Innocent abroard

by Jessica Steele

  `Leading questions?' Reggie queried, not sure what she meant.

  `Was he married- —that sort of thing. No, he told me briefly, looking at his watch to give me the hint. He seemed to go away from me as I asked if he'd got a steady girl-friend and answered, almost absently, I thought, "No", and appeared to forget I was there as he added, "Right at this moment, would that I had". Well, that puzzled me, because he'd got everything it takes and then some. But I could see from his face that he was on the point of being torn between the politeness of his race and the urge that was in him to tell me to go to the devil.'

  `Perhaps he had an urgent appointment,' Reggie suggested.

  `It wasn't all that urgent, but when he said, "You appear to have recovered from your fall. Would you excuse me, I am anxious to visit a relative in hospital," I realised he must think a lot of this relative and that while ten or so minutes with me wouldn't change anything, he was eager to find out how his relation was. "I'm visiting the hospital too," I told him as he settled the bill. Since we were both visiting the same hospital it would have been daft not to walk together.' -

  Reggie had thought Bella had lost some of her own anxiety as, talking compulsively, the shock she had received loosening her tongue, she told her of her meeting with Severo Cardenosa in Montevideo. But suddenly that desperate look was back as she went on with her story.

  `Oh, if only my stupid vanity hadn't been pricked because I'd met one man who didn't fancy me,' she cried. `We could so easily have parted at the hospital. But no, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I found out as we walked along that it was his grandfather he was visiting. And with a flash of insight one sometimes gets I was suddenly positive his remark about wishing he had a steady girl-friend was something to do with the old man—so I asked him.'

  `You didn't!' For the first time Reggie thought her sister had gone too far.

  `I couldn't see any reason why I shouldn't. Though I didn't think he was going to answer, but with his mind more on his grandfather than me—Uruguayans have a strong sense of family—he revealed that the old chap was very ill and was fretting that he was going to die before he saw his grandson married.'

  `So that's what he meant,' said Reggie, her brain active. 'Had he a steady girl-friend, been intending to get married, his grandfather would die happy.'

  `Exactly what I thought. I'm not as sentimental as you, I admit, but I couldn't help thinking of our dear grandparents. So off the top of my head I offered to go with him to visit his grandfather as his steady.'

  That was just typical of the kindly action Bella would take, Reggie thought, her heart warming to her for her goodness. Though things must have gone badly wrong for her to get into the state she had on learning that Severo Cardenosa had traced her to England.

  `He took you up on your offer?' she asked.

  Not straight away. He stopped dead, and a more suspicious look I never encountered. It was obvious he was wondering what I hoped to get out of it.'

  `Some people!' Reggie interjected with feeling.

  `He then led me to a seat and I could tell he was weighing up the idea. Then he must have decided that whatever I was after it would be worth it to send the old man on his way happy.'

  `He accepted your offer?'

  Bella nodded. 'He seemed to like the idea the more we talked about it, telling me his grandfather had married an English girl and would be over the moon to think he would be doing the same. But when he told me his name and asked mine—well, it was then that I began to have second thoughts.'

  `You told him you'd changed your mind?'

  `No, no, I couldn't. I would have felt too much of a fool. James had been out of my mind for some time, but with Severo asking my name, looking so well-to-do, I had terrifying visions of an announcement of my engagement to him appearing in La Matiana, of it getting into the English press if our publicist was doing his stuff. I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting back with James if that happened—you know how stuffy he can be sometimes.'

  `So you didn't give him your own name?' The fog was clearing.

  `I was getting panicky, he was waiting to hear who I was, and yours was the only name I could think of besides my own. Rosabel Barrington and my stage name Bella Lawson are both names James knows me by.'

  `So you told this Severo Cardenosa you were Regina Barrington.'

  `I knew you wouldn't mind under the circumstances,' said Bella, not giving Reggie the chance to discover

  whether she would or not as she went on, 'Anyway, I went with him to see the old man. He looked dreadfully ill, but gripped on to my hand as though I was his long-lost granddaughter when Severo introduced me.'

