Bride in Waiting

by Susan Barrie

  But to the Don she also owed the feeling that she was nothing more than a nuisance, an unexpected demand on his well-trained better instincts. Not even

  an attractive young woman he would condescend to know if he had met her under another set of circumstances that made no appeal to his chivalry.

  The next morning he telephoned about eleven o’clock and said that he would be lunching at her hotel, and that he expected her to have lunch with him. At one o’clock—an early hour for lunch in Madrid, and she realized that this was a special concession to her English habits—he arrived, and she went down into the vestibule to meet him.

  She had taken a great deal of pains over her appearance, and she could hardly have looked more charming. Her frock was crisp and white and her hair swung softly on her shoulders. She looked, with her fair skin, as if she ought to smell sweetly of lavender water, and, as a matter of fact, she did.

  Her hand, when she offered it to him, was slim and cool, with delicate, pearly nails. There was nothing of the ultra-modern young Englishwoman about her, and certainly none of the American slickness that Venetia Cortez had tried to impress her with.

  “Buenos dias, señorita,” Don Carlos said smoothly. He eyed her for a moment critically. “You slept well?”

  “Very well, senor,” she answered at once. She added with a slight smile, “I could hardly have done anything else. The bed was so superbly comfortable.”

  He made no reply, but once more took her arm —and she had no doubt this was his habit when escorting women—and led her towards a kind of cool patio effect in the very centre of the hotel. Here, in an atmosphere of potted plants and trailing vines, they sipped a pre-lunch aperitif apiece. The Don was immaculately dressed, as on the day before, and he hitched his trousers carefully to avoid marring the crease as he sat down, and she was quite fascinated by the pristine whiteness of his linen, and the lean brown strength of his wrists as they emerged from his shirt cuffs.

  “Tell me .about yourself, Miss Day,” he requested. “You have parents in England?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. My father died last year, and I hardly remember my mother.”

  “Is that so?” he murmured, his eyes on her reflectively ... and not once had she seen a glimmer of admiration in them when they rested on her. “And your father followed some sort of a profession?”

  “He was a clergyman,” she replied, realizing he was trying to get at her status.

  “So!” He lighted one of his long, thin Spanish cigarettes, and studied the tip of it when it was alight. “In what part of England did you live?”

  “We lived in Devon,” she told him. An expression of wistfulness crossed her face. “It seems a long time ago now. So much has happened in a short time ... only a few months! Now I no longer have a home, and my father is dead. It’s quite possible I shall never go back to the West Country.”

  His eyes lifted swiftly to her face.

  “And that troubles you? The thought that you may never go back to where you feel you belong? But the world is wide, and you have much to see. You are too young to vegetate ... to rusticate in an English country parish. Your father’s death opened a door for you, in the sense that you have already seen Spain, and might I inquire whether or not you have found yourself drawn to this country?”

  She thought of the heat and the dust over the past few weeks, the burning cauldron that was Madrid. And then she thought of the starry nights, the heady scent of the flowers, the charm and politeness of ordinary Spanish people. She thought of the beautiful manners of the upper classes—men such as this man she was talking to now!—their dignity, their preoccupation with the sober side of life. Or so it had struck her. Even in the midst of their pleasures they found time to dwell upon death. They flirted with death in the bull-ring, and they looked on it as a spectacle. In the dark depths of most of their eyes there were slumbering fires, and these meant they were quick to change their mood. Their other preoccupation was love ... One felt that they would make wonderful lovers.

  Although not, perhaps, Don Carlos. April could not imagine him thawing out at all. And as for the rest of Spain—the plains and the mountains and the brilliant coasts, the towns and the villages, the ferias and the Holy Weeks and the corridas, far beyond the stony suburbs of Madrid—she knew nothing at all about it. Her brief experience had been of Madrid only.

  But even so she found herself slowly agreeing that she was drawn to Spain.

  “I’m sorry I’ve got to go home before I’ve had a chance to see more of it.”

  “Yes,” Don Carlos conceded, “that is a pity.”

  A woman passed them on her way to the restaurant, and behind her was another younger woman. Both paused for an instant and bowed as Don Carlos stood up with great agility and bowed ceremoniously in return. The older woman curved her lips a little coolly in the merest semblance of a smile, the younger was too shy to raise her eyes.

  Don Carlos stood for rather a long moment beside his chair after they had passed, and although April followed the progress of the two members of her sex who were so expensively and exquisitely dressed that she felt a quick pang of envy until they had left the patio behind them, she was aware of the way he frowned when he at last resumed his seat.

  He said as if he was speaking with sudden difficulty:

  “Shall we go into lunch now? It is a little public here, and we shall have more privacy in the restaurant. I have ordered a table to be reserved for me in a corner. Besides, I have something to say to you that will be better said if unlikely to be interrupted.”

