by Susan Barrie
For the first time since she had become engaged to be married Angela felt that some slight importance did actually attach to her, and even although she was marrying for no really sound reason that she could think of she was glad that, as a result of that marriage, she would acquire one in-law whom she felt absolutely certain she would like.
Felipe made no response to these comments on the quality of his taste, and he seemed quite happy at lunch to devote himself to Willow, who had begun to look a little bored by her host by the time she was escorted into the dining-sala. Angela understood perfectly that unless she was offered wholesale admiration she very quickly evinced signs of wishing she was somewhere else. She seemed quite incapable of putting up any form of pretence, even in the interest of good manners.
‘I remember your grandmother perfectly,’ Don Jose told Angela at lunch. ‘She was a little older than I was at the time of her marriage, but I must confess I admired her enormously ... just as I am now prepared to admire her granddaughter,’ and he pared her a deliciously ripe peach and placed it delicately on her plate in front of her, once the dessert course was reached. When it came to coffee Angela found that she was expected to do the honours, her host having no wife or other female relative to perform the service for him, and once again under the watchful eyes of Willow Ruddock she performed the task with the maximum amount of gracefulness and composure.
Willow looked cynically intrigued as the host kissed Angela’s small white hand in a most expert and calculatedly charming way as she handed him his coffee cup, but Felipe’s expression remained unmoved. He was discussing with Willow the notion of a drive along the coast that evening after dinner, and perhaps a visit to one of the night spots, and apparently her approval of this plan of his was of the very maximum amount of importance to him.
He lowered his voice as he talked with her, and Don Jose, after studying them for a moment rather closely—and perhaps with a degree of surprise— interrupted by suggesting he should show his fiancee the gardens of the villa.
‘It is the hottest hour of the day, but by the sea here there is always a breeze,’ he told them. ‘And in my gardens you will find a sufficient amount of shade to ensure that our charming Angela is not affected by it. I particularly recommend a visit to the new lily pool I have had constructed. I am rather proud of it, and would like your opinion when you return to the house.’
Felipe was obviously surprised, and equally obviously a little resentful at having any single one of his movements dictated for him. His attitude to his elderly relative was polite and slightly deferential, but unlike most Spaniards of his generation he apparently did not revere old age. He looked as if he was prepared to dispute the wisdom of a visit to the gardens at that hour despite the cooling breezes from the sea, but his uncle made this virtually impossible.
‘Come, come, Felipe,’ he rallied him with a good deal of dryness—like the dryness of the excellent white wine that had been served with other wines at lunch. ‘Must I make myself more obvious and declare that I am still a romantic at heart, and were I your age and engaged to be married I would welcome any opportunity to be alone with my betrothed? You surely understand that I am making a sacrifice by being willing to dispense with the company of your Angela for even a short time?’
At that Felipe stood up, looking a trifle grim, and glanced across the room not at Angela, but at Willow.
‘What do you say to examining the lily pool, also,
Carmelita?’ he enquired of her. ‘Or is the exertion too much...?’ But Jose nipped the idea in the bud immediately.
‘No, no,’ he exclaimed airily, ‘I cannot allow that! I have not so far had an opportunity to talk with Senora Ruddock, and I cannot allow her to go away without repairing such an omission.’ He stood up and bowed before her gallantly, the scarlet camellia in his buttonhole threatening to become dislodged from it as he did so. ‘Are you interested in ancient coins, senora? I have a wonderful collection of which, I think, I am justifiably proud, and I would like to show them to you. I am sure you agree with me that betrothed couples need a little time to themselves, particularly in these so enlightened days ... which are quite unlike the days when I was young. I had to wait until I was married to be alone with my wife! ’
Willow cast a horrified glance—an appealing glance, also— in Felipe’s direction, but even she realised that she could not be openly rude to her host.... And Felipe had already bowed to the superior will that had ordained he should spend a little time alone with Angela. He took her by the elbow and guided her towards one of the wide open windows, and in a matter of seconds they were outside in the full blaze of the afternoon sun, which came at them with the thrust of a white-hot sword-blade.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Felipe declared, releasing Angela the moment they were out of sight of the window. ‘The old boy must be mad! ... This is the hour for siesta, not for the exploration of a garden which seems to me very similar to any other garden along this coast!’
