by Abor, Jane
'There haven't been stars in my eyes for him! ' 'There were tonight when you looked at him. Who is your glamorous rival, do you know?'
Donna shook her head. 'I've never seen her before.' 'Nor the social dragon type with her? Her mother?
An aunt? No matter. We'll find out. And now—what for you?'
'Now? I shall go straight home, of course.'
'Run away and hide and lick your wounds? You'll do no such thing. You'll dine here—and like it.'
'Alone? In full view, when you say everyone knows?' 'You'll dine—with me. And what's more, you'll be seen to like it.'
'I—can't. You'll be dining with Margot.'
'Margot has joined a party on board the banana boat for dinner. I dropped in for a drink and wasn't staying for dinner. I shall now, so come along and show some spirit. You aren't the first girl to be taken for a ride, and you won't be the last. So come.'
At the entrance to the dining-room he took some time choosing a table, even consulting the head waiter's chart before accepting a centrally-placed one where he seated Donna facing the whole room before he excused himself for leaving her while he telephoned Choc to say that he wouldn't be dining at home. He was away for some time, and while he was gone a waiter showed Melford Drinan and his guests to a table apart from Donna's by only a few yards, leaving her in little doubt as to the reason for Elyot's choice and his insistence on seeing the table plan. He had meant to embarrass Melford with her proximity and he couldn't have chosen better; already Melford was avoiding looking in Donna's direction, and it was going to be difficult for
him to glance about him in any natural way at all if he were not to catch her eye while she was so near.
Elyot came back. As he sat down he announced, 'Latest arrivals—Mrs Clara Berger and her daughter Ingrid; the latter, fiancée of Melford Drinan of Hexagon Inc.; the two ladies having descended on him unheralded, to surprise him for his birthday.'
Donna drew a sharp breath. 'How—how do you know?'
He shrugged. 'Reception desks know everything and will tell it all for a small fee. And now—if it hurts like nobody's business and as if your life depended upon it —smile !'
Donna smiled, and wished she could tell him why it didn't hurt a bit.
CHAPTER SIX
SINCE she was more angry than hurt, and it was only her pride that was in shock, Donna found she could despise Melford Drinan's efforts to ignore her. What a snob and a coward the man was! Though—her scorn checked guiltily on the thought—wasn't she perhaps equally a coward to have let Elyot force his protection on her in order to save her face with Melford? Oughtn't she to have had the dignity to refuse his offer of shelter?
In fantasy she saw herself doing it—drawing upon hauteur to tell him something like, 'If you think that of me, you can't want to be seen with me, except from pity, which I don't need.' That would at least have been in keeping with her primitive impulse to slap his face for his insult.
But somehow fantasy couldn't stand up to the hard fact of his dominance; of his refusal to be thwarted in any purpose he saw as right. He thought she needed moral support against Melford; he meant to afford it, and from experience Donna had learned that a No to his will was not a word he would tolerate. Not that—for quite other reasons than he would understand—had she really wanted to say No ...
During dinner he made a business of his attentions to her—ordering for her an orchid spray from the flower-girl, calling acquaintances over to be introduced or for chat between courses and inviting her to dance whenever Melford and his fiancee were also taking the floor. And since only Donna knew that the show was staged merely for Melford's discomfiture, she wondered how the story of Elyot's elaborate entertainment of her
would reach Margot's ears.
Would the gossips make capital of it—(When the cat is away ...) or would Elyot relate it and its reasons to Margot himself? And would Margot agree magnanimously that it had been the least he could do for darling Donna in face of so blatant a snub? Donna viewed the latter prospect with distaste. Elyot had acted tautly and promptly on his pity for her; Margot would make such a meal of hers !
At the end of the evening Elyot insisted on seeing her home.
'That's not necessary,' she told him. 'I drove myself down in Uncle Wilmot's car.'
'Mean to say our two-timing friend hasn't been calling for you on dates and taking you home?'
'Not when I was able to borrow the car.'
