Cap Flamingo

by Violet Winspear

  "It's swell that the place is already furnished," he spoke with a note of relief in his voice. "We didn't want that bother, eh, sweetheart?"

  "No," she agreed quietly, "of course not."

  How could she say that it would have given her an incredible amount of pleasure to shop for their very own furniture? That she would have loved choosing fabrics for their chairs, curtains to hang at the windows of the

  bungalow, crockery to put in the kitchen cupboards ? She had been losing sight of the reason why they had married and now, if she was feeling hurt, it was her own fault.

  Ross contacted the owner of the bungalow by telephone. Yes, they could certainly move in right away. The keys were with an estate agent in Cap Flamingo, to whom they could pay the six months' rent in a lump sum or a month at a time.

  They didn't go straight home to Cap Flamingo, however. Ross had some friends in San Francisco whom he wanted to visit and they spent a weekend in that colourful city. These friends were a Professor Brunhill, a teacher of literature at Ross's college who was now retired, and his sister Clare, who had once been a well-known singer. The Professor and his sister turned out to be delightful people, and Fern learned from Clare Brunhill that Ross had been a favourite student of her brother's at college. She intimated in a quiet way that Ross's father had been more interested in the theatre and his acting career than in his children, then he had been killed out in the Pacific while entertaining the troops, and Ross, later on at college, had turned to the Professor for guidance in lots of matters.

  The Brunhills lived in a charming Spanish-type house high on one of the city's hills. The humming of cable-cars, along with the musical clanging of their bells, could be heard in the Andalusian patio of the house, and Fern could see right across the exciting Golden Bay from her bedroom windows.

  This was her second night with Ross in the Brunhills' home, and she was in the middle of dressing for dinner when Ross came in from the adjoining room. He had nipped the side of his neck with his razor (he hated electric razors and said they didn't remove all his bristles), and he wanted to know if Fern had any adhesive plaster. She cut him a tiny piece and carefully applied it to his cut.

  "Thanks, Nurse," he grinned down at her. His bronze curls lay in damp clusters above his eyes from his shower

  and the strong column of his throat merged into the muscular hardness of his chest with the finished perfection of sculpture. He looked like a Greek god, Fern thought. Seeing a tiny smile touch her hps, he said :

  "Share the joke, Mrs. Kingdom."

  "It's very private." She walked to the long pier-glass, for her room was furnished with rich old Spanish mahogany pieces, and began to dress her hair. Ross came and stood behind her and their eyes met in the glass. She looked small, almost fragile standing in front of his tall figure.

  "Are you happy with me, Fern?" he unexpectedly asked.

  She was putting pins in the French knot into which she had rolled her hair this evening and the wide sleeves of her chiffon negligee fell away in soft clouds from the bare whiteness of her arms. Ross took her by the waist and turned her towards him. Her perfume, 'April Violets,' was gentle and fragile like herself, he thought. "Please answer me," he said. "Our marriage must of necessity be the way it is, but I want to make the situation as easy and pleasant as possible for you."

  "You do, Ross." She spoke gently. "You're kindness itself to me."

  "All the same I think you're nervous about going home to Cap Flamingo. Are you afraid people might still be talking about us?"

  She couldn't deny the presence of this fear within her and he drew her against his chest with abrupt compassion. He held her in silence for a moment, then he said : "I believe the thought of Laraine also worries you." He felt the tremor that ran through her and he gazed over her fair head with sombre eyes. This was the first time they had talked of Laraine since the evening he had proposed to Fern, but they couldn't go on not mentioning her name, and when they returned home they would be bound to see her now and again. "I was being perfectly honest with you, Fern," he went on, "when I told you everything was over between Laraine and myself. It would have been no use picking up where

  we left off ... I can't fully explain, but I do assure you that you haven't the smallest reason to feel you've stepped into shoes intended for another girl."

  With a couple of fingers he tilted Fern's chin and examined her face. "Come on, give me one of those smiles that show your sweet dimple," he coaxed. "It worries me when you look pensive. Why, we'll have people thinking I beat my bride."

