Mistress of Brown Furrows (23 page)

“My darling,” he exclaimed, “I’m a brute! I forgot—you’re not fit—”

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed very softly, an oddly mature and quite radiant expression in her eyes as she gazed up at him. She put up her hands and caught hold of the lapels of his dinner-jacket and leaned against him. “Oh, Timothy,” she murmured, “I do love you so very, very much, and I’ve loved you for such a long time!”

His lips caressed her pale gold hair.

“And I never dreamed—I didn’ t even dare to hope—”

“Why not?” she asked. “Oh, Timothy, you treated me too

much as if I was a child! ”

“And you're only nineteen now! ” His brooding gaze lingered on her pale, fair cheek, and on the exquisite, tempting outline of her mouth so near his own.

“What of it?” she demanded, sliding an arm around his neck. ‘Timothy, you haven't even told me yet that you—love me,” she whispered, shyly but anxiously, into his neck.

“Do you doubt it?” he asked. His fingers touched the little blue smudges under her eyes. “Sweetheart, I’ve got to be sensible for your sake, and I’m going to ring for Francesca and tell her to put you to bed, and you're going to be very good and go to sleep at once, because it's late—much too late for interesting convalescents to be enacting Juliet scenes on balconies. I ought to have insisted that you went to bed before.”

She gazed upwards at the moon, no longer shedding its full light into the canal, but dipping behind the fairy-tale-like palaces on the farther bank, and her expression grew dreamy.

“I'd like to stay here all night—with you! ”

“And I certainly wouldn't dream of allowing you to stay here all night! ” He picked her up with one swift, easy movement and carried her into the salon behind them, where the lights glowed softly, and where, earlier in the evening, they had dined alone together, as they had dined alone together for nearly a week. He did not, however, pause there, but went on into her bedroom, where he deposited her lightly on her bed. “Shall I ring for Francesca, or will you?”

Carol watched him, a vague sensation of disappointment at her heart.

“I will, of course.”

He stooped and kissed her lightly on the top of her head.

“Good night, my sweet! Pleasant dreams,” he said, using the very words he had used to her once, weeks ago, at Brown Furrows.

Carol reached up and touched him, gently, caressingly, on his lean cheek.

“Good night, Timothy—darling! ” she added, almost in a whisper, and almost to herself.

He smiled at her.

“No lying awake and thinking about anything—anything at all!”

Carol was silent. Did he honestly think she could sleep— calmly, contentedly—after those few minutes out there on the balcony with him? Those minutes which had brought to an end an evening which had been pleasant enough, passed out there alone with him, but a little strained until—until that moment when he swept her into his arms!

Carol watched him wistfully as he disappeared through the doorway, and the door closed quietly after him. Why did he persist in treating her as if she was still an invalid? —She was, up to a point, but not so much of an invalid as all that, and happiness was one of the greatest factors In restoring health and strength. Perhaps he didn’t know that, or perhaps he didn’t believe it.

At the moment she was conscious of a feeling of frustration and a sense of disappointment, and her mind had been thrown into a turmoil of excitement by those moments on the balcony. She could scarcely believe them—yet. And she could scarcely believe that Timothy was quite as much in love with her as she was with him. Women loved so wholeheartedly and so all-absorbingly, even when they were only nineteen. And at nineteen they were extra-sensitive, they needed the comfort and the consolation of complete understanding and complete reciprocation in the beings they loved, otherwise they were inclined to doubt....

Carol did not ring for Francesca, but undressed herself and got into bed and lay for hours thinking of Timothy, and wondering whether he was asleep in the next room, separated only by a bathroom. And when she did finally fall asleep she was still thinking of Timothy, and there was a little half satisfied smile on her lips, for he
was
only in the next room, separated by a bathroom!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

AT eleven o’ clock the next morning Carol was lying on a sun-warmed Lido and watching the line of sparkling water through lazy, half-shut eyes, while Timothy indulged in an energetic swim. Carol had been watching him for some time, and admiring the straight, bronzed figure he made, in his workmanlike trunks, and with his dark hair agleam in the sunshine, but now she was almost dozing off to sleep, conscious of the warm kiss of the sun on her own bare arms and shoulders, and the exquisite half breeze which was lifting her fair hair from her brow. Perhaps the fact that she had slept badly the night before had something to do with it, but when she did open her eyes Timothy had had enough of swimming and was sitting beside her, quietly enjoying a cigarette.

