A Plume of Dust Read online

  A PLUME OF DUST

  Wynne May

  Michelle used the legacy she had received to travel out to South Africa and see her brother and his wife who had settled on a farm there.

  She certainly wasn’t expecting to find romance! But when she came up against Lyle Cunningham she realized that she was in danger of losing her heart at last. However, Lyle was unpredictable and gave no indication that he returned her feelings .. .

  The Sani Pass and the Mountaineers’ Chalet, at the top of it, do exist.

  For the purpose of this book, however, the Little Switzerland Motors, Glen Hayes chalets, Hotel, Sabaudia Restaurant and small town of Thabana exist only within these pages. Although Land-Rovers do operate for the purpose of tourism the company and drivers in this novel, along with all the other characters, are pure fiction.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THERE had been a sweeping tile-paved driveway, past white obelisks bearing lanterns, to a wide parking area and garages and, to Michelle Abbott, there was an Eastern palace look about the mansion.

  ‘Within the last few years,’ Laney, her brother Peter’s wife, had said, ‘there’ve been several films made in the Drakensberg. This house was built by a film company for that very reason. You should see it inside. Lyle Cunningham rents it, by the way. Before he decided to lease it, an artist used to live in it. I understand that the house is being put on the market soon. Pete, I wonder if Lyle will end up buying it?’

  Shrugging his shoulders, Peter had replied, ‘Who knows? He has the kind of money to buy it.’ There had been a kind of impatience in Peter’s voice, Michelle had found herself thinking, as the car came to a halt in the parking area.

  They were in the ceramic-tiled, high-ceilinged entrance hall now, which was like the inside of an oriental palace, and they stood near a wall covering of a repetitive sun design in colours of pale gold, shocking pink and orange. A handsome black man in a cool white suit told them to take a seat on the long, low divan which had a back rest of gold-braided cushions in olive green, shocking pink, purple and orange, but Laney said, ‘It’s quite all right, thank you, Usef, we’ll wait here.’

  As the man went in the direction of heavily carved doors which led to the lounge Laney said, ‘Now you can see why I was grateful when he offered to have your welcome party here.’ Fairly tall with short blonde hair, parted simply on the side, Laney patted her bulge and grinned. ‘He suggested that it might be too much for me to have a party at this stage. We did want you to meet everybody and so Pete and I agreed. I made out lists, and things, of course - about invitations and food.’

  ‘I can see what you mean about the film people having built it,’

  Michelle answered softly. ‘It’s - well, what I’ve seen of it - absolutely fabulous, Laney.’ Her blue eyes flickered towards the brass candlesticks with their pink candles and then to two tremendous hand-carved black elephants standing at the foot of the burnt orange carpeted stairway which curved elegantly past an exotic indoor fountain set in the midst of huge green leaves. ‘Tell me, do you always have to wait here, like this, before Lyle Cunningham decides to show himself?’

  Laney laughed. ‘No, of course not, but this is a special occasion.

  Listen to the voices in there.,’

  At the far end of the hall the carved doors had been left slightly ajar and the glimpse Michelle had of the lounge was absolutely breathtaking - all honey-gold carpeting.

  ‘I thought that we were going to be the first,’ Laney said, ‘but as usual, I seem to have made us late.’

  Even while Laney was talking, Lyle Cunningham, tall, with dark hair and eyes which looked blue-green even at a distance, was coming towards them. Tanned, loose-limbed and handsome, he created instant excitement and Michelle felt herself blink - once, twice. As their eyes met there was a silent and unexpected communication between them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Laney was saying, ‘I didn’t mean us to be late, Lyle. This is Pete’s sister, Michelle.’

  ‘But you’re never late, Laney,’ Lyle answered, before he gave his full attention to Michelle, and Peter laughed outright,

  ‘That’s the understatement of the year, and you know it,’ he said, glancing at his wife.

  Lyle Cunningham held out his hand to Michelle and the physical impact caused a shock to pass through her. She told herself that this was foolish while their eyes linked for one more moment before he greeted her. Afterwards, she wondered what he had said and whether she had answered.

