you’re being blind about it yourself, Jim. You’re happy the way things are now, but you’d be damned miserable if the plantation fell away through your own obstinacy. I know it’s hard to have to make such a decision about something you’ve built up and intended to keep, and I know it’s worse for you than for any of us, but in the long run you’ll be far happier if you sell than if you cling to something that will start to crumble right under you. Once big business comes in, you won’t be able to make it alone.”
    Jim Maldon fingered his glass, looked down into it and said softly, “Two of us might have stood out, Steve. Your property touches mine at one corner and you have fifteen hundred acres. Twenty-five hundred between us.”
    Steve pushed his hands into his pockets. “As a matter of fact,” he said distinctly, “I’m going to invest the bulk of my money in the company. In this, I’m afraid I’m all for progress.”
    There was a pulsing pause. Peg, gazing at her father, felt sick and angry for him, and rage against Steve Cortland was rising into her throat. She drew a deep breath.
    “Perhaps you ought to know,” she said in sharp thin tones, “that Steve is to be appointed general manager of the new Motu copra estate. In due course he’ll probably be a company director. Won’t that be nice?”
    Jin took this in, looked from Steve to Peg, and back at Steve. Slowly he said, “I’ll take my whisky to bed with me if