Carol lay perfectly still for a few moments and studied him, taking the utmost pleasure in tracing the dark, firm outline of his jaw, and the softer line of his lips—intensely masculine lips, but with a sweetness lurking at the corners, a suggestion of inexhaustible depths of tenderness. His brows were very level, and very dark, and his eyelashes were so thick and dark that she wanted to put out a finger and run it along them and feel the feathery caress of them on her hand.

He must have sensed that she was awake, for he turned suddenly and looked down at her, and smiled at her on the instant.

She looked flushed and warm and contented, and her grey eyes were very betraying. She moved a hand until it was covering one of his.

“I think you’ve had enough of sun-bathing for one day,” he said. “What about a little dip? Feeling strong enough?”

“Of
course
I’m strong enough!” She was beginning to get a little impatient of his endless care of her, and his assumption that she was still too frail to indulge in much activity. She got to her feet with a swift and graceful movement, before he could even attempt to help her, and stood looking down at him with a rather childish smile of triumph, and an unconscious challenge besides in her eyes.

“Anyone would think I was going to be a kind of permanent invalid,” she said, “and I’m already almost back to normal. Who wouldn’t be with all the fuss you make over me?”

“It’ s inadvisable to run before you are quite sure you can walk,” he remarked rather enigmatically. “But if you really do feel up to it—well, here goes! ”

They waded out side by side into the water that felt so light and warm and exciting around them. Carol was an average swimmer, but she was content to play about on the fringe until she had got her full strength back, and Timothy did not leave her side. She wore a blue costume and a blue helmet, and she was already getting lightly tanned, so that she looked sufficiently attractive to make it easy for anyone to understand her escort’s determined watchfulness, and his refusal to turn his back on her for more than a moment.

They were returning to change when Carol thought she recognized a young woman who rose up out of the sea almost immediately in their path, and who looked at them with laughing eyes, while she shook the water from her like a seal. She wore a white swim-suit and a white, close-fitting helmet, and her face was a perfect oval, and deliciously, creamily brown. Her eyes were large and brown like pansies, and she smiled at them under sweeping black lashes.

“Well, well! ” she said. “And I hope you find yourself already much restored in health, Mrs. Carrington?”

“Viola! ” Timothy exclaimed. “What in the world are you doing here? Recuperating after the winter?”

“And a filthy winter it was! ” she remarked, without answering him. “Snow, and sleet, and everything I hate! You were lucky to spend half of it in bed, Carol, my dear, believe me! ”

“Was she, do you think?” Timothy was smiling at her a little oddly. “Where are you staying, Viola? And for how long do you propose to honor the Venetian coast? If the Marchesa knew you were here she would be pressing you to accept some of her hospitality.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of troubling her,” Viola declared while Carol stood silent and unaware that for some reason she had become suddenly tongue-tied. “I flew here actually for a few days, that’ s all, with my cousin Brian. I went across to Paris to spend a week-end with him, and we decided to come on here. He’s about somewhere...” She shielded her eyes and looked out to sea, and a tall swimmer, who had been doing a magnificent crab-stroke, suddenly stood up and strode towards them, and Carol became instantly engulfed in embarrassment because of the way he looked at her and seized her hands and displayed so much obvious anxiety as to the state of her health at the moment.

“Carol!” he said. “You poor kid!... What a time you must have had! ” For a moment his feeling was undisguised, and then he looked up at her husband almost defiantly. “But you’ve brought her to the right spot,’’ he conceded. “She’ll get fit enough here. It’s a grand spot, this Lido...”

