Read Brittle Bondage for Free Online Page A

Ellisburg’s large Edwardian hotel.
    They ate soup, fish, beef olives and pumpkin fritters, and smoked a luxurious cigarette with coffee. For the first time in many weeks Venetia enjoyed a meal. The cigarette tasted good, too, much better than the expensive Egyptians she smoked at night with Blake.
    They were five or six miles on the road home when the sky darkened and lightning played through the branches.
    “I wonder if we shall make it?” queried Margery blithely. “This contraption leaks like fits and the tyres are badly worn. Oh, well, I can only jam her on at full blast and trust to fair fortune!”
    The car bounced and creaked over the gravel road, but at the first sweep of rain Margery had to slow down. The strongest headlights could not have penetrated far into that grey wall of water, and the tourer was no pioneer. With the engine silent, the thunder roared about them and the rain tumbled into the canvas roof as if to tear it apart.
    “Filthy luck,” Margery sighed. “After such a grand morning, too. We’re only half a mile from the turn to Lawnside, but Cedric can’t come for us because he hasn’t any means of transport. Blake — ”
    “He won’t have reached the house yet,” Venetia said quickly. “When he takes lunch he arrives back at about four. The rain will have held him up.”
    “It’s just after three. This may go on for another half an hour, and at the end of it we’ll be too waterlogged to l ove. I’m awfully sorry to have you got into this mess, but you can’t come to much harm.”
    Venetia was not concerned with the physical discomfort of the constant drip upon her ankles and shoulders. She had remembered, with a sinking sort of qualm, that she had not told Fumana where she was going. She simply had to get home before Blake.
    “Couldn’t you jog along slowly?” she asked desperately. “ Even five miles an hour would help.”
    “We’re stuck in a swamp with smooth tyres, my dear, and if the thing would budge, there’s no visibility to speak of. We just have to sit tight and wait.”
    Venetia swallowed, resolutely. “Margery ... I’m going to walk.”
    “So am I ... when the rain stops.”
    “I mean now.”
    The other woman turned and looked at her, her fair brows tented rather comically. “Haven’t you had an experience of this kind before? It’s always happening during the summer rains. No one bothers.”
    Impossible for Venetia to explain her anxiety. Margery would think her stubborn and foolish, but it couldn’t be helped.
    “I’m going, though. A soaking won’t kill me. Keep my hat, will you?”
    “Venetia, this isn’t a bit necessary. If you were South African — ”
    “But I’m not.” She gave a small, strained laugh. “Don’t reproach yourself for bringing me, Margery. I’ve loved being with you and I’m going to get a kick out of this tramp in the rain. Goodbye. See you again soon.”
    The car door swung back, admitted the tang and rush of the torrent, and slammed shut. For a few seconds Margery saw Venetia held taught against the flailing rain and wind. Fitfully, her receding figure was silhouetted by the lightning, and then the road twisted and she was gone.
    She sank back behind the wheel and shook her head. How crazy is youth! And all to save Blake half an hour’s fret. By now Venetia had discovered that one doesn’t “tramp in the rain” in sub-tropical Africa. She had entered upon a grim and fearful tussle with the elements, a slithering, blinding nightmare, with thick, pinkish water boiling up round her calves and the stinging of a thousand whips about her body. All this apart from the terrifying stabs of lightning and tremendous thunder. Margery would not care to tackle it herself; she had outgrown the courage of the young and foolhardy. Also, she admitted regretfully, she had outgrown the rending pangs of love which made one commit such follies.
    An hour later, when Venetia staggered into the porch and wrung out her hair and dress, the