Love is for Ever (14 page)

“Miss Howard is having an interview in connection with being selected for a film part.”

“Yes; I know that.” This time he looked across at her with a faintly rueful smile on his lips. “I was at the harbor to bid her
bon voyage,
and also to wish her good luck!”

“I see,” she said, and suddenly she felt almost as sorry for him as she was for herself, and the unhappiness which lay like a load at her heart because Dominic was no longer on the island.

“The unfortunate thing about you and I,” he told her suddenly, with a touch of amusement lightening his smile, “is that we met one another too late! If you’d come to Sansegovia two months ago, before Martine arrived on the island, and I’d met you off the clipper, I would almost certainly have fallen in love with you, and by this time I’d have asked you to marry me! You might have still fancied yourself attracted by Dominic, but I wouldn’t have given you any opportunity to think really seriously about him, and we would both be a great deal happier than we are at the present time.”

Jacqueline shook her head at him, slowly.

“We can’t order these things,” she said, “and even if you hadn’t fallen in love with Martine, I don’t think you would have ever fallen in love with me. I’m probably not your type.”

“I don’t agree. Any man would look upon you as his type if his emotions were not otherwise engaged—I certainly would! Even as it is—”

“Yes?”

He smiled at her very gently.

“I’d very much like to marry you! ... It would be what your father would wholeheartedly approve, I feel sure! And, of course, I shall never marry Martine—Dominic won’t marry her, either, because he happens to be Dominic Ricardo Cortina Errol, and her background is a little doubtful. I won’t marry her because she’d never settle down here on Sansegovia as a simple doctor’s wife, and in any case I’m not sure that I want to marry her—even if she’d marry me! In fact, to put it bluntly, my emotions are a little bit mixed.”

“So it seems,” Jacqueline remarked, rather dryly.

But she felt sure she understood the peculiar blend of his emotions. Martine appealed to him - because she was lovely and exotic—rather like the plum that was out of reach! She appealed to his senses, and when she was with him he forgot everything—for the time being! But in Jacqueline he saw a suitable wife, someone who would settle down on Sansegovia and fit in admirably as a simple doctor’s constant companion and helpmate, someone who would run his home and bear him children—look after the practical side of his existence. And, in time, he might even forget all about Martine and fancy himself in love with her.

But Jacqueline felt for a few moments that she despised him, for if he imagined that Dominic had aroused in her sentiments that could be just as easily crushed and sublimated, then he was barking up the wrong tree altogether. It was Dominic himself who had said to her—and she knew she would never forget the way he had said it, or the quiet, almost dedicated look on his face as he did say it—that love is for ever, and not just something that can fizzle out, or be ignored in time.

So far as she, Jacqueline, was concerned, the love she had given to Dominic without him in the least desiring it would go on for ever, and that meant that the mere thought of marrying another man—even one who wouldn’t demand her love in return—was revolting. It even made her feel a little sick, and she knew that Neville Barr had disappointed her. She could sympathize with him while he acknowledged himself in love with a woman who could never mean anything in his life, but she could only feel that he was lacking in something important and deserving of sympathy when he talked about being able to contemplate marrying her ...

“I’m quite sure I shall never marry,” she told him crisply. “And, in any case, I’m thinking of going home to England soon.”

“But, why?”

“Because I only came here for a holiday, and that will soon be up.” She decided not to tell him about Senor Montez’s offer, which she was quite certain she would decline. “And because I have a job in England which I can go back to.”

“But you’re in love with Dominic, aren’t you?” She looked at him almost resentfully, and then answered with an edged voice:

“According to you all women fall in love with Dominic, but presumably they do also fall out again?” She was determined that he should never know just how deeply she had fallen in love, and that there was no possibility of her falling out of it. “So I’m not going to despair about myself.”

Neville laughed at her suddenly, and rather softly.

“Why should you despair?” he demanded. “When you’re so young, and pretty! And you are pretty, Jacqueline—you’re quite lovely, in your way! Don’t you think your father would have liked the idea of you and I settling down together on Sansegovia?”

“My father experienced an unhappy marriage himself, and I don’t think he would have wished one on me,” she answered, rather sharply. And then was rather glad that the telephone rang, and that they had to discontinue the conversation.

Neville looked grave as he took the call. As he replaced the receiver he looked across at Jacqueline.

“I’ll have to run you back now,” he said.
“Tia
Lola isn’t very happy about things ... It looks as if we will have to recall Dominic!”

C H A P T E R TEN

Looking back upon the rest of that day, and the night which followed it, in after days, Jacqueline always remembered how helpless she had felt at the time—helpless and slightly in the way.

The house was so quiet, footsteps echoing occasionally on the marble floor of the hall, and the polished treads of the stairs; but otherwise wrapped, as it seemed, in a mantle of silence. The maids crept about looking awed and frightened, and Juanita lost all her rosy color and spoke only in whispers to Jacqueline, crossing herself frequently and threatening to dissolve into tears.
Tia
Lola remained all the time beside the Senora Cortina’s vast, draped bed, and Neville spent the night at the Cortina villa.

Dominic arrived early the following day. He had managed to charter a plane to fly him to Sansegovia, and fortunately the island possessed an air strip.

Jacqueline was standing on her balcony, wrapped in a quilted dressing gown because the dawn air was chill, when he arrived, driven by Manoel, who was the
senora’s
own chauffeur, in his big grey car. Jacqueline retreated hastily when he stepped out of the car, and took refuge in her bedroom. But in the glimpse she had of him, with the rosy light palpitating in the sky, and fingers of sunlight gilding the flagged paths of the patio, he was looking tired and a trifle grim.