“I’ m relieved to know that you approve, anyway,” Timothy remarked, and Carol flushed uncomfortably and remembered that Brian had sent her a letter giving her precise details as to where she could always find him if she ever became unhappy enough to make up her mind to leave her husband!

Why, oh why, should he imagine that she would ever leave Timothy...?

“We’re going to have a drink at Bugatti’s as soon as we’re

dressed, so you’ ll join us, won’ t you?” Viola invited.

“And I think you’d better come back with us to lunch,” Timothy capped her invitation. “The Marchesa would never forgive me if she knew you were in Venice and I didn’t even make the suggestion to you, for you know she likes nothing better than entertaining in that Doge’s palace of hers, and she’s so delighted to be back that it will give her an excuse for a celebration. ”

“But I’ m afraid there are rather more of us than just Brian and myself,” Viola explained. “We made up a little party to come here—three more friends who are up at the hotel. Do you mind if I bring them along, too?”

“Not at all,” Timothy assured her. “In the name of my godmother I bid you all welcome.”

But Carol’s heart sank. Aunt Harry, she knew, would be delighted to throw open her huge imposing dining salon, and there would be no difficulty about food—not with her wonderful Venetian cook. And it was so long since she had displayed all the splendors of her glass and china, and acted the gracious hostess in her old home, that she would be almost childishly pleased. But Carol as if a big black cloud had settled on her immediate horizon as she accompanied the party to Bugatti’ s—popular resort of all visitors to Venice—and there made the acquaintance of Nona and Gary Milbanke and a weedy young man known as Tiger, for some extraordinary reason, who appeared to have an over-large bank-balance— which was no doubt one reason why Viola had included him in her party.

At lunch Aunt Harry was the perfect hostess, charmed, as her godson had surmised, to have an opportunity to bedazzle with her cherished treasures. She even wanted to open up a suite of rooms for the convenience of the visitors, but Viola declined this hospitality.

After lunch Carol was more or less ordered upstairs to her room by both Aunt Harry and her husband, but instead of resting dutifully on her bed until tea-time she lay back in a chaise-longue on the balcony and wondered why she was feeling so suddenly depressed and almost unhappy as a result of Viola Featherstone’ s appearance, accompanied by Brian and her friends.

Viola, she had always known, was no real friend to her, and Carol was not so simple that she had not immediately guessed the name of the young woman who had been so ready to marry Timothy if the opportunity had come her way. Viola might not be exactly in love with Timothy—not as she, Carol, understood love—but she would have married him, and would marry him now if he were not already married and could be prevailed upon to ask her!

And Timothy...?

He was always pleasant to Viola, and it was a little difficult to understand how and what he thought about her. He plainly admired her—she was so lovely that every man must admire her—and he had known her so long, so very much longer than Carol, that she had a kind of prior claim on his friendliness and his chivalry. He would always be unfailingly polite and helpful to her, and she would probably be able to count upon him in any difficulty. In short, he would always act like a gentleman to Viola, and he might even entertain a feeling of slight fondness for her. He might very easily be sorry for her.

And feeling pity for any member of the opposite sex is always rather dangerous, for pity is inflammable, and sometimes ...

Carol wished she could put these thoughts out of her head, and she wished that Timothy would spare a few moments to come up and see whether she was carrying out his instructions, and Comfort her with one of his heartwarming smiles.

Since last night he had not treated her for one moment as he had treated her on the balcony. They were back where they had been before, back to the old unsatisfactory relationship which meant unswerving kindness and consideration on his part and hidden rebellion on hers.

She was tired of consideration. She was tired of being treated as if she was made of wax....

When Timothy did come up to her at last he told her that Viola had invited them to dine with her and her friends that night, and afterwards there was to be a kind of moonlight boating party on the canal. He was inclined to the view that Carol would like this, and it would all be very restful and not likely to upset her.