‘You look beautifully cool, my dear. I wish I could wear a thing like that.’
Laurel glanced down apologetically at her practice costume. ‘I was just about to go upstairs and change.’
Marian smiled again, with a faint twinkle in her eyes. ‘I can assure you it doesn’t shock me in the least,’ she said. ‘Some of those so-called bathing suits are only about a tenth of the size.’
They all settled down into chairs, Laurel thankful that she had not shocked someone she had come to like quite a lot, even if they had only met once before. She knew herself that there was nothing wrong with her costume; it was the conventional type of leotard worn at the Institute for practising, but she had not known Marian Dalkeith long enough to be able to judge what sort of old-fashioned ideas the elder woman might have clung to.
Marian, however, was looking at the slender limbs with obvious approval, admiring the subtle grace that was evident even in relaxation.
‘I didn’t know schoolteachers also taught ballet,’ she said with her warm smile.
‘Well, I didn’t really teach it,’ Laurel explained. ‘It’s not conventional ballet either. I joined a physical culture organization that specialized in classical Greek dancing. Later on, when I knew more about it, I did teach some of the girls at school, for the annual concert.’ She paused for a moment, then added a little diffidently, ‘I was wondering whether any of the children here would be interested, that’s why I was practising again.’
Marian nodded. ‘It’s very unusual. You should get quite a bit of support. Why not try to arrange some sort of concert? You would have no trouble in getting the proud parents to come along and see their little darlings perform.’ She was a plump, middle-aged woman, but her smile became oddly impish. ‘I know I would and I suspect the others would too. You might even be able to get some of the younger adults to join in.’ She became serious and gave Laurel an inquiring glance. ‘If you’re really interested in doing something of the kind, the Milton Club Committee would help you, I’m sure. The only thing is, it would probably put a lot of work on you, and you’re supposed to be having a holiday.’
‘It wouldn’t be work,’ Laurel protested quickly. ‘I love doing anything like that.’
‘Then it looks as if you’ve elected yourself to a job,’ Marian smiled. ‘I think you’ll find plenty of helpers, though.’
‘Count me in,’ Ned said, and added with his slow grin, ‘Just so long as I don’t have to stand on one leg and point the other at the lampshade!’
Since she could think of nothing quite so ludicrous as the sight of him in such a stance, Laurel assured him solemnly that he would be allowed to keep both feet firmly on the ground.
Ned heaved himself to his feet after a while, murmuring something about the sisal crop and that he expected they had things they wanted to say to each other without a man present.
Marian smiled as she watched him go out. ‘You have a fine brother, Laurel.’
The girl nodded, with a soft light of affection in her eyes. ‘I know that, Mrs. Dalkeith. I used to absolutely hero-worship him as a schoolgirl. I suppose I still do, though in a more adult way.’
‘Any other man would have a job to measure up to him, I suppose,’ Marian said shrewdly.
Laurel laughed lightly. ‘Probably.’
‘How are you getting along with Anthea?’
Laurel was glad it was Anthea Barrington who was being spoken of, not the other member of the Barrington family, or she wondered what sort of reply between tact and truthfulness she could have produced. As it was, she was able to reply with quite happy candour.
‘We seem to get on quite well, although I will admit she can be annoying sometimes,’ she added with a rueful grimace.
Marian nodded understandingly. ‘Young Anthea quite often has decided ideas of her own.’
Distinctly odd ideas some of them were, Laurel thought, remembering Anthea’s remarkable fixation on getting her married to Stephen.
‘Sometimes I think Stephen must find her a bit of a handful,’ Marian commented, ‘but knowing Stephen, he probably copes without much trouble.’
‘Oh, he would,’ Laurel agreed dryly. ‘I should think there would be very little he could not cope with.’
Marian’s expression had a faintly amused tinge, but she did not comment, except to say:
‘Anyway, Anthea will probably marry before very long, so somebody else will have the job of trying to keep her in some sort of order.’
Laurel thought of her brother’s expression as he had spoken of Anthea Barrington and felt the same coldness she had before clutch at her heart on his behalf.
‘I don’t suppose she’ll marry anyone on the island,’ she said slowly. ‘The Barringtons are so wealthy...’
‘They’re not snobs, my dear,’ Marian’s voice was quiet. ‘I don’t think it would matter to Anthea whether the man she fell in love with had any money or not.’
‘What about Stephen, though? Wouldn’t he...?’
‘He would not,’ Marian broke in, with some degree of sharpness. She looked at the girl with a faint frown. ‘You don’t like Stephen, do you?’ She paused and added, ‘Why not?’
Laurel looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I suppose it’s because I hear so much about him,’ she said diffidently. ‘His manner doesn’t help either. He ... he’s so cynical.’
‘He has reason to be,’ Marian said quietly. ‘You probably don’t know that he was once engaged.’
Laurel held her glance for a moment, then looked away. ‘What happened?’ she asked, and was surprised to find that her voice was little more than a whisper. She was also quite disturbed to feel a return of the odd, breathless pain she had felt once before, in the gardens of Castelanto, when the certainty had come to her that Stephen had been very badly hurt by someone.
‘Nobody knows quite what did happen,’ Marian said in her soft voice that could be sympathetic without being too obvious about it. ‘He went away from here ... it would be about seven years ago now. At that time he was full of gaiety and a kind of boyish recklessness. We heard that he had become engaged in London. When he came back to Ladrana he was changed, almost out of recognition. He was not a boy any longer and he was not engaged. He was very badly hurt, Laurel—although none of us here knows quite what happened,’ she said again. ‘Perhaps Anthea does. They’re very close together, probably as fond of each other as you and Ned are. The next time Stephen is being aggravating—and I know he can be sometimes,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Just try to make allowances for him.’
She had been right, then. Somebody had hurt Stephen very badly in the past—but it was still hard to think of anybody actually being able to do so, because it seemed to her as if must always have been surrounded by that wall of cynical charm and jeering mockery—yet if Marian Dalkeith was to be believed, and Laurel felt instinctively that she was, beneath the mask Stephen was just as vulnerable as anyone else.
Again she was conscious of that odd little pang on his behalf, but this time she was annoyed with herself. She was quite able to sympathize with him, like any other human being, for having been hurt, but his present attitude was not exactly conducive towards liking and she could not see herself ever feeling anything but antagonism towards him, in spite of the charm he could exert when he chose.
Laurel was surprised to find how quickly her idea caught on. It seemed that nobody on the island had ever thought about, let alone seen, such a thing as Greek dancing, and they seemed to be intrigued and interested from the first moment that they heard about it.
Marian Dalkeith turned up again the next day with a small birdlike woman who was apparently in charge of the women’s section of Milton’s fairly large but somewhat exclusive social club. Esme Bertram-Smythe was a little inclined towards a snobbish view of life, but since she was so genuinely interested in the new project, Laurel found herself more amused by the pretty, pert woman with her affected drawl rather than offended by some of the innocently condescending remarks.
Esme Bertram-Smythe sailed into Ned’s lounge like a small, important ship under full canvas. Laurel, who had been practising only ten minutes earlier, thanked her lucky stars that she had gone immediately to change.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Bertram-Smythe,’ she said pleasantly, and smiled at the two children with her, although it was somewhat incorrect to call Barbie a child. She stood as tall as Laurel herself and was boyishly slim. Her skin was tanned as dark as any of the Portuguese fishermen and her shock of red, curly hair seemed to be quite unmanageable. She had the green eyes sometimes found with redheads, but they were a deep ocean green, with laughter lurking perpetually in their depths. From the moment that she came into the room Laurel took an instant liking to her.
The other Bertram-Smythe was a beautiful little sprite with huge blue eyes that she used shamelessly. Most appropriately, she was named Angela, which was naturally shortened to Angel—but Laurel wondered if she always lived up to her name. Her innocently beguiling smile sometimes had a touch of her elder sister’s mischievous impudence.
Having introduced her daughters, Mrs. Bertram-Smythe settled the bunch of flowers that did duty as a hat more firmly on her head and prepared to take her departure.