  Peter and Laney appeared to be on good terms with Lyle Cunningham, but Michelle was aware of a certain tension in Peter’s attitude as Lyle led them to the carved doors and through to the lounge.

  Michelle felt her feet sink into the honey-gold carpeting as she was being introduced around. ‘You look a lot like Pete,’ one of the men said, ‘only beautiful.’ Glancing at Peter, Michelle laughed.

  ‘That’s a very sly and subtle way of telling you that you’ve got him interested,’ said Lyle.

  Although the party in Michelle’s honour was in his house, Lyle, with a careful dignity, allowed Laney and Peter to do most of the talking while the introductions went on.

  More people were arriving. Drinks and snacks were being passed around.

  ‘Where do all these people come from?’ Michelle whispered to Laney once, thinking of the vast spaces and mountains outside.

  ‘Some of them are farmers, others people we’ve got to know. A few of them are, strictly speaking, Lyle’s friends. A party is a party here.

  We don’t have them often, but when we do, we do!’ Laney laughed.

  Finally Michelle was free to look around the room - not that she had been unaware of it. It was plain that the house had been built as the setting for a film. There was a conversation pit which included an indoor garden, vibrant with huge exotic leaves, but at the moment, everybody seemed to be keeping to the lounge with its copper and brass artwork above a six-seater honey-toned leather sofa. In front of the sofa there was a long, low coffee table which resembled a casket, but got away with it, upon which stood a gleaming gold Turkish coffee set. There were deep leather chairs to match the sofa.

  Michelle sipped her drink contemplatively and listened to that clinking, rustling and murmuring noise which goes along with a party. Everybody seemed to be involved in ‘clever’ talk.

  When Lyle Cunningham spoke, cutting into her thoughts, she almost jumped. ‘You’re a long way from home.’ He gave her a long, direct look. ‘Let’s get this straight, are you here to settle?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, ‘it - depends.’

  For a seemingly endless moment their eyes remained locked. ‘On what?’ he asked.

  There was a little pause before she said, ‘Well, on whether I like South Africa, for one thing.’ She gave him what she hoped was an easy smile.

  The soft lighting in the room was turning her hair the colour of golden grass at sunset. Michelle Abbott was a girl who would look coolly elegant in an English twilight or sultry and exciting beneath a South African sun or subtropical stars - a girl who claimed her right to be even more beautiful by the kind of fastidious taste she had and the way she wore her clothes.

  ‘And of course, it’s too soon for you to have formed an opinion. Is that it?’ There was an almost frozen moment as Lyle Cunningham waited for her reply.

  ‘Well, yes, of course, and then - there are other reasons …’ she broke off.

  He took a sip of his drink, his eyes still on her face. ‘I see,’ he said.

  Then he smiled and his smile started somewhere at the corners of his mouth and ended up in those fantastic eyes. ‘In that case,’ he lifted his glass, ‘here’s to liking South Africa and - other reasons.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She had finished her savoury, which lef
t one hand free, and she felt the fingers of her free hand tighten on the wrist of the hand which held her glass and glanced down at them, surprised.

  ‘I - I like your house,’ she looked up at him.

  ‘Not mine - not yet, anyway. Like you, I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘I see.’ She looked down again. ‘And yet it’s a house that - that seems to suit you, somehow, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘For all its lavish luxury, it’s a very livable-in house,’ he answered. ‘I suppose Laney or Pete would have told you it was built by a film company?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I didn’t think to ask - what was the film called?’

  ‘It was called A Plume of Dust.’

  Her blue eyes showed surprise. ‘Why? Why dust? Everything seems so lush.’

  ‘Not everything,’ he said, smiling, ‘as you’ll soon find out for yourself. But in any case, it was something to do with a happening on the Sani Pass. You’ll be going up the Pass, I take it?’

  ‘I don’t know whether I’m going to have the courage.’ She smiled at him. ‘From the little I’ve heard up to now, it takes a Land-Rover several hair-raising manoeuvres to get round a bend. Is that correct? Or are Peter and Laney stringing me along?’

