Man of Destiny (8 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

CAROLINE obeyed the instruction, but she was not at all happy when the hour arrived for the Marqu
e
s de Fonteira to make his expected appearance in the drive leading to the pink-washed front of his hunting-lodge.

Everything gleamed to such an extent around her that she was almost oppressed by it, and Ricardo was no happier than she was when the housekeeper took up a position near them and betrayed by the slight but unmistakable nervousness of her manner, and the tension in her face, that this was an occasion and must not be marred by any irresponsible behaviour on the part of a small boy, even if he was the heir to the estates and all that went with them.

Washed and brushed and wearing an immaculate white shirt and new patent-leather shoes—all Portuguese children of good family wore patent-leather shoes, Caroline had discovered, since her arrival in Portugal—and depressed by the very odour of cleanliness that clung about him, he refused to release Caroline’s hand as they stood there in the
hal
l
and more than once he whispered to h
er
that they could get a far better view of the Marqu
e
s arrival if they went back upstairs and watched from one of their own windows, which were in the front of the house and overlooked the drive.

But Caroline had received her instructions, and on this occasion at least
sh
e had no intention of going against them. When she first met Dom Vasco she
might have been tempted to exercise her own discretion on an occasion such as this, but since recen
tl
y he had made it plain that he had a considerable amount of faith in her and her integrity—largely because Richard had declined to do without her—she felt it was more or less incumbent upon her to humour him, as it were.

He wished her to be present when the
Marques
arrived, and therefore she was present. And not merely was she present with her charge, but she had taken great pains to appear at her best—also because Dom Vasco had apparently desired it—and was looking very English in a flowered silk dress that was cream overlaid with several tones of blue, and had put her hair up in a neat pleat and been careful to dispense with anything in the nature of jewellery.

If the Marques—like Dom Vasco—objected to a frivolous appearance when he was paying her a salary, he would not find it in her. She looked trim, and rather flowerlike, cool, and a little remote, and even the housekeeper, when she glanced at her occasionally, looked as if she might well have nodded approval. But Senhora Lopes was so preoccupied with the correctness of her own appearance, and the dignified picture she made in the flower-decked hall, that she had no nods to spare. She merely stood there grimly watching the clock and comparing it with the timepiece that she wore on the front of her dress, and occasionally her angular figure stiffened when the noise of a car reached them from the road beyond the ornamental, wrought-iron gates, or some other sound goaded her into temporary activity as a prelude to the welcome she was reserving for her employer.

A
t a quarter to six Dom Vasco’s car slipped between the gates, and when he entered the hall Senhora
Lopes accorded him something in the nature of a restrained curtsey. He glanced at her for a bare fraction of time, however, and then looked hard at Caroline. She was surprised to see how miraculously his face softened, and his dark eyes positively beamed their approval.

“Good,
senhorita
!” he said, as he crossed the hall to where she and Richard were standing, and gave the boy an approving pat on the head. “You both look good enough to—” he smiled in such a brilliant fashion that he amazed her—“I was going to say eat,
but one does not eat an English governess, or a properly conducted small boy of seven, does one?” Then he looked down at Richard again and lightly pinched his ear. “Don’t look so alarmed, Ricardo! Your great-uncle will not eat you, and you should be happy to see your mama again
!
Are you not looking forward to seeing your mama?” with a slight dryness in his tone that caused Richard to look up at him dubiously.

“I suppose so,” he mumbled.

Dom Vasco elevated his eyebrows.

“You suppose so? But that hardly sounds as if you can barely contain your impatience! And yet when I was a small boy I thought that the sun and the moon and the stars revolved around my mother
!”
He met Caroline’s eyes for an instant, and it seemed to her that a mild fo
rm
of consternation warred with the softness that memories brought to the velvet darkness that gleamed between his thick dark eyelashes. Then he tweaked Richard’s ear again and shrugged his shoulders.

“Ah,
well
...
Perhaps it is that there are mothers and mothers!”

Senhora Lopes made an excited movement.

“Here they
ar
e
!”
She flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the voluminous skirt of her black silk dress, and stepped forward to be nearer the doorway. The housemaids and the parlourmaid and the two men servants who stood behind her were content to remain where they were. Tyres grated on the gravel of the drive, and a couple of sleek black cars swept up to the entrance. A uniformed chauffeur alighted from the first, and held open the door for the Marques to alight.