  Mystified, and a little uneasy—even a little apprehensive—April followed him into the restaurant. Their table was partially concealed by an enormous column that soared upwards to the ceiling, and in addition at the base of the column, there was a cascade of flowers and greenery which screened them from curious eyes. Don Carlos ordered quickly and briefly after consulting the menu, and asking April’s permission to order for her, and she gathered from his expression once the waiter had departed that, whatever it was he had to say, he was determined to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  “Miss Day,” he began, after she had taken a nervous sip of the wine that had been poured into her glass, “you do realize that yours is a somewhat unusual position?”

  She stared at him.

  “You mean...? You mean that you haven’t yet heard anything of Senor Cortez?”

  “Forget Senor Cortez,” he answered in a clipped Voice. “So far as I know he is now in Brazil, and in any case, the flat is still empty. I paid a special visit to it this morning. But the repercussions of Senor and Senora Cortez’ most unusual behaviour are likely to be grim for you. A little—awkward—to say the least!”

  She continued to stare, and then she flushed.

  “You mean that I am not likely to get my ... the money that is owing to me?”

  He waved an impatient hand, and she had the feeling that he was actually consumed with impatience.

  “My dear Miss Day, I said forget Senor Cortez, and I also meant forget the money he owes you. Money is a small point beside the position you are now in. Yesterday afternoon I realized that the consequences of what had happened could be grave. And after a night devoted to pondering your problem I realize that there is only one answer. You were seen leaving the Cortez flat in my company, and the porter was well aware that the flat was empty. There was no one inside it who could possibly chaperone you. You arrive here with a suitcase—again in my company!—and at least two of my closest friends have observed us, to say nothing of the manager and a fair number of casual acquaintances.”

  April began to look completely bewildered, and then, all at once, she thought she saw what he was driving at. Her face turned scarlet.

  “But, Don Carlos,” she protested, “aren’t you making a mountain out of a very small molehill? I mean...”

  “Whether you and I mean the same thing it doesn’t alter the outcome,” he answered, with grim precision. “In this c
ountry there are accepted codes of behaviour, and even in England a young woman still values her reputation, or so I believe.” He sounded a little dry, however, as if he was not actually convinced of anything of the sort. “You are a simple young woman who came to this country to take up employment, and having been abandoned you turned to me.” He held up that aristocratic hand of his to silence her as she would have burst forth into indignant protests. “There was nothing else you could do, short of becoming involved with the Consulate, and so you tamed to me! I was only too happy to be of assistance, but too late I have recognized the dangers in which I have placed you. If you are to retain your good name, and I am to look my friends in the face, you must accept much more than assistance of me. You must accept me as a husband!”

  “What!” she gasped.

  “I must propose to you formally, and you must accept me. You have no alternative. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife, Miss Day? Will you allow me to announce our betrothal?”

  “You must be mad!” she gasped this time.

  For the first time she saw a look of humour invade his eyes. It was, even, much more than humour. It was brief enjoyment of a situation.

  “This is the very first time in my life that I have asked a young woman to marry me,” he said. “There have been occasions when I have been somewhat close to it, but never before have the words I have just uttered to you been listened to by any member of your sex. I never imagined that, when the time came when I decided I must take a wife, my proposal would evoke the response that I must be mad!”

  “But you are,” she reiterated, the brilliant colour not merely dying her cheeks but staining her neck as well. She clutched agitatedly at the stem of her wine “There is absolutely no reason why you should do anything so fantastic as ask me to marry you! You’ve done nothing at all to compromise me, and if your friends believe you have they must be ...”

  She was going to say “mad” again, but he forestalled her.

  “They are my friends,” he said quietly. “We will leave it at that.”

  “But you can’t possibly want to marry me! You know nothing about me!”

  “It would seem,” he observed, as he cracked a walnut from a dish in front of him between a long finger and thumb, “that I have a lifetime ahead of me to remedy that. I have no doubt there are many interesting discoveries I have to make, and that goes for you too, my dear Miss Day, so please don’t say you know nothing about me! The future will take care of our lack of knowledge of one another. Will you marry me? I fear you have no alternative.”

  She felt a sudden nervous desire to giggle. It was so absurd, he addressed her as “My dear Miss Day,” and yet he was suggesting that they get married. Married! How utterly fantastic!

  “If you please, senor,” she said; repressing the hysterical uprush of amusement with difficulty, “I’m finding it difficult to take you seriously, and yet if you’re serious, I—I realize that I ought to be overwhelmed ...”

  “Why?” he demanded coolly.

  She made a gesture with her hands.

  “You wouldn’t, normally, ask anyone like—like me—to marry you...”

  His eyebrows ascended.

  “Indeed? And is that so? And yet why should I not ask someone like you to marry me? You are very pleasing to look at—infinitely pleasing, I’m sure most men would agree,” with no sign of pleasure in his expression as he uttered the words, however, “and from the little you have told me of yourself your background is not entirely alien to mine. You are a gentlewoman.” The word sounded so odd and formal that for the first time it really penetrated to her understanding that he would not have touched her with a ten-foot pole—as a maid in a house where she had once worked had been in the habit of picturesquely observing—if she had not been what he described as a “gentlewoman.”

  Not even to save her reputation!

  “How old are you?” he asked suddenly, abruptly.

  “Twenty-four,” she answered.