  He laughed, regarding her appreciatively. ‘That’s perfectly correct, I can assure you. They weren’t stringing you along.’

  ‘Have you ever driven one up?’ she asked seriously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aren’t you nervous?’

  Suddenly he grinned. ‘All the time. Especially when the brakes suddenly go out of action.’

  ‘You shouldn’t talk that way,’ she laughed a little. ‘Isn’t it bad for publicity? I mean, Peter tells me that apart from the hotel you have a business and that your Land-Rovers take people - tourists - up all the time.’

  ‘Talk like that makes some people just that much more determined to go, as a matter of fact.’ He mocked her with his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Now I think you’re mocking me,’ she murmured, her mind becoming hostess to chaotic thoughts about Lyle Cunningham. ‘Laney’s been up and she says once was enough.’

  ‘Laney’s a baby,’ he said, laughing, ‘but anyway, she didn’t go up with me. Who took her up, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know - I just know that she’s been up. I’m longing to go for walks, of course, and to do a little harmless climbing. I’m no mountaineer.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll have to turn you into one.’ He gave her a humorous glance.

  ‘At the risk of spoiling your amusement, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you afraid of heights?’ he asked.

  ‘Not heights, exactly, but of losing my footing. I’d try not to look down, of course, not to be aware of the heights. I wouldn’t mind a stiff climb.’

  He was laughing at her again and so she said, ‘I mean, I don’t mind a gradual climb, but I have no desire to hang on to ropes and use axes and…’ she hunted around in her mind for a word and couldn’t find one, ‘things.’

  ‘Well, you never know until you try, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose not. Do you climb?’

  ‘Not unless I have to.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve been on the odd rescue party, of course.’

  ‘Why of course? ‘ She gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘People do unpredictable things,’ he said, ‘such as getting hurt.’

  At that moment a girl came across the gold carpeting to them, walking with a grace that was the hallmark of self-confidence.

  Despite the long gown she was wearing it was obvious that her legs were long and superb. Her eyes were almost black, like her hair.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said, looking at Lyle. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘You’ve already met Liza, I think.’ Lyle looked at Michelle.

  ‘Yes, I have, but you’ll have to forgive me,’ said Michelle, looking at the girl, ‘I wasn’t able to catch your full name. I get like that when I’m being introduced to people. I either get the first name or the last -

  seldom both. It’s a bad fault, I know.’ She shrugged charmingly.

  ‘Liza will do, but in any case, it’s Monatti, and if there’s one person who has the knack of making the name sound great that is Lyle.’ The black eyes slid round to Lyle Cunningham.

  ‘I notice that Peter gets called Pete,’ said Michelle. ‘I can see I’ll have to get used to it. Laney has also started calling him Pete.’

  ‘What is Laney short for?’ Liza asked.

  ‘It’s Laney - just Laney.’

  ‘How long are you staying for?’ Liza asked. She sounded openly hostile, Michelle thought.

  ‘It depends,’ said Michelle.

  ‘On what?’ Liza’s voice was frankly abrupt.

  ‘For one thing,’ Lyle cut in, and there was that mocking look about him again, ‘the climate.’

  ‘Well, let me fill in for you,’ Said Liza. ‘It’s freezing cold in winter and as hot as Hades in summer, and apart from all that glamorous talk about golden-tanned South Africans and long golden semi-tropical days and moon-shadowed nights, it all boils down to what it really is - harsh and bad on the skin. That golden tan finally gives way to dried out wrinkles and brittle hair. You just have to look around. You won’t keep that skin of yours for long, let me tell you that. Neither will Laney, if Pete keeps her here much longer.’

  ‘Well, your skin certainly looks beautiful,’ Michelle said with sincerity. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s the one thing I have noticed, up to now. South Africans do seem to have golden tans and it’s no exaggeration.’ She tried to keep her eyes from going in the direction of Lyle Cunningham’s rich tan. ‘Besides, you get neglected skin anywhere, Liza. It’s only natural that one has to look after one’s skin. I didn’t just come here for a tan, though.’ She laughed lightly.

