Flower for a Bride Read online

  Jay had been lounging in the one big chair the room contained and in order to put up a slight deception where the servants who had to wait on her were concerned she had been wearing an enchanting dressing-gown. But she had looked richly tanned and a little hostile, because of her enforced confinement, and as soon as she found out Lois’s reaction to the plan she and her mother had formed she had gone through every variety of mood to get her to change her mind.

  She had been humble and penitent, pleading and disconsolate almost in the same breath, and then had shown her claws a little because Lois could not conceal how shocked she was, and how little she understood the other’s approach to responsibilities. It was true they had grown up together—and Lois had always had a great affection for her cousin, whose looks she admired enormously, but there were some things one just didn’t do, according to the poor relation’s code. And beneath the undisguised hostility of her two leading benefactors she had realized, perhaps for the first time, that to them she was nothing much more than a poor relation.

  And because she had accepted benefits it was her duty to repay them when the opportunity arose! That was Aunt Harriet’s attitude, and Jay had looked contemptuously down her exquisitely straight nose and indicated by aloofness that she was rather more than bitterly disappointed. She had believed in the loyalty of a poor relation—particularly a warmhearted and appreciative one like Lois—and was amazed because she could let her down.

  And then when she saw that displeasure wasn’t getting her very far she had burst all at once into extremely realistic tears, and declared that if Lois wouldn’t help her she didn’t know what she was going to do. She simply couldn’t face Dom Julyan de Valerira herself—it wasn’t that she was afraid of him, but she was afraid that he might try and persuade her to go on with the marriage, and where would that lead . . . ? To complete unhappiness for both of them! Surely even Lois could see that . . . ?

  Lois did see it, and also found it quite impossible to ignore the appeal of those tears. Realizing that she was not only being lamentably weak, but aiding and abetting two people of her own blood who should have known better, she said that she would do whatever Jay wanted her to do, and was rewarded with hugs and smiles. She was instantly restored to favor, and even Aunt Harriet forgave her for causing her some extremely anxious moments, and by the time she set off in the car mother and daughter were putting their heads together to think up some more practical expression of their appreciation than the price of her air ticket to Portugal.

  They had granted to Lois the right to say whatever she thought it was best to say to Dom Julyan, so long as Jay’s behavior was not made to look too black; but by the time she arrived at the quinta gates, and was whisked through them at a brisk pace on to a gravelled drive, she had no idea at all what she was going to say.

  The Quinta de Valerira was like so many of those other lightly color-washed houses, save that it was bigger and more impressive when one drew close to it, and very definitely much more dignified. It looked like the small summer palace of a Portuguese noble, and the grounds were exquisitely laid out.

  Lois could see them, through the car windows, dropping away on all sides of her—lawns like terraces, composed of emerald velvet instead of turf, clipped hedges, and graceful pieces of garden statuary. Before the car drew up, she had a swift glimpse of a blue-tiled pool in which a fountain played, and a solid bank of the white flowers she took to be white camellias and which rioted even in cottage gardens. Then the car was stationary at the foot of a flight of steps above which loomed the bulk of the rose-pink house, with its tilted eaves and tall windows opening on to little balconies.

  Lois felt as if her mouth went dry with nervousness when she alighted from the car. A liveried manservant admitted her to the house, and when she said that she wished to see Dom Julyan she thought that surprise flickered across his face, but when she gave her name the surprise vanished.

  The hall of the house was wide and cool, with a marble floor and a vaulted ceiling, and before she was shown into a tiny anteroom opening off it she paused to admire the graceful baroque staircase that wound its way into the upper regions, with portraits climbing the walls beside it. The walls of the anteroom were panelled and painted a soft and restful green, and there were some exquisite examples of birds and flowers executed upon them. The windows, with silk curtains looped back from them, overlooked a kind of interior courtyard where there was another typically Portuguese tiled fountain, and in this case the tiles reminded Lois of pale ochre.

  She was looking with a little uprush of pleasure, which she could not deny, into the quiet peace of the courtyard, and thinking what a delight it would be to wander there in the cool of the evening, when the door behind her opened, and a man stood regarding her with a faintly puzzled frown between his infinitely black brows.

  Lois had to summon up all her resolution to turn and confront him, and she was not in the least surprised at the note of interrogation in his voice.

  “The Senhorita Fairchild?” he said, without moving. “Carlos said the Senhorita Lois Fairchild.”

