Flower for a Bride (4 page)

Seeing the look on her face Aunt Harriet decided that it was time to create a diversion, and she said with a brisk

change of tone to her voice:

"Now, let us get quite clearly settled what is going to happen to you, Lois! As you know, Jay and I are leaving almost at once, but that is no reason why you shouldn’t stay on here. You came for a kind of holiday, your room is booked for a week at least, and as Jay and I are agreed that we are rather in your debt since you performed a kind of service for us I am perfectly willing to advance you the money to stay on for another week beyond that. It is a delightful time of year, and presumably you have nothing to hurry back for--?”

“Nothing,” Lois admitted, as the realization suddenly struck her that she would not after all be required to act as a bridesmaid, that her attractive bridesmaid’s dress would not be worn if she went hurrying home, and that the girls in her office would think it strange to say the least that nothing had come of the wedding. Not that it was anything to do with anyone but Jay, but she would have to do a certain amount of explaining, and she would feel a little flat having to admit that she had missed everything—all the color and the excitement that she had anticipated. A wedding in Portugal! ... It had sounded so extremely romantic!

And now there was no real reason why she should remain in Portugal for another day! If she had any sense she would cut her own losses and go home at once, and save a fairly heavy hotel bill. But she didn’t want to cut her losses and go home. ...

She looked out through the window at the sparkling sea, and the queer-shaped rocks littering the white beach, and suddenly she made up her mind.

“I think I’ll stay,” she said. “But I don’t want you to pay anything towards my expenses, Aunt Harriet.”

“Of course I will,” Aunt Harriet declared, as if it was a question of principle that was involved. “I’ve involved you in a certain amount of unnecessary expense, and I’ll help you out with it.”

“You’ve been a honey,” Jay said, smiling at her cousin with somewhat absent-minded gratitude, “and it will be a change for you to stay on here. The bathing’s quite good, and this is quite a comfortable hotel, and I know you’ve never been abroad before. So let Mummy write you a cheque which you can cash when you get home to England.”

But Lois grew quietly more and more obstinate, and declined to allow her aunt to ‘help her out’, as both her relatives kept phrasing it, and although the prospects of a holiday entirely by herself were not as exciting as being involved in all the preparations for an important wedding, she suddenly felt that on the whole she might prefer the holiday on her own. Certainly, having performed an unpleasant task, she was whole-heartedly glad—for the sake of Dom Julyan as well as her cousin, who was to have become his bride—that the wedding after all was not going to take place.

For, although she couldn’t understand it in the least, Jay’s admission that she had never possessed more than a part of the heart of the man who had asked her to be his wife, even if he did possess a child he probably adored, had decided her that after all Jay had done the right thing in breaking everything off at practically the last moment. The only thing she now blamed her for was not having the courage to bring about the break herself, and for insisting on a mere cousin shattering a man’s illusions for him.

For surely illusions had been shattered . . . ?

She was not conscious of any keen sensation of regret when Aunt Harriet and Jay took their departure the following day, driving away from the hotel in a hired car stacked with luggage. Lois had no real idea of their ultimate destination, but she suspected that they would travel for a while, and that Jay would at once start looking for the man who would give her ‘everything’, and not just a part of himself.

Lucky, lucky Jay, Lois thought, when she found that man. And for the rest of the day she was thoughtful, wandering about alone in her little-known surroundings, and pondering the happiness which must result from being absolutely needed by someone. From knowing that for that someone you were the sun, moon and stars, and that the world revolved around you.

No wonder Jay was seeking perfection, instead of something that was nowhere near it. Lois, who was not yet twenty-three, and very conscious of her lack of looks—or looks such as her cousin owned, at any rate—was not expecting to come upon that perfection herself, but that did not prevent her from dreaming about it sometimes. And Alvora was the sort of place in which one inevitably began to dream dreams.

