Perchance to Marry Page 9

  “Except ... marry?”

  “I was even prepared to do that.” His smile came back and he looked at her mockingly. “Pity you’re not six or seven years older; we might make a go of it.”

  She averted her head slightly. “Do you believe that marriage can be a lukewarm arrangement between two people?”

  “Not at all. Marriage has to be a partnership, and a pretty warm-blooded one at that. What I don’t believe in is the love match.”

  She sent him a quick glance and saw that his expression was tolerant except for a faint line of bitterness at his mouth. “If that’s how you feel,” she said evenly, “you’d better start casting round for that Spanish woman. They’re warm-blooded, I believe, and very willing to make a marriage of convenience.”

  “Certainly seems the sensible thing to do,” he agreed laconically. “It would solve my problems.” There was a pause, and then he asked, “Is it getting you down—the situation?”

  “I can bear it,” she said coolly.

  “Supposing things were to get stickier?”

  “How could they?”

  A shrug. “You proved yesterday when you went out with Carlos that I can’t keep you imprisoned at the house for weeks on end. But the more you circulate the more tricky the situation is likely to become.”

  She said hesitantly, “Marcus, couldn’t you let me work as a nurse at the hospital? That would cut out much of the social life, and I’d promise never to say one word about ... about you and me.”

  His dark eyes appraised her briefly. “I’d trust you a long way, Sally, but for the present I can’t let you work. To the islanders you’ve become part of the del Moscado family, someone they rather look up to. The people are simple, and it would outrage something deep inside them if you took your place with the nurses in the new section of the nursing home. Even the British people here would think it strange.”

  In low tones she said, “They’ll regard it as even more peculiar if I start nursing here after I’ve broken with you. Or maybe you think it will prove to others that I’m not quite up to the standard of Las Vinas?”

  “That’s not a bit smart,” he said sharply. “At this stage one can’t see into the future, anyway. One of the reasons for this drive is that I want us to understand each other a little better, so that you can enjoy everything.”

  “I think you do understand me.”

  “Not quite.” He had slowed the car so that they were cruising along beside a small flowering orchard. “I hadn’t really much option other than to let the situation develop, but I’d certainly have opposed it in some way if I hadn’t thought you were the kind of girl who’d get some sort of kick out of it. Back on the ship, among those young people, you were gay and spirited, game for anything. I noticed you went quiet when I was about, but I took it to be uncertainty, because you didn’t know me. You do know me now, though.”

  “By no means thoroughly.”

  “Enough to have confidence in me, anyway,” he said abruptly.

  “I do have confidence in you, and I’ve no false feelings about staying at Las Vinas while we’re supposed to be ... engaged. Luckily I don’t feel engaged, so when people congratulate me or link us in some way it’s like listening to part of a play.”

  “That’s interesting. What am I in this play—the villain who forced you into a liaison? Are you hoping a hero will come to the rescue?”

  She laughed. “It’s not as unreal as all that. I suppose I could rescue myself if it became necessary. Where are we going?”

  “You want a change of topic? Very well—we’re going up towards the perfume distillery. When we get past these olives and figs you’ll see the lilac.”

  “Is it in bloom?”

  “It’s just coming out. It’ll be at its best in about a week.”

  “And then the trees are cleared?”

  “Yes, but the complete picking seems to force a second flowering in some of the trees; it’s not so profuse and the blossoms aren’t as good as the first, but it’s quite a sight.” He swung the car round a wide bend and gestured. “Look. Ever see anything like that in England?”

  The fruit orchards of Kent and Worcester might be comparable, Sally thought, but they hadn’t the miraculous coloring of the San Palos lilac. It wasn’t true lilac color but much paler, and when the sprays were full-blown the effect would be a glorious expanse of pastel mauve. There seemed to be miles of those crowded trees with their new green leaves and masses of bloom, with here and there a farm cottage in its patch of vegetables and fruit trees.

  “Is this run in farms like the vines?” she asked.

