by Averil Ives
CHAPTER TEN
“IF there’s one thing I adore more than anything else it’s a wedding!” Aunt Millicent declared, as she removed the faded straw hat from her head and looked about her at the unfamiliar bedroom. The furnishing was not James’s taste, she was sure, but she liked it, and when James’s new house was built and they started to equip it, she—who, in future, would act as his housekeeper—would see to it that it was as comfortable as this old one.
She looked at Felicity, who was the one who had escorted her up to her room, and smiled at her in the bright, friendly fashion that had endeared her to a good many people all her life.
“At first I was a little confused,” she admitted. “When Cassandra met us at the jetty and said Mr. Halloran was going to be married I thought she meant that he was going to marry her! ... So many men have wanted to marry Cassandra, and she is very attractive, isn’t she? But, so are you, my dear!” patting Felicity’s arm with her plump little be-ringed hand. “You remind me of my youngest sister Agnes at the time when she wished to marry a medical missionary who was going out to India—or Africa! I’m not quite sure which! But my father objected very strongly, and Agnes never married her missionary, and until she died a few years ago we two lived together. But now I’m going to look after James!”
She sounded highly delighted by the prospect, although When Felicity first saw her she was looking a little exhausted after her flight from England, and a sea journey to which she hadn’t, apparently, taken kindly. But the beauty of the island had put fresh heart into her, and the only thing that annoyed her brother James was that she persisted in referring to it as a desert island, and hoped there were no cannibals on it.
“I’ve brought several packets of tea with me,” she admitted, “and a teapot—so that at least we shall have a cup of tea!”
James Ferguson Menzies had snorted.
“We are civilized on Menzies Island! And we shall be still more civilized when my new house goes up! I’m arranging to have a more frequent steamer service between us and the mainland, and in time we may even have our own air-strip! Eh, Halloran?” Giving him a slight dig in the ribs, and winking one of his shrewd little grey eyes at him, as he stood beside him on the jetty.
“So long as you don’t turn my side of the island into a winter paradise for visitors,” Halloran replied. “That wouldn’t suit me at all.”
“Not even as a married man?” It was Cassandra who had broken the news to them almost immediately they stepped ashore, and she done so with a kind of cold relish, as if half hoping that it would hurt someone, as it had secretly stunned herself. “A man with a wife needs amenities that are not so essential to a bachelor! Isn’t that so, Miss Felicity?”
Felicity had taken to Uncle James on sight, just as she had to his sister. He was short and grizzled, and almost mahogany-colored from tropical sun, and his grey eyes never seemed to stop twinkling. If he, too, felt some surprise that it was not his beautiful niece who had captured this remote dark friend of his whom he had never expected to marry anyone—certainly not after his embittering accident—he was careful not to betray it. Instead, his eyes reflected a good deal of admiration as he looked at Felicity. He had never married himself, but if he had he might have selected just such a girl as this.
“Wedding’s in the air, eh? That’s fine!” he declared, as soon as the news had really penetrated. “I’m just in time to give you away, my dear!”
And Felicity felt certain that he really meant it He would give her away if she wanted him to.
But a slight awkwardness was occasioned on the jetty by the inclusion in the new arrival’s party of a young man whom nobody had expected. He was a very fair young man, likewise extremely bronzed as if he travelled a good deal, and wearing a light silk suit that bore the hall-mark of a certain London tailor. In fact, everything about this young man breathed of a way of life peculiar to the English—and particularly the sons of irreproachable county families. Looking at him Felicity thought of such events as the London season, hunting in the Shires in the winter time, shooting in the autumn, and the Riviera when everything else was becoming a little boring. He had an engaging smile, and his eyes were blue—clear, Saxon blue. His name was Mervyn Manners, he was thirty-two, had a flat in Jermyn Street, was a member of all the right clubs, heir to a baronetcy, and in love with Cassandra.
In fact, he was the reason why Cassandra had left England.
He was the ‘affair that had got a little out of hand’.
“I’m utterly amazed that you should inflict yourself on my aunt and uncle like this!” Cassandra remarked, the drip of ice in her tones, as he stepped ashore after assisting Aunt Millicent to do so without accident. “No one invited you, and I can’t think why you are here!”
“Can’t you?” He smiled, sunnily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and then turned to Felicity. “Felicity knows why I’ve come! I couldn’t forget those big eyes of hers—they always make me think of wallflowers blooming under the south terrace at home—and so I came after them to have another good look into them!” He smiled into them audaciously, and it was at that moment that Cassandra chose to inform the assembled company that Felicity and Paul Halloran had decided to marry.
