Hidden Rapture

by Lane, Roumelia

  Robert’s moods gave no opportunity for gloom. One evening he managed to get to the table for dinner. Every known device was used to celebrate the occasion. The table gleamed with crystalware and silver. The candelabra added a soft glow and the jewelled lights of Tangier were spread out below the open windows. No one wanted to admit that there was a hollow ring about the happy atmosphere of the upstairs rooms. To Vivienne the occasion was all the more touching because Trent, showing his age but joking as always, appeared particularly endearing, and because he scrupulously avoided looking her way.

  On the other evenings they dined together as always downstairs.

  Vivienne couldn’t imagine doing otherwise, although the barrier that lay between them now was far more manifest than any that had existed between them in the past. They went through the courses that Momeen served, hands sometimes no more than a space away as something was reached for across the table, but a space that might as well have been a million miles in distance, so keenly felt was the barrier.

  Afterwards, out on the little vine-covered terrace adjoining the room, they would go through the bitter-sweet ritual of smoking the one cigarette of the day. Where the scents-of oleander and jasmine drifted in from the gardens Trent would reach into his pocket for his cigarette case and afterwards flick his lighter under hers and then his own, and his glance on her would look about to linger, then remain steady on the flame instead, and she would feel that she was coming close to losing her sanity. How could she bear it, loving Trent, knowing that he loved her, yet knowing no contact? Not so much as the touch of his hand on hers. If only they could have allowed themselves that!

  One evening when she felt she would buckle under the tension, there was a slight commotion indoors. Haroun was standing in the doorway from the hall and Momeen was hovering over the silver dishes on the table looking slightly flustered. ‘It is the young master,’

  he stammered when Trent went through. ‘He is asking for some of Monsieur Maurice’s date meringue.’

  Vivienne felt her heart turn over. Was this to be one of Robert’s last requests? Trent asked levelly, ‘Is there any left?’

  Momeen examined the dishes and nodded his head vigorously. ‘There is indeed.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what he wants, have some sent up,’ Trent said in the same level tones.

  Her throat aching furiously, Vivienne hurried away to her room.

  The following morning she swam languidly in the pool for an hour.

  She knew that Trent exercised in the water around dawn each day and she studiously avoided going down until he had returned to his rooms. There was no sign of life from the house as she kicked water listlessly between the floating armchairs.

  In the afternoon, medical routine being what it was, a young Moorish doctor accompanied a portable X-ray unit which had been sent to give the latest results of Robert’s wrist. It was a cumbersome business getting the contraption upstairs along with the three technicians needed, but with Abdul, slightly imperious when directing his own kind, the operation was carried out fairly smoothly. Vivienne, arranging flowers in one of the rooms looking on to the terrace, hadn’t expected to hear any more for a while—not at least until the technicians made their way down again. But curiously enough, after some time; had elapsed it was the doctor who appeared. He came down the stairs and rushed straight for the phone.

  Looking through the doorway into the hall she couldn’t make out his rapid speech, but he seemed oddly excited in some way. Trent was standing in the doorway of the library. She saw him walk across enquiringly to the Moorish doctor and after more rapid conversation they both went back into the library and closed the door. Vivienne’s hands trembled as she tried to make something of the carnations and honeysuckle in the vase. What was wrong? Was it something terrible to do with Robert?

  It seemed an age to her before the two men came out of the library again and made their way upstairs. She wandered about the room seeing nothing of the exquisite furnishing, the intricately patterned ceiling and delicate wall panels. Though she examined the elaborate designs on wallside bureaux and fingered the ornate handles of the drawers, she was really blind to all that she looked at, for her mind was straining in every possible way to that upstairs room in the house.

  Then, when she was expecting to see some activity in the direction of the stairs, it was something of a surprise to find that it came at her back, through the windows which looked on to the front terrace.

  Beyond the line of shady archways a sombre-looking car had drawn up, and she recognised the man who was stepping out as one of the French specialists who attended Robert. He was a thick-set man with iron grey hair and ageing handsome features. Wearing light summer shirt and slacks and white tennis shoes, he went hurriedly indoors.

  Abdul came to escort him upstairs and Vivienne was left with only stillness again. She could stand the indoors no longer and speedily made her way out to the flower gardens beyond the pool. She made a determined effort to gather some more exotic blooms to brighten the house, but it was only by gritting her teeth and holding on that she managed to control the urge to rush indoors and follow the others to Robert’s room.

  Her ears tuned that way, she heard voices eventually in the distance approaching the outdoors, and above the pounding of her pulses the departure of the specialist’s car. As calmly as she could she walked back alongside the pool towards the house. The men with the X-ray unit were just leaving as she took the steps beside the low palms to the terrace. Trent, who had been seeing them off, turned and looked her way and she realised only then that her arms were laden with the blooms she had blindly picked without thinking in her anxiety.

  He said, with a lazy smile, coming her way, ‘All you need now is a big straw hat and you could be taken for one of the Riff women.

  Although, on second thoughts, I doubt it,’ he inclined his head at her.

  ‘Your skin’s too fair, and that straight little nose is anything but Moorish.’

