At length Dominic picked out a ring whose stone was a big square topaz exquisitely set in filigree gold.
“This one, then. Just right for you,” he said with decision. “Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Then let me put it on.”
Picking up her hand again, he slipped it on her finger and held it out to show his mother.
“Perfect, my dear. The very one I had in mind. Your father brought it back for me from Ceylon, thirty years ago. And now, give these to Chloe, too,” she went on, lifting the pearls.
“Oh, please, no. They’re much too valuable. I can’t...” Chloe began, feeling that the situation was quite out of control.
The contessa leaned forward to pat her hand. Her face was quite transfigured with pleasure.
“Not too valuable for my son’s wife,” she declared. “And so right for you. Put them on now, my dear. They’ll go beautifully with that dark linen you’re wearing. Fasten them for her, Dominic.”
Obediently Dominic took the string of pearls from her. Standing behind Chloe, he put them around her throat, bending his tall head to examine the clasp.
It was rather an intricate, tiny affair and took him some time. His fingers brushed unavoidably against her neck, sending swift fire through her veins.
“There, I’ve done up the safety clasp, too,” he said at last.
“They suit you,” the contessa said decidedly. “You must wear them constantly. Their luster will increase from day to day. Pearls are like that. They need the life and warmth of the human skin to be at their best. It’s years since those have been worn.”
They stayed and chatted for a little while longer and Chloe couldn’t but be aware of the change in the contessa. Her voice was still imperious, but the harshness had gone from it. The dark eyes were brilliant as ever, but had lost their searching restlessness. Her whole face and manner were softer, gentler. She looked really happy. Chloe’s sense of guilt and apprehension deepened.
Dominic kissed his mother.
“We’re going to leave you now, mother. I want to take Chloe out—I have some places to show her. Weil come and tell you about it this evening, if it won’t tire you.”
“I shall rest all day, to be ready for you, my dears.”
Outside in the marble-floored gallery, Dominic gave Chloe’s elbow a quick squeeze.
“Bless you. You were splendid,” he said warmly.
“But, Dominic, you must see I can’t accept these valuable gifts,” she protested, fingering the pearls.
“Can’t you? Not when you see how much pleasure your accepting them gives her?”
“I—oh, yes, I do see. But I can’t help thinking of what will happen if she finds us out.”
“We must make very sure she doesn’t. Don’t worry, Chloe. Don’t feel guilty. You’ve made her happy. That’s what matters.”
She said no more. What was there to say? What—to him—did her feelings and misgivings matter, so long as his mother’s last remaining weeks were lightened by an illusion of happiness?
“We’ll meet at the car in half an hour if that suits you,” Dominic went on briskly. “I’ll call Lotta and get her to bring our lunch basket along.”
Chloe was already dressed for the day’s outing, and only needed a hat to protect her from the sun, which now was often too hot for comfort in the middle of the day.
She fetched a shady straw from her room and went down to the courtyard, swinging it in her hand.
The pearls lay coolly against her neck where Dominic had put them. She could still feel, with a tremor of delight, the brush of his fingers against her skin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dominic was leaning against the car when Chloe came down into the courtyard. He came around and opened her door for her.
“Did I keep you waiting?”
“No. You’re punctual to the minute.”
She saw that he had changed into gray flannels, a becoming blue shirt with a scarf at its open neck, a light jacket. He was hatless and seemed in a holiday mood.
“Nice,” he said approvingly, looking her up and down as she got in the car and bending to tuck her pleated skirt out of harm’s way.
“Nice, too,” she said, greatly daring, eyeing him in turn.
He laughed and slid in beside her. She liked the look of his long brown hands on the wheel. She liked his clean, strong profile, the arrogant way he carried his head, the dark hair. She stole bemused glances at him as he swung the car dexterously along Mdina’s narrow alleys, passed beneath the archway and over the drawbridge, negotiated the clamorous square with its panting red buses, donkeys, hawkers and loungers and turned off onto the coastward road at the bottom of the hill.
“What a wonderful day,” she exclaimed spontaneously as the sea came into view. The water was blue green and very clear. It rippled gently and seemed to stretch to endless distances. A tiny breeze fluttered the marigolds and poppies that grew thicker than ever alongside the road and in the flat, stony fields. The crushed almond scent of oleanders filled the car whenever they passed a clump of them, rose flowered or white.
“Heaven,” Chloe said, sniffing through the open window.
“What? We’re taking the coast road so I can let the car out a bit. I hope you don’t mind speed.”
“Love it!” The sun dazzled on the sea and she screwed up her eyes.
What a pleasant, easy person she is, he said to himself. She enjoys everything, she isn’t temperamental, she’s interested and appreciative. And as clean and fresh as a spring morning. She made him feel lighthearted in an unaccustomed way. I ought to do this sort of thing oftener, he thought.
“This is St. Paul,” he told her, and pointed out the figure of the apostle, perched up on the island that was his undoing. She didn’t tell him she’d already been there with Robert. Instead she commented happily on the painted fishing boats rocking in the bay, the villagers sunning themselves at open doorways, the charm of the little harbor, the comic figure of a stout priest walking under an open parasol.
