It all made no sense to Greer. It also made for a pain she could not have credited, and, proudly, certainly did not intend to permit. Holding up her head, and it was difficult, for the events of the day had given her a throbbing migraine, she went to her room. She refused tea when it was brought to her, thinking wryly that had it been brought on the Senhor's orders the Senhor himself would have been on her threshhold at once demanding that she partake. Seeing that she did. But he was lying in his bed, still unconscious for all she knew, and Holly was watching him.
A second tap on the door, and Greer's choked, and the choke angered her, 'No, I told you before, I don't want anything,' was followed by a further tap and Doctor Terry's voice.
`It's me, Greer.'
`Yes?' She was on her feet at once, anxiety cracking her voice now instead of the choke thickening it. 'Yes? Is it Vasco?'
`Still not with us. Though I'm not concerned, at least not overly concerned. But I would be obliged if you would give our nurse a break.'
`Nurse? But I thought that Holly—'
`Nurse Holly,' he said easily He smiled. `Do you think you can take over while she snatches a rest?'
`Of course. Make Holly go to bed. She can't stand all this. I'll sit overnight.' Greer hoped Terry did not hear
the eager note she could not keep out of her voice.
`No,' said Terry easily but firmly, 'just an hour or so would do. Holly particularly wants the night shift, and I think so, too.'
`You think so—' Greer looked at him blankly. She wanted to say, `But you fool, Terry, if you care about Holly, and that scene on the verandah as I came back this evening certainly looked as though you cared, surely you wouldn't direct such a thing.'
But he had directed it, and a doctor's directions were orders, orders to be complied with, whether you agreed with them, or not.
`Very well,' said Greer, and followed Terry to Vasco's room.
Holly got up as they entered, smiled at Greer, said something that sounded professional to Terry, to which, surprisingly, or surprisingly, anyway, to Greer, the doctor nodded with all seriousness, then Holly went out.
Greer was still puzzling over it half an hour later, and getting no nearer a solution, when she noticed that Vasco was slowly ... very slowly ... surfacing again. She would have liked to have managed herself, but her good sense prompted her to alert the doctor, and he came in at once .. bringing Holly.
`Recovery will-probably be ushered in by a vomiting attack,' he said briskly, and Holly nodded calmly, then took over.
Out in the passage again, Greer was aware that her fingernails were biting into her palms. She felt a hot prick of tears, a dryness in her mouth.
This time she did not walk proudly, she ran to her
room.
She was not called upon that night, though hadn't the doctor said this? He had said, 'Holly wants the night shift, and I think so, too.'
The sensible thing would have been to accept it, have rested as much as she could so as to be fresh when she was needed, but Greer and common sense all at once were
worlds apart. She, the responsible member of the family, the watch-girl, no longer weighed up pros and cons, made rational decisions, instead she lay wide-eyed throughout the entire night, letting processions of disturbing thoughts pass through her mind, with the result that when Terry tapped on the door the next morning to ask her to relieve Holly, by appearances Greer knew that she looked the night shift nurse, not her stepsister.
Indeed, Holly looked radiant. In all her life Greer had never seen her more radiant. Sitting by the sick bedside, Greer was relieved that the Senhor, now completely out of his concussion, the doctor had told her, at least slept. Those sharp dark eyes even in the less than alertness following the injury would have noticed her own shadowed eyes, the white line around her mouth.
But after she had sat by him for a while a peace came to Greer. She looked down on the handsome, if arrogant, features, and accepted something that she knew she must never admit, but something, too, that for a stilly moment she could admit, just to herself.
She loved this man.
Soon afterwards he opened his eyes, saw her and smiled. Except that she knew now that such a smile was for someone else, Greer could not have put that smile down, as she did, to Vasco's waking confusion.
She sponged his brow, put a cushion at his back, and by that he must have recovered his full senses, for he said quite awarely, 'So it is Greer now who watches me.'