  `Did you see the old man again?' Reggie questioned, wondering, in all she had heard, why it should appear to Bella that she would be in such terrible trouble if Severo Cardenosa came to get her as he had said he would. Surely James would understand the warmth in her to have done what she so impulsively had?

  `No—I didn't see him again,' Bella said slowly. 'I realised by the time the visit was over that I was running short of time and I decided to visit the girl who'd taken me to the hospital in the first place another day. Severo came out of the hospital with me, saying he was commited to see another relative who was staying in a hotel in Montevideo and couldn't drive me back to Punta del Este. Though he did insist on getting me a taxi and settling the fare before I left. That in itself told me he wasn't short of a copper or two.'

  `But why is this Severo Cardenosa coming after you? He sounded as though he meant every word on the phone. Had I realised it wasn't one of your idiot friends I would have been terrified.' Reggie only just managed to suppress a shudder at the remembrance of that hard voice as Bella's face again whitened. 'Oh, Bella, tell me—and what the heck did he mean by you having been well paid for the part you had to play?'

  A couple of quarrelsome birds fighting over a bread crust someone had thrown down brought her round to the fact that if she didn't get her skates on she was going to be late getting back to the office, something not guaranteed to improve Mr Elford's sulks any.

  But during the afternoon, the matter in her typewriter not being anything requiring her full attention, her mind

  returned again to Bella and the mess she had got herself into. Had she been in touch with Severo Cardenosa yet? She had said she was going to try ringing him today, though since he was the owner of a cattle ranch, he could well be out with his stock.

  Again she wondered how Bella could have done such a thing! For she had been rocked to her very foundations when Bella had gone on to reveal that the 'You have been well paid' Severo Cardenosa had spoken of, the bargain he had referred to, was that in return for her going on with the pretence that she was his fiancee, he had paid her ten thousand pounds!

  That Bella had not only taken his money but then gone back on her word had shattered her; anything after that was not nearly so earth-shaking. Though how Bella could have told James she had inherited some money and used that money for the deposit on the house when there had been a hold-up on James' own money coming through—his money being spent on furnishings when it arrived a week later—Reggie just couldn't fathom.

  No wonder Bella had been panic-stricken! Love her he might, but if James heard a word of this he would never stand for it—he must never be allowed to find out.

  Constantly she thought about what Bella had told her, examining, re-examining, trying to find some way of saving her sister's future. There was no doubt Bella was in love with James—so much in love that she had last night declared with an intensity that alarmed her that if she couldn't have James then life wasn't worth living.

  Terrified that her sister was having thoughts of doing away with herself, Reggie had told her there must be some way out, that she could count on her to do anything at all no matter how small or how big to help her. She had been the one to urge Bella to get in touch with this Severo. Pray God his attitude had softened from what it had been last night.

  Not that she held out much hope
s for that; he sounded a tough character. Reggie began searching for some way out, going' over again the remainder of what Bella had told her. James had again been occupying most of her thoughts three days later, her little exploit in Montevideo on the way to being forgotten, when coming out of her hotel she had met Severo Cardenosa coming in. He had remembered the name of the hotel she had given to the taxi driver and had come looking for her. Intrigued, she had gone with him to have coffee, where he had explained that although his grandfather's life expectancy was not long, amazingly, since meeting her and believing his grandson was shortly to put his bachelorhood behind him—was marrying an English girl the way he had—the old man had taken on a new lease of life, and was improving daily. There was even talk of him leaving hospital. Severo had then come to the purpose of his coming to Punta del Este, telling Bella that though physically weak his grandfather had all his mental faculties, causing Severo to be very concerned that he would soon realise, when no English fiancée appeared at the estancia, that it had been a put-up job, the result of which could cause an immediate relapse from which he would not recover. He had then put to Bella the most surprising proposition that she should go and stay at the estancia for the remainder of his grandfather's life.

