“Then that’s splendid! You can spend the rest of the day with me! I’ve just had my car sent over from England, and I feel as if I want to use it. But unless you’d prefer to go somewhere very smart for lunch we could have it at my flat. We can talk more comfortably there, and, as I explained, it’s a service flat. What do you say?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered at once, “I think that would be very nice.”
“Really?”
“Yes, honestly.”
Once again he patted her hand.
“You’re such a nice child, Rose, and a very simple one at heart! I don’t think high life appeals to you all that much. I think you were just as happy at Enderby as having your hand saluted by one of the most eligible widowers in Rome. Or is Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett right, and am I wrong?” Rose puckered her brows.
“I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? Well, never mind—” stealing a very gentle and mildly caressing sideways glance at her this time. “We won’t spoil our day by discussing subjects of that sort. Instead, tell me what you think Enderby is looking like now.” Rose sighed without quite realizing that she did so.
“I think it’s looking absolutely heavenly, as it always does in the spring. There will be bluebells in the woods, and the wallflowers will be just dying off under the south terrace. The aubretia will be at its best in those large urns that decorate the terrace, and in the drive the rhododendrons and the azaleas will be like a solid wall of colour. There will be every shade, from palest pink to creamy yellow, and the scent—the scent will be the sort of scent that gets up into your head, like honeysuckle in high summer!”
Sir Laurence forgot to concentrate on the traffic and the road ahead for an instant as he glanced at her this time in pure amazement.
“Why, Rose,” he exclaimed, “you’ve painted quite a picture! Does Enderby mean as much to you as all that?”
She nodded her head soberly.
“All that and more. I shall never forget Enderby!”
When they arrived at his flat he escorted her up in the lift, and his eyes looked rather thoughtful as they rested on her face. It was slightly flushed with the excitement of meeting him, and her eyes had that strange look of luminosity about them which not only added to their brilliance, but lent depth to their colour. And the long dark eyelashes wavered above them shyly.
“Perhaps I’m being a little unconventional in bringing you here, Rose,” he remarked with an odd twist to his lips when they entered his sitting-room. “I’m inclined to forget that you’re no longer a schoolgirl, and that you no longer regard me as a guardian. Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett wouldn’t thank me for compromising you at this highly promising stage of your career.”
Rose didn’t know how to reply to this, and he telephoned for lunch to be brought up to them, and then went to her and took her by her slender shoulders.
“Do you fancy the idea of being Princess Paul de Lippi, Rose?”
Rose’s colour deepened uncontrollably, but she also looked considerably taken aback.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because that is Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett’s plan for you! Camillo she has, of course, never entertained seriously as a suitor for you, although she permits him to take you about. But the Prince—the Prince she thinks about very seriously!”
“I don’t think I like this sort of conversation,”
Rose declared, twisting away from him rather suddenly and looking all at once a little aloof. “I don’t think it’s very nice, somehow.”
He smiled at her gently.
“But that is Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett’s plan for you and even if she isn’t entirely confident of bringing it off, she’s certainly got high hopes. You were the talk of the dance the other night, Rose—the little English girl with red hair, whose dress was not quite like any other young woman’s dress! The enchanting little English girl!”
“Anyone could look enchanting dressed up like that,” Rose insisted, and Sir Laurence’s smile grew warmer.
“Well, I’m glad you haven’t really changed, Rose,” he told her.
The arrival of their meal put an end to that sort of conversation for the time being, but afterwards, on
the balcony, sipping their coffee and companionably smoking cigarettes, the man made an attempt to return to it.
“What were you doing this morning, Rose, when I met you?” he asked. “And with whom had you just parted company? You don’t normally drift about Rome by yourself, do you?”
“No,” Rose admitted, “although I quite enjoy being by myself sometimes, and my favourite occupation is looking at the fountains. I think they’re breathtakingly lovely—all of them!” “You’ve thrown a coin into the Fountain de Trevi, of course?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you wish? Tell me what you wished, Rose?”
“It wouldn’t come true if I did tell you,” looking at him suddenly rather solemnly. And then the sudden remembrance that part of her wish had already come true caused her to blush faintly.
“This is interesting,” Sir Laurence remarked, studying her. “You won’t tell me what you wished for, but it actually causes you to blush a little. Was it something very nice, Rose?”
But Rose declined to be baited by him, and tossed back her head with a graceful gesture. Suddenly she succeeded in shattering a certain amount of his complaisance.
“I had coffee with Signora Bardoli this morning,” she told him.
“Oh!” He looked almost taken aback. “Did she ask you to have coffee with her?”
“Yes. We met at the hairdresser’s.”
“And what did the pair of you talk about?” a little dryly, while he calmly selected a fresh cigarette.
“You!” Rose’s tone was almost as dry as his own. “Indeed?” His eyebrows lifted. "And what did the signora wish to know about me?”
“Oh, all sorts of things,” being deliberately casual. And then, more incisively: “She wished to know about Heather Willoughby!”
“I see.” He stared at the tip of his cigarette. “And did you tell her about Heather?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I regarded the question as impertinent.”
