Mistress of Brown Furrows (21 page)

Viola was wearing furs and smelled deliciously of exotic Paris perfume. Her beautiful dark eyes looked genuinely horrified when she first caught sight of Carol, and she exclaimed as if the words were jerked out of her:

“But, my dear!—my dear child!—what an
awful
time you must have had! ”

“Oh. I’m much better now.” Carol told her, smiling. “I’m even beginning to walk a little, and they tell me I’ m beginning to put on weight. And besides, I
feel
better.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Mrs. Featherstone admitted. “But you look so dreadfully thin to me, and you’ve no color—at least, none to speak of. But considering what happened to you, and how long you were left lying out there in that perishing hard frost on that appalling Boxing night.... Well, it’s a miracle that you’re alive at all. I should think!”

Carol was silent. Mrs. Featherstone took over the office of. pouring out tea, and nibbled daintily at a little cake, while she continued to study Carol as if she had received something in the nature of a shock.

“Poor Timothy! ” she exclaimed. What a time he had, and how he must have felt!... And that idiotic sister of his couldn’t even remember where she had seen you last! ” Viola looked as if she was distinctly doubtful of this lapse of memory. “Of course you know, my dear—or perhaps you don’t know?—Meg never intended that Timothy should marry, or at any rate that he shouldn’ t marry for years and years? And she was going to stay on as his housekeeper, of course. Poor Timothy’s life was all mapped out for him, and Meg was to have entire charge of it. That was one reason why he didn’t marry before.”

“Oh, yes?” Carol felt that she must pretend to take an interest, but this kind of conversation made her heart go cold. She wished Viola would change the subject—but Viola had no intention of doing so.

“Naturally a man like Timothy, with his looks and disposition and his position in the county, would have married
ages
ago if he had had his own way. I could name at least half a dozen girls who would have been glad to have him, and I
know
of one whom he wanted to marry—whom he certainly would have married but for—Oh, shall we just say but for Meg?”

Really?” Carol murmured.

“Yes, of course. You don’ t suppose he reached the age of practically forty, before he married you, without having some other affairs at least? All men have affairs, but sometimes, when they possess a brute of a sister like Meg, they also have their lives ruined for them, and so does the girl who unfortunately thinks that she stands a chance. ”

She poured herself out a second cup of tea, and then inspected Carol’ s cup, but could not persuade her to accept another. She also noticed that she looked a little white.

“I think you’ve had rather a raw deal,” she said, “having to put up with Meg for one thing, and being so young and rather out of the picture, because Timothy has always struck me as being a little old for you. He’s a dear, of course, and I personally am very fond of him, but then I’ ve already been married once, and we’re more of an age. But you—you want fun, and good times, and a husband to keep pace with your interests—someone much more like my cousin Brian, who incidentally has been desperately anxious about you ever since you had that awful accident. He’s in Paris, you know, and he keeps on writing to me asking how you are, and the last time he enclosed this little note which he asked me to give to you when I saw you.”

She passed over a sealed envelope which Carol accepted with an odd sensation of distaste, and a feeling that if Brian had wanted to get in touch with her he could have written direct to her at Dulverton House. Unless, of course, he was afraid that Timothy might see it, and possibly object, hence his more furtive method of inquiring after her health.

As she did not attempt to open it Viola said:

“Poor Brian! He’s so attractive, but he’s not very keen on girls as a rule. You, however, made a tremendous impression.”

Carol did not answer. She was feeling suddenly exhausted by Mrs. Featherstone’ s chatter.

“And he’s very worried about you, too. He doesn’t feel—he
can’t
feel that you’re happy, oddly situated as you are.”

“I don’t quite know what you mean, Mrs. Featherstone,” Carol said slowly. “Why should Brian imagine that I am not happy? Why should anyone imagine that I am not happy?”

Viola gave her an odd look. She cast away the end of her cigarette and selected a fresh one from her neat but expensive gold case.

“Well, my dear, are you?” she asked.

Carol could not answer. She was happy—of course she was happy, quietly, rather blissfully so, now that she had Timothy coming here to visit her away from Brown Furrows, spending so much of his time with her, being so gentle and good to her, so kind and so understanding. At times she felt like a contented kitten drowsing in the sunshine which all kittens love, and the fact that they were going away together, that they would soon be seeing new places and new faces together, and that he would be with her all the time—or, at any rate, most of the time—and that he was utterly dependable, and she could lean on him, and feel that in some way he was imparting his own strength to her—that was wonderful.

But just now she was not well, she was someone to be fussed over and pampered. When she was better, even if she still received the pampering, which she probably would—was that all she asked of life? Was that all she asked of Timothy?

How much more did she need to be completely—as Viola Featherstone understood it—happy?

“There you are, you see! ” Viola murmured very gently in her ear, and then stood up as she heard the nurse coming. “I must go. Goodbye, my dear, and I do hope I haven’t tired you? Have a good time in Venice, and come back absolutely fit. I think I shall go abroad somewhere myself for the spring. I feel rather in need of a change...”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SPRING comes gently to the shores of the Adriatic. The fierce heat of summer is still far away, and there is nothing brazen about the deep blue of the sky or the deeper blue of the sea. The air is sparkling fresh, and there is sufficient warmth to lap a stranger sensuously about and leave no regrets in the mind for bleaker shores left behind.

Venice, with its Lido, its handsome decaying palaces, its lively waterways and gondolas (now being replaced by motorboats, which are not nearly so romantic, but infinitely less costly and more efficient) its brilliant sunsets and its flaming dawns, is indeed a jewel set in the crown of Italy. Carol caught her first glimpse of it in the fairly early morning, having flown there from Milan with her husband and the Marchesa (who had been finally persuaded to accompany them) and a slight haze overhung the city, promising beauty and warmth as the day advanced.

