explosion of gas. One for the poor, he shouted again, and they all laughed, like courtiers at the king's jest. Good old Derek. Law unto himself, old Derek.
He dropped the empty bottle. Keep it until I get back, wifey! he laughed, and took one of her swollen breasts in his huge raw-knuckled, red-boiled hand and squeezed it painfully. She felt cold and trembly and weak with humiliation and hatred.
She had missed a month many times before, so Storm did not begin to worry until the second blank came up on her pocket diary. She had been about to tell Mark then, but that had been the time they had parted. Still, she had expected it all to resolve itself, but as the weeks passed, the enormity of it all began to reach her in her gold and ivory castle. This sort of thing happened to other girls, common working girls, ordinary girls, it did not happen to Storm Courtney. There were special rules for young ladies like Storm.
When it was certain, beyond all doubt, the first person she thought of was Mark Anders. As the panic caught at her heart with fiery little barbs, she wanted to rush to him and throw her arms about his neck. Then that stubborn and completely uncontrollable pride of the Courtneys smothered the impulse. He must come to her. She had decided, he must come on her terms, and she could not bring herself to change the rules she had laid down. Though still, even in her distress, her chest felt tight and her legs shaky and weak, whenever she thought of Mark.
She had wept, silently in the night, when she had first left Mark, and now she wept again. She longed for him even more now with his child growing in the secret depths of her body. But that perverse and distorted pride would not release its bulldog hold on her, would not allow her even to let him know of her predicament. Don't challenge me, Mark Anders, she had warned him, and he had done it. She hated him, and loved him for that.
But now she could not bend.
The next person she thought of was her mother. She and Ruth Courtney had always been close, she had always been able to rely on her mother's loyalty and shrewdly practical hard sense. Then she was stopped dead by the knowledge that if Ruth were told, then her father would know within hours. Ruth Courtney kept nothing from Sean, or he from her.
Storm's soul quailed at the thought of what would happen once her father knew that she carried a bastard.
The immense indulgent love he had for her, would make his anger and retribution more terrible.
She knew also Mark would be destroyed by it. Her father was too strong, too persistent and single-minded for her to believe she would be able to keep Mark's name from him.
He would squeeze it out of her.
She knew of her father's affection for Mark Anders, it had been apparent for anyone to see, but that affection would not have been sufficient to save either of them.
Sean Courtney's attitude to his daughter was bound by iron laws of conduct, the old-fashioned view of the father that left no latitude for manoeuvre. Mark Anders had contravened those iron laws and Sean would destroy him, despite the fact he had come to love him, and in doing so, he would destroy a part of himself. He would reject and drive out his own daughter, even though it left him ruined and broken with grief.
So, for her father's sake and for Mark Anders sake, she could not go for comfort and help to her mother.
She went instead to Irene Leuchars, who listened to Storm's hesitant explanations with rising glee and anticipation. But you silly darling, didn't you take precautions? Storm shook her head glumly, not quite certain what Irene meant by precautions, but certain only that she hadn't taken them. Who was it, darling? was the next question, and Storm shook her head again, this time fiercely. Oh dear, Irene rolled her eyes. That many candidates for the daddy? You are a dark horse, Storm darling. Can't one, well, can't one actually do something?
Storm asked miserably. You mean an abortion, darling? Irene asked brutally, and smiled a sly spiteful smile when Storm nodded.
He was a tall pale man, very grey and stooped, with a reedy voice and hands so white as to be almost transparent.
Storm could see the blue veins and the fragile ivory bones through the skin. She tried not to think of those pale transparent hands as they pried and probed, but they were cold and cruelly painful.
Afterwards, he had washed those pale hands at the kitchen sink of his small grey apartment with such exaggerated care that Storm had felt her pain and embarrassment enhanced by a sense of affront. The cleansing seemed to be a personal insult. I imagine you indulge in a great deal of physical activity horse-riding, tennis? he asked primly, and when Storm nodded he made a little sucking and glucking sound of disapproval. The female body was not designed for such endeavour. You are very narrow, and your musculature is highly developed. Furthermore, you are at least ten weeks pregnant. At last he had finished washing, and now he began to dry his hands on a threadbare, but clinically white towel. Can you help me? Storm demanded irritably, and he shook his pale grey head slowly from side to side. If you had come a little earlier, and he spread the white transparent hands in a helpless gesture.
They had drawn up a list of names, she and Irene, and each of the men on the list had two things in common.
They were in love, or had professed to be in love with Storm, and they were all men of fortune.
There were six names on the list, and Storm had written cards to two of them and received vague replies, polite good wishes, and no definite suggestion for a meeting.
The third man on the list she had contrived to meet at the Umgeni Country Club. She could still wear tennis clothes, and the pregnancy had given her skin a new bloom and lustre, her breasts a fuller ripeness.
She had chatted lightly, flirtatiously, with him, confident and poised, giving him encouragement he had never received from her before. She had not noticed the sly, gloating look in his eyes, until he leaned close to her and asked confidentially, Should you be playing tennis, now? She had only been able to keep herself from breaking down until she reached the Cadillac parked in the lot behind the courts. She was weeping when she drove out through the gates, and she had to park in the dunes above the ocean.
After the first storm of humiliation had passed, she could think clearly.
It had been Irene Leuchars, of course. She must have been blind and stupid not to realize it sooner. Everybody, every single person, would know by now, Irene would have seen to that.
Loneliness and desolation overwhelmed her.