Caroline was pleasantly surprised when she caught her first glimpse of him. He appeared to her to be a very slender man, elegantly attired in a light grey suit, and his hair was flecked with the same silvery grey. He had a flower in his buttonhole, and his expression was completely relaxed, his movements as lithe and careless as a very young man as he descended on to the drive and held out his
hand to a
ssist Ilse to alight, too. It was when she stood beside him on the drive, the deep gold of the westering sun pouring all about her, and her flower-pink dress and hat creating an illusion of a radiant pink camellia blown like a leaf from a tree, that Caroline felt the
interest stir in the man who stood beside her.
Dom Vasco uttered a slight sound, as if his surprise had to find some sort of a vent. And then he went forward quickly to welcome his kinsman and his guest.

Ilse de Fonteira came into the hall leaning on the arm of her host. It wasn’t that she needed assistance, but the
Marques
obviously expected her to submit to such close attention. She was laughing and protesting that she felt as fresh as when they started out, but the Marques declined to believe her. He handled her as if she was made of Dresden china, and Dom Vasco,
escorting her on her other side, looked as if he was already convinced she was as fragile as blown glass, and was ready to proffer his own arm at any
moment
that it might be required.

Ilse caught sight of Richard, and called out to him as if she had been thinking of nothing else but him since their parting on the ship.

“Why, darling, how wonderful to see you!” she exclaimed, with a slight break in her voice. Her fair face actually radiated mother-love. “And how is my little Dicky-boy?” she cooed, and deprived herself of the support of the Marques
’
s
arm in order to take a few impulsive steps forward in the direction of her son.

Richard recoiled hastily—for never before had she called him ‘Dicky-boy,’ and never before had she looked at him quite like that—and came up against a slender pedestal supporting an exquisite bronze and very nearly overset it. But Ilse pounced as if she could no longer wait to get her arms about him, and he had to submit to some slightly frenzied kissing and listen to her exclaiming over him as if he was a baby, while the Marques de Fonteira stood looking on and beaming approval, and Dom Vasco seemed positively rooted to the spot by the spectacle, and unable to remove his eyes from Ilse and her glowing face and glorious, jewel-bright eyes. To say no
thing
of the rest of her enchanting pink figure.

At last the somewhat one-sided reunion was over, and Richard was presented to his great-uncle, who shook hands with him formally, but smiled at
him
in a faintly whimsical fashion out of a pair of extraordinarily attractive hazel-grey eyes. And then Caroline felt her hand held by the Marqu
e
s, and the same hazel-grey eyes were subjecting her to an interested scrutiny, and Dom Vasco said something
about Miss Worth doing a very good job looking after Ricardo.

The Marques continued to smile in an urbane fashion at Caroline, as if he had no doubts at all that she was the ideal companion for his great-nephew,
and he delivered himself of an expression of opinion that took her completely aback.

“I understand we are in your debt,
senhorita.
But for you, and the quality of the attachment Ricardo has formed for you, he might still be enjoying the protection of that excellent taxi-man in whose cab he took refuge when he ran away from the Aviz.
That, I’m afraid, was not a very happy introduction to Portugal for our poor Ricardo.”

Caroline started to stammer awkwardly.

“It was nothing,
senhor
... I beg your pardon,” she corrected herself, colouring in confusion,
“Senhor Marquis
! Richard didn’t really mean to run away.
It was just—just that he felt strange after leaving the ship
...”

“And Dom Vasco is so unused to dealing with young people of his age that he blundered badly? He thought he could deprive him of the softer influences in his life at one fell swoop!”

Caroline glanced awkwardly at Dom Vasco, and
!
wondered how best she could defend him. He had made such handsome apology for his early mistake that she felt she ought to go out of her way to clear up any mistaken conception of his attitude, but he didn’t look as if he needed anyone to support him,
or justify him with his employer, and was talking ea
rn
es
tl
y with Ilse de Fonteira and ascertaining whether or not she felt very fatigued after her journey. She had not so far acknowledged Caroline, apart from a faint smile directed vaguely in her
direction when the party first entered the hall, but now mention of her son’s disappearance, caused her to whirl round and confront Caroline with anything but a pleased expression.

“It was too bad of you, Miss Worth, not to keep a better eye on him
!”
she accused. “You know very well that he is a sensitive child, and it was the first time he and I have been separated. Naturally he felt he had to run away and start looking for
me!”
Caroline was about to open her mouth and deny that Richard had felt the urge to do anything of the kind, when she caught Dom Vasco’s eyes frowning at her above Ilse’s head. Quite unmistakably he shook his head.

She choked back the words she had been about to utter, and said instead:

“Ah, well, it was lucky for us that taxi-man was so conscientious, and that he spoke English.”

“It was not
lucky
!”
Ilse’s voice was icy. “It might have been lucky for you, but for me it would have been disastrous if—if Richard—”

She could not go on; her voice became choked, and she dabbed at the rising moisture in her eyes with a lace handkerchief.