  He sighed with relief.

  “In that case there is no necessity for me to approach your nearest relative with a request for your hand before announcing our engagement. And the sooner, I think, that we do announce our engagement—”

  “But I haven’t said—”

  He rose with one graceful movement and proceeded to gather up her gloves and handbag for her. He handed them to her, and waited for her to rise.

  “No, you haven’t,” he agreed, “but you can do so tonight, when I take you out to dine. I will call for you about nine o’clock.”

  The hysteria rushed up in her throat again. “Thank you, senor,” she stammered. “T-thank you!”

  “You had better make it Carlos,” he said casually. For the second time the flash of humour leapt into his eyes. “Even in Spain we make use of Christian names when we contemplate becoming betrothed.”

  But for the life of her she couldn’t imagine him calling her April.

  CHAPTER IV

  Madrid is by far the highest capital in Europe, and perhaps because it stands so high, and even in the hottest weather there is the sparkle of the mountains underlying its suffocating heat, the night life of Madrid is feverish and active. It begins with the sipping of cocktails at an hour when other capitals are sitting down to dinner, and goes on in gilded clubs and private houses until the dawn, which comes creeping over the Guadarrama in a blaze of splendour.

  Then, and then only, do the Madrilenos go home to sleep.

  April knew little or nothing of the night life of this exotic capital where she had lived for nine months, but she had assisted many times in the toilet of Senora Cortez when she was going out for the evening, and she was well aware of the standard of elegance a woman who was being escorted out to dinner was expected to attain. But whereas Senora Cortez had only to run her hand along a whole line of dresses and make her choice, April had to make up her mind between an extremely simple black silk and a pale rose-coloured crepe, and neither of them seemed suitable for dining with Don Carlos.

  The rose-coloured crepe was quite lovely, but it was obviously an inexpensive dress, and in it she felt a little foolish when she thought of the evening ahead of her. Rather like the fairy on the Christmas tree, and the women Don Carlos was used to most decidedly had nothing to do with Christmas trees. They were soignee and patrician and beautiful—so many young Spanish girls were almost startlingly beautiful—and, nine times out of ten, they wore black.

  April decided that her only safe bet was to wear the black, and she was looking a little sombre and subdued in it when her room telephone rang to inform her that Don Carlos was awaiting her below. She picked up a lovely black lace mantilla she had bought in a moment of recklessness and draped it round her shoulders, and went down for the second time that day to meet him. She had given little thought to the proposal he had made her at lunch time—having not the smallest intention of marrying him, however badly he imagined he had compromised her (or she had compromised him, she was not quite sure which)—and was for one moment so much affected by his appearance that it temporarily deprived her of the little sangfroid she had left.

  If a man could look beautiful, Don Carlos de Formera y Santos was beautiful in evening dress. He wore a white shell jacket and a black cummerbund, and there was a flesh pink gardenia in his buttonhole. For the first time April really noticed the length of his eyelashes, so thick and black that a woman could have envied them—in fact, they were the only slightly womanish thing about him, for otherwise he was an intensely masculine male—and the clean-cut lines of his shapely mouth. His chin and jaw were strong, but not aggressively so, and he had none of the pallor of so many of his countrymen. His skin was brown and healthy, as if he spent a lot of his time in the open, and courted the sun in other countries apart from his own, and his thick black hair had a fascinating slight wave in it. It was also hair that shone like patent leather.

  The strength of the man was in his eyes, in spite of the fact that they were entirely unrevealing eyes, and so was
the coldness and the hardness. She judged him to be somewhere in his middle thirties, and as a matrimonial catch he must rate high in Madrid ... would rate high wherever he went, for he carried about with him, like a garment, an aura of wealth, assurance, ease and security.

  Security with a capital S!... And he had asked April to marry him! For the first time she felt shaken by the thought.

  “I wish I had thought to send you flowers, senorita,” he said, as he took in the severe black and whiteness of her appearance. For her only colour was in her lips, and her swinging dark hair. He frowned. “A pity I was so remiss. But next time I promise you I will not forget.”

  April followed him out to his car, and uneasily she determined to put an end to this attendance he was dancing on her. It was quite incorrect, as she knew, and there was not the smallest reason why he should waste so much of his time on her. The fact that he had made her a serious proposal only a few hours before still eluded her, and, in any case, one did not accept proposals from men who were utter strangers.

  Don Carlos, however exalted his position, would have to be made to understand that.

  But the strangest evening of her life began with a dinner in a sumptuous Spanish restaurant that overawed and intrigued her to such an extent that she could think of little to say, and the Don was too occupied attempting to induce her to try various unknown dishes, and awaiting her reactions, that the subject of marriage never once cropped up. Afterwards, when she was feeling oddly exhilarated—and quite unusually relaxed—by the wine and the delicious food, he looked at her and suggested that she might like to go on somewhere where they could watch a cabaret, and thinking that this was the moment to assure him that he was not under the slightest obligation to entertain her, or spend more money on her, she opened her lips to say as much, but was prevented by him saying swiftly, and just a little commandingly: