Flower for a Bride (18 page)

“I don’t think it would be any use,” she said.

He frowned so that his dark brows met in a line above his displeased eyes.

“You do realize that you are making it very difficult for me to—well, to place confidence in you in future?”

At that she lifted her small chin a little and looked him straight in the eyes.

“I think you should have been forewarned when my cousin Jay let you down, and not offered me any sort of position in your household,” she told him in a tight, rather choked little voice. “As a family we do not measure up to any of your standards, and for that reason you will be wise if you look for someone else to look after Jamie. Of course, I will remain until you can replace me—that is if you feel that it is safe for me to remain!—but in your best interests, and the interests of your son, some local young woman might be found, in whom you need have no hesitation in placing all your confidence. And now— unless there is something else you particularly wish to say to me, senhor— may I go and make sure that a lunch tray has been taken up to Jamie, and that he is not any the worse for his accident this morning?”

As he did not reply immediately she turned away and walked slowly towards the door. But as she neared it he called to her abruptly:

“Lois!”

She turned and looked at him in obvious surprise.

“I hate to think that I might be accusing you unfairly,” he said, in a more rapid voice than he had used so far. “You say so little, and you are in an unfavorable position here. You are in a strange country, and you have no real friends of your own. As I have told you before, I feel responsible for you. . . .”

“There is no need for you to do that, senhor,” she responded, but already about to turn the door handle, and as if she were feeling a little weary. “I have been responsible for myself for a year or so now, and the fact that I am in a strange country doesn’t weaken my ability to look after myself. I can study my own interests—you must study yours!”

And as she actually did turn the door handle and walk out she had the impression that a tide of rather dark color rose slowly in his face—but whether because he was annoyed, or because he felt snubbed, she couldn’t tell.

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

BUT IN view of the fact that she had terminated that unpleasant interview herself, and that she had stated quite clearly that she thought it best that she should be replaced, she had little hope of remaining as Jamie’s governess for long, although she had told Jamie that there was a possibility she would carry on.

Sitting there by herself, therefore, her thoughts were hardly of the type to warm her own heart, or give her comfort. And once Jamie was in bed and she had kissed him goodnight, her supper had been brought to the day nursery because she had sent a note to Miss Mattie asking to be excused on account of a headache from joining her for the usual meal. She had left it practically untasted on the centre table and then gone back to the window seat and sat staring out at the dusk.

It was blotting out all the color and warmth of the garden, and she felt as if something insidious were creeping into her own life and eliminating all promise of color in her future. As the moon rose, and the paths below her were outlined with silver, a mood of remoteness descended on her, and she didn’t greatly care what happened in the future.

Yesterday she had spent a few hours in the sunshine with a man and his son and been happy. It had seemed to her that if they were the only two people in the world, and they belonged to her, then even if the world was bereft of everything else—every form of comfort—Life would be one long sweet song, and she could live it gladly.

But tonight there was only the silvery impartiality of moonlight, scents that floated in the warm air and were disturbing because she knew she would recapture them at some distant future date, and the almost oppressive silence of the quinta to inform her that the master of the place was probably out, and that she and her problems were not doing very much to disturb his mind. Save that he would probably discuss her with Donna Colares, if he saw her, and that they would talk over the advisability of taking her at her word, and begin looking without delay for someone suitable to replace her.

She leaned her head against the cushions behind her, and the slow tears welled in her eyes and started to run down her face. If only, when she left, she wouldn’t be departing in disgrace, but for some other reason!

There came the lightest of knocks on the door, and before she could call out permission to enter it swung wide, and Dom Julyan came in and closed it behind him. She was sitting without a light, and his hand went out and pressed the switch.

Lois blinked in the sudden rays of the light, and the diamond drops that were hanging on her lashes instantly caught his attention, and he walked over and stood looking down at her.

“Why were you sitting without a light?” he asked, very quietly.