“You know, Rose,” Sir Laurence told her, regarding her through a faint haze of tobacco smoke which lingered heavily in the warm air between them, “you’re extraordinarily adult in some ways, and quite, I should say, incorruptible. However, perhaps I’d better tell you a little bit about Lola. She’s had some rather tough experiences in her own life — an extremely unhappy marriage amongst them—and when people have suffered similarly to oneself it’s a kind of bond. It draws them together. Do you understand what I mean?” Rose, looking down rather primly at the skirt of her dress, made a slight negative movement with her head which caused a twinkle of amusement to appear suddenly in his eyes.
“I see you don’t,” he murmured. “I also feel strongly that you would like to deliver another lecture to me on the subject of undesirable women friends, not one of whom you seem to approve. For you don’t like Signora Bardoli any more than you liked Heather, do you?”
In spite of a suddenly heightened colour, Rose’s clear eyes looked directly at him.
“Your women friends are nothing at all to do with me,” she answered, with a suspicion of primness in her voice, “but I don’t think you’re particularly clever at choosing them. However,” more hastily, “that is an impertinence on my part, and I apologize for it.”
“You don’t have to Rose.” He sighed suddenly. “Out of the mouths of babes, you know! . . . But I’d like you to know that Signora Bardoli is not a— replacement—for Heather! I’m not the type to rush blindly out of the frying-pan into the fire, you know!” He crushed out his cigarette in an ash-tray at his elbow. “At least I hope not!”
But Rose looked at him a little doubtfully, for there was such a thing as the frying-pan catching up with one, or the fire proving irresistible. And Signora Bardoli was not by any manner of means the same type as Heathe
r Willoughby. Whatever she had suffered as the result of an unhappy marriage, she was a woman who knew what she wanted.
The conversation lapsed after this, and Sir Laurence looked rather thoughtful, while Rose tried to pick out the details in the magnificent panorama that was spread out before her. And then, with a look of apology for allowing her to feel temporarily neglected, her former guardian suggested driving her out to the Villa d’Este, which everyone on a visit to Rome went to see at least once. And as Rose had not so far seen it she was delighted with the beauties of this typical Roman villa, spread out over the heights of the Campania, with its centenarian cypresses and exquisite gushing fountain that was a joy to the eye. Between the silhouettes of the giant cypresses Rome looked blue and vague in the distance, and she was happy to wander there in the sunshine with the man who still seemed unusually preoccupied, or so she thought.
On their return he asked her, as he had done once before, whether she was in a hurry, and when she confessed that she was not, because Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett was spending the whole of the day with her friend, he suggested going back to the flat for a drink.
“It won’t seriously compromise you, Rose” he told her, “any more than it has already done!”
But, back at the flat, he put a drink in her hand and then stood looking down at her. She had the feeling that he had made up his mind about something.
“Rose,” he said rather slowly, and she felt a pulse beating nervously in her throat as his eyes held hers, “this morning we discussed Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett’s plan for your future. It’s not one I approve, because I believe I know you rather well, and somehow I can’t see you—fitting into it very well!”
Rose felt suddenly indignant because he was talking as if she was the type who would allow someone to plan her future for her, and that was the
very last thing she intended to allow anyone to do.
“I think—” she was beginning, but he made a little gesture which required her to be silent for a moment.
“Would you care to listen, Rose, to my plan for your future?” he asked.
CHAPTER XII
Rose sat up almost nervously in her chair. Sir Laurence had been pacing up and down the room, with its cool light wood furniture and restful hangings, and single bowl of rather skilfully arranged flowers on an occasional table at her elbow. But when he saw the faintly alarmed, faintly anxious look which leapt into her revealing eyes he drew up a chair near to her.
“Rose, I’m not at all happy about the life you’re living at the moment! I’m quite sure Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett is tremendously fond of you — I noticed that she took a great fancy to you almost immediately you arrived at Farnhurst Manor — but I don’t think she’s the right type to guide and advise you. Although you look quite a grownup young woman, you’re really awfully young, and ... ” He broke off and smiled at her.
“I’d hate it if anything went wrong for you, Rose! I’ve known you since that hair of yours was in pigtails, and now that you wear it short and fashionably styled you seem to me even more vulnerable now than you did then!”
Rose looked at him for a long moment, and then away.
“It’s good of you to concern yourself about me,” She said rather stiltedly, “but I assure you it isn’t necessary. As I told you that afternoon when we had tea in Rington—do you remember?—I’m quite capable of looking after my own future.”
“Are you? Are you really, Rose?” But he sighed and look doubtful. He picked up one of her slender hands and examined it as if its delicate perfection actually temporarily fascinated him.
“Rose, do you look upon me as a—well, as very much older than yourself? Dully middle-aged, shall we say?” smiling with a kind of ruefulness.
“No, of course not.” But she deliberately removed her hand and kept it firmly clasped round her other in her lap. “I’ve never thought of you as old— not even when—when I was younger!” “Haven’t you?” regarding her searchingly. She shook her flaming head.
