by Susan Barrie
The mist was coming swooping down again, and as she walked in the shrubbery she knew that the ends of her hair were beginning to curl moistly in the damp atmosphere, and to be hung with bright drops; and it was a little cold out there with the sun setting without being seen behind a bank of clouds. The grounds that were so famed for their beauty in the summer were a little dismal, the half-mile of azalea hedge in the long drive still bare of color, the rhododendrons merely putting forth huge fat buds.
As for the rose garden, to which invited guests flocked when there was a garden party, there still seemed to be a kind of winter sleep over the lifeless-looking bushes and tall standard trees.
Kathie retraced her steps to the house, entering it by way of the Garden Room, where Lady Fitz arranged many of her own bowls and vases of flowers. It was also used as a depository for over-shoes and mackintoshes, and there was a tall stand for walking sticks and umbrellas. As Kathie closed the glass door she heard a clatter amongst the contents of the umbrella stand, and looked round to see a tall man impatiently ridding himself of a shooting stick by thrusting it well home amongst the other occupants of the stand. There was a look of frustration on his lean tanned face, as if anything that temporarily obstructed him or defied him in any way was an offence, and she could distinctly hear him swearing softly and rather bitterly.
“What a climate! No wonder the only things the Irish can really grow are potatoes!”
“I beg your pardon?” Kathie murmured softly, advancing towards him. There was a dimple at one corner of her smile, and in the half-light she looked a little fey and unreal. “But we do produce shamrock! Maybe you haven’t heard of it?”
CHAPTER THREE
He was unwinding a scarf from about his neck, and all at once Kathie knew what it was about him that was so very surprising, and somehow so entirely out of character. For Lady Fitzosborne wasn’t in the habit of encouraging arrogantly handsome young men to make free use of her Garden Room, this could be none other than the Marques de Barrateira — the unhappy Sebastiao!
He had dully gleaming golden hair, and his eyes were a very dark blue. She was able to be quite certain of this, for he switched on a convenient electric light when she came within a yard of him, and she also saw that there were diamond drops clinging to the ends of his disturbingly long eyelashes, and his hair wasn’t merely damp, like her own, but literally running with moisture.
Oh, she exclaimed in concern, “where have you been?”
“For a walk,” he answered tersely. “It’s the only thing to do in a place like this.”
“You must have been right down by the loch to get as wet as that. Or have you been walking in the woods?”
“I don’t know.” There was flaming impatience in his voice, as well as the petulance of a small boy. “The one thing I do know is that I loathe getting wet, and I loathe feeling cold, and I’m both of those things at the moment. I ought to have remembered that when I came here as a boy the central heating was merely an apology for the stuff they turn on in New York.”
“And you’ve just come from New York?”
“I’ve been in America—yes.” His navy blue eyes demanded to know why she asked so many questions, but at the same time they scowled at her. He started to struggle out of his greatcoat — a beautifully tailored duffle coat that was not in the least like the original duffle coats intended for seamen on the high seas — and she went to his assistance and took it from him.
“Here, give it to me, and I’ll hang it on a hanger and it will soon dry.” She did so, and she also switched on an electric fire so that he could warm his hands. She watched him mopping at his face with a heavy silk handkerchief that was dark cerise with white spots, and then he extended the most perfectly shaped pair of masculine hands she had ever seen in her life to the warmth of the heater. She couldn’t help observing the well-cared-for nails and the sensitive finger-tips — also the virile wrists attached to the whitest of shirt-cuffs — and she thought that his tailor must derive a very satisfactory income from keeping him impeccably turned out as he was. He was a little like a tailor’s dummy, even though his suede shoes were soaked with Irish mist, and he looked like someone pampered and spoilt and doted on from his cradle.
She found it hard to repress a smile as she wondered what her cousin, Patrick, away at an agricultural college, would think of this astoundingly beautiful young man — this pampered darling of fortune who was a Portuguese marques, and didn’t look like one. Not her conception of a Portuguese marques, anyway!
The Irish blood in him must be pounding away very strongly when he had eyes and hair like that.
“Well?” he asked, rather rudely. And she felt herself blushing suddenly as she realized that she was staring at him very openly.
“Your coat will soon be dry,” she said, patting it. “And I hope you’re already feeling a little warmer?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” Then he smiled rather quizzically, a white-toothed, extraordinarily attractive smile. “You are very kind, and I am being very bad-mannered,” he admitted. “I beg your pardon, senhorita!” He bowed, and as if a wand had been waved he was metamorphosed into a dignified grandee with a long ancestry, and a tradition for behaving with impeccable courtesy. “I am Sebastiao de Barrateira, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I seemed to take your kind attentiveness for granted! I do not know who you are...” His eyes studied her. “But you have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen in my life,” rather wonderingly.
“Thank you.” This time she blushed vividly. “I’m Kathleen Sheridan, and Lady Fitzosborne employs me as her secretary. I’m here for the weekend,” she added.