  Her lips parted in fearful expectancy, Vivienne looked at him and beyond him to the departing hospital van, she asked, ‘What is it?

  What’s been happening? I’ve been so worried I didn’t know what to think.’

  Trent didn’t reply at once. Beneath the weariness of his features she tried to glean something. Then he said, taking her arm, ‘Let’s find somewhere to sit, shall we?’ She was wondering where she could deposit the fragrant contents of her arms when he added, ‘No, keep the flowers. You make a soothing picture for a fellow who’s been having something of a rough ride lately.’

  He led her down the steps to a seat in a sunken garden area below the level of the croquet lawn at the side of the house. There was the early evening drone of insects here, - and the slender boles of young lime trees were silvered against the paling blue sky. When they were seated Vivienne waited and Trent said, ‘It was the X-ray thing that started it all off.’

  ‘Started what?’ Vivienne rested the flowers in her lap with an impatience that brought a glimmer of tolerant s humour to Trent’s blue gaze. He went on to explain, ‘It seems that Rob’s wrist is healing good and strong.’

  Vivienne looked blank. Then she asked on a quick breath, ‘Was that so entirely unexpected?’

  ‘No,’ Trent shook his head. ‘Rob’s trouble is muscular, but…’

  ‘But what?’ Vivienne was acutely conscious just then of the evening song of a rock thrush in a nearby tree.

  Trent shrugged. ‘To the doctors it seems to have some sort of significance.’ He waited, then went on almost casually, ‘They want him to go to the hospital tomorrow for some tests.’

  Vivienne’s heart was thumping in a curious restrained way. Her wide amber gaze still clung to Trent’s, the faint signs of wonder and hope there mirrored in his. For an immeasurable time they sat, neither saying a word, then Trent stirred himself and helping her as she mechanically scooped up the flowers he drawled, ‘We’d better go in and see about getting changed, otherwise Momeen will be serving to an empty
table tonight.’

  The evening dragged for both of them, and the hours between dark and daylight were the longest that Vivienne had ever known. She rose early the next morning and putting on a cotton dress went down into the orchards. There was much activity, for the trees were becoming heavily laden and measures were being taken to protect the rapidly developing fruit. Watching the men operating the irrigation sluices, Vivienne saw along the road in the distance, the black limousine starting out on its journey into town. Abdul would be at the wheel, and Trent and Robert in the rear compartment. She turned quickly away and with her eyes over-bright she swung up a child, a toddler belonging to one of the workers. She wouldn’t let herself think, she wouldn’t let herself hope too much. If ever she needed to shut all thoughts of herself and Trent out of her mind, it was now.

  The Berber women wore voluminous print dresses and hoods and shielded their faces shyly as Vivienne moved among them. She watched them up small step-ladders weeding out the inferior fruit, their children clambering about and constantly being cuffed into clearing up the ground beneath the trees of windfalls and unwanted growth. The puppy adopted by the estate workers and bearing the unlikely name of Panther was almost skinnily adult now and chased joyfully beneath the trees, leaping at birds and anything that moved.

  The women had brought goat’s cheese, dark bread and dates for their midday meal, and this they shyly asked Vivienne to share. She sat with them in the shade of an old walnut tree, carefully averting her gaze from the road running through the orchards, yet every fibre of her being straining for the sound of a car engine.

  The sun had slanted down across the bay and the men were making preparations for spraying the fruit trees when Vivienne’s glance was momentarily dazzled by the flash of sun on gleaming metal work. It was then that she saw the limousine slowly making its way back through the trees to the villa. The women were packing up ready to leave and with their children clinging to their skirts they wished her goodbye in their Berber tongue, and she returned their smiles and set off in the direction of the house. But her knees were weak and she found the walk back along the paths infinitely more nerve-racking than when she had started out that morning.

  There was no sign of the car when she arrived on the terrace, so Abdul must have taken it straight round to the garage. She heard voices and saw by the open doors and windows that they came from the lovely ground floor room where she had been arranging flowers the previous afternoon. She moved in under the archways with a pulse hammering in her throat.

  Trent was there, draped against the marble fireplace facing the doorway. And as she went in she saw Robert in his wheelchair beside the tapestry-covered sofa and the open windows. And when she looked at him she knew. With a hot and cold tingling of her senses, she knew. His flaxen hair was long and shaggy and adorable, hanging over the collar of his open-necked shirt. His blue eyes reflected the brilliance of the summer sky, though there was no sky visible at the moment, so that in itself was an indication if she hadn’t already seen the slow grin forming on his lips at the sight of her.

  The palpitating question must have been written all over her face, for he said, with a look at his brother, ‘Tell, her, Trent.’

  Her glance swung to Trent’s and not only was there that same blueness there, but something else too, something warm and secretive and loving. He eased his frame into a new position beside the fireplace and spoke in that familiar lazy-way of his, perhaps to disguise his emotions. ‘What we were all hopeful of yesterday, but too scared to put into words, has been proved. Rob is on the way to being cured. According to his doctors, in a few weeks he’ll be strong enough to leave his wheelchair, and in six months he’ll be completely recovered.’