`Yes. The watch-woman, remember?'
`I do not care to do much remembering just now,' he grimaced.
`Your head aches?'
`I feel it will if I try to think.
`Then don't think. Would you like some tea?'
He said that he would, so she went out to get it, but when she came back, he dozed again, and the tea grew cold as she sat watching him.
It was Holly, back to take her turn, who had his full attention. Vasco was properly awake by then, and as Greer left she heard the patient and nurse ... Nurse Holly, as the doctor had said ... making happy exchanges as Holly propped him up to eat.
Feeling an abysmal failure, Greer sought out the little boys, who were taking lessons in one of the verandah alcoves. She sat behind them, ostensibly to 'observe', but really hearing nothing except those happy exchanges.
The children were doing some bookwork, their little dark heads were bent over the page. Not bent enthusiastically, that was apparent from the lukewarm flicking over when a leaf was done, the wistful glances outdoors. For some reason Greer found herself thinking of another little boy who was very different from these two. His mother ... foster-mother ... had said: 'He does not always want to play.'
Jim was absorbed, too, and though he flashed Greer a welcoming smile he did not stop what he was doing, and that was examine closely a written page. He read it several times, and it was only natural that Greer's glance dropped casually to the thing that so absorbed him. She could not see what was written, but she certainly knew Holly's writing as contrasted to the childish efforts of Chandra and Subhas; Holly's writing!
She sat on a while, but not 'observing' now, not even thinking in the strain that was required of her, thinking instead: What is this with Holly? Who is this? — Jim? Terry? ... Vasco?
She got restlessly up at last and went into the garden.
Gladly, by now, she would have stepped out of the watching of Vasco Martinez altogether, left it to others, so that when Terry found her some time later and said she would not be needed in the sickroom that afternoon as it had been decided to take Vasco into Senho, which was the nearest village with medical facilities for an X-ray, she was relieved.
Relieved, anyway, until Terry finished, 'Holly will
come with us.'
Greer nodded, not trusting herself to speak. But after they had gone, she lost her irrational resentment . . . it must be irrational, she told herself, I must make it so ... in her concern for the Senhor. That concussion had lasted longer than it should. Had there been a damage? Was Vasco—
It seemed the longest afternoon she had ever put in. She took the children swimming. She took them walking. She filled in every minute with something, but still the time dragged.
Then at last the car was returning. Holly ... even more radiant if possible . . . was calling, `All's well,' and Terry was repeating the good news.
The Senhor was smiling at Greer, the same deep smile that she could have mistaken this morning had she not known better, so again Greer turned away, found something to do.
She could not be busy endlessly, though, and the Senhor remarked rather drily on this when he beckoned her over the next morning to sit beside him on the patio. Doctor Terry had advised several days of rest.
`So much coming and going,' he commented, 'such a busy bee. But all work and no play makes an unbright person. Right?'
`Dull,' she corrected.
`If it were not that you are the watch-woman and that a watch-woman must watch, I would say you are avoiding m
e.' He laughed ... but there was an inquiring note in the laughter.
She made herself laugh back. 'I'm here now, aren't I?'
`Yes, Senhorita Greer, you are here.' He tapped the tapered tips of his strong olive hands together for a minute or so, all the time directing his dark gaze at Greer. She tried to gaze carelessly back, but, to her annoyance, felt a flush rising, and turned her glance away.
`I wonder how the squirrel fared,' she said a little breathlessly.
`Do you, senhorita?' he asked deliberately. 'Are you wondering that?'
Another minute of fingertip tapping, then, 'You are not happy. What is it? I am quite well again.'
`You are imagining things, senhor. I am my usual self. And even if I wasn't, it wouldn't be because ... I mean . .
`You mean it would not be because of me.' He smiled thinly. 'Very well then, you are happy.'
`I said my usual self,' she corrected.
