Dearest enemy

by Kathryn Blair

  For a second she stood transfixed. Then one hand lowered

  and the other hurriedly smoothed the silky tresses.

  "Do not jump like that," said Carlos. "I am not a ghost." How true! A ghost might terrify but it would not touch

  a red-hot needle to her nerves.

  "I was not expecting you, senhor."

  "Carlos," he said without expression. "From now on it must be Carlos. It is more suitable that my cousin should believe that you and your father are my near friends, however you privately repudiate such a friendship. I wish her to have confidence in you, and that cannot be accomplished without some unbending on your part."

  "Your cousin," Fenella echoed foolishly.

  "I have a cable this afternoon. Antonie and her aunt are on their way here, by air. They will land at Lourenco Marques, and I will bring them to Alimane by yacht."

  Fenella listened, while he continued in a flat, inscrutable voice:

  "I will sail tomorrow and arrive back on Monday, probably towards evening It will please me if you and your father will dine with us."

  His complete lack of any sort of emotion teased at Fenella's heated nerves. It was uncanny, and in a way revealing. Why should he take so much trouble, if not to conceal something which went fatally deep?

  Confronted with the imminent advent of Antonie, whom the had not seen for two years, was he at last visualising the Quinta with a mistress, himself with a wife? Was that hidden heart of his stirring to a passionate, expectant warmth—not so much for the woman who was coming but for what she represented?

  With an agonising effort of will, Fenella pulled up. "Your cousin will stay at the Quinta?" she asked. "Naturally. Her rooms are prepared."

  "And what, exactly, do you require of me?"

  "That you will keep your word," he replied evenly. "Antonie will be lonely at first, but I do not wish her to be thrown among too many young friends till she is able to deal with them. She will need a girl companion and I can trust you to help her to be happy, so that she does not pine for Lisbon, and her family."

  "I'll do my best, senhor."

  "Carlos." He made a movement towards the door. "Thank you, senhorita. I look forward to seeing you together—the paradoxical English miss and Antonie, who is Portuguese and in despair when she is not loved. Good night . . . Fenella."

  She managed a "Good night," but his name stuck in her throat. Presently came the sound of his car from some way off, and she remembered that there had been no car outside. Possibly he had parked it on the other side of the mission in order that it should not stand in full view of any neighbours who might be aware that Dr. Harcourt had not yet come home from the native reserve. It was like him to think ahead.

  Fenella switched on a lamp and lit a cigarette with unsteady fingers. Antonie and Carlos. She had better accustom herself to the coupling of their names.

  That weekend was the longest Fenella had ever lived through so far. By Saturday morning the whole town was seething with the news of Antonie's arrival in Mozambique. There were conjectures as to how long it would be before the engagement was made public, and the older people recalled the tales told them by their parents about the old Marquez and his Marqueza, who had also been a de Bordone.

  Senhora Seixas, in her kindly, unprejudiced fashion, revived for Fenella's benefit her own memories of Carlos' father and the Scottish wife he had worshipped.

  "To look at these Pereira men you would not think them capable of such passion and devotion," she said. "But they all have it—almost too much of it. To deserve love of a Pereira is a great deal to expect of a woman. I hope this Antonie de Bordone is selfless and loving."

  On Sunday, Maria offered her titbit: "My father was in Alimane when the senhor set off in his yacht. He was wearing white shorts and a singlet, my father said, and was whistling like a boy."

  Even Austin had to remark: "The entire town is bubbling, Fenella, and all because the senhor is showing himself to be no different from other men."

  But even so dragging and profitless a weekend had to come to an end.

  Antonie de Bordone was unlike any of the women whom Fenella had met in Machada. She was as tall as Fenella and exceedingly slim. The lines of her face were long and regular; her skin was pale, her hair as dark as that of Carlos, its heavy waves dressed high on the crown of her head.