‘I thought I would bring them over to meet you, Miss Shannon,’ she said, ‘so that you can get to know each other. Unfortunately, I have to go to a committee meeting this morning, so I hope you will excuse me.’
‘Of course, Mrs. Bertram-Smythe,’ Laurel said politely and was not really surprised to see Miss Barbara Bertram-Smythe give her an impudent wink behind her mother’s back.
Matters eminently settled to her liking, Mrs. Bertram-Smythe took her departure, conscious that she had the means to get her younger offspring off her hands for considerable periods of many days and convinced, by that reason alone—even if no others turned up—that she was going to like Laurel Shannon.
The three left behind took stock of each other and all came to a satisfactory conclusion.
‘By the way,’ Miss Barbara Bertram-Smythe said, without any unnecessary preamble, ‘my friends call me Barbie.’
‘And I’m Angel,’ the small golden voice of the younger Miss Bertram-Smythe piped up. ‘If Barbie calls you Laurel, I’m going to as well.’
‘Are you now?’ Laurel said with a smile. She dropped down on her knees by the child, while Barbie looked on with an amused grin. ‘What makes you think I shall let you call me Laurel?’
‘Oh well, you look so nice I know you will,’ Angel said, with such deliberate and blatant flattery that Laurel threw Barbie a rueful glance.
‘Shameless, isn’t she?’ Barbie said, quite unperturbed. ‘The little wretch gets her own way every time, of course.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Laurel replied dryly, then she smiled down at the child again. ‘Have you come to learn some of my dances, Angel?’
Angel nodded. ‘I want to be a sunbeam.’
At this stage Barbie, who had been sitting relaxed and happy in her chair, suddenly appeared to become slightly uneasy.
‘Anything the matter?’ Laurel asked, as if she had been on terms of easy friendship with the other girl for much longer than about twenty minutes.
‘I’m not keen on learning these dances,’ Barbie said frankly. She made a little grimace, half rueful, half deprecating. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t know what they’re like, so I can’t dislike them. It’s just that dancing, or any other of the so-called social graces, doesn’t seem to take kindly to me. I would be only too glad to help with anything behind the scenes, though,’ she said quickly—and added with engaging candour, ‘It would probably keep me occupied enough so that Mother couldn’t drag me off to these wretched social engagements.’
‘All right, Barbie,’ Laurel said with a smile. ‘If that’s how you want it. Some of the dances can be pretty strenuous. You would have to really like them to endure the hard practising they entail.’
‘Anyone home?’ a gay voice suddenly called out, and Anthea drifted in unannounced. She was dressed in a blue sun-dress that seemed to make the golden tan of her skin glow and her glorious blonde hair was tied back with a blue band. The ends of it lay on her bare shoulders in a fluff of pale chiffon and her hair had been tossed by the wind. She looked altogether too glamorous to be true, but her smile was impudent as she saw the easy relaxation of the others in the room. ‘What’s this—the all-girls-together session?’
‘Anthea!’ Angel screamed, and launched herself across the room like a miniature tornado, to clutch Anthea around bare, gold-tanned legs.
‘Hey, take it easy, infant,’ Anthea protested mildly, and bent down to detach the limpet who looked up at her with huge blue eyes. ‘Oh lord, Barbie!’ she groaned. ‘Put blinkers on that child.’
‘Heaven help the male sex when she grows up,’ Barbie grinned.
Laurel belatedly remembered her duty as hostess. ‘Come in and join us,’ she said to Anthea, who was in any case already in the room. There seemed to be little formality on Ladrana, except perhaps that insisted upon by Mrs. Bertram-Smythe and her own socially conscious set. ‘I was just going to have some tea made,’ she added.
‘Lovely. I could drink buckets.’ Anthea settled herself comfortably on the couch beside Barbie. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea to keep up the old English elevenses.’ Laurel only then remembered that Pepita had gone out to do the marketing and she rose to her feet to go along to the kitchen to prepare elevenses herself.
‘I won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Pepita has gone out.’
‘Good. I’ll come and help,’ Anthea said instantly.
‘I’ll come too,’ Barbie offered.
‘I can manage all right...’