Later, long after breakfast, when she ventured out of her room, she was told that he was with the
senora. Tia
Lola was snatching a brief rest in her room.

Jacqueline wandered out of doors, feeling less lost amongst the gay flower borders and the masses of brilliant shrubs, with the sunlight falling goldenly all about her. For there was nothing now to remind her of the storm, which had swept onwards as if it had performed the task for which it was sent, and left nothing but a surface tranquillity behind it. The flower scents once more floated in a dreamy, peaceful atmosphere, and the tang of the sea crept upwards from the fringes of the island. The sun slipped towards its setting, and a pathway of gold was painted across the sea.

Jacqueline watched Neville’s car, which had taken him away during the afternoon, return just before the sun slipped really low in the sky, and the emerald lawns began to take on a curious, slanting light. She had the feeling that now was the time when she must keep out of the way, and she remained in a remote corner of the garden until the shadows had fallen and all the brilliance was blotted out, and the faint chill which always accompanied the coming of night on Sansegovia caused her to shiver a little.

When she entered the house, stealing in like a shadow herself, she did not need the sight of Juanita’s face, when she met her in the hall, to tell her what had happened. Juanita looked at her and then covered her face with her capacious apron and sat down on the lowest tread of the stairs and wept for a departed mistress.

Jacqueline knew that a very good friend was now lost to her, and she stole away to her room and locked herself in. She knew she was not likely to be disturbed just then, but she could not bear to take the chance.

She saw nothing of Dominic for the next two days. Once his car disappeared down the drive, but he was not at the wheel himself, and he was not visible on the back seat. She had the strong feeling that in any case he was not desirous of being looked at.

Juanita reported to Jacqueline all that went on in the house. Juanita having recovered from the early stages of her grief, and having a love for morbid details, almost enjoyed herself during those days. She told Jacqueline that
Tia
Lola was prostrate with grief, and that the doctor had had to give her a sedative, but that she was expected to keep to her room for several days. She also told her that the
senora
had looked almost like a young girl when she was permitted to look in on her, and that her passing had been very peaceful. Only her grandson was with her at the time, for it was almost unexpected, and the doctor had only just left, half believing that she might live through yet another night. But scarcely had the doctor left than the
senora
had opened her eyes and recognized Dominic, smiled at him and

whispered something.

And then it was all over.

“Was—Mr. Errol very much upset?” Jacqueline found that she had to ask, and Juanita clapped her hands to her face and rocked herself as if in great grief.

He was inconsolable, she said. He did not wish to see anyone. For hours he had remained in his own room without seeing anyone, or partaking of any food, and even yet he was not behaving normally, and he declined altogether to have anything to do with the flood of telephone calls and the messages of condolence that had overwhelmed them. All callers were being turned away for the time being and he would see no one.

Jacqueline didn’t find this absolutely strange, but she did begin to feel very strongly that she herself was an intruder in the house, and the sooner she unobtrusively took her leave the better. She had been in once to see
Tia
Lola, and the latter had seemed a little concerned because she was undoubtedly being neglected; but Jacqueline had assured her that she was perfectly all right, and had begged her not to worry about her.

But the more she thought about it the more she became certain that she was a completely unnecessary and unwanted outsider in the house at that time, and that it was up to her to go quietly away. She thought that perhaps Neville could help to arrange her steamer passage for her, and on the evening after Senora Cortina was quietly buried in the local churchyard—if the old lady had died in her native Spain she would no doubt have been interred in the family vault; but Jacqueline felt strongly that she would prefer the island—she started to pack her things, a little to the concern of Juanita when she brought in her supper on a tray, for no meals had been served in the main dining salon for days.

“But the
senorita
is not leaving?” Juanita exclaimed, and threw up her hands as if shocked. “It is not possible that she is thinking of going away?”

Jacqueline explained that this was no time to intrude on grief, and that she had been a visitor in the house for nearly four weeks, and that the one thing she must not do was outstay her welcome. But Juanita did not seem to understand. She insisted that
Tia
Lola would be upset—that everyone would be upset. Apparently the staff liked having her as a guest in the house, unlike Miss Howard, who had been so difficult to please. Juanita went through some of her dramatic gestures as she attempted to impress Jacqueline with just how difficult

Miss Howard had been, and what a blessing for everyone it had been that she was not in the house at the time of the
senora’s
death.

“That one with her headaches and her moods!” she exclaimed. “It would have been impossible! It would have been a disaster! But, thankfully, she was not here!... Thankfully she is gone!... But the Senorita Vaizey must not think of going!

Jacqueline felt grateful for the warmth of these little speeches, but they made her feel wistful at the same time— made her realize how much she was going to miss them when she had left. And because the feeling of wistfulness dragged upon her like something cloying she could not shake off, and when she had finished her packing—or the greater part of it— and her supper as well, and felt that to go to bed would certainly not mean that she would manage to get to sleep, she decided to go down into the garden for a quiet walk along the paths for half-an-hour at least.

She had got used to creeping quietly down the main staircase, anxious not to disturb anyone who was quietly shut away behind their own door—or shut away in the library, which was in a wing of the house which she did not penetrate—and accustomed to finding no one in the public rooms as she passed through them. So tonight, moving like a ghost in her light dress, she moved rather heedlessly through the great salon, and emerged into the verandah which was always now deserted at this hour. But just as she was about to cross the verandah, making for the flagged paths beyond, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of something which must have moved slightly and paused and turned her head over her shoulder just as Dominic rose from one of the deep wicker chairs and looked intently towards her.