Perchance to Marry (19 page)

“And he drew a parallel between you and himself,” said Sally slowly. “You were everything he wanted to be, and he considered himself rather less than every other boy. So he came to hate you.”

“Maybe I could have been more tolerant, but it wouldn’t have done any good because he would have regarded it as a kind of charity. Katarina had shown him his true relationship to our family and it shocked him into loathing everyone. You’re probably right about his being unhappy, but even despair shouldn’t drive a man into crime. I daresay he’d come to the conclusion that money was the answer to everything. How little he knew!”

This final exclamation left a brief silence behind it. Then, looking down at her hands, Sally said, “I think I understand about Josef now. Except that he and I ... well, in a way we were quite good friends. Why should he want to act against me?”

“Josef couldn’t be good friends with anyone,” said Marcus sharply. “When he came here a year ago he ruined a romance simply because the man, someone he knew very well, was financially secure and very much in love. Luckily that particular case seems to be mending now. When he arrived this time he found that I’d become engaged, and I don’t doubt that it put him into a rage of jealousy. Everything he did was calculated to break off things between us. He couldn’t know, of course,” with a faintly bitter edge to his tones, “that there was nothing very tangible to sever. Anyway, Katarina told me that she had to search your room for something ... anything, that might give Josef a fact or two to work on. The first time she found nothing, but the second time she read some of your letters from England and discovered that I wasn’t mentioned in any of them. Josef stored that in his mind; he said that if he could manage to see Dona Inez alone he would tell her.”

“His whole idea,” said Sally unsteadily, “seems to have been to make big money quickly and to shatter any happiness he might come across on his way. I pity him, very much.”

“Maybe I’ll come round to pitying him one day,” Marcus said grimly, “but it isn’t pity I feel for him now. He deserves whatever he gets. And now let’s talk about something else.” His manner changed. “You said you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes. Yes, I do, but you’ll have to ... to give me a moment.”

His voice deepened. “Don’t distress yourself, Sally. I’d rather wait a bit—even a few days.”

“No, I have to say it soon, but all this about Josef and that man...”

“Yes, I know.” He spoke steadily but gently. “I’ve something to tell you, too, and this may be a good time for it.” An almost imperceptible pause. “I didn’t go to Barcelona on business.”

Her eyelids flickered, but her glance did not quite reach his face. She had to steel herself, so that whatever he’d decided about the future, she wouldn’t give herself away.

“No?” she said politely.

“No!” There was rather more force behind the syllable than one might have thought necessary. “I went there to see Nadine Carmody. She sent me a telegram and I answered it in person. The next day I saw her off on a plane, and it’s doubtful whether she and I will ever meet again.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t!” Sally cried, a catch in her voice. “We’ve taken this whole thing too far. Dona Inez isn’t nearly so frail as she looks, and I happen to know that she wouldn’t care a bit if I faded out and Miss Carmody came on to the scene. So long as an engagement exists she won’t mind...”

He was standing, suddenly, and staring down at her. “What the blazes are you talking about? I don’t want Nadine. There’s only one thing in the whole world that I do want—and that’s what I told Nadine when I met her. She was a flop in America—one generous mention in a small journal and silence from every other newspaper. She went on tour and couldn’t take it, and so she decided to patch things up between us. But there was never any chance of that. Even if I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have married Nadine. We were never properly engaged...”

“But you were going to marry her.”

He threw out a hand, almost irritably. “I went over to see her, with the possibility in mind. When I got there she was crazy about this chance in America, and I remember thinking, quite coldly, that that settled it, and that I was relieved. Nadine was good fun to take out, and as an antidote to the quiet life here the theatrical set was ideal. If Dona Inez hadn’t kept badgering me to marry...” He broke off. Then he said, “I
had
to go over to Barcelona; it was the only way to deal with Nadine effectively and finally. She didn’t like hearing that I was already engaged, but we parted amicably. She’ll get another part, and find someone else. The Nadines of this world always do.”

“But, Marcus,” she said, hardly comprehending, “that was what I wanted to speak to you about. You see, I ... I knew you went to see Nadine. Josef brought me a copy of her telegram.”

“Good God,” he said, and went pale with fury. “He really meant to tear us apart, didn’t he? And when I got back you didn’t say a word about it!”

“I was waiting till after the
fiesta
,” she said tremulously. “I was going to tell you on Sunday morning. You see, I’d spoken to Dona Inez, sort of circled the point to find out as much as I could about her attitude towards me.”

“So that’s what she meant! Twice she’s muttered something about having misunderstood how I felt and perhaps hurting you. Your narrow escape upset her badly, and on Sunday evening we found out that she’d come along to see you. After ensuring that you were sleeping normally she went a little lightheaded with relief.”