  He spoke banteringly now, but anguish mingled with love in her heart for he, too, had a pensive look and she knew it hurt him to turn away so adamantly from Laraine, whom he had always wanted, to turn away, as she had from Ken, because both of them were people to whom material riches were of more importance than the riches of the heart. But those riches were waiting to be poured out from her heart, and though it might be foolish of her to again let wild hope kindle to a flame within her, she felt it flare up, fed by love and a prayer that Ross would eventually ask her to be a real wife to him. Her smile was so flashing, so suddenly light-hearted that Ross caught her mood. He lifted her, whirled her around and told her she was a doll of a wife.

  The Brunhills had invited company that evening and Ross felt a glow of pride" at the admiration his young wife excited in her gown of lilac satin overlaid with frosty lace. A diamond pendant, a recent gift of his, glittered at her throat, and an artist friend of Clare's said that she should be painted as Lorelei, the silver-haired enchantress of mythology. The artist was quite serious. He drew Ross to one side and asked him if he would let Fern sit for him. Ross said he would think about it.

  Now that dinner was over they all drifted out to the patio of the house, where wrought-iron lanterns glowed softly red and green upon the gate-posts of the side door and the balmy evening air was fragrant with the scent of orange trees and flowers. Several wickerwork lounges were set about the patio and here they enjoyed their after-dinner coffee while Clare Brunhill played her

  guitar and sang to them. She still possessed a deep, velvety voice, haunting the patio as she sang September Song. Walt Whitman's beautiful lyric seemed to take on a strange significance here in the night, with the red and green glow of the lamps flitting over the scene like dragonflies.

  Fern was so moved that a tremor ran through her. Ross must have felt it, for he was sharing one of the wickerwork lounges with her. He enfolded her with a warm arm and drew her against his shoulder. "Cold, honey?" he murmured.

  "No, it's the music, that lovely song." She relaxed against him and listened with closed eyes as the last strains of the song throbbed into silence. Ross glanced down at Fern and when she opened her eyes they were curiously dark in comparison to her platinum hair and fixed upon his face. They gleamed as though with unshed tears. Tears, uncertainty, and a strange suggestion of fear.

  The following morning Fern and Ross said goodbye to the kindly Brunhills and caught a train to Los Angeles. They walked out of Union Station to find this part of the country sweltering in a mid-August heatwave. Sun-tanned girls were strolling about in bright Capri pants and sun-tops, while the children looked like moon imps with their hair dyed green from the chlorine-treated swimming-pools.

  Ross had garaged his car in Hollywood before their flight to New York and after they had picked it up they drove to a beachside restaurant where they sat beneath a huge fringed umbrella and ate a salad luncheon accompanied by long iced drinks. Just over an hour later they were in Cap Flamingo and picking up the keys of their new home.

  The bungalow was situated nearer to the town than the Kingdom house and built from Californian timber. The floors were of a pliable cork-composite and the windows were wide, letting in lots of light. In the lounge Fern was pleased to find one of those enormous open fireplaces of rust-coloured brickwork, with seats built

  into nooks at either side of it. Most of the furniture was tubular and modern, which gave her a pang because
that wonderful fireplace, she felt, cried out for nut-brown wood and fabrics in burnt-orange and citron-yellow.

  "D'you like the place, Fern?" Ross asked.

  "Mm ... I particularly like that fireplace."

  "Grand, isn't it! Just right for warming the coat tails in winter." He stood in front of the fireplace, assuming a master-of-the-house stance, and Fern's love of him seemed to take hold of her throat, making her want the, sharp relief of crying it all out. She turned quickly away from him and went off to explore other parts of the bungalow.

  It was built in a curve with its rooms following the line of the curve and there was a garden with a fountain set in a lily pool. A small, compact castle for two, Fern thought, standing beside the pool and listening with a smile to Ross, who was whistling to himself in the lounge and shaking cocktails in a jigger.

