Island in the Dawn (9 page)

Whereupon he frowned, and his infinitely black brows were drawn together in a straight line above the slightly arrogant bridge of his othe
rwise beautifully straight nose.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AFTER dinner Paul drew Felicity out on to the veranda. While the others made up a bridge four
—
with only Harry Whitelaw, who had no knowledge of bridge, feeling a little out of it
—
Paul said to the girl he was going to marry: “I shall be glad when these people have all gone away, and we are alone here. James Menzies is the sort of man I can put up with for a time, but his sister lives in a world no one inhabits nowadays, and Miss Wood, as you know, I dislike. I have disliked her from the beginning.”

Felicity was silent,
staring out across
the
veranda rail at the dark mass of the plantation rising against a sky in which a crescent moon was lifting itself aloft, so that it looked like a pale and very thin slice of melon.

“That other young man
—
Manners! He is a sort of lounge lizard I despise!”

Felicity had to protest at this.

“Mervyn isn’t a lounge lizard!
...
He’s charming? It isn’t his fault that everybody likes him
—
or, at least, most people do,” she amended, “and that he has a lot of money, and
no
thing
very much to do with his time.
And he’s come all this way to
—
”

‘To look into your big brown eyes that remind him of the wallflowers in his garden at home! I know! Do you need to repeat that?” he asked, with a harshness she had never heard from him before.

“But, Paul
...”
It still didn’t come easily to her to make use of his name, and the way she uttered it it sounded soft, and very diffident. “Paul, you’re surely not so easily taken in by a bit of nonsense?” she demanded. “Mervyn has come all this way to see Cassandra
...
He’s devoted to her! He wants to try and persuade her to marry him!”

“Oh, yes?” with so much scepticism that her eyes really did begin to look like huge dark wallflowers blooming under a sheltered south terrace. “Then if he wants to persuade her, it will be as well if he ceases to make pointless speeches to you. And it will also be as well if he remembers that
you
a
r
e going to marry
me,
and
I
object to the lady who is to become my wife being subjected to light flatteries!”

Her lips fell a little apart, and she continued to gaze up at him as if fascinated. There was nothing strange an enigmatic about his blue eyes tonight
—
they had a gleam of Irish unreasonableness in them. His chin jutted a little, as if he was prepared for argument whatever she might say to make it unnecessary.

“Paul,” she said, at last,
“
don’t be silly.”

“I’m not silly!”

He turned and walked to the rail and stood frowning at the darkness of the plantation.

“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind telling me what you meant by it,” she said slowly, as his back remained rigidly presented to her. “What did you mean when you said that Miss Menzies lives in a world no one inhabits nowadays?”

Without turning he answered: “White weddings, and yards and yards of tulle
—
or whatever it is women wear on such occasions!
—
and sickening things like receptions, and hordes and hordes of relatives looking on at a couple who have decided to do something that is no concern of anyone else’s! I tell you quite frankly, Felicity,” whipping round on her so suddenly that she actually started back a little, although she couldn’t help noticing that his face looked white and set and even angry, “I couldn’t put up with it
—
I wouldn’t put up with it! If you can’t marry me without such things as t
rimmings
—
an excellent description given to them by Miss Wood
—
then we’ll call the whole thing off! If you want a honeymoon and a send-off, and that sort of
thin
g, I’m not the man you should marry!”

“I’m not at all sure that you are the man I should marry,” Felicity heard herself say, so quietly that his whole expression changed, and he went up to her and took her by her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes.

“Felicity, I’m—I’m sorry!” She saw him bite his lip. “You will have to forgive me if my reactions are not quite those of men you have known. Two years ago they would probably have been very much like those of other men, and two years ago I was certainly very used to limelight and that sort of thing! Not that I ever sought it
—
not that I ever really appreciated it. It was the music that mattered, and music was in my blood. I’ve had to live without it for two years, save for my piano
—
and for a whole year of my time here on the island even piano-playing was beyond me, and there was just
—
darkness!”

He heard her catch her breath, and her sympathy rose in a wave that threatened to sweep her away altogether.

“I’m so terribly sorry!”

