Flower for a Bride (7 page)

lift------”

“Then your ankle is better?”

“Oh, yes, yes—I can walk!”

“But, nevertheless, we will not allow you to walk more than is necessary.” He nodded his head at her, having averted his eyes from that sparkling drop on her cheek which she was proposing to remove as soon as she could find her handkerchief. She made wild, groping movements in the pockets of her linen dress for that same handkerchief, but she didn’t appear able to run it to earth, and he escaped to the door. “I will wait outside for you,” he repeated.

Lois was terrified lest he should feel he was being kept waiting too long, and although it was necessary to make some alteration to her dress—since this time, at least, she was not going to appear at the quinta looking like a cross between a sea-urchin and an unusually fair gypsy—she made that alteration so hurriedly that when she appeared in the corridor outside her room he had not even begun to look at his watch. But he did look at her rather closely, she thought. The dress she had donned was a pale, crisp green like a lettuce, and it had a white belt and a little round white collar like a puritan collar, and the sandals she had slipped into were snowy with blanco. She wore no hat, and her curls looked soft and silken and framed her small face like an aureole.

“It is not yet very hot,” he said, “so I do not think you will need a hat. And we will see to it that you are kept well in the shade this afternoon.”

He had already pressed the bell for the lift, and when it arrived he swung her lightly up into his arms and carried her over the slight step and into the roomy depths of the old-fashioned lift. She had not yet recovered her breath after that moment of finding herself with her face on a level with his dark chin, and the scent of his shaving cream in her nostrils, when he picked her up again and carried her— despite protests this time—out to his car. Once in the car she had the feeling that he knew her face was hot, and that she found it curiously difficult to meet his eyes, for as he started up his engine and waited for another vehicle to pass before he left the curb he asked her whether she was perfectly comfortable, and there was a faint trace of amusement in his voice.

At the quinta she was taken at once to the apartments shared by Miss Mattie and her small charge, and as these were on the ground floor there was no necessity for her to be carried upstairs, as she had half feared. Nursery quarters were so often on the first floor, and she had dreaded that ascent of the handsome baroque staircase in the arms of Dom Julyan for a reason she could not have put a name to.

As it was, however, she was spared this further ordeal, and Miss Mattie welcomed her in a lovely room that was beautifully equipped with modern furnishings and overlooked another of the velvety lawns that were enclosed with high walls of exotic shrubbery.

Miss Mattie seemed genuinely pleased to see her, but was concerned because she had sprained her ankle. She placed her in the most comfortable armchair the room contained, and until lunch was announced and they went into the next room where the table was bright with flowers and silver and crystal, as it might have been for the master of the place, they chatted comfortably, while Jamie sat on a kind of footstool at Lois’s feet.

There was no doubt about it, Lois had made a marked impression on Jamie, and he asked her all sorts of questions about England while they sat at lunch. Although physically a little underdeveloped, he was mentally extremely alert, and his knowledge amazed Lois. He had obviously read a great deal, and the fact that Miss Mattie was rather past doing much to actually instruct him had caused him to fall back upon books as his only real means of diversion.

Lois felt a little sorry for him, and, greatly though she had taken to Miss Mattie, wished that he had someone younger to be with him most of the time. If he was not to be sent away to school he would miss much, she thought, cooped up in the society of one so old, even although she plainly adored him almost as much as his father did.

And it was obvious that Miss Mattie realized her own limitations, and her lack of qualifications nowadays for being regarded as a governess at all, for as they talked she introduced the subject herself of Jamie’s somewhat restricted life, and declared that she had more than once tried to persuade Dom

Julyan to engage someone nearer his age-group and interests to take full charge of him.

“He’s rather more than I can cope with nowadays,” she admitted. “And although his father knows it, of course, he doesn’t seem to mind. Men—particularly fond parents—are a little blind about their children sometimes, especially motherless children, and they’re afraid of entrusting them to strangers. Dom Julyan knows I’m safe enough, but he doesn’t realize that he’s not being fair to Jamie.”

