And No Regrets by Rosalind Brett Read Free Book Online Page A

up the bedroom in which the Pryces would be sleeping. Even the new mosquito nets and flowered bedcover, she reflected, couldn ’ t entirely eliminate the severely monastic appearance of the room. There was nothing, she thought, looking round, that revealed here the presence of a man. Would Mrs. Pryce notice? Would she guess that this was virtually the bedroom of a single girl? Clare frowned at herself in the mirror of the dressing-table, and her fingers played with her jade and gold wedding ring.
    R oss’s bride of convenience. Still that, and half a year of their tune together had already flown by on wings.
    S harply she turned and went out to the living-room. She called Luke from the kitchen and spent with him an edgy half-hour planning a dinner worthy of the house of Brennan.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    MRS. PRYCE was small and tough. Her thin face and neck were leathery and lined, and a fan-shaped set of wrinkles sprang out beyond rimless glasses from the corner of each eye. She wore shirt and breeches, and her voice was rather nasal. It was her habit to rub her left forefinger over the bridge of her nose when she was talking, as though speech let loose an irritant in the bone. It was this mannerism, displaying at frequent intervals her heavy gold wedding ring, that helped tighten Clare’s nerves to such a pitch that she was developing a headache.
    The Pryces were deeply grateful for a real bedroom and meals to which one might dare bring an appetite. As practically all their travelling was by the river they had to travel light, and their usual food consisted chiefly of baked beans and meat concentrates, a diet which their complexions alone proved utterly unwholesome in the tropics.
    But it was fun having visitors, and being able to converse with a woman, even one as far removed from social contacts as Mrs. Pryce. Although her own dress never varied, she worked up an enthusiastic i nterest in materials and styles, and was ravished by the elegant, simplicity of the flowered frock which Clare wore.
    “It’s lovely to see a woman dressed so prettily,” she smiled. “The few wives I meet in the bush dress as I do, mannishly.”
    “Much more practical,” Clare agreed. “But I find breeches too hot.”
    “Your houseboys are admirable,” Mrs. Pryce said at the end of the meal, being now alone with Clare while the men smoked cigarettes on the veranda. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen bush boys respond so well to training.”
    Clare gave a little pleased laugh. “Ross barks at them, and I laugh at them, and I suppose you could call them tolerably obedient. I’m very fond of Johnny, the little one. I’d like to keep him for life.”
    Mrs. Pryce said gravely: “I hope you won’t allow that liking for him to persuade you that he might be happy in an English household. The bush is his home. Why, it even grows on white people to such an extent that they can’t stay away from it. Look at your own husband, my dear. I can’t say I’m surprised that he returned but I must add that it was wise of him to bring back a wife. Life in the bush can be unutterably lonely for a man, and though the life can be extremely trying to a woman, she has the compensation of knowing that she is making her man’s life a little !more comfortable and happier.”
    T he missionary quizzed Clare through her rimless glasses. “Do you find the lonely life here very trying, Mrs. Brennan? You are a smart, pretty girl, and few o ther white people pass this way.”
    “ More coffee, Mrs. Pryce?” Clare bent her head over the pot a s she poured out. “In a strange way,” she said quietly, “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life before.”
    “I am glad to hear you say that—thank you, my dear!” Mrs. Pryce added sugar lavishly to her cup. “Some of the bush wives I meet—well, the lonely life leads to wrangles with their husbands. The monotony gets on their nerves, and they have to take it out on someone, and human beings have an unhappy