She recalled how Bella had been after she had told her of the practical joke phone call. Some practical joke! How could she ring her and question her about this latest development? If Bella became as demented by her phone call as she had been then, James was bound to know something was wrong, might even get it out of her, and that would be the end of the marriage.
Her mind deeply involved, she faced the impossibility of ringing Bella; she had plenty of time before the twenty-fourth. But contacting Bella wasn't on, that didn't need too much thinking about; she couldn't bear to have her sister's ruined marriage on her conscience.
Lifting her head as though seeking inspiration, she saw a line of trees in the distance, and the shade they would afford drew her towards them, her mind too full to care what else lay around her.
But it was as she reached the belt of trees that contemplation of her present problems ceased, there being no room in her head for anything but to stand enraptured by
the most beautiful scene she had ever set eyes upon. Even the least ardent nature-lover would have been captivated, and she was far from being one of those.
A warm wind fanned her face, stirred the pale green arms of a weeping willow, had the leaves of a sycamore whispering to each other, and played a rippling tune on a stream that tinkled, glinting in sunlight a yard from her feet.
This was no place where worries could be chewed over. The very beauty of it shook its head in reproach that anything should come to spoil it. With room only in her heart for delight, Reggie took off her sunglasses, since their lenses did not give her a true picture of the glorious colour all about. The soil around, so rich in potash, appeared almost black in colour, and her eyes swept on across the clear crystal waters of the stream to the other side, seeing where meadows of grassland flourished, giving off a bluish tinge, holding her breath as a hare raced through an abundance of wild flowers. The name Uruguay meant purple land, but aside from the purple flowers that coloured the landscape, she was able to pick out wild marigold, even a pink lupin that must have set itself on the wind.
It was picturesque, filled her senses, and she couldn't look enough. Yet she did, because each blink of an eye revealed something she had missed. Close by was a magnificent wild rose, happy to have dainty daisies'rioting at its feet, a perfume greeting her nose, innocent yet exotic, a smell reserved for only old-fashioned roses.
Cerros de Cielo was aptly named, the thought came as she turned to look back at the house. It stood on the highest hill around. Bella had told her that nowhere in Uruguay did the land rise above two thousand feet—it didn't need to; mountains weren't necessary, everything was captured in its untamed rising and falling beauty.
This was the interior, and to Reggie's mind at that moment, it was magical.
But as she turned to look back at the house, some of the magic vanished. She had no idea how long she had been standing there entranced, or indeed at what point her worries about Bella, James, and most of all this latest turn of events in her temporary relationship with Severo, had gone from her mind, but she would have to find an answer to her problems somewhere.
She had better get back. Somehow, she didn't particularly care how he did it, but Severo was going to have to tell his grandmother that there had been a change in their wedding plans. He would be gentle with the old lady, she had no qualms on that score. He had treated her this morning as though she were a delicate piece of Dresden china.
Suddenly Reggie knew she couldn't go through with her visit to Doña Eva that afternoon, not unless Severo had told his grandmother first. With this in mind she didn't linger over her farewell to the beautiful place she had found, but hastened back up the hill, hoping against hope that Severo had returned to his study.
Sweat was sticking her dress to her back when she hurried into the hall, the thick walls of the estancia a cooling contrast to the heat outside. Before she had taken more than a few steps, however, Juana appeared, the relief on her face when she saw her making it plain she had been looking for her.
`Doña Regina . . .' she began, only for her voice to fade as Severo came round a bend in the hall, dismissing her quietly, his gaze never leaving his hot and bothered looking fiancée, damp tendrils starting to curl on her forehead.
`We have been looking for you, querida,' he said, coming to take her arm, the querida she knew because Juana was still within earshot.
`Severo, I wanted to have a word . ..' Reggie began, her earlier animosity with him forgotten in the urgency of what she had to say.
`Your word can wait. First, I think, a long cool drink is what you need.'
Not allowing her to utter another word, he escorted her to the sala, a cool room that housed several couches and easy chairs, telling her she must allow herself to become acclimatised to the heat of the day before she went rushing around.
Again, as he saw her seated, the spate of words which would have spilled out had to be held back. For Juana arrived with a much-needed glass of iced orange, making Reggie realise Severo must have requested it when dismissing Juana, only she had been too full of what she wanted to say to bother with the translation.
As Juana departed, as much because it was expected of her as her need, Reggie took a satisfying gulp from the glass in her hand.
`Perhaps until you have your bearings it will be as well if you tell someone in which direction you are going when you leave the estancia,' he suggested, a small reprimand, she thought, not feeling very comfortable to have him still standing while she was sitting.
`I'm sorry, I didn't think,' she apologised stiffly. It seemed to her as though he was saying she had to ask his permission to go out, a thorn in the side of her spirit of independence.
`No harm done.' He gave her a smile in which she might have found a deal of charm had she not got round to thinking that that smile, and the charm with it, was going to disappear when she asked him what she had every intention of asking. 'I doubt you would have got yourself lost, not so that we couldn't have found you anyway.'
