Free Binstead's Safari by Rachel Ingalls Page A

looking out into the street. Millie asked, “Can we give you a lift anywhere?” and she answered, “Oh, thank you, but my son is coming for me.” Millie said they were setting out early the next morning, so this would be goodbye. She shook hands and introduced Stan. Mrs Miller admired the long dress.
    â€œSee?” Millie said to him as they got into the taxi.
    As it turned out, not only was the party full of women wearing long dresses and jewellery, but several of the men were in evening clothes, too. Millie looked for Henry as soon as they came in the door, and saw that if he had arrived already he must be at the other side of the front hallway. It was a very large house. Every room was a step up, or down two steps, or at some level that varied from each neighbouring floor. The basic structure of the building was a square around an enclosed garden, but that was just the beginning. A babble of voices came from many directions, all the different wings of the house.
    The colonel welcomed them loudly and with gusto. He introduced them to a redhead of Wagnerian girth and withthe pleased, wide-open eyes and shy smile of a child: his wife, the one who could keep him under control. Her name was Rita. Millie fell into talk with her, spoke of London and asked about the outside garden, which they hadn’t been able to see too clearly as they drove up. She listened to information about shrubs and plants, while Armstrong steered Stan into a group of men who could tell him any amount of stories about lion, if that was what he wanted.
    Mrs Armstrong delved into the crowd in order to carry out her duties as hostess. She brought two couples out of the teeming congregation of guests, like a gundog going in after the fallen birds, and slotted them into two different small groups. Millie was joined by Rupert Hatchard. She heard more about the elephant book. And she saw the woman who had been in the lilac dress, this time wearing pink and silver brocade.
    There could be no hope that Rupert would introduce anyone. He was a man on his own, who had no aptitude for mixing with strangers. Millie settled down for a long talk with him. She learned that he had a wife at home who was an invalid—she had had a bad fall from a horse seven years before; the accident had left her paralysed from the waist down. She typed his books and helped with the editing. And she kept herself active in many ways. Sometimes she would come to parties, but she hadn’t felt like it that night.
    As fresh loads of people arrived, the two of them went with the current that swept into the adjoining room. One of the white-jacketed waiters approached Millie and said a gentleman had a message. She looked at the tray he was carrying, which held only drinks, no message, and realized that she was meant to go with him.
    â€œWill you excuse me for a minute?” she said. The waiterled her inwards, towards the courtyard. She couldn’t understand how Stan had managed to work his way through so many rooms in such a short time.
    They went around two corners. The man opened a door into a hallway. There were no guests here. Even the sound of the party was almost completely blocked out. He kept going. Now she knew it had to be Henry.
    The next time the waiter opened a door, he stood back to let her enter, closing it after her.
    Henry stood up from where he’d been sitting on the bed and said, “What a wonderful dress.”
    She turned all the way around and ended in a fast twist, which let the skirt fan out.
    He said, “I was looking for you everywhere.”
    â€œIf you couldn’t find me, how did he know who I was?”
    â€œOh, that’s easy. I described you.”
    â€œBut you didn’t know about the dress.”
    He said, “It wasn’t the dress I described.”
    *
    In the room two beyond the larger one into which Rupert had moved with Millie, Stan listened to one anecdote after another about lion. They were the