  That evening they drove up to his aunt's house. They had bought presents in New York for the family, including Delilah, who greeted them with a wide smile at the door. "My, oh my!" The old negress clutched her present to her bosom like a big pleased child. "Now have you chillen had your dinnah," she wanted to know, " 'cos if you ain't I 'spect Miss Winna would want me to prepare you somethin'?"

  As it happened they had bought groceries at the Farmer's Market in Hollywood and Fern had cooked their dinner. "I'll have you know my wife is a good cook, Lila," Ross said. In actual fact Fern had burnt the potatoes, but Ross's remark was so like that of an indulgent husband who was prepared to champion his wife in all matters that the first edge of her apprehension was blunted and she was able to look fairly serene when they entered the drawing-room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  EDWINA was now convalescent from her peptic ulcer, and it seemed strange to see her sitting in an armchair instead of in that majestic fourposter upstairs. Diana, disillusioned by Fern's real reason for marrying Ross, was a little stiff with both of them at first, but Fern, remembering that the girl loved collecting costume jewellery, had bought her a tulip-wood casket to keep it in. 'See, the casket has a hidden compartment... for love letters," Fern smiled, showing Diana the compartment.

  Fern could sometimes look poignantly wistful when she smiled; her lavender eyes seemed to darken and her dimple just trembled on the verge of showing itself, peeping out like an uncertain sun, then darting back into hiding as though nervous of any clouds that might be lurking about. Diana, confronted by this smile, was lost. She caught Fern in her young arms and gave her one of those exuberant hugs of old. Ross, lighting a cheroot over by the fireplace, shot a smile at his aunt. She had just been telling him that Jenifer had flown to Paris with Laraine, who was to model a selection of American gowns at one of the big fashion fairs. They intended after the fair to remain in Paris for a short holiday. Ross felt relieved by the news, for Fern's sake as much as his own.

  He smoked his cheroot and watched her across the room, showing Diana the snapshots they had taken of the various places they had visited in New York. Diana was delighted by the one of them together in Central Park. They had asked a passer-by to take it. Fern had meant to stand sedately with Ross beside a fountain, but he had scooped her summery figure up in his arms and was holding her over the water as though threatening to drop her in. The passer-by had caught perfectly her laughing protestation, slender kicking legs and Ross's

  devilish grin. Diana came running across the room to Edwina with the snap. Edwina looked at it with a quizzical glint in her eyes, then her glance ran over Fern, and Ross knew exactly what his aunt was thinking. She was speculating on just how close a relationship he had with the beautiful girl who had married him from necessity rather than love ... he saw her nod a little to herself, as though she wasn't displeased by the thought that his marriage might not be altogether the impersonal affair he had intimated it would be. He had known for quite a while that his aunt was fond of Fern and he told himself it would undoubtedly ease the situation if his family believed that he and his young wife were normally married lovers.

  "Did you enjoy yourself in New York, my child?" Edwina enquired of Fern.

  "Yes, Miss Kingdom. It's an exciting place. Then we went to San Francisco, you know, to visit some friends of Ross's, and I enjoyed myself there immensely." Fern came and sat in a fireside chair, flushing a little when her one-time patient reminded her that she must now be addressed as Aunt Winna. "You're a member of the family now, my child." Edwina glanced at her nephew. "You may pour yourself and the girls a glass of sherry," she added.

  He went over to the sideboard, while Fern listened sympathetically to his aunt's grumbles about her diet, which was far more likely to kill her, she said, than half a dozen peptic ulcers.

  Diana was still absorbed in Fern's honeymoon snapshots. She knew that Ross had married Fern to silence a lot of unkind gossip, but being a born romantic she wanted ardently to believe that what had started out as a marriage of convenience had turned into a love match. She didn't really see how it could be otherwise when Fern was such a lovely person, not only to look at but to know.

  "Oh, Ross," she suddenly exclaimed, "I'm crazy about this snap!" He came and glanced over Diana's shoulder and a smile crinkled his eyes. The snap Diana was hold-

  ing had been taken at a basket-ball match. He and Fern had gone behind the scenes to talk to one of the players, a one-time college friend, and they had perched Fern between them on their shoulders, his friend's team cap saucily slanting over one of her eyes while another member of the team aimed the camera.