“I do see what you mean,” Lois answered, having thought more or less along the same lines since her first visit. “It’s a pity,” she added suddenly, Jamie laving disappeared into the garden while they drank their coffee, “that the child has no mother.”

Yes,” Miss Mattie agreed, and sighed. “And yet, in some ways, perhaps it isn’t such a pity, for Julyan’s wife, although she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—and a lovely Portuguese woman is something, I can tell you! —would never have been very interested in a family. She was artistic, and she was a member of a clever family, and her interests were all far above the heads of small children—even her own children.”

“But that seems extraordinary,” Lois said, and she meant it. She was suddenly thinking: A collector’s piece.. . But surely Dom Julyan’s marriage—the one that had actually come off—had not been contracted for the reasons his second attempt at marriage had very nearly been contracted? Because a woman was beautiful, and he had the connoisseur’ s desire to treasure her! . . .

She suddenly heard herself asking, because for some reason she had to know:

“Was Dom Julyian very much in love with Jamie’s mother?”

Miss Mattie looked at her rather curiously.

“My dear, that’s rather an odd question,” she answered, “and extremely difficult to reply to, because in noble Portuguese families like Dom Julyan’s marriages are so seldom contracted for love.

Love may enter into them later on, but a girl is chosen because of her own family connections, because perhaps she is rich, and her wealth can bolster failing fortunes, or in order to cement a business relationship between the parents. There are all sorts of reasons which we in England would look upon as too materialistic for words, but purely sentimental reasons do not often occur amongst them. However, if you like to come with me to the library—if you feel that it won’t be hurting your ankle to walk that far—I can show you a portrait of Donna Valerira, and perhaps you will be able to judge for yourself the possibilities of a man falling in love with such a face.”

Lois instantly stood up—actually eager to see the portrait—and then she suddenly remembered that she might run into Dom Julyan.

“But, what if we—won’t Dom Julyan think it odd

if he sees us---------?”

“Dom Julyan has gone out to lunch with friends, and he will not be back until quite late in the afternoon,” Miss Mattie informed her. “There is no danger of him seeing us enter the library.”

“Oh!... Oh, then, in that case...” But Lois felt curiously disappointed. It wasn’t that she wanted to run into Dom Julyan, but it wasn’t exactly highly flattering to be deposited—almost literally since he had carried her from the car—in his house, and handed over to the care of Miss Mattie, and then apparently forgotten all about while he calmly took himself off to lunch elsewhere. Although, of course, she had absolutely no right to expect him to do otherwise, and considering the recent treatment meted out to him by Jay it was very good of him to bring her here at all.

But, nevertheless, her feeling of disappointment grew until it assumed the proportions of something more like dismay, and it was not until she caught Mist Mattie looking at her with raised brows that she realized that some of her feelings were showing in her face.

She felt the color rise under her skin, and her eyes grow confused. Miss Mattie smiled in the inscrutable but strangely knowing way of the old and the shrewd.

“So you’ll be quite safe, my dear,” she said. “Do you really want to see the portrait of Jamie’s mother?”

“Yes, of course.” But Lois was no longer so sure. All in a moment she would have been happy to think up an excuse for rigidly avoiding the library of this delightful house.

“Then come along.” Miss Mattie turned, and already they were outside in the corridor. It was very thickly carpeted, and their footsteps on that carpet made absolutely no sound. Lois limped behind the queer little figure in the black dress, wondering all at once how she had lived here so many years and been happy when after all there was a very decided barrier between her and the master of the place.

One day Dom Julyan would be the Marquiz de Valerira, and the barrier would be even higher then, and more insupportable. At least, it would be insupportable to Lois. . .

. Looking out through an open doorway at the exquisite beauty of one solitary vista of the garden she told herself that it would be intolerable to live here and feel that there was a great gulf between her and the man who employed her. That he was only her employer, that he looked upon her as an employee, and that was all there was to it. . . .

And then, remembering that she herself was going home to England in a few days she was no longer so sure.

