White Rose of Love

by Anita Charles

  Madelena, for once, was also wearing black—but it was beautifully cut black, exquisite and foaming about her as she drifted elegantly about the room. Everyone was almost transparently interested in her, and wanted to know all the details of the wedding, and how soon it was to take place. They were plainly looking forward to see her Dom Manoel’s wife, and the thought made Steve feel additionally out of place.

  Not that she had any right to feel out of the picture at all, for she was seated fairly close to her host at the long and magnificently appointed dining-table when they went into dinner. But between her and him—on her side of the table—was her immediate masculine neighbour, and Senhora Almeida. And on his right hand, naturally, Senhorita Almeida herself, sparkling with gems although so soberly clad.

  After dinner coffee was served in the main sala, and everyone talked incessantly. Steve had found the long-drawn-out dinner a bit of an ordeal, for not merely were there far more dishes and courses than she was accustomed to, but her immediate neighbour seemed to find it a little difficult to carry on a sustained conversation with her, and at the same time be polite to Senhora Almeida. He spoke beautiful English, and had even visited

  England, was young enough to be dazzled by the beauty of the young Englishwoman next to him, but undoubtedly felt it incumbent upon himself to defer to the elderly faded beauty who was the guest of honour next to her daughter.

  But, once back in the sala, he attached himself to Steve more purposefully. Senhora Almeida had joined a little group of other elderly women, and he felt himself free to enjoy himself. He brought Steve coffee, asked permission to share her satin-covered settee with her, and then proceeded to put to her all sorts of questions about herself and her life in England.

  “I hope one day to go to England again,” he confessed. “It’s a beautiful country. I enjoyed my other visit. How long do you expect to remain in Portugal, Senhorita?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Steve wished he wouldn’t look at her with quite such devouring eyes ... He was a handsome young man, with lustrous black eyes, excellent hard white teeth, and a smile that lighted up the whole of his face when it flashed out unexpectedly. His name was Carlos, and he was a D’Castelos, which meant that he was probably a member of the family with whom Senhorita Almeida and her fiance had lunched on the first morning that Steve spent at the Quinta Rosa.

  “It is not just a short visit? A matter of a week or so? You might perhaps remain with your brother indefinitely?”

  “As to that, I still don’t know,” she replied, smiling at his eagerness. “It all depends, for one thing, on how long my brother feels he can put up with me. And what his commitments are.”

  “Oh, but I’m sure he is only too delighted to have you stay with him,” Carlos assured her, moving a little nearer on the settee—although there was still space enough between them to accommodate another person with ease. “I mean to say—” he made a little gesture with his hands—“You must brighten up his little cottage considerably. And you are so very beautiful. . . . Surely he must long to paint you?”

  She laughed outright at that.

  “My brother has never longed to paint me, and I can’t blame him. After all, a sister is . . . well, hardly an inspiring subject. And it is necessary to be inspired if you hope to do your sitter justice.”

  “I understand you are modelling the head of Senhorita Almeida.”

  She smiled more wryly.

  “I’m having a shot at it.”

  “You must be very clever,” he observed, almost reverently. “Clever,” he repeated, “as well as beautiful!”

  “Oh, please,” she begged, “don’t try and flatter me.” She could see her host regarding them without any particular pleasure in his expression from the opposite end of the long room, and she decided that although he had made no effort to talk to her himself he didn’t altogether approve of her chatting away to the young man beside her. Perhaps because it wasn’t entirely correct, and she should have been attempting to improve her Portuguese in the company of one or two of the females present.

  The thought made her feel a little daring. She leaned slightly towards young Carlos and enquired of him archly:

  “Aren’t you betrothed to be married, Senhor D’Castelos? As marriage is in the air, perhaps you are thinking of it? Unless,” she added, more hastily, “you are already married!”