'As I might have guessed. Sultan summons his current favourite houri and she hastens to his command. And when you had wined and dined or whatever, he saluted you chastely in the car park and waved you away?' Evidently concluding—rightly—that she would scorn to answer this, he went on, 'Where are you parked? I'll get one of the hotel drivers to ferry your car back, and I'll drive you in mine.'
Having yielded to him on the major issue, Donna felt this was too minor a one for argument. She indicated her car, saw him approach a man, watched money pass, and then Elyot was handing her into his own car.
Donna never ceased to marvel at the magic of the island by night. It had been raining earlier, and as they skirted the town the pavements shone cleanly and the street lamps wore nimbuses of gold in the humid air. The lights on the quays cast broken paths across the water of the harbour; music and laughter came from the open doors of taverns, and the residential hills were
dotted with domestic lights to a certain level, above which the heights were uniformly black. It was not until the last house had been left behind and they were into the dark of the forest trees and not now very far from Louvet, that Elyot remarked, 'Well, I hope the exercise has done something for your self-respect. But what are you going to do when the fellow comes creeping to apologise?'
`If this evening was anything to go by, he isn't going to look my way long enough to apologise,' Donna said.
'But if he does, are you going to-let him get away with explaining he had grit in his eye, and chant, "Not to worry. All is forgiven"?' Elyot persisted.
'Which would get me a long way, wouldn't it, in face of a life-sized fiancée with a prior claim?' she retorted.
He glanced at her quickly. Was that the voice of cynicism, or of wounded resignation to your having been conned?'
'Neither. Just accepting the fact that a very pleasant interlude is over.' Donna's tone was dry.
'There wasn't much "acceptance" in your face when he cut you dead! '
'Because I didn't care for the way it was done. But there's no question of his deceiving me. We both enjoyed each other's company, but that was as far as it went.'
'By his will or yours? All right, you don't have to answer that. To my reading of it, that look on your face said it all.'
'Said what all?'
'That you were looking at a man you had begun to care about, and couldn't believe he could treat you so. With cause, I daresay, because between his allowing you to chauffeur yourself to your rendezvous and bidding you goodnight, no doubt he made love to you?'
'It depends on what you mean by making love.'
'You know perfectly well what we mean by it these days, and it isn't your chap manoeuvring to hold your hand after he's picked up your dropped fan. Presumably he kissed you?'
'I don't have to answer that either! '
Elyot laughed. 'My dear, you've answered it by refusing to. And if it was all so platonic, why was he guilty enough to hand you the frozen mitt?'
Sensing that he saw that as unanswerable, Donna said nothing. She realised too the futility of suggesting that he drop her at the top of the lane to the house, and when he reached it he drove down it in silence and stopped the car.
'Thank you.' She stirred in her seat and bunched her long skirts preparatory to getting out. But when he made no move himself she added, 'Thank you too for thinking you had to come to my rescue; I do admit I'd never been cut so deliberately before, and for the moment I was shattered.'
He shrugged. Feel free to appeal for a repeat performance any time,' he said.
'There won't be another time.'
'Meanwhile you enjoyed our evening?'
'Very much.'
'Good. So there only remains some unfinished business—'
She turned her head quickly, looking a question to which her senses knew the answer. For his arms were round her, his head bent, his lips too close to hers for any intent other than the long searching kiss they extorted, urging a submission she was tempted to yield to the reality of his nearness, his touch, the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the pressure of his hold. This ought to be a dream come true ... But 'unfinished business' ! Making a duty of kissing her, and expecting her compliance because she had admitted her gratitude for
all the rest!
No. She didn't think she had uttered the word aloud, but whether or not, as she stiffened within his arms he held her off from him, his wry scrutiny measuring her reaction.
'That was totally unnecessary,' she said.
'Unnecessary? What a dreary word! Anyway, whoever kisses a girl of necessity?' he parried. 'I can think of a dozen reasons for, and necessity's not one of them. Competition, for instance—'
Her heart quickened, but she mustn't let herself believe it. 'You're not in competition for me against anyone,' she snapped.