  She seldom smiled, and when she did the sadness still lingered in the dark-brown eyes. Fenella supposed that the fine-drawn, tense look was what Carlos intended, with her assistance, to banish. He had known that Antonie would be despondent at entering a new country and beginning an existence among strangers; he was also determined that his cousin should come to feel some of his own proud love of Mozambique.

  All this was apparent on Antonie's first evening at the Quinta Agostinhos. Fenella and Dr. Harcourt had arrived just before eight. They had been introduced to Antonie and to the prematurely wrinkled Tia Supervia, who had accompanied her from Lisbon; they had dined without ceremony in the smaller dining-room and had coffee on the softly illumined terrace. After which Carlos had conventionally sought the doctor's acquiescence to a suggestion that Fenella should spend the whole of tomorrow at the Quinta in order to further her acquaintance with his cousin.

  At nine o'clock Carlos had bent over Antoine.

  "You will now go to bed, my child. There have been many wearing days."

  Obediently she stood up. "Yes, Carlos. I would like to go now." And in limp tones, "Boas noites, Dr. Harcourt. Adeus, Fenella. Boas noites, Carlos."

  Fenella had watched the figure swathed in wine-red silk walk gracefully down the terrace with the aunt tagging behind like a shadow, and it had struck her as impossible that she and Antonie de Bordone could ever be more than remotely friendly. How would they ever find topics of mutual interest?

  Today, though, when there were just the two of them to wander in the gardens and exchange ideas, friendship between them seemed a little less improbable. The aunt was resting, and Carlos had estate matters to attend to. The sun glared from a sapphire sky, but the deodars and

  flamboyants, the magnolias and palms provided ample shade, and several ornamental stone benches were set about in various positions to command a wide view. No doubt these seats were in constant demand when Carlos gave a ball.

  Antonie's English, though hesitant from lack of use, was nearly as faultless as her cousin's. Oddly, her pronunciation was more nasal than his.

  "In Lisbon we had many English friends," she explained, "and when I was younger and still at the convent my parents often travelled in England. They would sometimes stay for months in London. It was always my wish to go there. I did not think I would ever come to Mozambique."

  "But your family has many connections with this country?"

  "Only with Carlos. His grandmother was a . . ." she frowned, seeking a translation--"a great-aunt of mine, and my father was a cousin of his father. Perhaps that sounds a muddle, but it does not look so complicated in the front pages of our family Bible."

  "So you have known him all your life?"

  "No. I do not remember Carlos before I was sixteen. My birthday is in September, and that year Carlos was there. The grape harvest was in and our workers were making wine, treading with their feet and singing. He came into the pateo so unexpected that day, and looking very fine in his smart clothes. They told him it was my birthday, and he whirled me round and kissed me. Then he took me to the town and bought me a gold chain with a heart on it and some pink quilted slippers which had big feather pompoms on the fronts. I still have them."

  Though she did not know it at that moment, self-torment was to become one of Fenella's recurring pastimes. She said now:

  "Sixteen is nearly grown-up."

  "Yes, particularly in my country, though we do not marry so young in these days." Her long fingers spread wide each side of her on the bench, she gave Fenella a restrained smile. "I adored Carlos from that day. Afterwards, whenever he came to Lisbon he would take me for drives into the country and t
o the theatre. He would tell me about Mozambique and insist that I must come here

  and see for myself that it was not merely a slice of jungle. I thought it an excellent joke."

  Antonie's face was not expressive. Indeed, considering her undiluted Latin blood, she was exceptionally unemotional and undemonstrative. But that might be due to the exalted family from which she sprang. She was only a year older than Fenella, yet in a feminine fashion she was as enigmatic as Carlos. Although she had led a protected life, she gave the impression of long-standing disappointment and resignation, as if, Fenella thought to herself, the two years since his last visit to Lisbon had been almost too long to wait for Carlos. Which, if true, was quite extraordinary.

  This was the girl to whom he had attributed a "fascinating flair for coquetry." There were no signs now of archness. But within a day or two, when the other girl had completely revived from her journey and the plunge into strange surroundings, this quietness, which almost amounted to docility, might wear off and the real Antonie be disclosed. The possibility filled Fenella with a curious dread.