“You needn’t be!” His hands pressed her shoulders. "I’ve been lucky, and a prediction made by a specialist who saw me in Rome has come true. I’ve regained my sight, and all sort of things are open to me again. But I don’t want to leave the island!
...
I want to remain here, and go on keeping the doors of my past shut tight behind me! I want you to live here with me, and be content
...
For the time being at least!”

Felicity assured him in a voice that proved she was very much moved: “So far as I am concerned the island is all, and more, than I want! I knew when I saw it for the first time, in the dawn, that it was an island that held some sort of magic for me, and that I would hate leaving it behind me. I feel more than ever now that I
—
I would hate leaving it!”

He put his fingers under her chin and lifted it

“But you are young, Felicity
—
the charm will wear off! I can’t expect to keep you here contentedly for ever.”

“Will you want to remain here for ever?” she asked, looking up at him for the first time with intense curiosity in her eyes.

“I don’t know.” She saw his quick frown. “As you say, there is magic here
—
I’ve looked upon it as healing magic!
—
and I’ve also become cowardly. I don’t want to tempt Providence!”

“Or go back and take up your life
w
here you left it off?”

“No,” with so much emphasis that she stood very still for several seconds, feeling his fingers gripping her shoulders.

“Yet you, too,” she reminded
him,
at last, “are still young! It seems a pity to deprive the world of something it once so thoroughly enjoyed!”

“You have been listening to Miss Wood,” he remarked, a little cynically. “She is the type to create heroes where heroes never were; and her accounts of my triumphs are colored by her enthusiasm for following celebrities about the world
—
particularly male celebrities!”

“I don’t
think
so.” Felicity felt she had to stick up for Cassandra. “She has a genuine appreciation for good music, just as she appreciates many other things classified as fine arts. Her knowledge is far beyond mine, and I have always been astounded at what she does know, and what she is able to offer an expert opinion on. And it really is expert!”

He smiled at little.

“And yours is only the humble opinion of one who has seen ve
r
y little of the world?
—
As yet!”

“You know I have seen hardly anything of the world,” she admitted, with a faint sigh. “But I don’t know that I want to see very much of it. The more one sees, the more
—
I should think
—
dissatisfied one becomes. And here on Mr. Menzies’s island there is everything. She looked up rather dreamily at the pale sickle of the young moon, that already looked as if it was growing a little tired and would shortly begin its descent down the velvet path of the sky to the phosphorescent shimmer of the restless sea beyond the barrier reef.

“Everything?” He peered down curiously into her face. “What do you mean by everything?”

“Peace, beauty, tranquility at night. Warmth and sunshine in the daytime!”

“And is that all a young woman of your age needs?”

“It is more than a lot of people get!”

Although she wasn’t looking at him she could feel
him
begin to frown again.

“One day, when I feel I can face up to it, I will show you the world, Felicity
...
There is much to see. And it is only fair that you should see it. You are not the type to become dissatisfied, and you are not the type to live all the rest of your life on an island such as this, even if it is enchanting. I would be a brute to permit it, anyway
...”
His voice grew soft. “I wonder If you realize how deliciously young you look in Hus light, and how sweet
...
?”

She tried to twist out of his grasp, in some curious way offended
—
even revolted
—
by that sudden softness of his voice.

“Oughtn’t we to rejoin the others?” she said.

“They are quite happy at their game.”

“There is just one thing I must say,” she got out, in a stifled voice. “You have told me that the very idea of an ordinary wedding
—
a church wedding
—
revolts you, and I do want you to understand that I am not at all happy at having promised to many you! I can’t understand why you asked me, or why I agreed, and sometimes when I think about what I have agreed to I feel rather frightened
...
The whole situation seems somehow fantastic! You know hardly anything at all know that we’ll even find it bearable living together on this island?”

He was silent, just gazing at her. She lowered her long dark eyelashes.

“If it wasn’t for all those people in there, and the fact that they would all think it so odd, I
’d
back out now
...
”

“I will never allow you to back out!” His voice was quite firm. “We are going to be married, Felicity. And we’re not, either of us, going to regret it. There is one thing I would like, if you will permit it.” It wasn’t exactly an emotional note that entered his voice, but it certainly ceased to be emotionless, and she responded to whatever the new inflection was, like a violin st
ring
across which a master hand had suddenly passed a bow. He actually felt her quiver a little as he paused for a moment. And then: “Felicity, I want to kiss you!” he said.