'For this evening's you, I am. Against friend Drinan. When a guy has been allowed to cut in, you shouldn't underrate his urge to do better than the other fellow. Matter of male pride, you might say, and a really cooperative girl would indulge it.'
'Would she? Would she indeed?' Donna raged. 'Indulge him in something completely pseudo, just to boost his ego, or—maybe—to do a Tommy Tucker act in payment for her supper?'
His hands, still holding her lightly, dropped away. 'If I may say so, that was well below the belt,' he remarked.
She knew it and regretted it, but couldn't bring herself to apologise. Instead she murmured lamely, 'You can hardly blame me for wondering—'
'On the contrary, I can and I do. I told you I kissed you just now for competition's sake, and however shady you consider that, it's not as low as expecting payment for services rendered. Anyway, forget it. You can quit wondering from now on. It won't happen again,' he retorted, his dismissive tone a rebuke she couldn't take.
Making that his exit line, was he? Well, she had one to deliver too. 'With me, perhaps not,' she said. 'But
tomorrow night, with another girl, in competition with another man? And the night after that—' She checked, daunted by the ironic lift of his brows.
`Three different girls inside a week?' he mocked. 'Promiscuous opportunist I may be, but that's achievement indeed! '
Later Donna was to realise that if she had accepted that as lightly as he said it, she might have laughed with him and they would have parted friends. But at the moment she was too hurt, too disillusioned, too cheated of dreams. She had to hit back.
'Is it so very much more than your reputation says of you?' she queried, and then added the unforgivable thing. 'It isn't as if, either, you were all that free to play around, competing. There's—Margot,' she said.
His immediate answer to that was, to open the door on his side, go round and open hers. He helped her out and with a hand beneath her elbow, marched her to the foot of the verandah steps, where he said, 'You can leave Margot out of this, do you mind? Goodnight.'
He didn't wait to see her into the house, and as she watched him return to the car without looking back her heart was crying, Tool! Fool! He kissed you, wanted to, even if only just for tonight. And you could have tried to understand, even gone along with him in that spirit, enjoyed it, however little real promise it for you. Instead—'
But the Instead was so shame-making that she couldn't bear to recall it. Blot it out. Forget it. Think of something else.
She only wished she could. It had lost her a friend.
he suffered a restless night, but daylight brought more balance, more detachment, and she was able to persuade herself that the situation was not all of her making. She had been goaded into her spiteful mud-
slinging, and if only in return for Elyot's initial contemptuous name-calling—which showed what he really thought of her?—she could almost justify it.
Admittedly it wasn't the done thing, to taunt a man -about his reputation with women, nor to accuse him of exacting payment in return for his hospitality. But Elyot had asked for it—hadn't he?—by kissing her in the intense way he had, tempting her to believe in its promise, and then claiming it as the unfinished business of proving himself the better man of two !
Donna's veering from her overnight mood of self-blame and regret was so complete that from there she went on to wonder whether Elyot too might be having second thoughts. Perhaps he would telephone. He might want her to 'know that he had had the green light from the Company to go ahead with the restoration of the Dial House. Or he might just ring to say Hello, How goes it?—which he would intend as face-saving for them both. Or he might be there, and normally friendly, the next time she went down to the Allamanda.
But he was not there. He did not ring on any pretext. He gave no sign of having anything more to say to her or to do with her at all.
Meanwhile events proved him wrong in his forecast of a situation where Melford Drinan would excuse his conduct to Donna and she might be weak enough to forgive it. For the situation did not arise. Three days later she heard from Rosa at the hotel's reception desk that Melford and the ladies Berger had checked out that morning on their return to America by non-stop jet.
'Throw big party last night. For 'm birthday, the
Mister's, dey say,' Rosa reported with relish. 'Chef make
big cake on towers—' her flattened hand demonstrated the tiers of a ceremonial cake—`ask plenty hotel
guests. Missus le Conte, she there. Not Mister Vance.
Not you, Missus Donna. But dey ask you for sure—yes?'