  “Good lord, no!” he exclaimed, as if the idea shocked him. “I have no intention of settling down yet, and when I do . . .” He directed at her a curious, sideways glance. “When I do I hope to break with tradition, and marry someone who is not Portuguese. My travels have broadened my mind, I expect—” so far as Steve could make out they had not yet been very extensive—“and I have discovered that there are other women in the world apart from our sallow-skinned belles. Personally, I think Anglo-Saxon types have much more to commend them than Latins—women, that is,” in case she should imagine he meant men. “They can talk, and they are full of initiative. They are not dull.”

  “But they have other excellent qualities, I’m sure. And it isn’t a crime to be dull.”

  “It is very dull to have to live with dullness. . .” Once more he spread his hands. “I am ambitious, senhorita. I wish to marry outside my country, and I wish to go to America and make my fortune. Or enlarge upon it, anyway. . . . I have quite a lot of money already, but one can always do with more. Does the American way of life appeal to you, Miss Wayne?”

  “I, er—I don’t know,” Steve answered, somewhat taken aback. “I must admit I’ve never thought about it,” she added.

  Once more, from the opposite end of the room— where he was being particularly attentive to his future mother-in-law—Dom Manoel looked her way, and she met his eyes. It seemed to her that they hardened a trifle, and his chin looked very firm and his mouth thin lipped.

  “It is a beautiful night, senhorita,” Carlos whispered to her. “Would you care for a breath of air in the garden? It is very hot in here!”

  It was, and she rose at once and accompanied him out into the garden. She had the strong feeling that eyes watched them disappear—other pairs of eyes apart from those of Dom Manoel—and she realized how much her bright frock must stand out in that dignified room full of soberly clad people, and by contrast with Carlos’s black dinner-jacket it must look very flamboyant. Once again she wished she had worn either black or white or something completely unnoticeable.

  Outside in the garden, however, the tranquility of the night restored her confidence and her belief in maintaining her own individuality. It was the most breathtakingly beautiful night, and the scents of the garden were as intoxicating as a draught of heady wine. The stars blazed overhead in the purple sky, and the sea lapped murmurously at the edge of the white beach.

  Young D’Castelos seemed also to derive an extra fund of confidence from the night. As they walked the quiet paths, enclosed by the high, clipped hedges that cast such infinitely black shadows across the shaven surface of the lawns, he ventured to slip a hand under Steve’s elbow to guide her—and also to prevent her missing her footing where the shadows were at their blackest.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you out here,” he admitted; “but I wanted to be quite, quite alone with you for a short while.” There was a mild note of excitement in his voice. “I have never met anyone like you before!”

  Steve wrinkled her brows, as if she was puzzled.

  “Why shouldn’t you have asked me out here?” she enquired. “It’s a harmless enough thing to walk in a garden, and apparently I’m not infringing the rights of some local young woman.”

  He shrugged.

  “You are a young woman who is not engaged, and we only met to-night. All the old dowagers back there will be discussing our slipping off like this.”

  When they returned to the house Dom Manoel was waiting for them on the terrace outside the lighted sala windows. He frowned forbiddingly at Carlos, and told him curtly that his mother had been asking for him. He then took Steve b
y the arm and walked her away along the length of the terrace.

  “I feel I must warn you,” he remarked, coldly, as they walked. “It is not considered correct in Portugal for a young woman who is a virtual stranger, and knows nobody, to disappear at the first opportunity into the darkness of the garden with a young man.” Steve felt indignation shake her.

  “How ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “Senhor D’Castelos merely asked me if I would like a little fresh air, and I accepted his invitation. There are a great many people here to-night, and it is very stuffy in the sala.”

  “I’m sorry you found it so. . . . Possibly in more ways than one?” He glanced down at her, thin-lipped. “Is that so, in fact?”

  “You mean, did I find it dull?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course not, but I am—as you yourself have just pointed out—a stranger here, and no one apart from Senhor D’Castelos has so far made much effort to talk to me. I expect it’s because I’m English, and they feel a little awkward. . . . Tim is different, of course. Tim is easy to talk to.”

