Perchance to Marry Page 8

  “Yes. Very cheaply. You can’t compete with them; it wouldn’t be right, anyway. You’ll have to go for the expensive trade.”

  “Are they licensed?”

  “No, but they’re known. Your best bet would be to buy from them yourself-—take their best stuff. I’ll have a talk to some of the Navy men I know—if you can decorate the tables for their next big social affair, you’re in.”

  “That would be splendid.” Viola smiled and turned to look at Sally in the back seat, before saying teasingly, “I’m looking forward to two big orders from you, Marcus—one for the official engagement and then the wedding, of course.” She sighed, pleasurably. “A few months ago I thought there was nothing for me to live for, and now, quite suddenly, life is beautiful and thrilling. You’re such a dependable man, Marcus, and it’s so good to feel that you’re not only in love with Sally, but that you like me a little too. I’m sure a younger son-in-law would irritate me frightfully, and...”

  “Mother, you’re...”

  But Marcus too broke in calmly. “We’re not hurrying anything, Viola, but you can count on my help in every way.”

  “I’m sure of it. And thank you for the introduction to Captain Northwick.”

  “It’s all that was necessary,” he said with a smile. “He was sold from the moment you met.”

  At Las Vinas, Sally went ahead while Marcus put a helping hand to Viola’s elbow. They mounted the steps, crossed the courtyard and entered the coolness of the hall. On the carved table lay an orderly pile of letters, and Sally lingered, waiting for Marcus to go through them. He gave a couple to Viola, selected another envelope, after examining the postmark, and gave it to Sally.

  “From Malaga,” he said, with a cool smile. “It’s been readdressed from your hotel in Barcelona.”

  Viola looked round from halfway up the staircase. “A letter from that boy Peter?” she asked, raising a slender eyebrow. “Hadn’t you better tear it up without reading it?”

  “Why should I?” asked Sally. “I’m sure you wouldn’t do that to a letter from one of your friends.”

  Viola shrugged and went on up the stairs. Sally turned to follow her, and as she did so she caught a small movement of Marcus’s from the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he’d drawn one of the letters from the batch and fitted it into his pocket.

  “Darling,” said her mother, as she reached her side, “will you come into my room and unhook me? The lunch that man served us seems to have weighted my arms!”

  Sally performed the small task, peeled the pale peach linen from her mother and hung up the frock. Viola had stepped out of her shoes and was reaching for eau de cologne and a tissue.

  “I’m going to rest for two solid hours,” she said. “After such a morning I need it.” She laughed softly, helplessly. “Did you ever see such a house?” Those horrible pictures and the chairs! That refectory table in the sitting room! Now, if that table were in the dining room and there were small Windsor chairs and that beastly chiffonier were replaced by a Welsh dresser ... the man has no taste at all.”

  “He simply ordered things that he thought matched his income.”

  “But that dreadful capstan in the porch.”

  “It’s a binnacle.”

  “Whatever it is, it should have been left on a ship. The cottage is just a picture of his life—a welter of ships and ugly, expensive furniture. The man hasn’t really lived yet, and he must be nearly sixty.”

  “He’s having his own idea of a good life. Isn’t that what we all want?”

  Viola sighed. “You’re serious about those things, aren’t you? You know, dear, you’re not behaving like a girl in love. I know you and Marcus only became engaged so soon because he wanted our position here to be clear from the very start, but shouldn’t you try to be with him more? And don’t you sometimes feel you want him to slip an arm round you and even kiss you occasionally in front of others? He’d do it like a shot if you showed the smallest inclination that way.”

  Sally wondered, a little bleakly, how her mother would react if she were told that not a single embrace had been exchanged between Sally and Marcus Durant.

  “It takes time to know a man like Marcus,” she said, “but I’m sure he’s not the sort to like any outward show of affection.”

  “Don’t be silly. He was human enough to stake a claim on you within two or three weeks of meeting you, and if he’s holding back it’s for your sake, not his. A man of his age is bound to have had affairs, and perhaps you feel awfully young and untried. But you’re a nurse, darling, and nurses know everything. If I were you...”

  “But you’re not, are you? I don’t even have a little of your temperament—so I have to go about this in my own way.”

  “Well, it’s not a very sensible way, darling. Marcus is very masculine, and if you’re too embarrassed to show your feelings he’ll start getting unmanageable—and I can imagine nothing more devastating than a man like Marcus who has got out of hand! As a matter of fact,” she ended with soft insistence, “he’s already a little impatient with you, and I can guess why. That darting into the back seat of the car and running ahead up the steps, and clutching the letter from the pianist boy ... all those actions are typical of the way you’re behaving with your own fiancé. It’s quite unnatural and not like you at all.”

  Sally’s tones hardened a little. “Getting engaged is not like me, either. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake.”

  “Don’t say that!” Viola had stopped dabbing at her forehead with the stopper of the eau de cologne bottle. Her smile had gone and her blue eyes looked frightened. “Don’t ever say that again, Sally. We’re depending on Marcus now—he’s all we have.”

  Sally turned to the door. Her throat felt raw, but she answered casually, “He told you that you can count on him; that’s all the assurance you need. Have a nice sleep.”