“And old aunt of mine lives here,” Dominic said. “She grows the best roses on the island. There—that big pink house behind those tall trees. Aunt Rosa-Maria. I used to be terrified of her when I was a boy. She has a mustache.”
Chloe’s happy young laughter rang out.
She wanted to ask him more about when he was a boy, but he put on speed as they left the village behind. The road became very wide, with an excellent surface. The needle crept up to fifty, sixty, seventy.
She smiled to hear him singing under his breath as they swooped around the wide curves. She thought, I love you, I love you, I love you. She felt like singing, too.
Close in, the sea was streaked with gorgeous jewel colors, jade, amethyst, sapphire. Here and there fishermen hopefully cast their lines into it. Goats, grazing on the flowery verges, lifted their demon heads to stare with startled yellow eyes as the car zoomed past.
At St. Julien they slowed to a more decorous pace. Here there were English children, Maltese nannies, dogs. On the Sliema seafront the traffic thickened, they shared the road with gleaming cars, buses, cyclists, donkey carts.
Chloe looked up at the windows of the Soameses’ apartment, at her own room—but without real regret, though she’d loved being there. She didn’t want to be anywhere else but where she was, this minute...
“Valetta now,” Dominic said. “The Grand Palace first. After that we’ll see.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Kingsway was packed as always. The sidewalks overflowed with Maltese who had nothing to do, it seemed, but stroll and argue heatedly with each other—politics, was the number one topic, Dominic said. Shoppers bargained keenly in doorways, patrons crowded the open-air cafes, a brass band and half a dozen radios, turned up loud, added to the steady clamor of voices.
Evidently a festa was imminent, for benevolent saintly images were being hoisted into position against lamp posts, lavish bunting fluttered overh
ead and draped the stately buildings, electric light bulbs outlined balconies, gables and pediments. An occasional premature rocket exploded overhead with shattering effect.
The side streets that slipped down from Kingsway to the sea, so steeply they broke now and then into a scamper of steps, were similarly decorated and nearly as crowded.
“What is it all about?” Chloe asked. She almost had to shout to be heard.
He shrugged indifferently. “Some saint’s day tomorrow,” he shouted back, and she remembered that his family was not Catholic.
The car threaded neatly through the traffic and came to rest among the dozens of cars parked in the square between the Royal Library and the Palace.
Sentries of the guard paced back and forth, slapping their rifle butts, high stepping on the turn, rigid with nervousness or importance. One of them so far forgot himself as to wink at Chloe as he did his goose step. She smiled back. He was young and nice-looking and must be excruciatingly bored, tied to his beat on a morning of such sunshine and fun.
She delighted in the Grand Palace. Such a plain-looking building outside, but so full of treasures. Acres of gorgeous Gobelin tapestries, brocade hangings, frescoes, splendid dark portraits of former Grand Masters and dozens and dozens of suits of armor of different designs, all standing around realistically among innumerable weapons.
“But they’re so small,” Chloe exclaimed, meaning the suits of armor. “Were the men really as short as that in the age of chivalry? I mean, you would never get into one those.”
“Those are what they got into—and fought in.”
“Another illusion shattered,” she said sadly. “I imagined all the knights gloriously big and broad and handsome.”
He showed her the elaborate gold inlay on some of the suits.
“Dandy little men, too,” he said.
Going down the graceful curving staircase to the street again, he showed her how the steps had been made especially shallow so that the knights in their pondrous metal equipment could more easily mount them. The little detail seemed to bring it all alive for her. He’s wonderful to be with, she thought. She could hardly reconcile this Dominic with the one on the plane who had said so implacably, “I make it a rule never to have a woman on a dig,” and who had snubbed her so unmercifully during that lunch at the club.
Does he really like me better now? she asked herself. Or does he merely feel under an obligation, and is he repaying it the best way he can?
She didn’t know, didn’t even care. She let him take her arm and lead her back to the car in the blinding sunlight of the square.
“It is a wonderful day,” he said. “What if we leave the Cathedral and the Auberges for some other time?”
She nodded happily. She was content to do whatever he suggested. He threaded through the traffic again and swung out of the tunnel beneath the ramparts.
“Right. First of all we’ll make for the other coast and eat our lunch on the clifftop. I know rather a good spot.”
He drove for a while after that in silence. He broke it to say, “Did you notice how much better my mother is already?”
She nodded soberly. The question brought back to her all the falsity of their relationship.
“Yes. I did.
“You’re not—worried about things?”
She hesitated, then decided to tell the truth.
“I am, rather.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like lies ... deception—”
“Not when you know they are for someone’s ultimate good, and immediate happiness?”
“Y-yes, but...”
He waited, slowing down a little but not looking at her. With an effort she went on. “I get scared, Dominic. What if one of us made a slip, and she found out the truth? Wouldn’t that set her back again—undo all the good...?”
“We mustn’t.”
“No. But we could so easily.”
“We won’t,” he told her with calm confidence.
“I do hope not.”
She spoke so doubtfully that he exclaimed, “Chloe! You’re regretting your promise?”
