Love is for Ever Read online

  LOVE IS FOR EVER

  BARBARA ROWAN

  Jacqueline Vaizey certainly didn’t mean to fall in love with Dominic Errol; in fact, she didn’t want to fall in love at all when she revisited the lovely Spanish island of Sansegovia after the premature death of her beloved father.

  Her hostess’s blue-eyed grandson naturally had not entered into her considerations, and when she heard that Dominic was betrothed to Carlotta Consuella, Jacqueline knew he should stay out of her thoughts.

  Unfortunately Dominic’s powerful, demanding personality was so much stronger than Jacqueline’s good intentions that, willy-nilly, she found herself falling, falling ... a process that made her so unhappy that, just once, she allowed Neville Barr to comfort her. Which turned out be once too often.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jacqueline looked at the letter and fingered the thickness of the notepaper, re-reading it for perhaps the tenth time.

  “Dear Miss Vaizey,” the letter began, and the handwriting was very upright and the characters all beautifully formed, as if the hand that had penned them had been attached to a singularly supple wrist. A certain preciseness and formality in the composition of the prose was undoubtedly masculine, and struck her as well as being distinctly foreign. ““My grandmother has asked me to convey to you her desire that you will visit her, and that you will become her guest for a number of weeks. We understand that you were about to rejoin your father, Dr. Vaizey, at the time of his death; and as evidence of our appreciation of his years of service at the clinic, and devotion to our local people, would be glad if you would look upon the island of Sansegovia as your home until such time as you feel able to make other plans.”

  The letter was signed Dominic Errol, and as she put it away in its envelope Jacqueline suddenly felt as if ten years had been abruptly blotted out of her life, and she was back on the island of Sansegovia with her father, listening to his constant references to ‘young Dominic’, who, in spite of the fact that his family was rolling in wealth, and nothing in the nature of a career would ever be necessary for him, was at that time studying law in England.

  Jacqueline at that stage of her existence was not quite twelve, and she was spending a long and unlooked for holiday with her father because she was recovering from a particularly virulent form of chicken-pox, and her mother had consented to be parted from her. Dominic Errol must have been about twenty-three or four, and that would make him somewhere in his middle thirties now, while she was approaching her twenty-second birthday. Another few months, if her father had lived, and she would have celebrated that birthday with him on the Spanish island of Sansegovia, and they would have had a wonderful time together, doing all the things she had dreamed of. Her parents had parted when she was only very small, and it had been one of her mother’s constant grievances that Jacqueline was so much more her father’s daughter than her mother’s.

  Jacqueline shut her eyes, and the little room above the antique shop in the busy London street, where she worked, and where dear old Mr. Maplethorpe permitted her to live, was blotted out like the ten years in her life, and she could see the island plainly, with its beautiful inlets and golden beaches, the brilliantly blue sea that pounded on the beaches, the deeper blue sky like an arc overhead, and the glory of the flowers inland.

  She could see the white-walled clinic where her father had worked, and his bungalow that adjoined it. She could see the road climbing upwards behind the clinic, with the small modern villas encroaching on it, and the older cottages. Most of the villas were protected by high walls overhung by masses of flaming growth, as well as oranges and lemons; and there were intriguing-looking curly wrought-iron gateways set in the white walls, and grilles to the windows behind them. On moonlight nights the whole of the island turned to silver, and the shadows were inky-black by contrast. The sea murmured and lapped at the foot of the tall promontories, and the spicy flower scents were wafted hither and thither by breezes as soft as zephyrs.

  Jacqueline had been taken to tea once at the home of Dominic Errol, and had met his grandmother, a magnificent old lady with white hair and unmistakably Spanish eyes, who had worn a mantilla and had diamonds in her ears. It might have been the white hair, or the style of dress, but she had seemed to Jacqueline to be extremely old even for a grandmother, although her complexion had looked rather like a carefully preserved camellia. Her mannerisms and her air of aloofness had been very much the mannerisms and the air of a very grand lady of high degree, for she was a Cortina of Toledo, and Dominic’s full name was Dominic Ricardo Cortina Errol, and the fact that his mother had married an Englishman had affected his life and upbringing in a very small degree. For his wealth came to him through the Cortinas, and his grandmother’s whim had decided the pattern of his education and future way of living.