  Sally went into her own room and stood for a moment near the foot of the bed, looking out across the balcony at the archway full of blue sky trimmed at the edges with the green tips of the trees. Then, slowly, she opened the letter from Peter Mailing. But there was nothing in it to dispel the depression. He had written it on his first day in Spain, when she had been on her way from Malaga to Barcelona, and so much had happened since then that Peter himself had become cloudy and unreal.

  She walked out into the balcony and sat down, leant her head back against the wall and tried to recapture some of the sweetness of her talks with Peter, the dreamy rapture of listening to the music he made. Strangely, she could only see them objectively, herself and Peter. Herself bemused by the speeding waves, luxurious idleness and the first light touch of love; and Peter, absorbed with his own emotions and opportunities and trying for all he was worth to appear sophisticated and bohemian; both of them rather pathetic viewed from the stark reality of the present.

  Deliberately, she shredded the letter. Unless he heard from her he wouldn’t write again; he was too selfish as well as too sensitive to risk a rebuff. In any case, he had written quickly, while still under the spell of the Mediterranean; by now it would have worn off and someone else would be listening with flattering intensity to his words and music.

  A small cloud passed over the sun and she realized it was cooler. She got up and tossed the fragments of paper into the decorative white waste-box, got into flat shoes and went into the corridor. After a second’s hesitation she walked quietly down the stairs and into the rather cosy little morning room. From the window, she made sure that the courtyard was empty; she could go out the front way. It was as she turned from the window that she caught sight of a piece of paper which a breeze must have wafted to the far corner, under the rather large writing desk. Automatically she crossed the room and bent to retrieve it, and almost, as she straightened, she crushed it into a ball. Then she realized that it wasn’t merely a scrap accidentally torn from a newspaper; it was a cutting which had been attached to something else, for the corner was ragged where it had become detached.


  She read, unthinkingly; read again and felt chilled. It was about a play which had been booked to run for six weeks in New York, and a paragraph which had been marked with a tiny red cross said: “Nadine Carmody gives a good rounded performance as the judge’s naughty daughter. A pity that this play has to go on tour before she made the impact she deserves.”

  That was all, really. Sally turned the clipping and saw that a date and the name of the newspaper had been penned on the back of it. And instinctively she knew that it had been pinned to a letter which Marcus had read in this room only a short while ago; the letter she had seen him push into his pocket.

  She slipped the cutting just under the edge of the blotter so that part of it was visible, and went through the hall to the courtyard. After staring across at the hills for a few minutes she went down into the garden and strolled. Her head was aching a little and misery seemed to have settled like a ball of lead just below the base of her throat. Though heaven knew why a few printed words should make her feel benighted. She had known of Nadine Carmody’s existence and might have guessed that a few words of praise in an American newspaper would certainly find their way to Las Vinas. What she hadn’t bargained for was her own sudden disquiet. Or was disquiet too mild a word? Could she possibly be ... jealous?

  No, that was absurd. Her feeling was a natural revulsion from her own situation. Nadine Carmody should have been here at Las Vinas, wearing the sapphire, getting to know Dona Inez, talking of wedding plans, and being made love to by Marcus. But Nadine had been too dazzled by her own minor success in the theatre to contemplate settling on San Palos in comparative obscurity. And events had conspired to place Sally Sheppard in Nadine’s place; so there was no talk of wedding plans, no lovemaking—only an insidious growing hostility within her towards Marcus; which Sally couldn’t understand.

  Looked at sanely, her position was quite clear and simple. In return for being delivered from the horror of finding herself and her mother adrift in Barcelona, and the relief of finding sanctuary at Las Vinas with the promise of posts on the island, Sally was providing the old senora with a new and sparkling reason for living. What she had to cling to was the fact that she was doing nothing for Marcus himself. As he. had pointed out, when the time came for ending the engagement it would be she who would emerge triumphant, not he. The whole thing was uncomfortable, and it spoiled any chance they might have had of becoming normal and tranquil friends, but there was no doubt of its beneficial effect upon Dona Inez. So what had Sally Sheppard to grouse about?

  Was she falling a little for Marcus? Perhaps, but it was only because she had nothing to do. And anyway, she felt more at peace with boys like Peter or men like Carlos Suarez. Marcus made her too aware of herself and her youth, and there was nothing to bind them. The most astonishing thing was other people’s acceptance of the engagement.

  Sally lay down under her favorite tree and dozed, and presently the headache receded and her usual composure returned. She sauntered back to the house, walked carelessly into the morning room and noticed that the newspaper dipping had gone. Perhaps he would sleep with it under his pillow tonight. She hoped it would give him nightmares.

  * * *

  It was not till next morning that Sally met the new house-guest, Josef Carvallo. He had arrived during the previous evening and gone straight to his room, and though mention had been made of him at dinner, there seemed to be no question of asking him to join the guests. When Sally saw him after breakfast next morning, she knew why. Josef, with a heavy white bandage about his head and a thick dressing gown belted about his slim frame, looked quite ill. He sat outdoors with a glass of orange juice on the table beside him, and talked to Marcus, who appeared to have been up for hours. Sally had been going to wave vaguely to them and go down the steps, but Marcus called her and came to meet her, took her arm and led her towards Josef Carvallo. Before an introduction could be made Josef said breezily,

  “Buenos dias senorita! You are well this morning?” He gave Marcus a broad wink. “But you are lucky, Marcus. She is fresh as a rose. And I am eternally in her debt for what she has done for me. Even one more day in that nursing home would have sent me mad. Many thanks, senorita.”