For two days she thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of being quite on her own, of knowing no one, and exchanging nothing but nods with fellow guests in the hotel. There were no English amongst them, and therefore she felt doubly cut off, but not minding in the least because there was no one to share experiences with, or to enthuse with over the charms of her first taste of Portugal. It was enough just then to discover with her eyes that there were more wild flowers and cultivated flowers in her near vicinity than she had ever known in her life before, that the sea grew bluer every day, the sunsets were something to watch for, and the nights left her feeling slightly breathless as if she were on the edge of an amazing discovery.

She bathed, and she sun-bathed—in the decorous manner she saw others doing around her—took country walks, was fascinated by the sight of the terrace-like vineyards, and by bullock teams pulling in fishing boats to land. For wherever she went she never seemed to lose sight of the sea, and above the perfume of the flowers the faint tang of it always reached her.

She was gathering wild flowers high above it one afternoon, beside the winding ribbon of rather hot, dusty road, when a big, turquoise-blue car suddenly passed her at speed, and then pulled up several yards away with a completely noiseless application of brakes. The driver slipped into reverse, and the blue car returned swiftly to where she was standing holding her flowers, her washable pink cotton dress looking slightly faded in the strong sunshine, a shady hat casting a shadow across her already lightly tanned face.

But, in spite of the hat, Dom Julyan, who was at the wheel of the car, had recognized her. He was frowning a little as he regarded her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Fairchild.” The frown became more noticeable. “Don’t you know that in Portugal this is the hour for siesta?”

“Is it?” She felt hot, and grubby, with dust adhering even to the tip of her nose, and she gave a forward tug to the brim of her hat because she felt it would conceal quite a lot of her. “But in that case oughtn’t you to be enjoying a siesta, too?”

He smiled with a flash of his white teeth, although his eyes were cool and remote.

“Heat doesn’t affect me—and as yet, of course, it isn’t really hot here.”

“Then if I happened to be here when it was really hot I should become nothing but a grease spot on the landscape.” His dark eyebrows elevated themselves for a moment. “You expect to be here when it is very hot?” “No, my stay won’t last longer than a fortnight at the outside.”

“I see,” he said.

She felt sure that he was taking in the fact that her legs were bare, and that they were slim and childish-looking, rather than graceful and exquisitely-shaped like Jay's. And whereas Jay would have been wearing hand-made sandals of spotless white buckskin, hers were the type children wear on the beach, and they were dusty, and one of the buckles had worked loose so that she found it difficult to keep it fastened properly. She attempted to conceal the hanging buckle by hiding one foot behind the other, and his glance travelled up until it met the grey-blue eyes staring at him a little challengingly from the shelter of her hat.

“You are enjoying a kind of holiday, I suppose?” he enquired, in a faintly bored voice.

“Yes.”

“Before you return to your London office?”

Again the teeth flashed white.

“Yes, senhor.”

“I had a brief note from your cousin informing me that she is proposing to see a little more of the world before settling down, and thanking me for her release.” He sounded as if he had received a note from a departing visitor, thanking him for a stay at the quinta. “So this holiday of yours will be a little lonely unless you speak Portuguese, or there are perhaps some Americans staying at the hotel?”

“I don’t speak Portuguese, and there are no Americans,” she answered.

She thought his expression grew a little quizzical. “In that case you must be feeling rather lonely.” “I find the scenery enough to recompense me for any loneliness I might be feeling,” she replied to him this

time.

“Good!” he exclaimed softly. “So you have made up your mind that you like Portugal?”

“I love it,” she told him fervently.

But she thought there was a faint shadow of contempt at the back of his extraordinarily lustrous eyes—due, no doubt, to the knowledge he had gained of her cousin—as he regarded her, and there was a thoughtful expression as well.

“But only for a little while?” he suggested. “In time you, too, would become bored by the simplicity of a place like this?”

She shook her head almost violently.

“Never, never! I would never grow tired of simplicity, when it meant so much beauty as well. And, in any case, I’m not a very sophisticated person, I’m afraid,” with a slight sigh.

His eyes dropped once more to her sandals, and the sight of that buckle winking in the sunshine and hanging by a mere thread brought a sudden, curiously softened look to his face.