If he was trying to make up for his earlier bad temper by being so pleasant, it was wasted on Reggie, who had seen that blazingly furious side to him. She took another, less thirsty, sip of orange and placed her glass on a nearby table.
`Severo... `Where did you go?' he asked, ignoring that she had an urgent need to ask him something.
The scene she had just left came back to her. 'Down to -the stream,' she told him, and the colourful vista she had seen down there was just too much for her, the urgency of her question fading. 'Oh, Severo, it was so beautiful there!
I could have wept from the pure magic of it.'
At once a feeling of having revealed too much of herself in her emotional words took her. Her eyes fell to her lap, a tinge of pink creeping over her cheeks. Unaware that Severo had moved, she felt his hand beneath her chin tipping her head where he could see into her eyes.
`The beauty of the place you found, querida,' he said softly, with no one there but her to hear the endearment, `would be even more magical to have your beauty in its midst.'
And while she could only sit and stare, for his compliment to her had the sincerest ring, he bent and placed a gentle kiss on tier upturned mouth.
It was a light fleeting kiss, a kiss she would afterwards wonder had it really happened. For it seemed more as though he was saluting her beauty than allowing anything sexual to disturb the moment. Then he straightened.
`When you have rested sufficiently, Maria is waiting to serve your lunch. I am afraid I have to go out, but tonight, Reggie, you and I will share dinner together.'
He had gone, and her fingers were straying as though mesmerised to her lips before the annoying thought
came—he had gone! And just as though he knew she had a vital request to put to him, gone without giving her a chance to voice it!
CHAPTER SIX
HER feeling of resentment that Severo must have had a very good idea what she had wanted to ask, and had deliberately refused to allow her to put her request, ha
d dimmed as the hour drew near when she was to go to tea with his grandmother. Uppermost then was the giant fear of saying the wrong thing.
She was such a hopeless liar. She hadn't any idea of the sort of questions Doña Eva might ask, so she couldn't even rehearse one or two white lies that then might have the ring of authenticity when she trotted them out. And what was she to do if she experienced another moment like that one this morning when she had found it absolutely impossible to lie to the sweet old lady?
Four o'clock came and with trepidation in her heart she left her room. The maid Ana answered her knock and must, Reggie guessed, have been with her employer for some years, for she said politely in English, making her feel more of a criminal than ever that she had given serious thought to pleading a headache and not coming at all:
'Doña Eva had so been looking forward to your visit.'
`My dear!' Seeing the old lady about to rise, Reggie hurried forward to prevent her, bending to kiss the proffered pale cheek. 'Ana has left the chair where she placed it this morning, so you can sit near.' Doña Eva settled
back and when her guest was seated, continued, 'She'll bring tea presently, which I have sent from London. I expect you've tasted the mate which most Uruguayans drink, but I'm sure you won't mind a cup of "English" tea.'
Agreeing, Reggie couldn't help but be struck by the brightness of her hostess, though she hoped she wouldn't pay by being debilitated later if it was a determined effort to put her grief behind her on her behalf.
For a while Severo was barely mentioned, probably because Reggie thought it unwise to get bogged down in this area, and she told Doña Eva about her walk and all she had seen that morning.
`I can see already that you are learning to love this country as I love it,' Doña Eva said softly, going on, seeing Reggie's interest to tell her that Uruguay was made up of nineteen counties, called departments, Durazno being one of them.
`And I should imagine the prettiest,' put in Reggie, who couldn't imagine anywhere to be more enthralling than her place down by the stream.
`I think so, but then I'm biased,' Doña Eva smiled, and went on to tell her that Uruguay was founded on the eastern bank of the Rio de la Plata, the river Plate, and had because of this, until it became an independent state in , been called La Banda Oriental, but the loveliest river to see, in her view, was the river Yi that bounded part of the department of Durazno. Her eyes clouded over at mention of the river Yi, causing Reggie to wonder if it was in that river that Severo's parents had drowned. She discovered it was, as Doña Eva told her how her son and daughter-in-law had perished in a freak accident while out sailing.
Anxious in case Doña Eva should become too distressed, Reggie suddenly realised that memories, even sad
ones, were most of what the old lady had now. So instead of trying to divert the conversation, she listened, as she had many times to her own grandmother, and heard of things that had happened many years before.
`Severo was no more than a boy when he lost his parents,' she reminisced. 'Roberto and I have our own home, as you probably know. Naturally we took Severo to stay with us. But he was never happy away from his valleys and hills. So since Roberto loved this place too, we moved here for some years. Severo later went to university and when he returned he was a man. Roberto said then that we had done all we could, it was time now for Severo to be on his own.'
`Didn't Severo mind your going?' Reggie asked, thinking how he must have missed them, and then as Doña Eva's eyes sparkled brightly, she saw something of the beautiful girl she must have been.
`Not a bit of it,' she said wickedly. 'As Roberto had said, Severo was a man. I rather think he would have found it a mite irksome to have his old grandparents breathing down his neck every time he came home after a night's mischief!'