Lois swallowed hard, made as if to rise, but his hand went out and touched her shoulder, pressing her back into her chair.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “But tell me why you don’t appear to have eaten any dinner, and why you choose to sit in darkness—or comparative darkness, since there is, after all, a moon?’

“I like the moonlight,” she replied, making a tremendous effort to steady her voice once she had found it, “and I wasn’t very hungry tonight.”

He sat down in a chair near to her, and leaned towards her with his hands clasped between his knees. There was an expression on his face which puzzled her, but she could make no mistake about the note of apology in his voice.

“Duarte came to see me this afternoon, and he explained that he was rather making a nuisance of himself this morning, and that you were in no way whatsoever to blame for Jamie falling into the pool.

He says that you warned him repeatedly, and that you obviously take your job very seriously. He denied emphatically that you permitted him to hold your hand, but insists that he would welcome the opportunity. It seems that he is a better judge of character than I am.”

Lois was amazed, but she was too emotionally exhausted just then to be very much impressed.

“That was very nice of Senhor Fernandes,” she said. “I hadn’t a very high opinion of him, but it seems that I ought to count him amongst my friends.”

“Will you accept my apology because I was too hasty this morning?”

She made a slight, shrugging movement with her shoulders.

“If you feel that you were too hasty.”

“I do.”

“Well, then—well, then, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because I blotted my copy-book last night!” “What you did last night was really no concern of mine.”

Once again a weary light of amazement flashed into her eyes.

“I think it was. I ought to have insisted on being brought back earlier. And since you have been so kind and are prepared to overlook this morning’s episode”—with a dryness, however, which did not altogether pass him by— “I’d better admit that I was as much surprised by Mr. Enderby’s method of saying goodnight to me as you were, when you came up behind us. I don’t normally permit that sort of thing—in fact, it’s the first time it’s ever happened to

me—but I don’t think any the less of Mr. Enderby because he kissed me. In fact, I think he’s rather nice, and very kind.”

“And you were feeling in need of someone to be kind to

you?”

“You said this morning that mine is rather a lonely position,” she reminded him.

“So it is,” he agreed. He was frowning as he had frowned during the morning, but his eyes were troubled and not critical. “Why were you crying when I came in just now?”

She lay back amongst the cushions of her chair and looked up at the silvery slice of moon.

“Oh, possibly just because I’m a woman—and women are weak and silly sometimes. Even English women!” with a flickering glance at him, and then away.

“I apologize for what I inferred this morning about English women.”

Suddenly she decided that the situation was undignified from his point of view, that from hers it was dangerous because she was at a low ebb and in a mood when a word of sympathy might cause her to reveal something she must at all costs conceal—at any rate from him! So she sat up and said stiffly:

“Senhor, please don’t keep apologizing to me. The one thing we really did agree about this morning, and for which neither of us need make an apology, is that I am not the right type to be responsible for your son, and as soon as you have found someone else in whom you can have greater confidence I should like to leave and return home to England. Or if you feel that Miss Mattie could take over Jamie again until someone else is found, then I could leave at once.”

She looked up at him, as she spoke, with utterly expressionless grey-blue eyes, but there was a look of unmistakable tension round her mouth, and the marks of the barely dried tears were plainly discernible on her cheeks. Dom Julyan’s own expression revealed mounting concern, and he stood up and moved so near to her that she had to put back her head in order to continue to meet his gaze—which seemed to her important just then.

“Lois”—there was unusual hesitation in his voice—“are you saying all this because I’ve upset you? Because I’ve

been unreasonable? Have I hurt you?”

She shook her head mutely, but she swallowed hard.

“I have hurt you, haven’t I?” Suddenly his hand went out and he touched her cheek, very lightly and gently, where the brightest of the tears had clung for a moment before it splashed into her lap. “If I have, please forgive me, and stop talking about going home to England. You know very well that you are doing splendidly with Jamie, and he is already very fond of you.”