“Are you?” She couldn’t tell whether he was surprised, pleased, or intrigued, but he put out a hand and she felt her fingers gripped by his long slim ones that were browned by the sun in Bermuda as well as his own country. “In that case my creature comforts will be well looked to, for you obviously have a very feminine heart.”
He looked down at his shoes, and she heard them squelch as he moved.
“Ugh! I still think this is a detestable climate, and I shall probably get double pneumonia as a result of this afternoon’s little excursion.”
“Not if you get those shoes off quickly,” she said, “and your feet into something dry.” She looked round her as if she would conjure up a pair of dry shoes out of the varied contents of the Garden Room, but when they didn’t materialize she had a new thought. “Let me slip upstairs to your room and get you a pair of slippers, and while I’m doing so you can go through to the library and mix yourself a stiff whisky...” How often had she heard her father talking about the beneficial effects of a stiff whisky? — “and sit in front of the fire and get really warm.”
Somehow it never occurred to her that this was rather a surprising suggestion she should make, and it quite obviously never occurred to him, for he smiled at her with an unusual tinge of sweetness and appreciation at the corners of his mouth.
“Very well, my beautiful red-headed senhorita!” And did you know that your own hair is wet?”
She shook it, so that the drops flew, and wished she could control the carmine in her cheeks.
“That’s nothing. I’m used to getting wet.”
“But I don’t think you’re used to being called beautiful.” He smiled as if he was amused. “You should be, with a crowning glory like that. You mustn’t ever have it cut short in one of these new modern fashions.”
“It’s red,” she said. “You can’t get away from that!” The Marques nodded dismissingly, as if his interest had evaporated.
“At my old school we would have described it as ‘carrots’!”
When she rejoined him he was sitting in front of the library fire, and sipping appreciatively at a large whisky and soda. He allowed her to get down on her knees and undo the soaking laces of his shoes, but when she made to remove the shoes and put on his slippers for him he set her aside with a mildly humorous: “No, no, I am not quite helpless!”
“But you must have something to drink yourself, and ward off the demon Irish chill that may be waiting to pounce on you! What will you have?” he asked, turning to the tray of drinks.
“Nothing,” she answered, sinking, however, into the lap of the chair, for it was all so cosy and inviting in this big book-lined room of Lady Fitzosborne’s. “Thank you,” with her enchanting smile.
He sat down and looked at her, as if she made him forget everything else.
“You are kind, and you are abstemious, and that black dress is a little too old for you, if you don’t mind my saying so,” with directness. “You should wear something filmy and green, and wander in the woodland.” He tossed off his second glass of whisky and soda, sighed, warmed his hands at the fire, and admitted, “Today was a day when I did not feel good. Nothing was good, you understand?” Occasionally his English was a little formal and quaint. “I wanted to be back in Portugal, where I would feel warm to the heart, because the sun shines, and we do not have this depressing mist. And April in Portugal is really something, believe me!” He sighed again. “But I am not in the mood to go back, and I did not want to do so, so I went for a walk beneath your dripping trees. And when I came in, you were waiting to take my coat, and you turned on that fire for me, and you even fetched my slippers. Now, all at once, I feel quite good!”
He gazed at her, so hard and so long that she had to lower her eyes.
“You should have a hot bath,” she recommended. “A really hot bath, and then you won’t catch a chill.”
His eyes twinkled.
“And you will turn on the hot water for me?”
The door opened, and a little bird-like, extremely dark woman stood there. She wore a black dress that somehow seemed very black indeed, a sable stole, and many glittering diamonds at her throat and wrists. She gazed at Kathie as if she was openly accusing her of something, and then turned to the Marques.
“Sebastiao! I was disturbed when I heard that you had gone out, and in this wretched weather.” Her English was not as good as his, and there was a whining undercurrent to the honeyed affection in her voice. “It would have been better for you if you had rested quietly in your room, as I did.”
Sebastiao stood up, but he frowned at her.
“I am not an infant who needs rest.”
“No, but you are tired after that tiresome journey.” She went close to him, and searched his face with her bright beads of eyes. “We will make fresh plans, and go back to Portugal. It will be right for you!”
Kathie saw him whiten.
“I will go back to Portugal in my own good time, Paula! If you wish to go before me you must do so.” Then, with smoothness and correctness, he introduced Kathie. “This is Lady Fitz’s secretary, Senhorita Sheridan. Senhorita, my stepmother — the Marquesa de Barrateira.”
The Marquesa bent another bleak look on Kathie, but all at once it lightened a little.
“Ah, a secretary!” she exclaimed. “Then perhaps you will do some letters for me, senhorita? There are many that have accumulated, and with which I wish to deal. Lady Fitz will be happy to lend you to me, I am sure.”
CHAPTER FOUR
But, contrary to the Marquesa’s bland expectations, Lady Fitz stated quite definitely at dinner that night that Kathie was only a part-time secretary, and that she was her guest for the week-end.