`I do not believe your present state is your usual state,' he argued. 'I will concede that perhaps I should not have used happy, because I do not believe you have been really happy yet in your young life, cheerful, yes, bright, assuredly, but not deeply happy.' He took out his cheroots. 'I believe, Senhorita Greer, that that source in you has yet to be tapped.'
From the radiance in Holly her source of joy has been tapped, thought Greer, but she did not speak her thoughts.
He must have sensed that she was thinking of her sister, though, for he said, 'That pequena, that little one, has told you?'
`Holly?'
`Yes.'
`Told me what?'
`Then you do not know,' he smiled. 'Well, undoubtedly it is her privilege to keep it all secret until she is ready to tell. But I did think you might guess.'
'Oh, I have guessed.' Greer hoped she succeeded in keeping a bitter note out of her voice. Yes, I have guessed, she thought, but I have not arrived at which of the three. The doctor. The tutor. Senhor Vasco Martinez.
`Of course,' he agreed blandly. 'Why otherwise would she have tended me so carefully in my indisposition?'
It was too much. Greer went to rise. Then she saw that the Senhor was quite unaware of saying anything that could wound, so she steeled herself and sat back again.
She was thankful that his next words were impersonal. He asked how she and Holly had found the Stuyva countryside, and from there they went on to crops, comparing them to Australia's crops, and next to Portugal's.
He spoke so fluently of his country that she remarked rather in surprise upon that fact.
`Why not?' he smiled. 'Here is only my second home.'
But he was part of India, so much so she had imagined he had only spent his boyhood days in Portugal, perhaps afterwards a vacation upon occasion.
`Oh, no.' Another smile 'I always go back and forth. I have this exporting business that my father and his father and several fathers again had before. It is a very old firm.'
`But although Portuguese you would be born in India?'
`No,' he said, 'the children are always born in Portugal.' He did not look at her but at the end of his cheroot, but Greer felt he was looking at her. It was such a strong feeling she cast around a little desperately for a reason for that intense feeling. The reason came to her. Holly, of course. He was intimating that her sister also would be going back to Portugal one day.
He broke into her thoughts with a description of his home village that she should have welcomed for Holly, but the white pots of red geranium in the courtyard of his villa that he spoke about, the gentle pastures beyond the villa so different from this intense Indian soil, the cork forests, the groves of tangerine, tore instead at her heart.
`Senhorita Greer,' she heard him say, 'you are unhappy. No, I will not have it that this is usual, something is not right with you. Can you tell me, please?'
`Oh, no.' No, he was the last person she could tell. Realizing she must sound rude, she said hastily, 'I'm not unhappy; I'm sorry I gave you that impression.'
`Why did you not go to Bwali?' he asked unexpectedly, and Greer knew that this time she could not answer that ! it was because the lilies were not yet out.
While she cast around for something to say, he spared her yet another subterfuge.
`Always Yaqub used to take his cares to Bwali,' he mused. 'I think we must do that.'
`I am the one who is supposed to have the cares, senhor.'
`Then I will take you, for unless I do so it seems you will not go yourself.' He was looking at her now, his dark eyes probing, trying to extract.
She did not argue with him. She was aware of a sudden immense lightness in her. At last she was going to the Pool. Pool of the Pink Lilies. Going with the Senhor. She trembled with an almost unbearable sweetness.
`You heard me, Greer?' he said softly. She could not remember him calling her that before – Senhorita Greer, yes, but never just her name.
`Greer?' he repeated.
`Yes, I heard you, senhor.'
`Vasco, please.'
`Vasco.'
`And we are going?'
`Yes.'
He laid down the cheroot and again tapped the tapered fingertips together. 'The Pool of the Pink Lilies,' he said.
But they didn't go.
Doctor Terry stopped Greer in the passage the next morning.
`Vasco said something about taking you to the old shrine. Put him off, please, Greer.'
`He's not well enough?' she said quickly.