But she shook her head again, more vigorously than before.

“There is no question of your having hurt me, senhor— anything you said to me was probably deserved. But I honestly don’t feel I fit in here, and it is better that I should go home.”

“But you have no real home—you told me that yourself!”

'“Nevertheless, I—England is my country, and . . .” She bit her lip, because she knew that at any moment it would behave traitorously and tremble. “I am not right here,” she repeated, after a silence of nearly half a minute.

“That’s nonsense!” he exclaimed. As she lowered her eyes she did not see that the concern in his dark eyes was even greater than it had been. “Lois, are you homesick?” he asked, rather abruptly.

“Perhaps,” she answered, not altogether distinctly.

“I see,” he said, and took a turn or two about the room. When he came back to her he was biting his lower lip. “You really mean that? You are homesick?”

“I suppose I could be,” pleating the skirt of the dress with the scarlet poppies with nervous fingers.

“Portugal has disappointed you after all? It is not, as you first imagined, a country of constant sunshine and happiness?”

“I am not in the least disappointed in Portugal,” she assured him, refraining rigidly now from looking at him, “and no one could reasonably grumble about the amount of sunshine one gets here. And as I didn’t come here to look for happiness I have no complaints on that score, either.”

No,” he said, with sudden harshness, “you came here

to attend your cousin’s wedding, but it was you who remained, and not she. And now you, too, want to go away?”

She felt vaguely resentful.

"I don’t think that’s altogether fair,” she said, rising quickly and moving away from him. “You yourself expressed the utmost disapproval of me this morning, and because tonight you have, apparently, changed your mind—Donna Colares’s brother having gone out of his way to clear me of one of the charges you brought against me! —I also am expected to change my mind, although today I have become convinced that there is only one course open to me. And I very much regret, senhor, that I cannot change my mind!”

She moved closer to the window, and while absolute silence filled the room, and she could have no idea of the expression on his face, she stared out rather wildly at the breathless beauty of the night—such a night as she would remember often, with the most painful nostalgia, when she got back to England! —and thought with a feeling of desperation:

If I did change my mind I would deserve all the suffering that came my way! ... As it would!... When he married Donna Colares!

No, it is far, far better that I should go away....

At last Dom Julyan’s voice, apparently perfectly controlled, but very quiet.

“In that case do you also wish to leave immediately?” “Not—not if it is inconvenient . . . ?”

“I would prefer it if you would delay your departure for at least two weeks, because I am expecting a visitor in the next few days. My uncle, the Marquiz de Valerira, is due here for a short stay, and an upset in the household will prevent things running as smoothly as they might while he is here. And

Mattie, I feel, is really past taking over full charge of Jamie again, although she would probably be very willing to do so if approached. So do you think you could bring yourself to remain here for—say—another three weeks?”

“Yes,” she agreed at once, still staring out of the window, “I will do that.”

“Thank you.” Although she didn’t see him do so the felt him turn on his heel. “I have already apologized to you for my part in this sudden crisis, but it is quite obvious you are not prepared to accept my apologies. However, I do apologize again—and I am particularly sorry because you have been upset. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight!”

She barely whispered the word, so he probably didn’t hear it, but when he had left the room, and she heard the door close, she whipped round and stared at it with haggard eyes as if she wished that sheer will-power could drag him back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next few days passed in a very unmomentous fashion over her head, and only for brief moments did she catch a glimpse of her employer. That was when he was walking in the garden and she was on her balcony, and although he did not look up her heart leapt absurdly when she saw him. On another occasion she was returning from a drive with Jamie and he was just about to drive away from the front of the house in the blue car, and he paused to enquire whether they had enjoyed their outing. Jamie, who had been pursuing a persistent question as to why they couldn’t go again to the beach, looked a trifle bored, but Lois turned an imperturbable mask of a face—very pale and smooth and English under her wide shady hat—and answered that it had been very pleasant.