“I do not expect my guests to work while they are staying with me,” she remarked, smiling at Kathie.
The Marquesa looked quite astonished, and then her thin lips tightened and she refused the sweet. It was obvious she was not accustomed to meeting people who looked upon secretaries as personal friends, and no doubt the thought of her accumulation of letters added to her annoyance. Stealing a glance at her above the silver epergne of roses that formed the table’s centrepiece, Kathie felt tempted to offer her services nevertheless, but Lady Fitz had sounded quite firm, and it would be something to let her family know that she had had to do nothing at all in return for her weekend — if one overlooked the few whispered words she had had with Mrs. O’Hara on the stairs before dinner, when she had intimated discreetly that the Marques would probably appreciate a second hot-water bottle in his bed that night.
After dinner in the drawing-room the Marques came and sat beside her on one of the deep chesterfields and asked her about the sort of life she led in such a tucked- away corner of the world. He looked breathtakingly handsome in a dinner jacket, and his golden head gleamed. By contrast with it, his even tan was most marked, and so was the blackness of his eyelashes.
There was no doubt about it, he had Irish charm, and a Portuguese ‘foreignness’. For, at moments, he was very foreign, though it never affected his speech. That was easy and effortless, if a little clipped at times, and occasionally very dignified. The strangeness was in the slumbrous look in his eyes — the brooding, intense, withdrawn look, when he was sitting alone and smoking a cigarette, that made their blueness seem very odd. And the expressive use he made of his fine-fingered hands.
They were speaking hands, and Kathie knew that they could grip quite strongly, in spite of a slight effeminacy in his appearance. He was languid, and quickly bored, and at moments his handsome mouth in repose looked infinitely sad and unhappy.
Looking at him in those moments Kathie felt her heart quicken with sympathy. His loss was so recent, and it had obviously shattered him. He didn’t seem to know how, or which way, to turn for distraction.
On Sunday morning Kathie stayed away from church to accompany him on a short walk — her godmother had whispered to her that it would be kind.
“He is so desolate, somehow. I wish you could draw him out of himself — talk to him.”
Kathie tried, but it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t very keen on taking exercise to begin with; and to go on with, although it was a lovely day — for once a perfect day, a spring day that might easily have been stolen from summer, with a lovely light on the loch, and a few white sails skimming the unruffled surface of the water — he seemed quite unimpressed by his surroundings. Kathie tried to get him interested in the brilliant clarity of the fight, and the strange transparency of the water, with the green hills reflected in it; she pointed out to him the limpid blue of the sky, and the misty purple of the mountains etched against it, with sunlight pouring over them.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, with a sigh. “I don’t think anywhere in the world can be as beautiful as this when the weather is behaving itself.”
“That’s probably because you’ve never seen anything but this.”
The ungraciousness in his tone caused her to glance at him.
“And you’ve seen so much that you must be a little confused in your mind sometimes! But you must love Eire, or you wouldn’t have come back to it.”
“I came to see Lady Fitz, and for business reasons — amongst others. I’ve an estate near here, and I shall have to look at it before I leave. It’s a nuisance, but one of those nuisances one can’t overlook or ignore.” They were climbing a steep slope, and he gave her a hand to help her up. Below them the green folds went on undulating down to the loch, and near them was a little wood full of piping birdsong and the scent of primroses. It formed a leafy background to their two figures standing close together, the one tall and elegant and yet somehow almost aggressively male, the other slight and insubstantial, with the top of a bright head on a level with a square tanned chin.
“Y
ou’re always bored these days, aren’t you?” she said, before she could stop herself. “Nothing is really of very much importance!”
The soft atmosphere, together with the uphill climb, had brought a lovely color to her cheeks, and it was flooding over them like dawn over a snowy mountain peak, and he found his eyes arrested. He looked down into her eyes, that were as golden as cairngorm in the daylight, and saw his own reflection mirrored in them, between the brown eyelashes that shadowed them like reeds. It provided him with an odd but fleeting sensation.
“How do you know?” he asked. “Is it so obvious?”
“I’m afraid it is,” she admitted, with her native truth. They moved over to a fallen tree-trunk, and he offered her a cigarette. His case looked flagrantly expensive, was made of platinum, and had the crest of the Barrateiras engraved on it.
“For a young woman who has led a very sheltered life you have some unusual qualities,” he remarked, very drily. “You seem to be particularly penetrating, and yesterday you lifted me out of a moment of despair and made me feel like a human being again. I’m more grateful to you for that moment yesterday than I can tell you, as for weeks I’ve been living in a kind of borderland between the insistent need to make contact with reality and an unforgettable past.” He ground out his cigarette beneath the heel of his shoe, and she saw his lips turn a little grey. “You’re too young to know what it is like to want to live permanently in the past, but I can assure you it sets up a mental conflict that is harrowing when you’ve got to do something about your future at the same time!”