For a moment, so conscious was she of that wild thrilling in all her veins, that unexpected feeling that he seemed to have deliberately called up, that she almost yielded. Then she remembered, and held herself rigidly away from him.

“No,” she said, in a stifled voice. “No!”

“Why not?"

“Because it’s not p
a
rt of the bargain!”

“The bargain?”

His blue eyes gleamed under his black brows.

“Yes. You want to marry me, and you don’t quite know why, and I don’t know why I’m accepting you.” Her voice was breathless, frightened, but she had to go on. “Until we both know why there mustn’t be
...
You promised! You did promise!”

Her voice failed her, and to her surprise he said gently: “Yes, I did
—
and I don’t want to force anything out of you, Felicity. I’ll keep my promise. Let’s go in, shall we?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE next few days were not merely unreal to Felicity; they seemed utterly improbable.

Mr. Menzies drove over to the other side of the island to make certain his house had been prepared for him, and to inspect his new building site. Miss Menzies preferred to remain in her brother’s old house until all the excitement of the wedding
—
and she insisted that, however quiet it was going to be, there must be a certain amount of excitement
—
was over. She went through all her suit cases to search for a suitable present for the bride, and in the end Felicity found herself the possessor of a length of silk that Agnes Menzies’ missionary had brought out of India several years before, and a really lovely cameo brooch that, although old
-
fashioned, she felt she would treasure always. For there was something about Aunt Millicent that was surprisingly endearing, considering that Cassandra was her niece.

Although Cassandra, too, could be generous when she chose, just at that particular period of her existence she neither felt, nor behaved, as if generosity had any part in her make-up. Every time the plans for the strange little ma
r
riage ceremony that was to take place were discussed, she looked as if she regarded the whole thing so completely ludicrous that it would be laughable if only the others would join in. The fact that the bride wouldn’t even have a new dress to wear, and that she proposed to be married in a pink linen suit that had been passed on to her by Cassandra because it was a little too tight, or something of the sort, struck Cassandra as all part of something that was obviously nothing but a farce. So did the fact that there was to be no wedding breakfast, although presumably healths would be drunk in champagne. Some bottles of excellent vintage champagne reposed in the cellar, and had done so since James Ferguson Menzies’ occupation of the house.

The bridegroom was not like any impatient bridegroom Cassandra had ever met, although she received the impression that he was anxious to have his house to
hims
elf
—
and his bride! It had been definitely agreed that he would take over the house from Uncle James, and in future, relatives of Uncle James would have no excuse for looking upon it as a place where they could stay when the spirit moved them.

They could, of course, stay on the far side of the island, with Uncle James himself. In moments of panic because she was doing something that she knew herself to be extraordinarily rash, Felicity was grateful for the thought that Uncle James and Aunt Millicent would both be there, not within telephone call because there were no telephones on Menzies Island, but within a car ride. Or even, she supposed, a journey on foot if it was essential.

She didn't know why these lost, panic-stricken thoughts kept coming to her in those few days before the irrevocable action had to be taken, unless it was Cassandra’s attitude. Every time she looked at Cassandra she read a disastrous future for herself foretold in the other girl's face.

Cassandra was taking this setback to her own plans badly, and it apparently didn’t occur to her that if those plans succeeded she might have been courting for herself just such a disastrous future. Although in the case of Cassandra it would not have been quite as disastrous, for unlike Felicity she was not only financially independent, but independent by nature. She was quite capable of walking out on anything that didn’t follow the exact
path she had mapped out for it

Carried away by her sudden infatuation for Paul Halloran
—
and Felicity was inclined to believe that for once the red-headed beauty had encountered something that was capable of sending out roots, if the right amount of encouragement had been received
—
she wasn’t concerned with such a thing as wisdom. The wisdom of
linkin
g her life with that of a man she hardly knew
—
although she knew that only two years before h
e had had the world at his feet!
—
would not have presented itself to her as a deterrent, for with Cassandra nothing was really permanent once it became irksome. And an irksome marriage would not have shackled her with fetters, for she would have found a way to rid herself of them.