  `From the way he was talking it sounded as though the old chap hadn't got very long to go anyway,' Bella had said, and then she said something that had Reggie's eyes growing wide that she seemed to have grown a mercenary streak in her make-up. 'Well, I was still anti-James more times than I was pro-James, so I told Severo that I stood to lose a great deal of money if I agreed to do as he asked, that I was a dancer, and apart from the money, since what he was asking would mean I should have to break my contract, I would find it very difficult

  to get back into dancing again.'

  Bella talking about money when Severo Cardenosa must have been a very worried man, even if he was as horrible as the tone of his voice suggested, had Reggie feeling embarrassed on her behalf, but she swallowed it down, asking:

  `What did he say to that?'

  `Gave me a hard look I didn't care much for, just as though he thought I was out for all I could get, and then went all arrogant and proud and told me that naturally he didn't intend I should be out of pocket and suggested a figure of ten thousand pounds sterling.'

  And while Reggie had gasped in astonishment Bella had gone on to say she had agreed to his proposal, whereupon he had given her his cheque, instructing her that since he was commuting from his home to Montevideo frequently and was unsure what his exact movements were going to be, she should the following week take a plane to the airport at Durazno where he would be sure to meet her.

  `What went wrong?' Reggie asked quietly, for clearly something had.

  `Nothing went wrong,' said Bella, 'except that when I went to catch the flight to Durazno I was so overwhelmed by a compulsion to see James—it was all I could think about—I flew home instead.'

  Mr Elford did not even bother to say goodnight as Reggie left the office that night, letting her know she wasn't in for a very rosy time and that when Christmas Eve did arrive she would be heartily glad. Though with everything piling up, not least the mental torture she was suffering over Clive, if Mr Elford decided to play sulky schoolboy from now till then she doubted it would bother her all that much.

  As she let herself into the flat, there was hope in her heart that Bella had found Seero Cardenosa in a more

  amiable frame of mind. But after one look at her sister's pale, ravaged face, her red eyes showing she had been indulging in another bout of weeping, that hope faded.

  `What did he say?' she asked, no need for preamble.

  `Not a lot,' said Bella listlessly. 'But what he did say was short and to the point. Grandfather is now out of hospital and I've got three choices—I go, he comes, or he wants his money back. He's no fool, he knows I would have spent it by now.'

  Reggie perched herself on the settee beside her. It was hopeless, hopeless. 'Want some tea?' she enquired.

  `No, thanks.'

  Sombrely the two girls sat, both looking into space as though hoping some bright idea would show itself. Unconsciously Reggie sighed.

  `I'm sorry to burden you with my problem—you've got enough of your own, haven't you, chick?' Bella, hearing her sigh, said regretfully. 'Poor Reggie,' she said, thinking to add, 'Did you give your notice in today?'

  Reggie nodded. 'Received with displeasure.'

  It's the only thing to do. Get right away from Clive. Make a fresh ...' Bella stopped, the sound of her sharply sucked in breath having Reggie's head turning to look at her.

  Bella's face was suddenly animated, the first sign of life she had seen in her since she had got into bed last night.

  `What is it?' she asked, knowing her sister had just thought of something.

  `I've just had a great idea,' Bella beamed, almost laughing her relief was so immense. 'Oh, Reggie, what a dumbo I've been! Sitting here all day going demented trying to find a way out when the way out has been obvious all along!'

  `Well, don't keep it to yourself.' Her own heart lifted to see Bella looking happy again. 'What have you just thought of?' Eagerly she waited for Bella to tell her. But

  when she did she felt near to fainting with shock.

  `You're upping sticks because you're afraid you won't have the strength to say no to Clive. You're looking for somewhere to go where Clive won't find you when he comes back. He'll never think of looking for you in South America.'

  `South America!'