Mervyn Manners pretended to look upset.
“But this is awful! I’ve come all this way!...” And then he squeezed Felicity’s hand. “I hope you’ll be happy—I really do! In any case, you’ve chosen the right spot in which to live! No fogs here in the winter—nothing but sun! Marvellous!”
Paul Halloran accepted his congratulations with a slight air of constraint. His eyes had grown a little narrow when Mervyn bent so familiarly over Felicity’s hand, and the way he had stopped to look into her eyes had caused his lips to tighten. Cassandra, missing neither Paul’s reaction nor her erstwhile suitor’s attempts to put her in her place—and of course, she thought, that’s all they were!—actually allowed her own expression to lighten a little. She said humorously: “Well, so long as you don’t forget Felicity’s booked, Mervyn, my pet, there isn’t likely to be any trouble! But a girl likes to put her past life behind her when she decides to marry!”
She turned quickly to her uncle, reproaching him for not letting her know his plans. When he explained that they were very ambitious ones, and that the new house he proposed to build was going to be even finer than his old one, he obviously claimed her interest. She wanted to know where he was going to stay while the building was going forward, and he further surprised her by mentioning a small house that already existed on the far side of the island, where the new site was going to be.
“Can I come and stay with you there?” she asked, exerting all the charm and appeal of which she was capable when she wished, and he patted her shoulder and said: “Of course, of course! And this young lady, too—” including Felicity—“until she’s married! Paul’s putting us up for a night or two, to get Millicent over the journey, and then we’re making tracks for the other side of the island. Car’s coming over tomorrow, with some stores and things, and the staff are already expecting us. I’ve kept the house primed during my absence in case I came over all homesick suddenly and had to return here. And, you see, I have returned!”
“Because you were homesick?” Felicity asked largely because Paul seemed to be standing rather stiffly beside her, and on the other side Mervyn was pouring a lot of nonsense into her ear—and although she knew it was nonsense, she was not at all sure that Paul even thought it was amusing. Particularly after Cassandra’s reference to her past life, which was such an unblemished past that that should have amused him, too.
But Paul behaved like the sombre, thoughtful, reserved man she had first met, and he put Aunt Millicent into his big cream car with the maximum of correctness. There was no airy-fairy handing her into the car such as would have characterized the way Mervyn would have done it. Mervyn himself was requested to wait for the return of the vehicle.
“Unless you care to walk through the plantation,” Paul added c
urtly. He indicated, with a nod of his sleek dark head, the way through the plantation. “Felicity’s done it before today, and it’ll be cooler than the jetty.”
“If Felicity’s done it, I’m sure I can do it with ease,” Mervyn commented. And at the same time one corner of his mouth twitched a little. What had gone wrong with Cassandra’s charm that this man with the blue eyes and the rather stilted foreign manner, who should have been right up her street, had decided to overlook her in favor of a pretty little thing whom he already resented being singled out for attention by any other man?
Poor Felicity, he thought, rather whimsically! And because he was not easily deceived he knew that for once in her life Cassandra had been badly hurt. “Poor Cassandra!”
Aunt Millicent spent the remainder of the day in her room, resting after her journey. In the evening Florence helped her to dress, and she appeared downstairs wearing the only evening gown she had bought for years, with the evidences of her private fortune sparkling on her fingers and about her wrinkled neck. Cassandra was not impressed by this display—although she felt fairly certain that the lot would come to her one day—and she had eyes only for the old-fashioned settings, which she could not approve. Felicity could recognize valuable stones when she saw them, and her naturally kindly disposition would not permit her to appear disinterested when Miss Menzies chatted to her about this and that ring belonging to her mother, and this and that brooch, or ornament, being handed down to her by a godmother, or some aunt or member of the family who had had it bestowed on them under unusual circumstances.
Nearly all Miss Menzies’s relatives, it appeared, had received rewards from such persons as eastern potentates, and even sovereigns, for services they had performed. Miss Menzies was very proud of them, and liked to recall the circumstances. Felicity listened to her, and the maiden lady—who hadn’t had a single romantic episode in her life so far—was greatly attracted to her and referred constantly to her wedding, which she had been given to understand would take place very soon.