Whereas with Felicity marriage was something she had grown up to look upon as a permanent institution. Once one entered into it there was no escape
...
And she was entering into it for no clear-cut reason that she could understand, but that she was being compelled. She was in love with a man who had told her he could not offer her love, a man whose dead love had claimed everything no other woman could ever claim. How she could expect any peace, or happiness, or contentment, in the future, she couldn’t imagine. Except that, just as the island had laid a spell on her, and if there was to be no peace, or happiness, or contentment, in the future, so it had to be!

It had to be!
...
It was a waste of time asking herself why she was behaving in a way she would never have advised anyone to behave! Not even Cassandra, who would have come out of the experience chastened, but free, if she had to come out of it!

It frightened Felicity when she thought of it, and appalled her when she realized there was no way out. Not even Cassandra’s blunt speech the day before the
wedding when she was packing to leave, could give her the power to shake off the spell.

“I always thought you were very level-headed, Felicity, and that you had a good share of ordinary sound c
omm
on sense,” Cassandra said, as she folded nylon underthings and shoved them away in a case. (When Felicity offered to help her she laughed gratingly, and thrust her aside. “A bride-to-be help me with my packing? You ought to be having your own things packed for a honeymoon! According to your views marriage is the sort of
thing
you do only once, and therefore you’ll never have another chance
!
”) She slammed down the lid of the case, and then reached for a hat box. “If I’d thought your common sense was going to give out on you here, I’d never have brought you! I say nothin
g
about your stealing a man from under my very nose
—
and that a very much less ordinary nose than yours!” She glanced at her perfect features in a mirror, and then looked at Felicity’s much more homely variety as if for enlightenment. “I suppose it does sometimes happen that the
goose is preferred to the swan, but if I were you I’d find out just why the swan was allowed to sail by before sticking my neck out for slaughter. Paul Halloran is marrying for some reason of his own, and it isn’t because of some light that shines in your eyes, darling. You may at this moment be trying to persuade yourself that it is, but in a few weeks from now you’ll know the truth. And then it will be too late!”

She dumped the hat box on top of the suitcase, and lacked in an annoyed fashion at the edge of a trunk.

“Why does one have to travel with so many clothes?” She sank down in a chair at the window, and lighted a cigarette. “I suppose I’ll stay with Uncle James for a few weeks, and then I’ll be on my way again
—
and I’ll have to look for someone to replace you, poppet!” She glanced into Felicity’s face. “When you feel tempted to r
u
n away, you can always ran back to me. I’ll
forgive you. I’m not the type to hang on to a grudge, and something tells me you’re going to need a few friends in the future, my sweet. Even Mervyn agrees with me there. Like me he always thought you were sensible, but you’ve given him a bit of a shock. You’ve suddenly ceased to run true to form.”

“Are you—are you going to marry Mervyn?” Felicity asked, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Marry Mervyn?” Cassandra snorted. “You’ve got marriage on the brain, my pet. I don’t
think
I shall marry anyone. I don’t think I was cut out for marriage
...”
She ground out her cigarette in an ashtray. “Come on
—
let’s get on with the packing! Yes; you can help me if you like!”

She paused with a leaf-green housecoat in her hands. Her scarlet-tipped fingers did up the gold-embroidered buttons.

“Ask your
fianc
é
to show you the photograph of Nina Carlotti which stands on a little table beside his bed! At least it stood there until a couple of night ago. Mervyn saw it when he was invited in for some reason or other
...
Men are not like women, you know, and they neglect to do the obvious, which in this case would have been to put the photograph away. But perhaps Paul didn’t feel he could bear to do that just yet. You’ll have to be patient with him. By the way, Mervyn also reported that he goes in for somewhat monastic furnishings in his bedroom, so if you’re
thinking
of moving in there you’ll have to do something about it! Or are you planning to use the big best bedroom on the first floor?
—
Obviously planned as a bridal chamber! I asked Uncle James about it, and he said that if he’d ever brought home a bride to this house that was where he would have installed her. But of course he never brought home a bride, so you’ll be the first one, won’t you?”

She handed over the housecoat, and Felicity laid it in the trunk with slightly shaking fingers.