Angela glanced at him under fluttering eyelids. And then the eyelids ceased to flutter and she gazed stonily at her own feet, in their shapely white sandals.
‘Of course, if you would rather return to the house,’ she said to him quietly, ‘I can make my way to the lily pool alone. I do
not think your uncle understands the position between us.... He
imagines it is not exactly a penance for you to be alone with me, and that is why he contrived this situation. However, I do agree it is very hot!’
He glanced at her uncovered golden head, and frowned furiously.
‘You’ll get sunstroke, or something of the sort,’ he said, seizing her by the arm again and dragging her into the shade of a grove of ilex. ‘It isn’t as if you are Spanish-’
‘Neither is Willow Ruddock,’ she remarked. ‘And yet you wished her to accompany us!’
He glanced down at her irritably.
‘Willow is my guest.’
‘And I am the woman you plan to marry? Wouldn’t it be nice for you if I happened to be simply and solely your guest, and Willow was the woman you were planning to marry?’ She turned contemptuous and startlingly clear blue eyes up to him. ‘Wouldn’t it?’ she insisted.
He still had her by the elbow, and he was thrusting her forward along the path, which led eventually to the lily pool.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ he replied shortly.
‘I am not absurd!’ Suddenly she came to a halt in her tracks and confronted him. She did something she couldn’t remember doing in public before ... partly because her upbringing had forbidden it hitherto, and partly because she had never been quite so angry. And it wasn’t ordinary anger—it was helpless, frustrated anger. She stamped her foot on the path, which was evenly gravelled and prevented the sound from carrying very far. ‘I hate you!’ she declared. ‘The very thought of marrying you makes me feel sick! ... And why I didn’t run away from school, and my grandmother, to avoid this I can t think! It isn’t as if I wanted to marry anyone! But to have to marry you! ...’
He looked down at her with his dark face a mask of icy distaste.
‘I think you are forgetting yourself, senorita,’ he observed in a voice that matched his looks. ‘Or else you are already being affected by the sun.... ’
‘D-d-damn the sun!’ She had never in her life sworn openly before, although her close friend at school in Switzerland had been far less inhibited, and even eloquent on occasion. ‘Do you think I don’t feel humiliated every time I see you look at Mrs. Ruddock...? And as you obviously find her utterly fascinating why didn’t you decide to marry her? Was it because you thought she had forgotten all about you, or had married someone else...? Or was it because you do so badly want those estates of mine? You can have them ... I’ll give them to you if you’ll let me go and tell my grandmother you can’t possibly marry me after all! Never mind her indignation. She’ll get over it, but I’ll never get over it if I have to marry you!’
Her blue eyes were blazing like wild blue stars, and her
lower lip was trembling. He looked down at her in astonishment, and the thing that astonished him most about her was the pallor of her face. She was so pale she might have been about to faint, and her whole face was quivering uncontrollably. She put her hands up over her face, and to her own horror she suddenly burst into tears.
‘Oh, how frightful,’ she sobbed. ‘Whatever will your uncle think?’
Felipe caught hold of her by both shoulders and thrust her towards a white-painted garden seat that was placed at precisely the shadiest spot in the long, winding path, and then he made for the lily pool and bent down and soaked his handkerchief in the limpid water, afterwards squeezing it out and carrying it back to her. He sat down beside her on the seat and advised her with a sort of frozen composure:
‘Mop your face with this! Stop crying like a baby for nothing whatsoever, and afterwards you can delve inside that handbag of yours’—which, fortunately, she was carrying on her arm—‘for any make-up it contains, and do your very best to remove all traces of this outburst in order that we can return to the house. If you return to the house with tears on your face I’ll never forgive you.... And I warn you I mean never!’