  “I wouldn’t say that you are precisely difficult to talk to, Miss Wayne,” the Dom returned, a trifle dryly. Then he apologized. “I’m afraid you feel that you have been neglected. It is not easy for me to talk to all my guests . . . particularly now, when the circumstances are not quite normal. I did, in fact, intend to have a little talk with you before you left.”

  She tried to disabuse him of any false notions somewhat hastily.

  “Naturally, I didn’t expect you to single me out and talk to me, Dom Manoel! I realize that I have been greatly favoured by receiving an invitation to your house!” Was there a note of dryness in her voice, also? She wasn’t quite certain herself. “And now, at this very moment, you are deserting your guests to caution me about my behaviour...”

  “I am the host. What I do is quite unlikely to be questioned,” he replied, coolly.

  “But you are deserting your fiancee. . .”

  “My fiancee will survive for a brief while.” He led her down the terrace steps. “Did you find Senhor D’Castelos an exciting companion for a garden at night?” he demanded curiously. “He is a good-looking young man.”

  “Why should I?” she asked, because she was quite certain he was being sarcastic. “There are lots of good-looking young men

  in the world.”

  “And a pretty girl like you can be surrounded by them if she wishes?”

  She was silent. They were walking away from the house, and—as with D’Castelos—she found herself engulfed all at once by deepest shadow. He kept tight hold of her arm, to prevent her stumbling, just as D’Castelos had done. . . . Only Dom Manoel was so tall, and his whole presence was so electrifying, somehow, that contact such as this was a little overpowering.

  She could not ignore it, or forget it, even for a moment. The grip of his fingers was firm but perfectly gentle, and even his voice developed a gentle, whimsical note as he talked to her.

  “Perhaps it is that you are bored by men?” The whimsical note suggested that that was impossible, as she was so young. “You are young in years, but your experience of men is vast?”

  “Of course not.”

  She felt indignant. She had a feeling that he was laughing at her.

  “Out here Carlos has the reputation for being something of a lady-killer. . . . Or he would be if the conventions permitted. Even for older women he has charm! It was quite obvious to me, watching the two of you across the room, that he found you well-nigh irresistible. Has he begged for another meeting at an early date?”

  “Wouldn’t that be in marked defiance of Portuguese conventions?” she demanded, with a dryness that was very noticeable this time.

  Dom Manoel laughed softly.

  He continued to guide her along the paths. She realized suddenly that they had strayed much farther from the house than she had done with the younger man, and yet her host was betrothed to be married . . . about to be married very soon! Cautiously, Steve glanced up at him occasionally, and in the bright starlight it struck her that his dark, handsome face was abstracted and thoughtful. Then he looked down at her and smiled in a way that set something trembling like a leaf deep down inside her.

  “Well?” he said softly. “What are you thinking, Senhorita Stephanie?”

  She blurted out;

  “I was thinking of Senhorita Almeida! You are neglecting her

  “We shall be married soon. Then I will devote myself to her for the rest of our lives.”

  “You sound as if you are not prepared to devote yourself to her already.”

  “But, of course, I am! . . . She is a thing of beauty, and therefore a joy to behold! She is to be my wife— the mother of my sons!”

  Steve felt her heart give a queer jolt.

  “All these things she is to be!” she exclaimed. “A man in love should be content with what he has—not looking ahead! I don’t know much about people in love, but I should imagine it is an emotion that leaves little room for—for calculation! The great thing is to be swept off one’s feet, to be happy in the present, incapable of wanting more . . . surely?”

  His dark eyebrows ascended.

  “Is that your idea of love?”

  “It is the English idea of love ...”