Donna replied truthfully that she hadn't known about the party, and not so truthfully that she couldn't have accepted if invited. So that was that, she thought. Incident closed. And in this, she conceded, Elyot had been right. She had been no more than a fill-gap for Melford Drinan after all.
Naturally she couldn't escape Bran's comments on Melford's pursuit of her and his sudden defection.
'Why all the enthusiasm for you, only to stand you up?' Bran wanted to know. 'Or did you stand him up before or after he imported a fiancée ready made? Down at the hotel they'd all decided it was a case, when surprise, surprise! he's off and you're not telling. So what did happen to break it up, for goodness' sake?'
`Nothing in particular.' Donna was grateful that no one who mattered, except Elyot, had witnessed or questioned Melford's blatant snub. 'It just wasn't a case in the way you mean—ever,' she added.
`Meaning you weren't ever turned on about him?' `Meaning just that. Nor was he about me.'
`Well, obviously, since he had this other wench in tow all the while,' Bran agreed. 'Anyway, I'll believe you that you don't care. But you could have fooled me.'
It was a day or two later that Donna had a letter from her father asking if she had now learned enough about conditions at Louvet to feel she could sound Wilmot as to its future.
`We can't afford much longer for it to be as unproductive as it is at present,' he wrote. `So as you say you know Elyot Vance of Marquise is interested in it, perhaps you're in a position to find out what terms he has in mind, and then from your uncle whether he would do a deal? Of course the Company would not care to ride roughshod over him, but if neither he nor Bran-
don are prepared to keep it up, we might have to go over his head in disposing of it.
'So I'm trusting you, dear, to approach both sides with tact and see what emerges. Meanwhile, make the most of your time to enjoy Laraye, as I know you will.'
Donna put aside the letter with a grimace. Easier said than done! One side—Elyot's—she couldn't now approach at all, with or without tact, and she doubted how far the same quality would go with Wilmot. Of course the Comp
any would have to deal with both parties formally, but she understood her father's need to test the atmosphere first, so she supposed she must try. She decided to ask Bran to approach Elyot, and she tackled Wilmot herself.
As she had feared, her first exploratory questions brought his reaction that she had been put up to them by Elyot's coveting of the estate. This she was glad to be able to deny with truth, but she had to admit to her father's interest in the answers.
'Then you can tell him that he'd be better employed telling me how to conjure labour out of thin air and how to grow a commercially viable crop on soil as poor as Louvet's,' snapped Wilmot.
'But it's so close to Marquise. It it possible for its soil to be very different and poor? Besides, if it's as poor as all that, would Mr Vance see any potential value in taking it into Marquise?'
That was a mistake, and Wilmot pounced on it.
'So now we have it I ' he triumphed. 'If, as you say, you aren't in league with the fellow, how do you know he's after it?'
Donna did her best to recoup ground. I’ve neither seen him nor spoken to him about Louvet,' she said. 'But you know he would like to buy it, don't you, and I think it was Bran who told me so, soon after I came. And as Bran is quite frank that he isn't interested in
Louvet, and you regard it as a burden in its present condition, I'd have thought—'
'Oh, you would, would you? Well, let me tell you this, young woman. While Elyot Vance is in the market for Louvet, and could outbid anyone else for it, no doubt, I'm no party to its being put up for sale, and so you can tell brother George when you write whatever report you may have promised him—'
It was at this point of deadlock that Madame Hue descended—literally, since her car hurtled down the lane at breakneck speed—upon the interview, and be-ing Madame Hue, she had no compunction in listening in and taking sides.
'The Greeks had a word for the likes of you, Wilmot,' she admonished him. 'Needn't remind you what it is, need I? Don't want Louvet yourself; bare your teeth , at anyone else who'd relieve you of it; won't do what , you could do better than any man—write a book—with illustrations—that all the tourists would flock to buy. Bah, Wilmot Torrence, you haven't got the sense you were born with, man I But I, Irma Hue, your friend, know just what you are lacking. Shall I tell you what it is, hm?'