“Oh, dear. One way and another I do seem to have caused a lot of trouble.”

“That’s not true. The only trouble you’ve caused has been through keeping things to yourself. And though that’s the last thing I wanted to happen, it was probably my fault, because I knew just how vindictive Josef could be, and you didn’t.”

“And there was ... Nadine,” she reminded him.

“Since I’ve known you I’ve wondered why I ever bothered with Nadine. I hated even to hear you mention her. My feeling for you is so different from anything I’ve ever experienced before. It’s real ... and dammit, it’s horribly painful!”

Sally didn’t know how to answer that. She could feel a burning spot on each cheekbone and a nerve twitching in her lower lip; her brain was fuddled, but a sort of hazy hope shone through the haze. The kind of hope you daren’t look at in case it vanishes.

She tried to speak objectively. “I’ve been as sensible as I could. It did seem that events had rather run away with you—first of all that McCartney man on the ship, and then your grandmother’s precarious health. I was just a ... an accidental fiancée, and you weren’t in love with me—we weren’t even close friends. And I thought...”

He took her shoulders and spoke down to her bent head. “From the first I liked you and rather enjoyed your mother. Viola must have told you that I meant to keep in close touch with you both. You’d been so shy and uneasy with me on the ship that I won’t pretend I thought we might marry some day. At that time, I only knew I wanted to see you again. But when people assumed we were genuinely engaged I saw you differently—I saw the sort of woman you’d become once you felt secure and beloved. But it wasn’t till I saw you and Carlos putting your heads together that I knew you were mine in every sense of the word. I was actually jealous of
Carlos.
It was a nasty experience, and I’m not over it even yet.”

She lifted her head. “But, Marcus, you could have told me all this!”

“You wouldn’t have believed. You’d have decided that I’m the type to tell the woman I intended to marry that I loved her; you’d have decided it was part of the code by which I lived.” With a savage smile he added, “If I’ve learned little else about you, I’m pretty well up on the line your thoughts have taken about me. I think I’ve become familiar with the meaning of every turn of your head, every slightest change of tone.” The hands tightened on her shoulders. “I can still feel right here in the tips of my fingers the way you shrank from me when I fastened the necklet for you.”

She drew in her lip. “Well, I ... I knew you couldn’t have bought it for
me.
You can’t get that sort of thing on San Palos.”

There was a moment’s electric silence. Then with harsh distinctness he said, “It was ordered from our family jeweller in Madrid. I described exactly what I wanted and they sent it. It arrived here only two days before I gave it to you.” A long pause. Then: “I’ve been waiting a long time for the right moment to tell you I love you. I can’t wait any longer—I want you too much. No more shrinking from me, Sally. I won’t have it!”

Sally closed her eyes and leaned forward against him, and for a few seconds he held her that way, his arms tight about her. But inevitably his urgent lips sought hers.

It was quite some time later that she said, “Your rib must have healed remarkably quickly!”

“Oh, it hurts,” he said, “but to hell with it. Physical pain is nothing at all compared to having your heart squeezed and twisted a dozen times a day. Each night since last Saturday I’ve lain in bed sweating back over those minutes when the flames were leaping round you, the way your skirt caught and flared.”

“I was going to jump before the fire could reach me,” she said.

“I know. I saw it in your face. In your panic, you might have cracked your head or broken limbs.”

She said inadequately, “I haven’t thanked you properly for saving me.”

He laughed a little wryly. “When you save someone you love you save yourself. There’s nothing brave about self-preservation. I haven’t known you so very long, but there’s one thing I’m sure of. Without you, I wouldn’t want to live.”

She looked into his eyes then, a little frightened. It was what she had wanted so desperately, to be loved like that; but it was a huge responsibility.

She said softly, “I’ve been childish in some ways, but I do love you. I so longed to have you come in and see me. Why didn’t you?”

“I did come in a few times, after you were down for the night, but I didn’t want us to do any talking till you were up and thinking clearly. If I’d walked into your room each afternoon for tea, a new, polite little barrier would have grown up, because you wouldn’t have been in a condition for frankness. The way I saw it, that
fiesta
fire had burned down part of the wall between us, and next time we talked the rest would have to crumble. As it has, my love!”

“Darling,” she whispered, and put her arms about him. His response was swift and passionate. Sally didn’t want to think any more for a long time. Some time she would get down to musing about Katarina, who must be helped out of her sadness; of her mother, who would no doubt prefer Captain Northwick to Mr. Essler. Perhaps some day soon she and Marcus could find out which of the nurses in the British section of the nursing home had attracted Dr. Carlos Suarez; they must have some social meeting ground ... and what better place than Las Vinas?

Las Vinas, the home that Sally and Marcus would share for the rest of their lives.

THE END