“If there’s anything I can lend you for the occasion you must let me know,” she said. “I’d be very happy to lend you my pearls—my mother’s pearls!—and if you haven’t a veil I’ve a lovely length of genuine Brussels lace that I brought with me for no particular reason, that would look enchanting on your dark hair!”
Felicity thanked her, and felt more and more uncomfortable. Miss Menzies had mentioned her wedding so many times, and as yet she wasn’t even accustomed to the idea that she was going to get married at all. In fact, she didn’t really believe it, save when someone mentioned it. And as for wearing a white dress, and a Brussels lace veil...
She caught Cassandra’s eyes fixed on her across the room, and saw they were mocking her. She would never forget the way in which her erstwhile employer had received the news of her engagement. She had laughed when Paul had made the announcement at the dinner table shortly after he had asked Felicity to be his wife, and then all the color had drained from her face and she had looked as if something had actually stunned her. She had reached for the glass of wine at her elbow and taken a few sips, and then as if it suddenly struck her that this announcement was perfectly serious she had lifted the glass high.
“In that case we must toast you both!” she cried, on a high, artificial note of gaiety. “Harry, we must toast your employer and my employee. Felicity won’t be going home to England after all!”
Only Harry Whitelaw, although he had been just as amazed, had looked and sounded as he echoed the toast as if he was genuinely delighted.
Now Cassandra strolled across the room and joined her aunt and Felicity in the corner where they sat, and as she perched on the end of a Chesterfield beneath the tall standard lamp, she said with the brightly malicious look on her face: “But it isn’t going to be that kind of a wedding. Aunt Millicent! Felicity isn’t likely to wear white because the whole thing is being fixed up in an extraordinary hurry, and as the ceremony is taking place here on the island they won’t even be married in a church. There’s a sort of retired missionary who lives in a village on the other side of the island, and he’s being roped in to say the necessary words! After that—no going away, no honeymoon, nothing!”
“Oh, dear me!” Aunt Millicent looked a little disturbed. “But don’t people always have honeymoons?—And wouldn’t it be better to be married in a church?”
“There isn’t one on the island,” Felicity heard herself saying in a confused sort of voice.
Cassandra smiled as if she was beginning to enjoy herself.
“But there are other islands where there are churches—there are churches on the mainland! It’s only a matter of travelling a short distance to get to one! And if I were getting married I’d want at least a weekend in Paris to mark the most important event in my life! I’m sure Felicity looks upon marriage as terribly important,” with a slight but unmistakable jeer on the scarlet mouth. “She’s that type!”
“Well, it’s only natural to look upon marriage as important ... I feel sure it is!” Miss Menzies sensed something here that was certainly a little unusual, and she looked at Felicity as if she would like to put it right if she could. No white frock, no bridesmaids, no orange blossom ... Possibly not even a wedding cake! And she was just the sort of young woman who ought to trail down the aisle on her father’s arm, while all her relatives looked on and the organ thundered forth bridal music! ... But if there wasn’t an aisle, and perhaps she hadn’t a father ... “Well, at least we’re here to see you get married, and James is quite taken up with the idea of giving you away,” Aunt Millicent went on with sudden brightness. “And you can borrow the pearls to go with whatever it is you will wear. Perhaps it’s quite natural that Mr. Halloran doesn’t feel like a lot of fuss when it’s only recently that he’s been entirely himself again!” She adopted a penetrating whisper. “I mean, such a frightful thing to be blind, and that terrible accident he suffered! ... James tells me he was quite a wreck when he first came here, and rented this house.”
“If Uncle James hadn’t let the house to him he would probably have remained a wreck,” Cassandra said, as if she was voicing something she was secretly certain about. “It wasn’t only that he was injured in that accident—he lost everything that made life worth living to him!”
“You mean his music?” Aunt Millicent enquired.
“No—I don’t mean his music!” Cassandra replied, and looked across the lighted space at Felicity with a kind of cold triumph in her eyes.
Just at that moment Felicity became aware of Paul himself standing almost at her elbow, and her heart lurched. Cassandra put back her head and looked up at him, and there was a cool challenge in her look.
“Ah, the prospective bridegroom!” she exclaimed “My aunt is disappointed because you’re not going to have a white wedding, and all the trimmings! She doesn’t think it’s fair to Felicity to have a hole and corner affair on an island!—And not even a honeymoon afterwards! Can’t Felicity persuade you to relent a little on that one point, at least?”
Whereupon he frowned, and his infinitely black brows were drawn together in a straight line above the slightly arrogant bridge of his otherwise 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 nothing 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 are 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.”