  "The textile design that you tell me of this morning," Antonie said politely. "How is it done?"

  "It took Fenella a moment or two to readjust her thoughts.

  "One trains for it," she said. "My job was to think up new designs or work on my employer's suggestions. Then I prepared sketches and finally the coloured design, which was eventually used in manufacture."

  "Oh. You did not paint the material?"

  Fenella shook her head. "Only at home, sometimes, for fun." She hesitated. She had promised Carlos to do her best to help make this girl happy. Here was her first opportunity—yet it needed will-power to seize it. Not only will-power but resolute pluck. Lifeless, Antonie possessed definite charm and good looks. How much more alluring she would be when her eyes invited and vital colour suffused the creamy skin. Was she, Fenella, equal to sacrificing herself for the happiness of Carlos? She did not wait to examine the problem. "Are you fond of painting?" she asked quickly.

  "There was a time, yes," came the languid reply.

  "Well, why shouldn't we amuse ourselves with a box of colours and a length of white calico? If we're a success we might graduate to a natural linen or silk, and turn out something worthwhile. You must have seen hand-painted cloths and mats in the Lisbon shops."

  "Yes, of course." The answer was hardly less slack. "I have done too much sewing, too much thinking. It will be absorbing to paint." The thin black brows were drawn together. "But not mats, Fenella, not cloths. Carlos has already too much linen."

  "What we make will not be very important; we can decide about it later. We may not even advance beyond the experimental calico stage!"

  Antonie gently wagged the foot which was crossed over her other ankle. Pretty ankles, of which she had at some time undoubtedly been conscious and perhaps vain. Curbing a slight irritation, as much with herself for her spurious enthusiasm over the painting as with Antonie's obvious lack of co-operation, Fenella looked up towards the house.

  "Your aunt is on the terrace," she said.

  "Poor Tia. She was so full of fear in the plane. She would not eat or drink. Only the knowledge that we were coming to Carlos sustained her. She is not so old as she looks, nor has she always been so ugly. Once, in her girlhood, she was nearly betrothed."

  "So she's unmarried?"

  "Considerar-la! Has she not the bearing of a solteira—an old maid?" Antonie's accents were not derisive or waspish but to Fenella they were vaguely disquieting. "It is love that keeps one young and lovely, and Tia had to give up all hope of inspiring love almost before I was born."

  Fenella had not regarded Tia Supervia as ugly in any sense, nor as being so very old. The sallow, lined face had a set sweetness of expression which must have been hard to achieve in a society where the unmarried woman is something of a blight on a family—a blight to be used, nevertheless, as sewing woman and chaperone and even as nursemaid. The woman's gaze was direct, and when resting upon Antonie it held a brooding affection. Her habit of self-effacement was by now ingrained, but Fenella felt sure that her individuality remained intact. And she was not to

  be scorned because her first plane trip had unsettled her nerves.

  They walked back between the oleanders and abutilons to the house, and as they entered one end of the terrace a light lunch was being served at the other; a chilled salad with little jellied tongues from glass jars, cream cheese, fresh fruit and the inevitable decanter of Madeira wine. A meal to tempt the heat-jaded appetite.

  The three women lunched alone. Tia Supervia talked softly; about the departure from Lisbon, the arrival in Lourenco Marques and the superlative pleasure of being met and embraced by Carlos actually as one stepped from the plane. He was good, that Carlos Jose de Castilho Pereira, and deserving of much felicity. Tia's smile at Antonie plainly indicated in whose hands she desired his felicity to repose.

  As soon as they had finished their wine Antonie and her aunt went up to their rooms for siesta, leaving Fenella to wander along to a couch in the morning-room. No doubt they had the impression that she was more at home at the Quinta than they were themselves.

  She stood in the great arched doorway and stared somewhat wistfully at the bright domed ceiling and the groups of gilt cherubs from which the chandeliers were suspended. Then she entered and stood below the large portrait in a carved gilt frame which hung in a prominent position above the glass-enclosed bookcase.