Reggie had to chuckle too, and felt a tenderness for this lady who had taken the changing times in her stride. But Doña Eva's expression was serious when she said, 'But word would get back to us of who was our grandson's latest and longest lasting lady-friend. As the years passed Roberto and I would think "Is this the one?" but no, never did he come to us and tell us he intended to marry. His grandfather so wanted him to be married, to have the fulfilled family life we had, and his parents had for a short time. Last year, on Severo's thirty-sixth birthday, Roberto gave him a stern lecture, telling him it was about time he settled down to a family life.'
The conversation taking this turn had nerves starting
to flutter inside Reggie. She just knew that at any time now the subject of her engagement was going to come up, and she just didn't have any idea how she was going to handle it. Desperately she tried to find a subject that would change the conversation, but anxious as she was to avoid upsetting Doña Eva, nothing else would penetrate but that she mustn't put a foot wrong.
`Your husband's lecture must have spurred Severo on,' she said, fiercely reminding herself that it was an engagement, a temporary engagement, that was all.
`I doubt it,' smiled Doña Eva. `Severo told him then that he would marry only when he fell in love.'
Good, she thought. If he keeps his word to his grandfather, then I shan't have any problems. She felt better suddenly, for surely Severo must never have intended marriage between them to happen—he had just told Doña Eva that to brighten her spirits this morning, she felt sure. There were almost three weeks to go before the supposed wedding, and by that time Doña Eva would be well enough to be told there was a hitch or whatever story Severo chose to dream up.
`You will wear white, won't you?' Doña Eva asked suddenly.
`White?' As Reggie had just settled in her mind that there wasn't going to be a marriage, the question caught her on the hop.
`For your wedding, my dear. So many young people think it smart not to these days, don't they?'
`Er—yes,' she answered, and wasn't quite sure what she had answered yes to. Had she merely agreed that some girls preferred not to marry in white, or, from the smiling look on Doña Eva's face, had she entered deeper into deceiving her, so far as to saying her dress on the day she married Severo would be a white one?
She thought then that it was time to make noises about
going. And it was with her anxieties very little lessened by what she had unthinkingly agreed to that ten minutes later she left Doña Eva, having accepted her invitation to come and see her again tomorrow.
The hours until dinner, nine o'clock Juana had said when she had come to her room to deliver her laundry, were spent with Reggie swinging from relief on remembering Doña Eva had said Severo had said he would only marry when he fell in love, to agitated dismay when she recalled the way he had told her that morning that he had paid ten thousand pounds for a bride, and the way he was insisting that that deal was not reneged on.
The weather had changed when, dressed in a deep pink kaftan, she stood at her bedroom window watching the rain tip down outside. She needed to feel she was looking her best, she knew she was looking good—but she found that was all she was sure about, for with Severo Cardenosa she seldom felt very sure about anything. He had the power to confuse, rile and then deflate her better than anyone. Even now she was hesitating between going in search of her temporary fiance to say her piece before dinner and dithering about whether it would be wiser to wait until they were actually dining. He couldn't very well discover he had something else to do and to disappear if she tackled him while they were eating, could he? And she had to have everything settled tonight, if not to his satisfaction, then at least to hers.
Deciding on the latter course, at five minutes to nine she left her room, butterflies in her tummy, but her face outwardly composed. Her face stayed composed until, turning into the part of the hall where the dining room lay, she saw Severo, dressed in black and looking more good-looking than ever, the material of his suit fitting immaculately over his broad shoulders. He was coming towards her
`I was about to come looking for you,' he said easily, causing her butterflies to settle a little that at
least it looked as though they were going to start off pleasantly.
`Juana told me dinner would be at nine,' she answered vaguely, having to stop when Severo blocked her way and stood looking at her, his glance unhurried as it went from the top of her head and all the way down and back again.
`Am I permitted to tell you you look very beautiful?' He sounded sincere, though she couldn't be sure there wasn't a mocking note in there somewhere.
`Thank you,' she answered politely, and felt her arm taken as he turned about.
Together they went into the dining room, her eyes noting only one end of the table had been laid. Good. She wouldn't have to Have a shouted conversation with him had it not been so and a place was laid either end. Conscious that she might need all her tact, mustn't rush into speech which with his seemingly volatile temperament could have him in an instant changing from charming host to snarling aggressor, Reggie allowed him to pull out her-chair. She watched while he took his own chair and wondered where she should start. Then she had a few moments' respite when Maria came promptly to serve the first course. Maria's departure had her opening her mouth, but Severo was there first.
`You have enjoyed some of your day?'
He was under no illusions then that she hadn't enjoyed a lot of it!
`I visited your grandmother this afternoon.'
`I know.' Of course he knew; he had most likely spent some time with her when he had finished whatever kept him so busy for most of the day. `Abuela is very taken with you, Reggie.'
`I—liked--like her.' Now that they had started to talk,
she began to feel better. The time seemed ripe to get this marriage nonsense sorted out.
`I am sorry to have left you so much on your own today,' a tongue in cheek remark if ever she heard one. He had about as much time for her as she had for him! But with my presence over the last few weeks being needed at home I have had little time to deal with outside events.'
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