  “And you are very English!” Once more he looked down at her. Her pulses felt as if they were beating sluggishly, thickly ... the garden swam in a misty magic of starlight, and the light from the late-rising moon. It was like a misty magic that swam around her personally, making everything seem a trifle unreal, vague, not easily believed in. Dom Manoel was engaged to be married, but his fingers were gripping her tightly.... She heard him murmur something about her dress.

  “It makes you look like a scarlet flower, and yet you are a white rose . . . Why do you seek to be something you are not? Tonight, if you were true to yourself, you would not be wearing such a dress! You would be trailing beams of starshine, and there would be white flowers in your hair . . . roses!”

  Suddenly she stumbled, and he caught her close. Without either of them realizing what was happening his arm went round her and he pressed her almost fiercely against his side, exclaiming in concern in case she had hurt her foot.

  “Did you twist your ankle? I am so very sorry! It was my fault!

  “No, no,” she assured him, breathlessly. “I am perfectly all right. . . .”

  “These paths are so dark. I should have warned you that there is slight irregularity in the surface of them. . . .”

  “I assured you I am perfectly all right!”

  But he was still holding her, and all at once she received the queer impression that he found it difficult to let her go. She put back her head and looked up at him, and the moonlight shone in her eyes. . . . They were uncannily clear eyes, transparent as pools, and her eyelashes were touched with silver. Her mouth was soft and red, and the lips were slightly parted. . . .

  Dom Manoel uttered a sharp, strangled sound, and then put her from him as if his contact with her had stung him. He said brusquely, almost harshly:

  “We’d better go back to the house! Your brother will be wondering what has become of you! . . .”

  “Senhorita Almeida will be wondering what has become of you,” she returned, her voice as breathless as if she had been running.

  All the way back to the house he scarcely touched her, although his voice cautioned her when they plunged into one of the dim, heavily scented tunnels formed by clipped ilex and box hedges. Although she had narrowly escaped falling flat on her face only minutes before he seemed afraid to put out a hand and grasp her arms as before . . . or else he was unwilling to do so. When the lights of the house streamed out to meet them and they were suddenly bathed in them she glanced at him and thought his expression was as withdrawn from her as the stars in the sky were in actual fact many millions of miles away from her, and it could have been her imagination that he was also a little pale, and his mouth was tautly set.

  He literally r
ushed her up the steps of the terrace and into the house, and once back in the sala he was quickly surrounded by his close friends and acquaintances. Senhorita Almeida took arch possession of his arm, and Steve experienced a curious sensation like actual physical nausea when she saw the way in which the lovely Madelena smiled into his face. If his answering smile was a trifle distrait, and not as brilliant as usual, it did nothing to dissipate the sickness that swept over the English girl, and in a matter of minutes she had sought out her brother and was suggesting to him urgently that it was time they left.

  Tim, who had hardly the appearance of having enjoyed the evening himself—Steve had watched him, more than once, and felt alarmed by the intensity with which he sat and studied Madelena—agreed at once, and they made their excuses to their host, and offered him their thanks for the evening’s entertainment.

  Dom Manoel made no attempt to detain them, although by

  Portuguese standards the evening was yet young, and his fingers met and retained Steve’s for a breathtaking few seconds that caused her heart to race. She found herself looking straight up into his eyes, and it was as if their darkness reached out and engulfed her, and she was back in the half light of the garden, with his arm about her and his heart thundering against her heart. Jerkily she managed:

  “Good-night, senhor! Thank you so much for a wonderful evening!”

  “Thank you for a wonderful evening,” was all he replied, and afterwards she wondered how and why her presence should have helped to make a wonderful evening for him.

  And because she was an essentially truthful person she knew, and admitted the answer to herself.

  It had not been a wonderful evening, but from her point of view—at least—there had been some wonderful moments mixed up with it.

  On the way home in Tim’s car she had never known her brother so silent, but she was in no mood to rally him, or to enquire the reason why. When they had put the car away in the garage Tim said moodily:

  “I don’t think we’ll repeat that before the Dom’s marriage. If he asks us again we’ll refuse.”