Laurel found her protests cut short as they all, Angel included, escorted her out to the kitchen. Angel was told sternly to sit at the table and keep from getting underfoot. To everyone’s surprise she obeyed, watching wide-eyed as the three of them, chattering gaily, brought out cups and saucers and the various other paraphernalia of tea making. After a few minutes, watching Anthea prowl happily about the kitchen, Laurel shook her head with a laugh.
‘You know, you continually surprise me, Anthea. I never expected to find you at home in a kitchen.’
‘The trouble is I don’t manage to get there very often,’ Anthea grumbled. ‘I love cooking.’
‘You do?’
Laurel looked so astounded that both Barbie and Anthea burst into gales of laughter.
‘You know,’ Anthea said, impishly mimicking Laurel’s tone, ‘I believe you think I’m made of sugar icing.’
‘I like sugar icing,’ Angel said solemnly from the table.
‘Do you, pet?’ Laurel said with a smile, and reached out for a cake covered with pink icing. ‘There you are, then.’
‘Thank you, Laurel,’ Angel said indistinctly through a mouthful of cake.
‘I knew it,’ Anthea said triumphantly. ‘Another one under her thumb!’
‘Can you wonder at it?’ Laurel looked over at the happy child, fast becoming covered in pink icing, and shook her head. ‘If you like cooking, why don’t you do more of it?’ she asked, coming back to the original subject.
Anthea shuddered. ‘We have an absolute gorgon of a cook at Castelanto—at least she’s not exactly a gorgon,’ she amended. ‘I believe they say she’s one of the best in this part of the world, but all she can say when I show up is “A young lady of your social position, Miss Anthea, should not concern herself with such household matters,” ’ and she mimicked perfectly a faintly reproving elderly voice.
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‘No other way out, Anthea. You’ll have to get married,’ Barbie said jokingly.
‘No fear,’ Anthea retorted. ‘I’m having too much fun at the moment to want to be tied down.’ She threw Barbie a faintly provocative glance, as if she already knew the girl’s views on the matter. ‘While we’re on the subject—why don’t you take your own advice?’
‘And get married?’ Barbie gave a mock shudder. ‘Heaven forbid!’
‘Don’t you like men?’ Laurel asked.
‘They make me sick,’ Barbie replied succinctly. ‘That is, most of them,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Probably the reason why I don’t like dancing is because so many of the silly idiots want to behave like grizzly bears and if you go for a boat trip with any of them the sun goes to their head or the moon makes them amorous. All one and the same thing,’ she finished with a shrug. ‘They’re just a dam nuisance.’
‘Necessary only for the survival of the race,’ Anthea tacked on for her with a grin.
‘What’s necessary?’ Ned asked, appearing hot and dusty in the doorway.
‘Men,’ Anthea informed him.
‘I’ll say they are,’ Ned agreed immediately. ‘Mighty handy creatures to have around.’
‘Kids himself, doesn’t he?’ Anthea jeered, with a glance at Laurel. She watched him amble over to the table and peer into the teapot. ‘And don’t think you’re going to get any tea!’
‘I’d better, or you’ll all go out of here on your ear,’ Ned retorted, and brought another cup and saucer out of the cupboard. ‘Lord, was a man ever in such a position—beset by three females!’
‘Stop squawking,’ Anthea said inelegantly. ‘You’re really just loving every moment of it.’
Watching Ned. Laurel felt that he probably was. His face was split by a wide grin as he retorted in kind. It must make him happy just to have her near him, even knowing how out of reach she was; but Laurel thought of Anthea, quite at home in the small kitchen and admitting a liking for cooking, and wondered if his love for her was quite so hopeless after all—unless Stephen stood in the way, and somehow, now that she knew him better, she did not think that he would. He was still infuriating and she did not think she would ever be able to really like him, but there was no petty smallness in his nature that would make him object to his sister marrying a man who did not have as much money as she did, if he was sincerely in love with Anthea. All that, of course, depended on Anthea falling in love and also on Ned, if he was lucky enough to win her love, not standing on his dignity and refusing to ask her to marry him because she was rich and he was poor, by Barrington standards.
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