  “Yes, but the farms are bigger. We buy up and distil, and the essence goes to a perfume factory in France. This is the only acreage of this particular variety of lilac in the world. You’ll see garden specimens throughout the Mediterranean, but we’re the only commercial growers. And guess who started the industry here!”

  “The Englishman who married your grandmother?”

  “He did it to please her, and was always rather ashamed of the lilacs. As I remember him, he invariably smelled belligerently of tweed and horses; we had no cars on the island in those days.”

  “I’m sure he was a darling.”

  “He was all right,” Marcus conceded tolerantly. “He certainly showed some good sense when he married Inez del Moscado.”

  She said musingly, “It’s nearly seventy years ago, isn’t it? Isn’t it a pity one can’t look back and see things exactly as they were? Was he handsome?”

  “As a young man? Fairly, I think. He’d been a soldier and was recuperating in his yacht after a wound. He was hurt again when the yacht hit the rocks, and he was carried up to Las Vinas—a matter of a mile and a half—on a grass stretcher-bed. It was inevitable that the big brown-haired soldier laid low by wounds should fall in love with the dark young beauty who helped to nurse him.”

  She said, with a sigh. “The truly romantic things seem always to have happened in the past, don’t they? If a yacht foundered today the crew would be whipped into the hospital, mended in no time and sent on their way.”

  “The Casa de Curacion existed then, of course, but there was just one very old physician on the island, so the place only took in people who couldn’t be nursed at home—generally the very old or incurably sick. They had only a dozen beds, anyway. Now they have more than sixty.” He paused. “Talking of romance—it’s all a matter of outlook. There’s still pathos in a white bandage and colorless cheeks; you’ll admit that?”

  She smiled. “You’re very hard on your cousin Josef. He doesn’t look at all well.”

  “Did he tell you he was my cousin?” he asked at once.

  “You yourself said he was a connection of some sort.”

  “A very distant one,” said Marcus. “He’s no more my cousin that you are.”

  “Oh, I naturally thought, as you took charge...”

  “I did that for Dona Inez,” he said. “For her sake I’ve tried to get Josef to take a job in Spain. But the minute you speak of work he knows of some easier way to get money.”

  “That’s not quite fair. Some people find life much more difficult than others, and that’s particularly true of the creative type. Is he really an artist in ceramics?”

  “Yes, he’s pretty good.”

  “You sound grudging. If he’s good, why can’t you help him to get the factory he wants?”

  “Because I’d probably be left with it on my hands after a year, or less. You don’t know Josef at all. I know him too well.”

  “Well, can’t you help him to get started in the same thing somewhere else? I mean, couldn’t he become a partner to someone who’s already established? Then if the time came when he wanted to back out...”

  “I wouldn’t wish Josef on to anyone. When it suits him he can be strong-minded and independent, but you never know quite what he’s up to. I haven’t seen him for two years, but I know he’s been trying to get some cash, through Katarina.” He stopped speaking, turned into a
lilac-bordered lane and then added, “Josef upset a very sweet San Palos girl when she was on the point of marrying someone else. The engagement was ended, but after Josef had been absent for some time we all thought the young couple might come together again. His return just now may set the thing back a couple of years. He’s a damned nuisance.”

  “He’s not fit,” Sally said. “Hasn’t he a home somewhere?”

  “No.” Marcus spoke dismissively, in hard tones. “Be careful what you say to him. If he should suspect our engagement we’re finished ... and so is Dona Inez.”

  Sally would have liked to defend the dark young man with the pale face and black curly hair above the white bandage. But they were approaching a long low house which was set in a small formal garden among the lilacs, and she could see a middle-aged man and woman rising from their chairs on the lawn and coming to the drive, to greet them.

  Marcus bowed over the woman’s hand, shook that of the man. “Don Pedro and Dona Isabel ... this is Miss Sheppard. Senor and Senora Suarez,” he said to Sally. “Carlos’s brother and sister-in-law.”