“Aren’t you?” he said. Then he patted the seat beside him. “If you care to join me, Miss Lois, and you feel that that bunch of flowers you’ve collected is large enough”— surveying it with a faint hint of amusement—“I can introduce you to a fellow- country-woman who would thoroughly enjoy a little talk with you, if you can spare the time?”

But Lois looked suddenly almost aghast.

“In this dress?” She touched it as if she were really ashamed of it, although its faint pink made her look very young and tender, almost, as the flowers she carried, and beneath the wide brim of her hat the feathery end of her honey-gold curls lay glinting against the warm cream of her cheeks. “I couldn’t possibly meet anybody strange dressed like this.” “To me you look perfectly all right,” Dom Julyan

assured her, but although his voice was serious she was sure that a certain amount of amusement had crept into his eyes. “And, in any case, Miss Matilda Gregg, to whom I would like to make you known, isn’t in the least likely to criticize what you are wearing.”

“In that case. . .” Lois said, rather haltingly. But, even so, her eyes rested on his super-smart car, so obviously expensive, and with lines that suggested it had been built for speed—which surprised her a little, for his dignified appearance would have gone better with a more dignified car, or so she thought. But perhaps the garage at the quinta held other cars, amongst which would be one in which she could picture him lying back in his faultless suit and being driven by a subservient chauffeur. “In that case— and if you don’t mind------------------?”

He leant across and held open the car door for her. “I? Why should I mind? You look like a young woman on holiday, and at least you are not wearing slacks, like so many of your countrywomen who come here in the height of the season.” From which she gathered that he disapproved rather more than strongly of slacks. And stealing a side glance at his face as she got into the car the thought struck her that once he did actually disapprove of something it would be extremely difficult to persuade him to change his mind about it.

In fact persuasion was the sort of thing it would be useless to try out on him—unless her estimate of his character was all wrong.

And she didn’t think it was wrong.

CHAPTER FOUR

She felt a little breathless as she subsided on to the seat beside him, almost as if she had been running instead of spending the afternoon in an extremely leisurely fashion. Her hands, hot and a trifle sticky, clutched at her flowers, and as he started up the car he glanced at them with a faint quirk to his lips.

“If I were you I’d put them on the floor,” he said. “They’ll be more likely to survive there.” She took his advice, and then tugged at her short skirts so that they covered her knees. For an instant his eyes rested on her slim, tanned hands, with unvarnished nails, holding the crumpled pink cotton in place, and then as he concentrated on the business of turning the car in the narrow white road, and she observed in her turn that his hands on the wheel were slender and beautifully-shaped, the dark wrists escaping from almost dazzling linen, she heard herself asking with a kind of husky shyness:

“Who is Miss Matilda Gregg? And why do you think she would like to meet me?”

“The answer to your second question is that she hardly ever meets English people nowadays, and to your first—she was my governess years ago, and my little boy Jamie is at present being taught English by her. Or perhaps I should say he was taught English by her almost as soon as he could open his lips.”

“Then she has stayed with you—or your family, rather— all these years?”

“All these years,” he echoed her, with rather mocking soberness. “And by comparison with your years they must seem many indeed.”

“I’m twenty-two,” she told him, a little primly. “I shall be

twenty-three in September.”

“A great age,” he agreed. “And if you were here in September you could celebrate in a suitable fashion, for then is the time of the wine harvest. You would enjoy it, I think.”

A shadow fell on her, for she knew she would be far away.

“You own vineyards, senhor?” she enquired.

“Much of the country round about belongs to me, yes,” he agreed. “But to return to Miss Mattie, as we have always called her. She is too old now to be very much use as a governess, but my son is devoted to her as, indeed, I was, and she occupies a somewhat unique position in my household. She is something of an autocrat, but we do not of course bow very noticeably before her authority. But we like to pretend that we heed all that she says, so I hope you will bear that in mind. She is aware that sooner or later she must be replaced.”