  “That is quite right, senhor.” Lois’s fingers fastened on the clasp of her handbag as if it were something to give her support, and she hoped ardently for his sake—that when the servant mentioned her name he had included the Christian part of it before mentioning the Fairchild. Otherwise he might have imagined, for a few moments which would be followed by disappointment, that it was Jay who had called on him. “I am—Lois Fairchild, Jay’s cousin.”

  The words left her lips jerkily, but if he had suffered any disappointment recently there was absolutely no sign of it in his face. It was a curiously emotionless mask of a face, and the only thing about it that did not surprise her was the quality of his good looks. Jay had waxed lyrical about them in her letters, going so far as to mention the unusual length of his eyelashes, and the soft brilliance of his dark eyes. She had also mentioned the fact that he was of spare but athletic build, that he looked like an aristocrat who could never quite forget that he was an aristocrat, and that he was always dressed as if his tailor and shirtmaker and so forth not only loved their various tasks, but were richly recompensed for turning out faultless examples of their craft.

  The thing, therefore which did surprise her about his appearance—apart from that strange lack of expression in any single one of his features—was that in some ways he was younger than she had imagined, while one or two faint silvery threads in the night blackness of his hair above the temples seemed determined to try and indicate that he was even older.

  A young-oldness—a curiously attractive, if somewhat peculiar, young-oldness! A suggestion that experience, and a knowledge of Life in several distinct phases, had crowded upon shoulders a little too youthful for them, with the result that he was prematurely aged.

  She had expected him to enquire immediately about Jay’s health—perhaps leaping to the conclusion that it was worse than he had been given to understand—but he did not do so. He studied her with a kind of quiet deliberation for several seconds, and then moved towards her with sinuous grace.

  “I am delighted to meet a cousin of Jay’s,” he told her, in perfect if slightly stilted English—unless it was his manner of enunciating each word carefully—and offered her his hand. A brief, cool grip, and he drew forward a chair for her. “You will be seated, Senhorita?”

  “Thank you.” It was a Louis Quinze chair, covered in pale rose-colored brocade that matched the pale rose of the curtains, and Lois had found time to admire it, as well as other items of furniture the room contained, before he entered. “I must apologize for taking you by surprise like this,” she began.

  “Not at all,” Dom Julyan said smoothly. You are here, no doubt, for the wedding?”

  “I—yes, I—That is. . . ”

  “I seem to recall that Jay mentioned a cousin who would be acting as bridesmaid.” His eyes flickered over her as if he was looking for a likeness, but Lois was afraid he would be disappointed for such likenes
s as there was, was very faint indeed, and as Jay always wore clothes created especially for her, and Lois’s simple ice-blue linen had been bought straight off the peg, there was nothing at all to enhance it. “Lois,” he uttered her name softly, with his attractive Portuguese intonation. “Yes, of course, I have heard quite a lot about you. You are from London, and you work in an office? To me it is strange that a young woman like you should have to support herself.”

  Lois’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Really?” she murmured. And she added more hurriedly: “I only arrived in Portugal yesterday, and Alvora today. I am staying at the Hotel Rosso with my aunt, and—and Jay, of course.”

  “Of course,” he echoed, with that same smoothness. And then for the first time she saw his eyes lighten a little, and his well-cut lips part over excellent teeth in the merest suspicion of a smile. “And if Jay were a little more conventional—or a little less British, shall we say?—she would have brought you here herself this afternoon and presented you to me personally.”

  “But you do realize that she—she is confined to her room?”

  “Yes,” he admitted, quietly. “I understand that she is recovering from some sort of an indisposition.” Lois stared at him. He was standing beneath the only portrait on the reposeful wall facing her, and once again his look was completely masklike. She told herself that there was something strange about this—or was it merely Portuguese? Was it incorrect to display anxiety about a woman he had contracted to marry, or could there be genuine indifference behind that look? Impossible! ... When Jay was so utterly lovely and most men found it impossible to resist her. And he wouldn’t have asked her to marry him at all if he hadn’t found her irresistible.

  Then was it because she had refused to see him, and he was feeling rather worse than hurt? It could be that.

  “She—she is a little better today,” she heard herself stammering.

  “Then in that case perhaps she will see me tomorrow,” was his almost bland response, and he touched an electric bell, which brought a servant, and he ordered that tea be brought. “For the Senhorita Fairchild,” he said, smiling down at her. “You English

  find it difficult to survive without afternoon tea, and you must have left the hotel before it was served.”