She sobbed hysterically for a moment or so longer, and then she apologised breathlessly, with a painful, sobbing note in her voice.
‘I’m so very sorry, Felipe! ’
‘I should hope you are!’
‘I—I don’t know quite—what came over me! ’
‘Don’t you?’ He sounded very faintly amused.
‘No. So far as I—I can remember, I’ve an exhibition of this sort before in public....’
‘As there are no onlookers, you can take it I don’t consider myself as very highly representative of the general public! ’ Suddenly she glanced at him, and just as suddenly she started to giggle hysterically.
‘You’ve got a sense of humour—’
‘So, apparently, have you. But don’t let it get out of hand. I wouldn’t like it to become necessary for me to slap your face.’
Her drowned blue eyes, while she wielded his handkerchief, hung upon his.
‘You—wouldn’t—?’
‘No. It might leave a mark which would attract the attention of my discerning uncle, and as a result draw down upon my head the wrath of your grandmother.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t like Grandmother to get to hear of this—’
‘Then you’d better work overtime with that powder compact of yours!’
She was working feverishly with a powder-puff, and peering anxiously at herself in the diminutive mirror that was a part of the compact. The delicately tinted powder was achieving miracles, but there were still hectic scarlet patches staining her cheeks, and her eyes were distinctly watery. Whenever she caught her breath it sounded as if she was fighting against a tendency to give vent to another sob or two, and after a silent moment or two of watching her he took the compact from her and slipped it back inside her handbag, placed the handbag between them on the seat, and reached out a long arm and drew her almost roughly up against him.
‘You’ll do,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to cut out this habit of being so emotional. Not merely does it destroy your
appearance but I personally find it exhausting with the temperature in the region it is at the moment. Besides, it’s quite unnecessary. I have asked you to marry me, and it never occurred to me that Mrs. Ruddock would consider taking me on as a husband if I asked her. For one thing, I think she’s enjoying her freedom at the moment, and for another those estates of yours really do tempt me. My pride won’t allow me to accept them as a gift, so there is no alternative to your becoming my wife.’ He swivelled round on the seat so that he could take a good long look at her, and then while she was blushing fierily for no reason that she could actually think of he possessed himself of her chin by squeezing it between his thumb and finger. The pressure hurt a little, but she did not wince. He smiled rather crookedly, lifted his other hand and lightly stroked her cheek, and then said something that caused her to blush more fierily still.
‘ Do you know, my child, your appearance is decidedly preposessing! You’re about as Spanish in your looks as Carmelita, but there is something...’ He bent closer and peered at her with greater interest. ‘Yes, there is something that is not purely English, either! Although your eyes are so blue they remind me of Dona Miranda, and I’m pretty certain your father didn’t have a temper that smoulders like yours ... as if there’s a small but active volcano deep down inside you. Are you conscious of the rumblings of a volcano occasionally at the very heart of your being? ’
‘I—don’t think so.’ But she smiled as she shook her head.
‘You should be. You’re highly explosive material!’ Then he desisted from stroking her cheek. He sat back and looked at her for a much longer period, and far more thoughtfully.
‘Querida,’ he said at last, ‘how would you like it if I took you out to dinner to-night?’
‘You mean if you took us all out to dinner?’
‘Nothing of the sort. My guests can entertain
themselves for a single evening, and I’m quite sure your grandmother can be trusted to look after them in my absence. She rather shines as a hostess ... and I hope you will do so, too, one of these days. No, I feel that you and I should make an effort to get to know one another before we are forced into the intimacy of getting to know one another as husband and wife.’
She had possessed herself of the clasp of her handbag, and was maltreating it nervously while she gazed at him as if she was by no means certain that he was serious. Also she looked as if his words— particularly his final words—had covered her in
embarrassment. She looked down at the clasp of the handbag, and showed him her luxuriant eyelashes with the bright tips that rendered them extremely attractive.