  `Why, oh, why didn't I think of it before?' said Bella, if she had heard her sister's startled exclamation taking no heed. 'It's perfect—perfect! You get to be where Clive can't get to you. Severo Cardenosa gets a fiancée by the name of Regina Barrington, and I,' her voice softened, `and I get James.'

  Suddenly Bella was hungry. Reggie's appetite had gone altogether as her protests were walked over. 'Come on, let's see what there is to eat.'

  Over pork chops and vegetables, Reggie tried to get Bella to see what a nonsense her idea was. 'Severo Cardenosa will never go for it,' she protested.

  `Why shouldn't he?' Bella demanded to know. 'His grandfather thinks he's engaged to an English girl called Regina Barrington. You're English, aren't you, and your name is Regina Barrington.'

  `Yes, but ...' She tried again, a dreadful feeling coming over her that Bella was so taken with her idea she was going to refuse to listen to all reason.

  `If you're going to say that Grandfather Cardenosa has seen me then that needn't bother you. We both have blonde hair and he had his eyes closed most of the time,, just lay there holding my hand. Besides which,' she asserted sweepingly, 'all old men over eighty wear glasses, and he didn't have his specs on at the time.'

  Feeling she was being bulldozed along, Reggie tried again. 'But Severo Car ...'

  `You've no need to worry about him. Provided an Eng-

  lish fiancee turns up looking something like me,' Bella paused to examine Reggie's features, seeing suddenly for the first time that although there were similarities between them, Reggie was beautiful in a different, more lasting way. `Do you know, you're quite something, young Reggie—Severo Cardenosa would have to be less of a man than I'm sure he is not to welcome you with open arms.'

  `Open arms!' Reggie's heart began to thump, unsure whether it was from the fright of what was taking place, or the idea of being in the arms of that man who was threatening to ruin Bella's life if something wasn't done about it.

  `Don't look so petrified. Nothing like what you're thinking went on between him and me. I told you this whole mess started in the first place because he didn't fancy me, and it showed. You've got nothing to worry about in that direction, I promise you. All Severo wants is a platonic fiancée until such time—probably fairly soon now—as the old man dies.'

  Reggie's heart steadied down with Bella's promise. That was until she realised she was actually going along with her idea.

  `I can't do it, Bella,' she said promptly. 'I . . .' Th
e look of happiness vanishing from Bella's face had her protest floundering.

  `Reggie—Reggie love,' Bella said coaxingly, 'would I let you go out there if I thought for one moment that the least possible harm would come to you?'

  Reggie considered the question. `No, you wouldn't,' she admitted, the feeling gathering momentum that she was in up above her head.

  `And didn't you say only last night that if there was anything you could do, no matter how small or how big, you would do it?' Reggie nodded, her throat dry. Bella

  smiled, then said gently, 'And you do want to put as much distance possible between you and Clive, don't you?'

  She wasn't sure any more. But because of all she'd said on the subject, she answered quietly, 'Yes.'

  `There you are, then,' said Bella, and was off again, thoroughly enamoured of the idea. 'You speak Spanish too, so that will be a great asset, for all Severo speaks, English like ...'

  `I don't speak Spanish,' Reggie put in, Bella's frowning look telling her she considered she was trying to be difficult. 'I know a bit of Spanish,' she said, knowing she was weak in trying to take that frown away, 'but if you remember, I dropped Spanish to concentrate on my French "O" level.'

  `Well, you know enough to get by on, which is more than I did,' said Bella, and went on with making plans for her sister's departure before the end of the week.

  `Wait a minute,' Reggie stopped her. 'I can't go that soon. Apart from Mr Elfoord already thinking I've got a cheek not giving him a full month's notice, I can't leave work before Christmas Eve, besides the masses I'll have to do here first.'

  `But Severo wants a fiancée there by the end of this week,' Bella persuaded.

  Having the uncomfortable feeling she had been press-ganged, her love for her sister being put to a very real test, Reggie found enough iron in her soul to resist her coaxing, her assurances that she would do everything there was to be done.