“But whatever you do about the bridal chamber, don’t forget to ask about the photograph of Nina Carlotti
.
She was to have been Mrs. Paul Halloran, you know, and according to Mervyn she could hardly have been more ravishing. The sophisticated type, of course
—
but one could hardly imagine Paul falling for anyone who wasn’t sophisticated, as I think I said to you before. The Carl
o
ttis are a fine old Roman family
—
lots of background, and so forth! Naturally I don’t suppose you’ll want the photograph displayed in your bedroom, but I’d have a look at it before it gets stowed away beneath a pile of handkerchiefs!”

That night, after dinner, Felicity slipped out of the house and made for the plantation. She never quite knew what drew her there, except that she had experienced the urge to be alone.
She wanted to be where no one c
ould get at her or would think of looking for her.

The plantation at that hour was as silent as an empty cathedral, and had all the same mystery. Moonlight filtered through the trees, stealing between the straight trunks, and cast a checkerboard of light and shadow across the narrow paths. Felicity followed one of the paths as far as a fallen tree trunk, and as the plantation grew very dense beyond this spot and there was very little light to show her a trailing vine that might catch at her unwary ankles and send her headlong, she sat down on the fallen giant
and looked back along the way sh
e had come.

She could see the white shape of the house, beautifully dignified in the moonlight
—
transmuted by it into something almost too exquisite to be a house. There was the long veranda, glowing a little where the rays of light from the rooms behind it reached it, and the upstairs bedrooms with their individual balconies and shutters fastened back against the white walls. A magnificently straight palm tree reared itself against her own bedroom window, and one or two of the green palm fronds bent forward to tap against the panes of glass. She heard them rustling like the endless movement of taffeta underskirts even on a night when there was so little air that the heavy flower perfume that drenched the island was like a torrid weight, just as she heard the murmur of the surf even when the seas beyond the barrier reef were like a mirror reflecting the stars.

There
was a light in her room, and sh
e knew that Florence was in there putting away her things. Florence had expressed the utmost delight when the news had been broken to her that Felicity was to become her mistress, and since hearing the news she couldn’t do enough for the future Mrs. Halloran. Unfortunately, from her point of view, Felicity was naturally tidy and had always had to look after herself and be responsible for her own things, so that there wasn’t very much for eager black fingers to seize upon and hang up in capacious wardrobes, or fold away tenderly in lavender
-
scented drawers.

“Lordy, but you should see the mess that Miss Wood leaves for me to clear up!” Florence had exclaimed more than once, when she had spent a full half-hour tidying the bathroom after Cassandra had taken a shower. “Face
powder all over her dressing table, and stockings in every
corner
! And another pile
of
stockings left out for me to mend!”

“You shouldn’t mend Miss Wood’s stockings, Florence,” Felicity had protested more than once. “That’s my job.”

But Florence would take no heed.

“You won’t let me mend your stockings, so I’ll have to mend Miss Wood’s,” she said, with a shrug of her plump shoulders inside one of her immaculate cotton dresses. “Missy mends both lots, she’d be at it all the time!”

But after tomorrow there would be no Miss Wood’s stockings to mend, and the bathroom would require less attention. Felicity felt her fingers grow a little cold as she wondered whether it would be very quiet when everyone had gone. She tried to imagine the room next to her silent; no restless movements occasioned by Cassandra swinging back the shutters, or whisking open the door of a wardrobe; no little nervous cough that was partly due to over-smoking on the part of Cassandra. Her room would be empty, the shutters fastened to keep it cool, the satin bed spread on the low French bed glea
min
g palely in the gloom.

And Miss Menzies, and Uncle James Ferguson Menzies, and Mervyn Manners, would have gone, too, and their rooms would be empty; and when the big brass gong in the hall sent out its summons to dinner there would be only herself and Paul to obey it! Paul, who by that time would be her husband!
...

She would be in her own room, dressing, and the summons would boom along the corridors, and up the flowing stairs, and along still more corridors
...
Until it reached her in her room!

Or would that still be her room
...

Her fingers grew colder than ever, and she dug them into the fallen tree trunk. Cassandra was right; hers would be the strangest wedding ever. There seemed to have been absolutely no plans made, save that the retired missionary was coming over in the morning to perform the ceremony, and then presumably he would go away again! He might be given something to drink, just as the others would be given something to drink, and there might be healths drunk
...
Miss Menzies would be terribly upset if there were no healths drunk! She would be very sad if those few bottles of champagne were not brought up from the cellar!