‘What of—what of Mrs. Ruddock?’ she demanded in a low voice. ‘I mean, won’t she perhaps feel that you are neglecting her?’
‘Because I transfer some of my attention to my future wife? Don’t be absurd, child,’ he said.
‘But she is rather a—a special guest, and only this morning it struck me that you—do regard her as a very special guest—’
‘Which is one reason why you subjected me to that little exhibition just now? No, Angela my dear, you must understand that in many ways I am a law unto myself, and very occasionally even I do not understand why I do certain things. Perhaps I found this visit this morning a little irksome, and was prepared in advance for my uncle’s demonstrations of approval where you were concerned. He could hardly show disapproval, since you have everything to commend you in the way of a future wife—looks, youth, family background, by no means a mean dowry. If I had presented Carmelita to him as the woman I proposed to marry he would have looked at me much more askance ... and I very much
fear he would have found it extraordinarily difficult to behave with urbanity to Carmelita. Even as my guest he treated her with the greatest caution.’
‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, without looking at him, ‘he is shrewd enough to be just a little suspicious of her.’
‘As you are suspicious? And, it is possible, your grandmother is also a little suspicious? ’
‘I don’t think my grandmother exactly approves of Mrs. Ruddock.’
‘No, I think she makes that fairly obvious.’ Stealing a swift glance at him, she was afraid he was working himself up into one of his own tempers. His dark eyes were beginning to sparkle irately, and the square jut of his chin seemed suddenly very noticeable. She felt her heart sink within her again.
‘I don’t think it is entirely unnatural that my grandmother should resent Mrs. Ruddock,’ she told him very quietly.
She could feel, rather than see, him frown.... And then he stood up, took a few quick strides along the path in the direction of the lily pool, walked back to her and dominated her by addressing her from somewhere far above her head.
‘Listen to me, Angela,’ he said. ‘As yet we are not married, and I still have th
e right to lead my life more or less as I wish, so long as I remember always that I am committed to marry you. Your grandmother must understand this just as you must understand it. Once you and I are husband and wife I will not, naturally, invite Carmelita to stay unless for some reason you yourself should expressly desire it—’
‘That is quite unlikely,’ she told him distinctly.
He smiled a little grimly.
‘How can you really be so certain? You might yet become good friends.’
‘Utterly impossible and unlikely.’
‘You dislike her so much—?’
‘I—’
‘Never mind!’ He sat down swiftly beside her again and took her hand. ‘We will drop the subject of Willow Ruddock for the moment. I believe I asked you whether you would care to dine with me alone to-night, and you have not yet given me any indication that you would. I think it is an excellent plan myself, and I’m sure Dona Miranda will approve. We will take the drive I was planning earlier along the coast, and in a little fishing village where life is very peaceful we will dine. Unless you would prefer some more scintillating spot, with quantities of champagne and very sophisticated company around us.’
‘You know very well I would not!’
He regarded her whimsically.
‘Now, I cannot really be sure of that, for the last time I took you out to dinner you complained bitterly afterwards because of the lack of champagne and my insistence that you consumed a highly colourful and very decorative ice-cream. I am not sure whether it was the ice-cream or the absence of champagne that really upset you—’
‘It was neither.’ She peeped at him with a dangerous sparkle underneath her eyelashes. ‘It was your attitude ... as if I was a schoolgirl you were taking out to dine, instead of a fiancee. You did not for one moment treat me as if you seriously planned to marry me....’
‘If that is really true I apologise very humbly!’ But there was an almost gay note of raillery in his voice that didn’t quite console her. ‘To-night I will treat you as if you were already a matron, and a very mature matron at that. You shall have no cause to complain, I promise you. But now I think we have remained out here in the garden long enough, and if you feel up to facing the combined scrutiny of the others we will return to the house. Let us hope Carmelita has displayed an intelligent interest in my uncle’s medals, sufficient at least to maintain him in a good humour. He can be extraordinarily touchy if one rubs him up the wrong way.’