  As Vivienne listened to the magic, magic words she felt her heart swelling till her head swam, and running across the room she opened her arms. ‘Oh, Robert! I’m so happy for you!’ She hugged him to hide the tears of joy in her eyes and straightened only when she had her emotions under control.

  Robert smiled up at her, the excitement in him communicating itself in such a way that all three were powerfully aware of it. ‘Do you know what this means, Viv?’ There was that note of urgency in his tones, that earnest, ardent look in his eyes. ‘It means we can get married.’

  Vivienne felt herself falling, falling through black, imaginary space that made the room reel. Clutching for something, she threw a look at Trent and came up against the veiled shock in his face and in his eyes, then she heard herself saying with laughter that sounded harsh and grating in his ears, ‘So we can!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  VIVIENNE listened to the jarring note of the rock thrush. There was no sweet sound coming from his throat as there had been the evening before. Though the trees cast their same sparkling green shade, jewelled by the slanting rays of the sun, this sunken garden that, twenty-four hours ago, had throbbed with life and hope was now a bleak and lonely place.

  Haroun had taken Robert up to his room. Trent sat on the seat beside her. She said to him, continuing the conversation that had begun a few minutes ago, ‘It’s truly a miracle! Robert has been looking so ill, it made one imagine the worst.’

  Trent nodded. ‘I knew a little of what was going on. Some time back the doctors studying Rob’s ailment found what they thought might be a breakthrough. They asked my permission to. try out the treatment.

  They warned me that it might be rough on Rob and that there was no guarantee that anything would come of it.’

  Listening to him clicked something in Vivienne’s mind. ‘That day before we drove to Tetuan—I remember now.’ She turned to him.

  ‘They kept you rather a long time at the hospital that morning.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Trent affirmed. ‘I didn’t say anything then or later because I didn’t want to raise anybody’s hopes.’

  Vivienne watched a butterfly spread its Wings on a rock, making the most of the sun that was left, and somehow it reminded her of herself as she commented, ‘The doctors must be feeling pleased with themselves.’

  Trent nodded. ‘There’s no doubt that I’ll be indebted to Paul Lazare and Georges Marne for life. I’ve dragged Rob round some pretty expensive clinics, but it took a couple of unknown specialists in a small-time hospital to do the trick.

  It will be a difficult job, but I’ll have to figure out some way of repaying them.’

  ‘Have you got anything special in mind?’ She had a feeling that they were both talking mechanically now.

  ‘Well, I could donate some much needed equipment. Things like that…’ Trent rose and took her arm and with this same feeling of inevitability they began to move indoors. Vivienne wondered, with a lump in her throat, if it was possible to be utterly and truly happy and heart-brokenly miserable at the same time. They had protected Robert from the truth. Now there was no way out, ever.

  The croquet pitch had fallen into disuse. The physical exercise that Robert had indulged in in the past had been recommended to assist in the treatment, but now that he was going through the long recuperation period he had been ordered to rest. The sun had become blindingly hot beside the pool and for more than a week now they had spent the afternoons sitting beneath the shady vine awning at the side of the house, which looked on to the croquet lawn.

  The grass was yellowing. Though it was watered daily it seemed to be losing its battle with the heat, and Vivienne, viewing it from her chair, likened her own condition to its fading glory. It seemed to her that she had ceased to live since that day when she had helped the Berber women in the orchards. She went through the motions, smiling, talking and being helpful where she could, but every now and again there were moments like now, when she looked at Trent lounging lazily nearby, yet tautly remote from her; when she knew that he was near enough to touch her but that he would never let himself. It was then that the ache inside her became almost too much to bear.

  Robert was in his wheelchair a short distance from them, browsing through his volumes of poetry. He was happy and th
at was all that mattered. But was it all that mattered? Didn’t they have a life too?

  Robert was shaking his head. ‘You’ll never get it right, Viv.’ She had been trying to put some lilt into the verse he had rehearsed with her.

  If only he knew how difficult it was for her! ‘This is the way it should go.’ He read the words out feelingly. ‘ I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood faith -Now you.’

  Vivienne took her cue, tight laughter in her throat. ‘I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints -‘ she floundered, and then a voice at their backs finished,

  ‘I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life— and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.’

  A hush had settled over the afternoon. Those words spoken simply yet with an unselfconscious sincerity had an odd effect on all of them. Vivienne turned slowly, almost knowingly, then rising from her chair she exclaimed, ‘Lucy!’

  The small figure standing just outside the awning came forward.

  ‘Hello, Viv, I heard your voice. I’m on holiday in Tangier for two weeks and I thought I’d look you up. I hope you don’t mind?’

  Vivienne was in a daze. Lucy here! She had let her hair grow long so that it fell in pale strands to her shoulders. She was wearing a stylish summer dress, and there was a glow about her. It was the letter. Of course, now Vivienne knew. The one she had written explaining that Robert wasn’t going to die. Dear Lucy! Her happiness shone from her like a torch, giving her face a radiance that made it appear almost beautiful.