“And in any case you’re not old. You’re not yet middle-aged.”
“But if I asked you to marry me, and you accepted, people could talk of May and December, couldn’t they?”
“Marry you?” She was so startled that she actually sat bolt upright in her chair, and he looked at her with a still more rueful smile on his lips. “Does the idea appall you?”
“I can’t think you know what you’re—talking about!” she answered.
But he assured her that he did. He assured her that he had given the matter a great deal of thought.
“I want to look after you, Rose, and I want to make certain that there are no disillusionments waiting for you in the years ahead! Oh, I know that you haven’t yet fallen properly in love, and that there is probably a Mr. Right waiting for you around the corner—but he might not turn out to be Mr. Right after all! He might so easily turn out to be Mr. Wrong! And having survived a bitter experience myself, I couldn’t bear it for you!”
“Why not?” Rose asked through distinctly dry lips.
“Because I’m fond of you, child—because . . .”
He looked at her very earnestly, surprised because she had actually turned a little white, and her eyes looked enormous. “Because I’m very fond of you! Because I don’t like the thought of you drifting about in this insecure fashion, and I know you love Enderby, and I think we could settle down there
quite happily once we—made up our minds!”
“I see,” Rose said, and her voice sounded utterly flat.
He sought to rally her, believing that he had merely taken her very much by surprise.
“And think of the amount of protection you could provide me with against these various females you so strongly disapprove of—like you, I wouldn’t any longer be in any danger, would I?”
“No,” Rose agreed, her voice trembling a little, “I suppose you wouldn’t.”
But she felt all at once that a flood of daylight had been poured out all over her, and his real reasons for asking her to marry him—marry him!—became almost lucidly clear. She knew she never would believe that something she had dreamed about was coming her way, and that she was turning it down. He really wanted protection from women like Signora Bardoli, he no longer trusted himself with the Heathers of this world, and he wanted to go back to Enderby and settle down. He could salve his conscience about her, Rose—let the world see that he was no longer breaking his heart over Heather—feel absolutely safe from Lola Bardoli, and be free to give his time to the work he really loved above everything else, if he settled everything out of hand by marrying her, whom he knew reasonably well, and of whom he admitted he was very fond!
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying not to speak huskily, as if emotion was tearing at her, “but I couldn’t ever consider anything of the sort!”
He allowed her to rise somewhat hastily from her chair and wander out on to the balcony, where they had drunk their coffee after lunch, and he watched her for a few moments leaning against the balcony rail. Then he followed her.
“Are you quite sure about that, Rose?”
“Quite sure,” she answered without turning her head.
“Are you by any chance in love with Camillo de Lippi?” “No,” giving her head a quick shake.
“Prince Paul de Lippi? Although he is too old for you!”
“I hardly know him,” she answered this time.
“Then is there”—smiling a little wryly while she watched the sunset light gilding all the spires of Rome—“someone else I know nothing at all about?” She turned and looked up at him gravely.
“There isn’t anyone.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her very gently.
“In that case—won’t you take time and think about it, Rose? Of course, I didn’t expect you to make up your mind at once, and I know I’m not offering you a very romantic proposition, but . . . You don’t dislike me, do you? Shall I admit that I used to think you were rather fond of me?—perhaps especially fond
! But that, of course, was before you became a very fashionable young woman, with all the world at your feet!”
“It isn’t at my feet, as you very well know,” she whispered chokily; and his hand slipped from her shoulder and went beneath her chin and lifted it. “And do you still like me—a little?”
“Of course.”
But she kept her eyes determinedly lowered.
“In spite of the harsh things I said to you once?”
“I don’t believe you really meant them.”
“No, I didn’t. But it was true that Heather objected to you rather strongly.”
His eyes dwelt thoughtfully on the delicate outline of her soft red lips.
“Do you know, Rose,” he said suddenly, in rather a curious voice, “in all the years that we’ve known one another I’ve never kissed you! But I think I’d like to do so now, even if you won’t marry me!”
And before she had time to do more than send a rather panic-stricken upward glance at him he bent his sleek head and she felt the cool, hard pressure of his lips against her own. There was so little of the violence, or the ardour, of Camillo de Lippi’s lips, when they had taken possession of her mouth, that she actually found herself, as she stared up into his eyes, making a comparison. And then he smiled and stroked her cheek.
“You’re very sweet, Rose!”
“I—” she managed; and then, to her complete astonishment, he suddenly caught her right into his arms and kissed her again, and this time there was no doubt about the warmth of his lips, and when he released her, her face was flaming, and she was trembling like a leaf in a strong breeze deep down inside her.
Sir Laurence looked at her with strange, inscrutable eyes, and apologized.
“I had no right to do that, Rose. Will you overlook it on the grounds that the temptation was very great?” And then he glanced at his wrist-watch. “And now I’d better take you back to your hotel,” he added almost casually. “Otherwise Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett will think someone has abducted you.”
They drove back to the hotel in almost complete silence, but just before they reached it he said:
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