  They were also Marcus’s relations, presumably, but perhaps because they were in their fifties he spoke to them distantly and politely. Don Pedro, he explained, managed the perfume distillery.

  The woman, dark-skinned, wearing black with a touch of white and an ornamental comb in her coiled grey-black hair, smiled agreeably at Sally and took both her hands. Her English was guttural and abominable, but that rather endeared her to Sally.

  “So you are zees novia of v’ich ve’ear. Ve ’ave vondered ven Marcus bring you to see us, and den, soddenly, ’e say zis morning you vill com’. So ’appy ve are to meed you, senorita!”

  Her husband spoke as Carlos did, in good English heavily accented. Obviously they had been prepared for this visit, for no sooner were the four of them seated under a wide magnolia tree than an oldish maid who was bad on her feet wheeled out a wrought-iron trolley loaded with coffee and chocolate and fancy cakes. Sally answered their questions. Oh, yes, she liked San Palos very much, though she hadn’t yet seen much of the coast. The nursing home? Dr. Suarez had taken her there yesterday. No, she had never before seen this variety of lilac; the flowers looked enormous and the scent, even before they were full-blown, was heavenly.

  “The essence,” Senor Suarez assured her, “is not heavenly at all. It is too concentrated. From each kilo of flowers we extract only two or three drops, so that an ounce of the essence is worth much money. We will ask you, senorita, to honor us this year at the Lilac Fiesta—to be our queen, if Marcus will permit it.”

  “Why not?” said Marcus, with an amused smile. “She’ll be the fairest queen you’ve ever had.”

  “But I don’t belong here,” Sally said hastily. “Please choose someone else!”

  “You do not understand,” the Spaniard murmured reassuringly. “Our Lilac Fiesta is not like the Mardi Gras or the Battle of Flowers. The pickers work unceasingly, day and night, for perhaps two weeks. When the final batch is in the presses the pickers collect their pay—and what is the good of money if there is no way of spending it soon? So for two days they rest and prepare. In the field near the distillery they erect sideshows and cafes, a platform for their band, and a throne of lilacs for the queen, who must be gowned in white with sprays of lilac.”

  “Mos’ bewdiful,” crooned his wife. “You vill look sharming!”

  “I really couldn’t,” said Sally desperately. “Marcus...”

  But he was no help at all. “Why not give the folk a treat?” he said reasoningly. “You won’t have to do a thing except sit in your bower and smile for about half an hour. After that, you dance a couple of times and then disappear.”

  “But isn’t the whole affair an island celebration? Isn’t it more fair to have one of the local girls as queen? And in any case, in three weeks’ time I’ll ...” She broke off, dry lipped.

  Marcus said suavely, “Don Pedro, as the head of the business, has invited you, and you can accept provisionally. He doesn’t expect more than that at the moment.”

  “Of course nod,” came throatily from the gracious Dona Isabel. “Vill you some more shocolate like?”

  Sticky from the moments of apprehension, Sally politely declined, and to her relief Marcus said they must go. But the ordeal wasn’t over yet. Senora Suarez rang the bell on the trolley and spoke swiftly in Spanish to the woman who had hobbled out to answer it. Sally caught a swift glance of warning from Marcus, and was glad, in the next few minutes, that she hadn’t missed it.

  For the servant went off and returned carrying a six-inch silk-covered square box which Senora Suarez took from her.

  With great decorum, holding the box in both hands, the Spanish woman presented it to Sally.

  “Please to receive this, vith our vishes from the ’eart. My ’usband will explain.”

  Senor Suarez bowed, and spoke quietly with a smile. “Marcus understands these customs of ours, but as an engagement happens only once in a man’s lifetime he will not, perhaps, be fully aware of what this betrothal means to us, his family.”

  “It still isn’t official, you know,” Sally said desperately. “Couldn’t you please...” Marcus’s hand closing tightly about her elbow magically cut off the flow.

  The senor shrugged comprehendingly. “This gift is not for the engagement. It is for the woman who has come into our family—a personal gift from my wife to you. Please open the box.”