  Jacqueline felt a little bemused after that sudden mental flight back into the past, and then when she looked again at the envelope containing her letter she felt both amazed and sad. Amazed because the old lady had remembered her—and remembered her so kindly, and was willing to entertain her as a guest—and sad because, even if she accepted the invitation, she would never again see her father on Sansegovia.

  He had died because he consistently overworked, and because he never allowed himself a break of any kind. But he had been appreciated—the letter proved that.

  Her mother had died two years ago because she had become a kind of hypochondriac, and when real ill-health overtook her she was not in a condition to combat it. She had been so bitter, too, about her husband’s defections, and life had seemed to hold so little for her that Jacqueline, when she lost her, had not felt as if a blow had caught her unexpectedly from behind as she had when the news of her father’s death reached her.

  And now she was an orphan, with no one to consider save herself, and she had known for weeks that she would have to have some sort of a change—that somehow or other she must escape from London. She had looked forward so much to rejoining her father, and the moment when she had had to start unpacking her suitcases had been almost too bitter a moment to be true.

  But now she had been given the chance to repack them. She had been given the chance of a few weeks break from deadly monotony and soul-destroying routine, and she wondered whether she ought to take it. She wandered over to her wardrobe and looked at the line of frocks and linen suits hanging in it. She had spent practically the whole of her savings on a suitable outfit for Sansegovia, and the recollection of her happiness and her excitement while she was collecting it made her feel heavily wistful now. If she stayed on in London and her job in the antique shop there would be few occasions when the wearing of a black cocktail dress would become necessary, and perhaps even fewer when a filmy flowered chiffon could be donned with safety and look correct at the same time.

  Whereas, if she accepted Senora Cortina’s invitation, and stayed in the luxurious Cortina villa on Sansegovia, the life there would demand that she made the most of her appearance at least, and her little burst of extravagance resulting in the clothes in her wardrobe would at last prove justified.

  She decided to go down and consult Mr. Maplethorpe, and show him Dominic Errol’s letter. Mr. Maplethorpe, although knowing far more about Chippendale furniture and Georgian silver than the occasion when a woman’s wearing apparel ought to be given an opportunity to be aired, was an extraordinarily shrewd old gentleman, with a great deal of practical commonsense, and in addition he had a genuine affection for his young assistant. He might find it difficult to replace her—in fact, when he had been certain he was going to lose her, he had practically given up hopes of replacing her, for she was unusually intelligent as well as have a ‘feeling’ for old things, and the sight of her amongst his collections of glass and china and rare tapestri
es had always warmed his heart—but he had her interests at heart, too.

  He poured her a cup of coffee, having just made himself a pot in his tiny kitchen, and suggested that she should share the rest of his breakfast as well while he gave his attention to the letter. Jacqueline nibbled burnt toast and bacon and watched as he peered at the fine handwriting through his eyeglass; and when at last he let the eyeglass drop and looked at her, she could tell by the expression on his face that he, too, had been impressed by that letter—or, rather, by the handwriting.

  “It is so seldom nowadays that one sees anything like it,” he mourned. “So fluid and so elegant and so aristocratic!—almost a monkish hand! And the Cortinas of Toledo!” He sighed. "Once years ago I visited Toledo, and I shall never forget the works of art! But I never saw a bull fight! ... And I did so wish to see a bull fight! Perhaps you, my dear, will be more fortunate and see one.”

  “On Sansegovia?” Jacqueline asked, with a mixture of amusement and surprise.

  Old Mr. Maplethorpe shrugged his shoulders. “Toledo or Sansegovia? Who knows?” he asked. “You may see both before you are finished!”