A beggar at the gates was in a happier position than a beggar far removed from the gates. . . .

And then she shook herself in an alarmed fashion, and asked herself what in the world was she thinking, and was it merely the result of being a little low in health, and feeling a sharp pain in her ankle when she leaned on it too heavily? Of not wanting at all to leave so much color and beauty behind and go back to an unimaginative and slightly frustrating job... ?

Of course that was it! . . .

And then Miss Mattie flung open the door of the library with a kind of flourish. Lois accepted her invitation to step inside first, and found herself in a vast room with a glistening floor of marble, fluted columns that supported the painted ceiling, and cases containing hundreds of beautifully bound books. There were books bound in vellum and crushed morocco, calf and even faded silk, and the rich colors glowed behind the protective glass. Between the cases and over the fireplace there were portraits, and it was the one over the fireplace to which Miss Mattie attracted Lois’s attention.

“Look!” she said. “There it is!”

CHAPTER SIX

Lois looked up almost unwillingly at the painted face in the portrait. She had been prepared for a beautiful face, but the wife of Dom Julyan had been much more than merely beautiful. By comparison with her Jay was obvious, and even slightly vulgar, with a tinsel glitter Donna Valerira had never needed to possess. The artist who had reproduced her on canvas had concentrated on capturing the striking effect of a dead-white skin against a shadowy background, and the rather slumbrous look in the glorious dark eyes. There was just a hint of red in the luxuriant hair that was worn parted sleekly in the middle and drawn into a heavy knot on the nape of the slender neck. She was in a white evening dress, with a red rose fastened to the front of it, and a Spanish shawl was falling from her shoulders.

Lois thought she would have made a wonderful wife for a Marquis de Valerira, but unfortunately she had not lived long enough to grace such an exalted position as that.

“Well? ’ Miss Gregg enquired curiously, as Lois remained silent.

“There is something about her eyes,” Lois remarked. “A

certain indolence.”

“Portuguese women are often indolent,” Miss Mattie replied. “Probably the climate has something to do with it. They haven’t the fire of Spanish women, but they are just as beautiful.”

As Lois went on gazing at the portrait she thought that that must be the explanation of the thing that puzzled her. The face lacked animation—fire—because its owner had by nature been an indolent person. Sensuality, perhaps, was in the full redness of the mouth, a touch of the mocking humor Dom Julyan himself displayed sometimes; but true emotion was altogether absent from the face. It was not a mask, but a reflection of the inertia behind it.

And Lois recalled Dom Julyan’s rapier-like alertness when his mask of indifference slipped, the curious vividness and charm of his smile. Behind his aristocratic composure there lay something quite different to inertia.

She turned away from the portrait, and without making any more comments walked towards the library door. The governess followed her, thoughtful eyes on the back of the soft fair head.

They spent the afternoon out of doors in the garden, Lois relaxing comfortably in a long chair with a foot-rest, which Jamie padded with cushions, so that the comfort should be complete. Miss Gregg went on with a piece of her eternal sewing, and while Lois watched her and thought half enviously that she, at least, was secure for the rest of her life, and that even although she might never see her home country again, her adopted land was very kind to her, the faded little English governess talked to her about her present charge’s father, and how much she had always thought of him.

“He was such a handsome boy,” she said proudly. “Much more vital and alive than his son, I’m afraid, will

ever be ------------ ” Taking care to make the observation

when the child was out of ear-shot. “But, then, Dom Julyan was a thoroughly normal child, and he had a very normal mother. She was a delightful person, and I was very happy while she was alive. Julyan was very devoted to her, too.”

“Dom Julyan seems very capable of devotion,” Lois remarked, with apparent casualness. “First his mother, and now his son!”

“But not—so far—a wife!” putting ridiculously tiny stitches into the small sleeve of a shirt. “I wanted you to see Donna Valerira’s portrait because now, perhaps, you will believe me when I tell you that was no love match. Not on either side.”

Lois looked at her in considerable amazement.