  "Your legs photograph real nice, honey," he said to Fern.

  She sipped her glass of sherry and felt Edwina's eyes upon her. "His aunt thinks we're lovers!" she thought rather wildly. "Ross wants her to think it... he wants everyone to think it, then Laraine will have to accept defeat once and for all!"

  They ate supper at the house and then began the drive home. It was a wonderful, almost tropical night, with big stars glittering through the spread fronds of the palm trees. Fern breathed the intoxicating air and experienced a sudden desire to drive along beside the ocean. She asked Ross if they could do so and he smilingly agreed that it was certainly a night to be enjoyed rather than slept away. He steered the car on to one of the ocean roads, and in a while Fern broke into a smile. This was the road along which she had been running the night she had met Ross.

  He must have been sharing her thought, for he suddenly spoke of that night. "As my headlamps impaled you, you looked like a silver and lavender moth fleeing from the paws of a cat," he told her.

  "What a very nice turn of phrase you have, Mr. Kingdom!" She lay with her head resting against the leather of her seat and she was watching his profile. "Lionel Leston thinks you should contribute regularly to his book list. Did you know?"

  She was sounding him out, curious to see whether he would divulge his future plans to her. A warm little thrill ran through her when he said that he intended to start on a new book the very next day. "That's wonderful news," Ross !■' she exclaimed. Then she added rather shyly: "I've read your first book. It's splendid. And I had no idea you were such an expert artist." His book

  was rich with lightning, thumbnail sketches, moods of a moment caught and held by his pen. The haunted Alcazar Gardens in Seville with drifting orange leaves in the basin of a fountain and a black-robed woman staring into space and surely looking back upon her memories. A ragged urchin watching a lizard in the dust of a bombed Algerian street. Starlings flocking across Westminster Bridge. Fern loved the book. Loved the man. She hadn't known that love could move through your veins in a molten stream, so that for one frightening moment you felt yourself melting in the stream.

  "Being able to sketch is a handy little talent when you're a travelling journalist," Ross said. "You can't always have a photographer with you and very often a few strokes of a pen can capture the scene or the face which you wish to accompany your story."

  "You love being a journalist, don't you, Ross?"

  "Sure. One gets around. But I find it's also a fascinating business compiling notes f
or a book and then actually getting down to the job of writing it. I—wrote most of my first one in hospital, you know."

  "So your aunt told me."

  He smiled. "You'll have to start calling her Aunt Winna. You heard her say that you are now one of the family."

  One of the family ... for just six months ! Fern turned her head and gazed across the ocean, which lapped the verge of the sands in a sleepy way. "So much water, so much world," she murmured. "It's all rather frightening in a way because we're all so small, so human and vulnerable. All of that goes on for ever, but we—we make our brief entrances, and we're at the mercy of so much in that brief space of time."

  Ross brought the car to a standstill and he listened with her to the lap-lap of the ocean, welcoming the soft breeze that blew against his forehead where an intermittent pain flickered like flame and then sank again. He closed his eyes and what Fern had just said echoed in his mind. So young to be so wise, he thought, and he tried to ignore the sudden onset of one of those

  racking, dizzying, nauseating headaches. "Go away!" he silently prayed. "Please ... go away !"

  Fern, close beside him, suddenly knew that his head was aching. Strange how she was beginning to know when he was in pain. He rarely admitted to a headache unless she questioned him, but she didn't have to question him right now. She put a cool hand against his forehead and stroked his skin, which was a little too warm.

  "Don't ever stop," he murmured, without opening his eyes.

  "Darling," she spoke tentatively, hardly noticing in her concern that she used openly the endearment which, as a rule, she only used in the privacy of her thoughts, "don't you think it would be a good idea for you to have a medical check-up? These headaches could be caused by some sort of post-operative trouble."

  "They aren't, honey." He spoke drowsily, for her stroking hand was making him sleepy. "Axel Wright said I'd get them now and again. They go away."