  “But not a bull fight,” Jacqueline said decidedly. “Nothing would induce me to see a bull fight.” And she thought at that time that she meant it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jacqueline watched the island coming nearer, and as she did so the realization poured over her that the memories she had treasured of it had become a little impoverished with the passing of the years. She had known that the seas surrounding it were blue, but not as blue as this—the blueness of all the delphiniums that had ever reached perfection. And all the other colors were so much richer than memory had permitted them to be. The green of the umbrella pines above the golden beaches, the palms and the cacti, and even the walls of the villas with their rosy roofs.

  For one moment as the ship steamed between a flotilla of fishing boats into the harbor, and proceeded to tie up, Jacqueline wondered whether she had been wise to come here after all. For during that moment she almost saw the figure of her father waiting for her on the harbor wall, and a wave of depression washed over her as she realized that she never would see him again waiting for her anywhere. She was swallowing the lump which rose in her throat, and trying to fight down the depression, when the gangplank was lowered, and she took a few uncertain steps along it. At the other end a voice hailed her.

  “Miss Vaizey?” It was a tall man wearing a light, well-cut suit, with hair the color of rich, warm mahogany, and extremely affable blue eyes, who smiled at her with a flash of white teeth. “I don’t think I could possibly be mistaken because you appear to be the only young woman in the neighborhood of twenty or thereabouts who is coming ashore, and also you bear a distinct resemblance to your father!”

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, “do you think so?” and gave him her hand. Her fingers were gripped so closely that they tingled for a long while afterwards, and as she looked up at him she decided that he couldn’t possibly be anything other than English. But he didn’t look in the least as she had imagined.

  “I do.” His eyes were appraising her slight figure in the neat suit, and the small oval face framed in blue-black curls that were being blown about a little by the breeze because she was carrying her tiny white hat in her hand. Her eyes were a kind of limpid grey that reminded him of a fresh water rivulet that used to run beside the walls of an old house where he had once lived, and her complexion brought back memories of the apple orchard that adjoined it.

  But that no doubt was because he had become so accustomed to olive-skinned females that the sight of anything so unbelievably pink and white was a little difficult to take in at first.

  “I’m awfully glad you think that,” she told him, and her smile

  was pleased because she meant it.

  “I don’t think anyone could think otherwise, especially if they’d known your father as well as I did.” He took her lightly by the arm and led her over to a dust-colored car that was drawn up beside the water-front, and after tipping the ferry steward he stacked her luggage in the boot. “By the way,” he introduced himself a little belatedly, disabusing her mind of the belief she had been entertaining that he was some connection of the family of Cortina, “my name is Neville Barr, and Dr. Vaizey was my chief until—well, a few weeks ago!” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I’ve only come to meet you because your prospective host is already entertaining one visitor, and I said it would be a pleasure to welcome you to Sansegovia. Which,” he added, “I can assure you it is!”

  Jacqueline looked a little surprised.

  “Then you must be Dr. Barr?” she said. “My father’s assistant?—Or” she corrected herself hastily, and a little flatly, “you were my father’s assistant?”

  “Quite right,” he answered her quietly, “and we always got on excellently together, and I don’t mind telling you his death was a great shock to me. Even although I’m at present in charge of the clinic I’d ten thousand times rather have him back, and I really mean that, Miss Vaizey.”

  “Thank you,” she found herself murmuring, feeling suddenly a little forlorn; and at the same time she found herself thinking that it was an ill wind that bore nobody any good.

  He helped her into the car, and as he did so she noticed something quite superlative in the way of cars standing a little way farther along the waterfront, with a liveried chauffeur standing beside it. The car was a kind of pearl grey, tremendously long and glittering with chromium, and as far as she could make out it was empty. As the dust-colored car drew level with it Dr. Barr called out something in Spanish to the chauffeur, and the man returned to his driving-seat, and when Jacqueline looked backwards a few minutes later she saw that he appeared to be following them.