Dom Vasco was plainly disturbed by her distress, but his conscience would not permit him to allow Caroline to go undefended ... just as Caroline had felt it incumbent upon her to defend him.

“I assure you,
senhora,
Miss Worth was in no way to blame for that unfortunate incident,” he stressed in his deep, attractive voice. “She was already on her way home to England when the child took it into his head to run after
her ... A
nd fortunately,” he added quietly, “she had got no farther than another Lisbon hotel.”

And for a brief fraction of time his eyes sought, and held, Caroline’s.

“Oh, well!” Ike exclaimed, trying to
smile
brightly and to sound as if she was prepared to forgive Caroline, although in her own mind she was not entirely convinced that her negligence hadn’t had something to do with the episode, “the whole
thing
is over and I’ve no wish to harp on it, particularly as Dicky looks so fit and admirably taken care of. But if anything
had
happened to
him...”

The Marques intervened, a patient and
mildly
humorous note in his voice.

“My dear
Il
se, the child looks brown and well, as you yourself have just admitted, so don’t torment yourself by imagining a disaster that didn’t take place. And now I think it will be as well if you go to your room and rest. I understand Vasco
has
arranged a dinner-party for tonight, so if you are to meet our local friends and acquaintance it is important that you should have an
un
disturbed hour or so to recover from the journey.”

This time Ilse brightened genuinely, and
Caroline
guessed that the idea
of
a dinner-party appealed to her enormously. It would give her an opport
unity
to wear one of her spectacular dinner-dresses,
and
as the amount of luggage she had brought with her from England was far more than she would require for a visit of short duration it was plain she not merely intended to stay for some time, but she had quite a number of spectacular outfits in the hand-made wardrobe-trunks and specially constructed suitcases that were being borne by perspiring servants up the stairs.

Two other people had entered the hall, and although they were not introduced to Caroline they
acknowledged her existence with polite little bows, and smiled at Richard. They were the Marques’s secretary—to Caroline’s surprise a young woman not much older than herself—and an extremely serious-looking young man who had some connection with the estates, and like Dom Vasco was on the pay-roll of the Marques, although socially far below his level.

While Senhora Lopes tried to control her agitation and get everyone shown to their rooms, Dom Vasco took an almost tender farewell of the widowed
senhora
, and assured her that he would look forward to seeing her again that evening. And then when she had disappeared round a bend in the graceful staircase, and the housekeeper had given up the unequal druggie of trying to decide which of the two important arrivals, the Marques or his guest, should receive the maximum amount of attention from her, and had gone flying ahead of her along the gallery, Dom Vasco signalled to Caroline that he would like to speak to her for a moment.

The Marques had disappeared into the
sala,
where refreshments awaited him, and his secretary and assistant estate manager had followed him into the room. Nevertheless, Dom Vasco lowered his voice, as if the subject he wished to discuss was a delicate one, and required a delicate form of treatment.

“The Senhora de Fonteira is unlike what I imagined,” he confessed. “And I think it would be as well if you went to her, and took the child
...
”
He glanced vaguely at Richard. “But don’t allow her to become exhausted. See that she rests before dinner.”

Caroline was not actually astonished, but she was surprised. She had already received the strong impression that before Ilse’s English loveliness, her white and gold charm and her touching
f
emininit
y—
a strong suit of Ilse’s when she wanted to deceive
anyone about her actual toughness and resilience—he had gone down rather like a ninepin. But she would never have believed that such a
man
who had not hesitated to treat her, Caroline, with scant courtesy when first they met, would have succumbed quite so easily and so obviously
.
It must have been the desolate widow act—the
a
doring mother act—that had removed several pairs of scales from his eyes and caused him to see an Englishwoman in very much the same light as he saw Carmelita. As someone full of femininity, helpless and appealing
... although on his own admission
C
armelita was not helpless.
So perhaps Ilse’s effect was even more shattering, something in the nature of a revelation!

“Very well,
senhor
,” Caroline replied clearly,
and walked away towards the staircase with Richard
still gripping her hand.

Dom Vasco seemed to emerge from a bemused
kind
of trance and called after her:

“You will not forget that you are expected to dine with the rest of us tonight,
senhorita
? Put the child to bed early, and leave yourself time to prepare.”

She glanced back at him coldly over her shoulder. “I would prefer it if I could have my meal upstairs—”

Instantly his eyes flashed as if she had annoyed him.

“That,” he returned, “is not permissible. From now on you will remember that you are not just a nursemaid, you are a companion to Ricardo,
and
you must be a companion to the
senhora,
also. She will need you
!
On every occasion that she is likely to require support from you you must give
it!”