She shook her head. “Not really. That is, as long as you believe it’s all right to—to fool her.”
He turned his head. For a fleeting moment his level glance held hers.
“I believe it’s right for her. The doctor agrees. He’s known for a long time how she was worrying over my failure to marry. It seemed to prey on her mind. It certainly aggravated her condition. After this recent attack he warned me to do something to set her mind at rest. He told me time was short—it could only be a palliative. But you can see how it’s worked. She’s a different woman.”
“I know, Dominic. I can see a great change for the better.”
He put his left hand over hers.
“Then don’t worry. We’re justified by her happiness. And I take full responsibility. You can leave all the worrying to me.”
She made herself smile and say cheerfully, “All right. I’ll try not to worry. I expect I was being a bit morbid. I promise I’ll do everything I can to make things go well.”
He fell in with her altered mood with obvious relief. She thought with rueful amusement that he wasn’t the kind of man to suffer female emotionalism gladly.
Soon they came in sight of the sea again. What little breeze there had been had died down, and left the water as smooth as glass. It broke in the lightest of lacy foam on the apricot cream ledges of rock.
They had long ago left the highway for a dirt road, dusty and rather stony. Now they turned off this onto a rough cart track along the top of the cliffs. Presently Dominic pulled over and switched off the engine.
“Out you get. This is the place.”
There was a clump of fig trees, a stretch of dry, close-cropped turf. Far below the sea lapped, a wonderful pale green, infinitely inviting.
Dominic brought the picnic basket and opened it.
Lotta had halved and grilled a young chicken, and there was a crisp green salad, dewy and cool. French dressing to go with it, crisp crusty rolls. Fruit, too, a bottle of white wine, ice cubes in a wide-necked Thermos to chill it, another Thermos of black coffee.
Chloe enjoyed setting out the plates, glasses, cutlery and napkins on the linen tablecloth Lotta had included. She took the food out of its containers and set it out, too.
“Hungry?” she asked, when all was ready.
“Starving. Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Scrumptious, as Mark would say.”
He twirled the wine bottle in the ice, opened it and poured some into their glasses.
“Try that,” he said. “Nice?”
“Lovely.” But everything was lovely on this, lovely, lovely day.
They ate half sitting, half lying on the close turf, with the sun beating down on them, drawing out from somewhere near them a hot, aromatic fragrance of wild thyme, and glittering on the sea.
“This glorious sun,” Chloe said, reveling in it. “At home it’s been frost and fog and frost and fog all winter. I feel I can’t soak up enough of this heavenly warmth.”
“You’re getting a tan. They’ll envy you at home when you go back.”
“Yes.” Why did he say that, remind her that this was purely temporary? Her spirits sank.
He lit a cigarette for her and another for himself.
He said suddenly, with the air of one who has just made a discovery, “You’re a nice person to be with, Chloe.”
Her spirits rose again, volatile.
“So are you, Dominic.”
He looked surprised and rather pleased.
“Bit of a martinet.”
“Only sometimes.”
They laughed with mutual pleasure in each other. He leaned back on his elbows, relaxed, at ease.
She was vividly aware of him beside her, not looking at her, watching the gently breathing sea with his eyes narrowed under their dark brows against the brilliant light.
Her look, an unconscious caress, lingered on hi
s face. He didn’t notice. He seemed lost in some dream. The smoke from his cigarette curled delicately upward in the still air.
When it was finished he stubbed out the butt and jumped to his feet, stretching himself.
“I’ll fall asleep if we don’t move. Ready?”
She got up, too, and smoothed her dress down.
“Where next?”
“To look at the dig from the sea. And explore those caves underneath.”
“Fun,” she said.
“I’ve got a theory. Like to try it out?”
Anything you say, my love, she thought. Suddenly she began to feel excited, as if she were on the brink of something tremendous. The feeling persisted as they packed and carried the things back to the car. Sunlight dazzled from its roof, and the metal was hot to the touch. They stowed everything and drove on along the cliff top till they came to a small village.
It was just a cluster of flat-topped, white washed cottages, a derelict-looking store, a few men and women and several children and some animals.
There were fishing nets and lobster pots strewn around a small quay, and a dock. Three of four of the usual gaily painted boats with eyes on their prows were drawn up on the quay.
The villagers seemed to know Dominic. The children crowded around, staring at Chloe, while he went and chatted with two men who were languidly mending nets. They began dragging one of the boats into the water.
“Come on,” he called, and she joined him on the dock. One of the men held on the boat and put out a brown, rather dirty hand to help her in. She stepped down neatly and sat in the stern.
Dominic went over to the car and came back with a big flashlight and a pair of binoculars. He sat down beside her and pointed along the coast to their right.
“That way, Pauli,” he said.
Pauli rowed easily, standing up facing the bows. The water chuckled delightfully as he drove his boat strongly through it.
“Blue grotto,” he said presently, airing his mite of English for Chloe’s benefit and turning around to flash his enviable teeth at her.
“Not now. Dawn’s the time for that. Tourist stuff—but I’ll show you it some time if you like,” Dominic said, and waved Pauli on.
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