`Perfectly well, but— To be frank, a distasteful thing has cropped up. I'm keeping it from him for a while. You know what he is, or you should know by now, no half-measures for Vasco in anything, be it approval, disap-
proval, love, rage, the rest.'
I certainly don't know love, she felt like answering, but she stood waiting for Terry to go on.
`He would pack up at once, race down.'
`To where?'
`The Bombay house.'
`Has something happened there?'
`Thieves,' Terry said. 'At least that's the gardener's re· port.'
`What have they taken?'
`Nothing, he says, or if they have then very little. But of course, he would not know what Vasco considers valuable.'
`Then shouldn't Senhor Martinez be told?'
`Eventually, certainly. But the thing's done, isn't it?' `Yes,' she agreed, 'but if you don't intend telling him
why are you asking me to put him off tomorrow?'
`More news might come that leaves me no alternative
than to break the theft to him at once. I'd just like him to
be around.'
`Very well then,' she said, 'I'll tell him I can't go.'
She told him that night. She stood on the patio with the others, but when they turned back to fix a rubber of bridge in which the Senhor declined to join, she declined, too. He seemed pleased, she thought . . . but the look of pleasure was wiped out in a minute.
`You said you wanted to go.'
`No, Senhor Martinez, I said I would.'
`Perhaps you did, but your voice spoke more than that; your eyes did.'
`I'm sorry if you saw something that wasn't there.'
`I could make an order of it. You are after all in my employ. I could make it a day's duty.'
`I still wouldn't go.'
`I could force you.' His face was almost white with anger. At once he added coldly, 'But I won't. Don't be concerned. It is not something to be forced on anyone. Not Bwali.' He paused a moment, then he bowed.
`Good evening, Senhorita Greer.' He left her standing at the rail.
He sat around the next day. Greer had thought he might take Holly to the shrine, the boys, make a community party of it. He did not.
Terry told her that no further news had come from the Bombay gardener, in which event, even though Vasco would be angry later, he would keep the theft from him for several more days.
`He received quite an impact when he bumped,' Terry said, 'I would have no hesitation in telling an ordinary man about the repor
t, but Vasco is not an ordinary man, he would start unturning stones at once, whether fit or not. Sorry to have kept you from that Bwali visit, Greer, but I didn't know what the news would be. Perhaps you could go tomorrow.'
`No,' Greer said, 'we won't go tomorrow.'
As she said it she did not think that she would be miles away from Bwali tomorrow, that the retinue of cars would be speeding back to Bombay.
It was not any further communication from the gardener that did it, it was a small memo book.
The proprietor of the village coffee shop had driven from town to bow politely and put it in the sahib's hand. He should have put it in the memsahib's, for the memsahib had left it behind, but the young lady was only an employee of the Portuguese gentleman. All the village knew of the importance ... and riches ... of the Portuguese Senhor.
`It was left, sahib, in my humble shop. The young memsahib. That memsahib.' The man bowed at Greer.
Duly rewarded, he bowed again, and went off smilingly, congratulating himself that he had not called too loudly that day, run too hard, after the memsahib's car.
Greer said, 'Is that where it was? I didn't have any occasion to think about it until yesterday. I'm sorry that you have been put to expense, Senhor Martinez. You must allow me to repay you for that reward.'
`It is nothing.' The Senhor made a dismissive gesture with his slim olive hand. The quick movement spun the book over. It opened at a page and remained open.
It was tea-time. All the household were on the patio to partake of tea and at the same time watch the boys feed Pequeno.
The Senhor leaned politely forward to take up the book to return it to its owner . . . then he stiffened and left the book, opened, where it was.
Greer was still unconcerned. There was nothing secret in the book. Only addresses. Only notes and reminders.
Reminders . . . Suddenly she was remembering a reminder she had jotted down to write to Arlene to tell her the new domestic arrangements at the Bombay house. Later she had done just that, posting the letter afterwards at Stuyva.
The Pool of Pink Lilies Page 16