  With quivering fingers Sally lifted the lid. Inside the box, separated by folds of fine white velvet, lay two exquisite crystal perfume containers; one was a bottle with a glass stopper and the other was spherical with a gold spray cap. The latter held a champagne-colored liquid.

  “San Palos lilac,” said Don Pedro. “It was blended in Paris.”

  Somehow Sally kept a hold on the box and managed to stammer her thanks. The two were benign and understanding, and touchingly pleased that their gift should make such an impression on Marcus’s fiancée. Perhaps for safety’s sake, Marcus took charge of the precious box before he added his thanks to Sally’s and put her into the car.

  Sally said her goodbyes and waved her hand, felt the trembling leave her limbs and vexation fill her throat like angry tears. They were back on the road when she eventually trusted herself to speak.

  “That’s the ninth gift! Why do you let these people keep giving me things? Those presents from guests the other night and the set of leather-bound books from Carlos. They’re not mine and I don’t want them!”

  “Just an old del Moscado custom,” he said with infuriating calm “I can’t get worked up about a few scent sprays and books and trinkets. There’s too much else involved.”

  “Well, why in the world do they have to anticipate the official engagement?” she choked. “I can’t stand it!”

  “Oh, come, you’re losing your sense of proportion. They’re my relatives and the gifts are the customary tokens. Put them away and forget them.”

  “What about this beastly fiesta?” she returned crossly. “I’m darned if I’ll be their lilac queen!”

  “But just imagine,” he said mockingly. “A white gown sprayed with lilac and the little flowerets forming a crown on your hair. Mos’ bewdiful. You vill look sharming!” Suddenly, because in spite of being angry she was amused by his atrocious mimicry, she laughed aloud. He slipped his arm round her shoulder and squeezed it, and for a startled moment she looked up. As she did so her nose brushed his chin and he turned a light kiss upon her cheek. She drew a quick breath and got back into her corner.

  “That’s not in the bargain,” she said in controlled tones. “Don’t do it again.”

  “Why?” with satire. “Are you afraid you might want to kiss me back?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve agreed to stand in for Nadine Carmody, but only up to a point. And that point doesn’t include kisses, matey or otherwise.”

  Abruptly, he withdrew his arm and let his foot go down hard upon the accelerator. They shot f
orward. Not another word or look was exchanged between them, but when they reached Las Vinas she saw the bitterness lining one corner of his mouth, and heard cynicism in his voice as he said, in the hall,

  “You’re quite attractive, damn you. But I sure picked a fledgling in you, didn’t I? Run along.”

  She went up the staircase to her room, carrying the pink silk box as if it were a bomb. But inside the room she stood rooted, staring at the confusion on the writing table, the half-open drawers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT was not a wanton confusion; Sally saw that at once. Rather it was as though the person who had been looking for something had had little time in which to do it; had she been absent another ten minutes Sally might never have known that her room had been searched.

  She moved forward and placed her box on the dressing table, where things had merely been pushed aside to clear a space for operations. But what operations? What had they hoped to find here? More important, what had they found?

  Quickly, her fingers uncertain, Sally went through her belongings. Lingerie had been hunted through and left lumpy, the wardrobe doors were ajar, the small valise she kept in there had been lifted out and opened. It was the contents of the valise which were scattered on the writing table; letters, her passport, birth certificate, bank book and a few odd papers relating to St. Alun’s. The strange thing was that not a single item seemed to be missing. What in the world had they wanted? Had they heard the car returning, perhaps seen it from the balcony, and had to slip away before completing their search? If so, they might try it again.

  She shivered in the midday warmth, went across to the balcony and looked down on to the only part of the courtyard which was visible—a length of the wall and the top of the steps. Josef, in a white shirt and dark trousers, stood there, looking worn and disconsolate. He had apparently called for a drink, for as Sally watched, Katarina brought him a glass and he thanked her for it. They spoke for a minute, then Katarina touched his hand with the familiarity of an old retainer and went away.