  The road wound upwards through the interior in the way Jacqueline remembered, and she felt another of those unpleasant pangs which kept on assailing her because this time she was not being driven to the bungalow beside the clinic. Dr. Barr drew her attention to various features of the landscape which he thought might interest her, in particular the pink walls of a church, with cottages clustered round it, as they flashed past; and then he recalled that she had stayed on the island when she was a child, and asked her how she had liked it. As she explained to him that she had never really forgotten it, and that the impression it had made on her youthful mind had been of the pleasantest possible kind, she noticed that he glanced at her occasionally sideways, as if her appearance interested him. His eyes were a little lazy, and his smile was lazy too, but very pleasant, she thought, and she decided that he was quite young to be in charge of her father's clinic—possibly barely thirty.

  At last they flashed between a pair of highly ornamental wrought-iron gates that were standing open, and in a very short space of time had negotiated a drive that was bordered by flaming growth. Dr. Barr brought the car to rest on a gravelled sweep before a low white house that seemed to be overhung by wistaria and starry white jasmine flowers. The scent of the jasmine was almost overpowering, and from somewhere far below the murmur of the sea reached them, as well as its unmistakable tang.

  Jacqueline drew a breath of sudden acute pleasure, for the situation was superb, and through an open doorway she caught a glimpse of a kind of enclosed patio where roses rioted, and high walls were draped with further torrents of wistaria. Beyond the patio another door admitted to a black and white tiled hall where an exquisitely curving staircase wound upwards to a kind of gallery on to which polished doors opened, and beyond this hall there were green lawns like strips of emerald velvet, overhung by shady trees. And beneath one of these shady trees two people were reclining in deliciously comfortable looking wicker lounging chairs, with a little table supporting refreshments between them.

  “This way,” said Neville Bar, and led the way out on to the first lawn.

  Jacqueline became conscious that a man had risen and was looking directly at her. He also, after studying her for a few seconds in a kind of surprise, looked directly at
the doctor.

  Neville explained with a smile.

  “I met Miss Vaizey off the steamer. Your man was there with the car, but I told him it was unnecessary to wait.”

  Jacqueline thought she understood. So the enormous pearl-colored car, with the liveried chauffeur, had been waiting on the waterfront for her!

  “I see,” the man who had risen said quietly, and his voice was the coldest—the most arctically cold—Jacqueline had ever heard, and it was immediately plain that he was extremely annoyed about something. He was so devastatingly handsome that, in spite of the tiredness resulting from her journey, she immediately set him apart as quite unlike any human person she had ever met before— someone finished and perfect, polished and poised in a way she had never thought it possible for any one man to be. Even his anger— and she knew somehow that he was very angry—was so skilfully held in check that apart from affecting the quality of his voice it did nothing to mar the bland perfection of his looks. And they were enough to make any young woman who had travelled all the way from England, and who was conscious of feeling travel-stained and by no means at her best, wonder why it was that he had to appear on her immediate horizon just then.

  To begin with he was just the right height, and just the right slenderness of build, to make a suit of white drill look almost exquisite; and although dark, it was not the swarthy darkness of a Spaniard. His hair had an ebony touch where the shadows fell across it, but where the sunlight glinted on it through the branches overhead there were one or two burnished lights. His eyes were blue—dark blue like indigo—and the eyelashes that shadowed them were thick and black. He had a beautiful mouth, a strong chin, a complexion more bronzed than olive, and the way he kept his head erect on square shoulders suggested that under no circumstances would he humble himself to anyone.

  “There was no necessity for you to meet Miss Vaizey, Doctor,” he said, as he offered Jacqueline his hand. She had the feeling that his eyes, flickering over her, took in every detail of her appearance, even to the fact that her nose was still lightly dusted with last summer’s freckles, and that as a nose it was not in the least classical, but slightly tip-tilted, and that there was a faint dimple in her chin which corresponded with another at one corner of her mouth. And then he put her into the chair he had just vacated and introduced her to his companion. “This is Miss Martine Howard, Miss Vaizey. Like you she is giving my grandmother and myself great pleasure by consenting to stay with us.”