  ‘What did you come here for?’ Liza asked, with open rudeness.

  ‘To be with Peter and Laney, for a while.’ Michelle was surprised at the spurt of anger she felt towards this dark girl.

  ‘I see … so you’re going back, finally?’ Liza sounded more than just a little interested.

  ‘Well, as I say …’ Michelle began, and then Lyle Cunningham put in,

  ‘Liza, how is your glass?’

  Holding it out, she said, ‘Empty.’ She tipped the glass upside down.

  ‘In that case allow me to do something about it.’ His eyes went to Michelle. ‘Michelle?.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, ‘but mine is not.’ Lyle Cunningham, she found herself thinking, had succeeded in making her own name sound great, as he used it for the first time with ease.

  ‘But you’ve been nursing it for a long time,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a fresh one.’ He took the glass from her, and when he had gone Liza looked moodily around. ‘What do you do?’ she asked, not looking at Michelle. ‘What kind of work, I mean?’

  ‘I’m a hairstylist.’

  Liza swung round quickly. ‘Are you kidding or something? A hairdresser?’ Her eyes were suddenly narrow.

  ‘Why should I be kidding?’ Michelle showed her surprise. ‘I hope to have my own salon one day.’ Gone now, she was thinking, was that hope. When she had inherited the money from her mother’s oldest friend, the ambition seemed about to be materialized. Instead, however, she had used a big lump of the money to come to South Africa to see Peter and Laney. Peter’s letters, lately, had contained an element of despondency in them. The farm was not paying and she gathered also that he was in debt from borrowing money - well, more money - to keep things going. Into the bargain, Laney was in the first trying months of pregnancy, and because of the heat not feeling at all well. There were constant trips into the small town of Thabana to visit her doctor and more and more accounts to meet. His letters always ended up on a note of cheer, however. Apart from everything, he and Laney were happy on their farm under the Berg and they were determined to try and keep it. They had made some wonderful friends and had the baby
to look forward to.

  Although Michelle was not in a position to offer much help financially, she felt that during Laney’s first months of pregnancy she would be able to be of some help during those times when Laney felt wretched in the mornings. The ironical part of it all was that, almost overnight, Laney had begun to feel better.

  However, there was one other very good reason for her coming to South Africa - and that was to get away from her loneliness in London. She and Peter had lost both parents in a motor accident, soon after he and Laney had left for South Africa. Peter had flown back to be with her, and that had also set him back financially, and then, at her insistence, he had gone back to his farm and Laney beneath the Drakensberg Mountains, not to sell and go back home but to try and make it pay.

  ‘In that case, when you get back to England, I suppose you’ll be doing just that - opening your own salon?’ Liza was saying, now, still in that same abrupt voice.

  ‘It’s all so vague,’ Michelle replied, ‘I just don’t know. You see, I’ve spent a lot of money getting here.’

  ‘But in any case, you’d have to go back, wouldn’t you? You haven’t resigned your job, have you?’ Liza made Michelle feel vaguely disloyal to Salon Juliet.

  ‘I have, actually, but they would always take me back,’ she said.

  ‘But, apart from that - you must have left most of your possessions over there, surely? I mean, you can’t take much with you on the plane-and you did come by plane,’ Liza answered.

  ‘I left everything with an aunt - all packed, as a matter of fact, in case I wanted her to send it on here.’ Michelle was trying not to feel ruffled.

  There was a little pause and then Liza said, ‘I see. In fact you worked everything out with a foolish kind of speed, once you got going, didn’t you?’ Her tiny laugh sounded forced.

  ‘Why foolish?’ This time Michelle couldn’t control the irritation in her voice.

  ‘Well, you have almost committed yourself, haven’t you? This will be awfully dull, after London, I should imagine.’

  ‘My life wasn’t all that exciting. London can be lonely.’

  ‘No man in your life?’ Liza widened her black eyes.