Carol had loved Milan, where they had stayed for two days and nights, not only in order to give her a chance to make its proper acquaintance, but to enable her to rest a little after the flight from England. The hotel had been so huge and palatial, and Milan itself contained enough of interest to retain a visitor in its net for a very long time. Carol had wanted to see so much, but she had been forbidden to do more than visit a couple of the more famous churches and a museum, and on their second night Timothy had taken them out to dinner to a typical Milanese restaurant where the air had been full of the soft throb of guitars and the food had been wonderful, and Carol had worn an evening gown for the first time for weeks, and the Marchesa had looked altogether magnificent in diamonds and black velvet.

The only slight contretemps which might have spoiled their brief stay in Milan was an incident which arose out of the allocation of bedrooms. One double and one single bedroom had been reserved for them as a party, and as the hotel was more or less full it exercised the management a good deal to find them an additional single bedroom. Timothy explained that his wife had recently been very ill, and that she must have a bedroom to herself, but Carol felt herself flushing brilliantly whilst the difficulty was still under discussion, and it would not have made matters any easier if the Marchesa had suggested that she should sleep with her. The eyes of the reception clerk were shrewd enough as it was, and Timothy's lips twitched a little when he saw his wife’s embarrassment. Afterwards, when he got her alone in the colossal bedroom where she was to enjoy the comfort of an enormous and highly ornate bed to herself, with a private bathroom adjoining, he could not resist the temptation to refer to the splendid sensation of isolation which would be hers in that room.

“At least you won't be likely to fall out of bed,” he remarked, “even if you are very good at falling off a horse! ”

Carol colored more rosily than before and went over to the dressing-table.

“I know,” she said. “As a matter of fact I feel rather a pig at having such a huge room to myself, while you—you—”

She broke off.

“Oh, I shouldn't worry about that,” he returned easily. “I shall be perfectly all right. And as there seems to be no alternative—unless, of course, you can suggest one?” There was sudden, deathly silence in the room. Carol felt her heart begin to pound so heavily that it made her feel slightly breathless, and she opened her powder compact very quickly and began to slap powder all over her face with so much energy that it entirely defeated its purpose, and her face quickly resembled a mask. In the glass she caught sight of Timothy standing staring at her with the oddest expression on his face— almost, it struck her, a kind of waiting expression—although there was still a faint twinkle in her eyes, and she said hurriedly:

“Of
course. I—I suppose I—we—Aunt Harry and I—we could share...? But wouldn’t it—wouldn’t it look a little strange...?”

“Personally I should say it would look very strange indeed,” Timothy replied, “in view of what I have already said to the management about your desiring complete seclusion. And an aunt in the place of a husband might strike some people as peculiar—especially Italians!” He grinned suddenly. “Oh, well, make the most of your magnificent surroundings, and if you want any help with a trunk or one of those heavy suitcases don't hesitate to bang on the wall. Whatever you do don't struggle with it yourself.”

When he had gone Carol removed the powder from her face and re-made it up with more care, and then she turned and looked back at the bed, certainly one of the most luxurious and the most sensuously comfortable looking beds she had ever come upon in her brief lifetime. What, she wondered, would Timothy have said to her—and how, exactly, would he have looked?—if she had found a sudden surge of courage to say to him quite coolly, as if there was nothing abnormal about it, and it was the most natural thing in the world, seeing that after all they were married:

‘‘Well, why don't you share the room with me? You are my husband, you know! And I am your wife!...”

But she knew she would never find the courage to say anything of that sort at all. If their relations were ever to be altered it would be Timothy who would have to do the altering. But perhaps he didn't wish for any change in their relationship! Perhaps he was quite content to go on as they were going!...

She sighed, and turned back to the dressing-table to comb her hair. The situation irked her extraordinarily sometimes, and at others it depressed her. It depressed her now....

When they arrived in Venice Aunt Harry was the one who betrayed the most excitement, for to her this meant coming home. Her own private motor-launch conveyed them along Venice's main highway, the celebrated Grand Canal, which made Carol think of Titian and the Renaissance, and the fading beauties of some of the palaces, with their marble steps running right down into the water, intrigued her immensely. As also did the curious gaily-painted barber's-pole-like erections emerging

from the water.

Aunt Harry’s
casa,
when they arrived there, took her breath away at first, for it seemed to her to be slightly more sumptuous than the rest, although it also revealed much evidence of an out-of-date splendor and a grandeur which certainly was no more. The great hall, with its magnificent carved and gilded staircase, was only fitted for the reception of superior Italian nobles in glowing Venetian robes, and the dim and distant and beautifully painted ceiling was a work of art in itself. But the gold-leaf on the cornices and the ornamentation of the pillars rising gracefully upwards to support the roof was in places badly chipped and scarred, and the handsome marble pavement looked tired from the tread of many feet over scores of changing years.

But when Aunt Harry—who was received with enthusiasm by the mere handful of servants she had retained to keep her house in order for her—conducted them personally to a suite of rooms on the first floor which she had instructed to be prepared for them, and flung open the outer door herself with a slight but triumphant flourish, Carol actually did gasp.

“Oh,” she cried, “but this—these rooms are lovely!”

And they certainly were. They were vast, of course, like everything else in this great house, but they had been furnished with care within very recent times. The outer, or main, salon had been decorated in dull gold, and the cushions and the covers on the couches were a glowing petunia and rich cerise. The carpet was gold, and vine-wreathed pillars soaring upwards to the painted ceiling were gilded also. Outside the tall windows there was a balcony with a cool marble floor and cushion-filled chaises-lounges and little tables, overlooking the canal, and baskets of brilliant flowers growing apparently in moist-scented moss hung down from the roof.