  The man was handsome, with his wide forehead, his high-bridged nose and finely cut nostrils, his unruly black curls and piercing eyes which had the appearance of jet on the canvas. Carols was like him, but more vital, more virile, and his eyes were a strange dark grey.

  From the opposite wall a woman looked down, a mysteriously superb creature in a low-cut gown and mantilha and many fine jewels. She was Teresa de Bordone, who had been married for one day to the head of another branch of the family, the Marquez de Bordone. The man over there had changed her title to that of Marqueza de Castilho Pereira.

  Depressed by the weight of noble names, Fenella turned' away. She extracted one of the long, fat cigarettes from the great crystal box on a baroque table, and eyed

  it dubiously. They smelled rich when Carlos smoked them; in fact, their aroma was part of his particular fragrance. Fenella decided the cigarette was too male, and dropped the one she held upon the ashtray which stood beside the box.

  "They are too big—those cigarettes?"

  She twisted, and ruthlessly calmed her pulses. "I didn't know you had returned, sen . . . Carlos."

  He came in from the terrace, faintly smiling. "Thank you for remembering, but you do not pronounce correctly. It seems there is no "r" in your language. But no matter. Your tutor in Portuguese will attend to that." He pulled open a drawer in the table and took out a flat tin of English cigarettes. "Try one of these. I got them for you."

  "You're very thoughtful," she said mechanically, and selected one.

  "Not at all. It is agreed that you are to be a frequent guest, so I must provide you with the trifles which alleviate monotony." He flicked on the silver table lighter and kindled first her cigarette and then his own. "I have lunched today at one of those civic banquets in the town at which one is given too much food and wine, and my neighbour at table was the Senhora Seixas, who is a learned woman with whom I enjoy to converse. It made me very glad to hear that yesterday you have had your first lesson with her."

  "It is merely something to do," she said offhandedly. "The senhora was kind enough to offer to teach me, but one cannot learn a language in six months."

  "That is true, but here you will have every assistance, and we will be indulgent over your mistakes. When Antonie is settled, she will teach you our songs. You have heard a Portuguese love-song, senhorita?"

  "Lario, who lives next to us, sings them."

  "So he does, to the little nurse at the mission " He had his finger on everything, this maddening Carlos. "But one does not woo only
with candence. It is necessary to comprehend the subtlety of the lyric." He shrugged in that alien manner of his, as if all this would come to her in time, if she were patient. "What have you been doing this morning?"

  "We walked and talked."

  "And of what did you talk?"

  "Of nothing worth repeating. We were merely getting to know each other."

  He smoked for a minute before asking, "Do you think you will become fond of Antonie?"

  Fenella's pause was less obvious. "I don't see why not, senhor."

  "But there is a doubt in your mind. Are you wishing I had not kept you to your promise?"

  "No," she said steadily. "Antoine and I have spent an agreeable morning, and after it we lunched with Tia Supervia."

  "And now Antonie and her aunt are taking siesta while you spurn a well-sprung couch and spend the time examining my portraits with displeasure!"

  So he had been watching her. No wonder she had felt unsafe and moody. It was Fenella's turn to shrug.

  "Antonie is very like the portrait of the last Marqueza," she commented.

  "I disagree," he said flatly, and dropped the matter as though it either seared or was completely negligible.

  The silence which ensued had lasted too long when Tia Supervia came quietly into the room. She greeted Carlos with a surprised smile, and a warm spate of Portuguese, which he answered with the same lack of reserve. He bent over her hand in the manner of the grande cavalheiro, and touched his lips to it.

  "As always, you are too energetic to lie long, Tia. You are now fully recovered?"

  "Yes, Carlos. That was a slight dor de cabeca . . the migraine, which will not depart till one has rested the nerves. The plane make so much noise for such a long time, and I cannot suffer the ear-plugs!"

  "That is comprehensible. Sit down, and presently we shall have some tea in the English fashion."