  “I did nothing for you, nothing at all,” she stated quickly.

  Marcus slanted a keen glance from one to the other. “Have you two met?”

  She nodded. “Yes, when I toured with Carlos. Senor Carvallo asked me to tell you about his plight, but I didn’t have to. You’d already heard.”

  “Why didn’t you say you’d met Josef?”

  Josef laughed. “He is not so sure of himself as he used to be—this Marcus. It seems that also he is not sure of you, senorita. Yet look at me. In this condition am I attractive to any woman, let alone to one as pretty as you?”

  With a sardonic smile Marcus said, “You’re well aware of your chief attraction at the moment—that bandage is worth more than gold. Keep it, if you want to, but don’t go in to see Dona Inez till you’re decently dressed and the bandage is discarded.”

  “And you promise that we shall have no serious discussions till I am quite recovered?”

  “Yes, but I’ll take Carlos’ word for your condition, not yours.”

  Josef shrugged dejectedly. “You are a hard man, Marcus. One would have thought that being in love would have softened you—that you would have declared yourself willing to forget the past and begin again with me. Senorita, will you not plead with him for me?”

  “Don’t you already have what you wanted?” she asked lightly. “You’re here at Las Vinas, and Marcus has said he’ll postpone discussions—whatever that may mean—till you’re quite fit. What more is there?”

  “With Josef,” said Marcus, “there’s always more. He probably has a new scheme for getting rich quick.”

  “It is an old scheme, and it would not make me rich—only satisfied.”

  “Really?” In spite of Marcus’s cynical presence, Sally was interested. “What is it?”

  “Ceramics,” was the reply. “I wish to start my own small factory on San Palos.”

  “Oh.” She looked uncertainly at Marcus, saw that he was unimpressed. “Would it make much money?”

  “No, but it would take a good deal of staying power,” Marcus commented.

  “What sort of ceramics?” she asked Josef.

  “Tiles, vases, ornaments, even brooches and earrings.”

  “But isn’t the market overloaded with that kind of thing?”

  “Not with my designs,” Josef said, spreading his hands. “Even Marcus will admit I am an original artist in ceramics.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Marcus dismissively. “But you’re no business man. You’d better go in and lie down till Carlos comes. Sally and I are going to take a drive.”

  “Are we?” she said. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see. So long, Josef—keep the headgear clean.”

  The younger man gave another pathetic little shrug that belied the twinkle in his eye. “You two have obviously not exchanged rings in the del Moscado tradition, so one may assume you are not officially engaged. If I were not under your roof, Marcus, I would try to charm your Sally away from you!”

  “Why let my hospitality stop you?” said Marcus dryly. “See you later.”

  Sally waved a hand to Josef and descended the curving stone staircase with Marcus. It was a brilliant morning and hardly any of her uncertainties had yet seeped back into her consciousness. She felt free and tenuously happy. Here she was, with a tall, fine-looking man at her side and an atmosphere that promised mild excitement all about her. What more could she want?

  They drove out on to the road, but instead of turning right, towards Naval Town, he took the left and they climbed a long hill from which, looking back, Sally could see the sloping acres of Las Vinas, with the old house roughly central among the trees.

  “Did you live here as a boy?” she asked him.

  “I didn’t leave the island at all till I was nine. I had a tutor,
and he took me to school in England. For the next ten years or so I flew home only for holidays, and then my father died and I had to take over here.”

  “And since then there’s been only you and Dona Inez at Las Vinas?”

  He nodded. “She was active until a couple of years ago, and we entertained on a big scale. There were always house-guests from Majorca or Spain, and when celebrities came cruising through the Mediterranean they invariably put in at San Palos and my grandmother made them an excuse for a function of some sort. We had a whole film company here once.”

  “What did she make of them?”

  He gave her a smile and turned his attention back to the winding road. “She loved them. She always used to say that though she never left the island she was cosmopolitan—she brought the world here. At one time she used to make the headlines, even in England; at some time, or other she’s been hostess to every notability who’s come this way.”

  “She looks it,” said Sally. “She’s a vital person, even now. What does Carlos really thing about her health?”

  His smile faded. “He thinks she’ll live for as long as she’s determined to do so. He put it very bluntly—want to hear it?”

  Sally wasn’t sure, but she had to say, “Of course. I have quite a personal feeling about Dona Inez.”

  “Well, Carlos said it’s up to me. Dona Inez is determined to see me married; after that, the coming of great-grandchildren and other milestones would keep her going till the old heart finally gave out. She’s fond of Carlos and other nephews, she even has a soft corner for Josef Carvallo, but all her hopes for Las Vinas and the future are centred in me. It’s natural, but a bit restricting. She’s been my whole family for a long time and I’d do anything to make her happy.”