Page 57 of The Sun Sister

‘So they don’t carry spears and wear loincloths around their...middle?’ Cecily blushed.

‘Now then, the Maasai certainly do, but they live out on the plains tending their cattle. They’ll give you no trouble if you give them none yourself.’

‘So,’ Kiki said as she re-entered the room, swinging her purse, the strings of which were laced through her elegant white fingers. ‘Have you managed to persuade Cecily to come along with me?’

‘I don’t know. Have I?’ Tarquin’s brown eyes twinkled at Cecily.

‘Well, it definitely sounds more interesting than New York, but—’

‘Honey,’ Kiki put a hand on Tarquin’s arm, ‘we must go or we’ll be late for tea with the Forbes, and you know how punctual they always are.’

‘I’m leaving for Africa myself tomorrow,’ Tarquin said as he stood up. ‘I must report back to base this week, but I do hope you will think about coming to Kenya and we will meet again there soon, Cecily.’

‘And I’ll be back here to simply bully you into it!’ Kiki laughed as Tarquin held the door for her and she swept through it.

Once they’d left, Cecily sat on the fender and drank the remains of her brandy, pondering Kiki’s offer. On New Year’s Eve, she’d thought it merely polite conversation, rather than a serious proposition.

‘Africa,’ she mouthed slowly as she ran a finger around the rim of her glass. On a whim, she stood up, then grabbed her coat and hat from the closet in the hall. Once outside, she headed for the local library before it closed.

That evening, over dinner with her father, Cecily told him of Kiki’s suggestion.

‘What do you think, Papa? Would Mama allow me to travel there without her as a chaperone?’

‘What do I think?’ Walter set down his glass of bourbon and steepled his fingers as he considered the matter. ‘I think that I wish I could come with you in Mama’s stead. I’ve always longed to see Africa. Maybe a trip to visit Kiki is just what you need to help you forget Jack and move on. You’re my special girl,’ Walter added as he stood up and planted a kiss on top of her head. ‘Now, I have a meeting at my club. Tell Mary I’ll be back by ten. I’ll talk to your mother when she gets back from Chicago. Goodnight, my dear.’

After her father had left, Cecily went upstairs and lay on her bed as she opened the three books she’d taken out of the library. There were endless sketches, paintings and photographs of black natives and of white men standing proudly over the corpses of lions or holding a huge ivory tusk in each hand. She shuddered at the sight, but that shudder contained a shiver of excitement at the thought of visiting what looked like the most glorious and unfettered land. A land where no one would have evenheardof either her, or her broken engagement to Jack Hamblin.

‘Cecily, will you come and join me and your mother in the drawing room when you are ready?’ her father asked as she stepped into the hallway and dusted the flakes of snow from her coat. She’d been out all day, having her hair set in the morning and then on to see Mamie that afternoon.

‘Of course, Papa. I’ll be there in a moment or two.’

After handing her coat to Mary, she walked to the downstairs bathroom and tidied herself up in the mirror. As she entered the drawing room, the fire was burning merrily. She saw that her mother looked stony-faced as her father welcomed her in.

‘Sit down, my dear.’

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ Cecily asked as her father settled himself in a chair next to the fire.

‘Kiki came by again today to beg us to go to Africa with her. I told her that I wouldn’t leave Mamie so near the birth,’ said Dorothea, ‘but your father thinks you should go without me.’

‘I do, yes,’ Walter agreed. ‘As I explained to your mother, it’s not only an opportunity for you to see more of the world, but it also means that by the time you get back, the wedding will be over and you can move on with your life.’

‘Jack and Patricia have announced a date?’ Cecily asked as calmly as she could.

‘Yes, they are to be married on the seventeenth of April. All the society columns carried the news this morning.’

‘So what do you think, Mama?’

‘Well now, I agree with your father that Jack and Patricia’s wedding will be the talk of Manhattan for the next few months, which will be mighty hard on you. But is that any reason to run to Africa? The place sounds totally uncivilised. Half-clothed natives running around, wild animals wandering into your garden...’ Dorothea said with horror. ‘And of course, there’s the risk of disease. Walter, surely we could just send Cecily to my mother’s if she needs to get away?’

Cecily and her father locked eyes and shared a joint invisible shudder.

‘Well, Kiki has managed to survive the past twenty years, and there is a very well established expatriate community, as you well know,’ said Walter.

‘I do know, and their notoriety worries me more than the lions,’ Dorothea answered bluntly. ‘They all sound a little darned racy from what I’ve read in the newspapers. There was that friend of Kiki’s – what was her name...?’

‘Alice de Janzé,’ Walter replied. ‘But that was many years ago now.’

‘What happened?’ Cecily asked, then watched her parents exchange glances.