  But Lois barely waited for the servant to leave the room before she stood up.

  “No, please. . . .” There was a note of agitation in her voice. “I didn’t come here for afternoon tea. . . .”

  “But, nevertheless, you must permit me to offer you refreshment before you go away again.”

  “And I didn’t come here to—to make you’re your acquaintance. . . .”

  “No?” He looked down at her out of those intensely dark depths of eyes that were about as revealing as the eyes of the Sphinx, and standing close to him she was impressed by his height, and by the fact that he seemed to tower above her. “Then you have perhaps a message from your aunt.”

  She shook her head, and the rippling movement of the muscles of her slender throat gave away the fact that she swallowed hard.

  “No, I haven’t any message from my aunt.”

  “Then may I be permitted to enquire, Miss Lois”— abandoning the more formal and rather picturesque mode of address—“why you have come to see me?”

  The question was reasonable enough, and she plunged into speech. Looking down at her large white handbag that she was maltreating with her nervous fingers, she got as far as:

  “Naturally, under normal circumstances, I—I would have looked forward to meeting you, and Jay isn’t so lacking in a sense of fitness as to ignore altogether what would be expected of her. That is to say if the circumstances were normal she would probably have brought me here to meet you this

  afternoon, but as----------” She floundered, swallowed

  again, decided that there were some things that were better dealt with in a rather brutal manner, and went on: “Senhor— do you mind if I say what I have to say straight out?”

  “But, of course.” The quietness of his reply should have calmed her, instead of which it filled her with sudden deep pity for him, and that made her task ten times more difficult.

  “Senhor, I—I’m afraid you won’t find this very pleasant! Jay hasn’t been really ill—in fact, she hasn’t been ill at all!”

  "She preferred not to see me for a little while, is that it?” he asked. “So she shut herself up in her room at the hotel, and her mother informed me that she was indisposed!”

  “H—how did you know?” she gasped.

  He lifted his shoulders slightly in an almost indifferent shrug.

  “Oh, one gets to know these things, and I have been aware for some time that Jay was not quite happy about the thought of our marriage.” He turned and started to pace up and down the room, a graceful, slightly feline stride that actually fascinated her a little, because it was so soundless on the thick carpet, and although plans of his must have come crumbling about his ears—even although they had apparently started to crumble many days ago now—his shoulders were well back, and there was nothing more than a thoughtful expression on his handsome dark face. “Miss Fairchild,” he paused and turned and looked at her for a moment, “I have a little boy, and although Jay found him quite attractive at first, I do not think she sees herself in the role of mother to him. And I—one of my principal reasons for wishing to marry again is that someone shall mother him. . . .”

  Lois looked as if she felt slightly taken aback.

  “But you don’t mean—you can’t expect anyone like Jay. . . .” Her voice failed her. “One doesn’t marry for a reason like that, surely, senhor?”

  “Doesn’t one?” She thought his voice mocked her all at once as he stood looking at her. “But then, you are English—very English, I should say!—and so is Jay. Jay is also very beautiful, spoiled a little by an over-indulgent up-bringing, and for her—and for you, apparently— marriage is just an exciting adventure to be entered into heedlessly, and conducted carelessly. But in Portugal we think a little differently about these matters. You may go back to your cousin, Miss Lois, and tell her that I hold her to nothing, and that she is as free as air to go back to England tomorrow! There is no longer any need for her to shut herself away behind a bedroom door.”

  Lois felt the humiliating color sting her cheeks— humiliating because she suspected there was contempt in his tones, and perhaps even much more than contempt. There was certainly a bite in them.

  “You mean that you will let her go?”

  “There are no chains on her, Miss Lois.” This time the bite was a rasp. “And I would not inflict upon myself an unwilling bride.”

  “B—but. . . .” Although the color mounted until it actually burned her cheeks, and she felt as if it were she who was being judged and found wanting, she could not accept the fact that he was making it beautifully easy for her to escape quickly, and that he was apparently willing to relinquish the beautiful Jay without a struggle. Without even the semblance of a struggle, or any appearance whatsoever of regret! It was extraordinary! “But I must make it clear to you, senhor,” feeling that she had done little so far to support Jay, or to make her behavior look a little less despicable than it was, “that my cousin is not—is not happy over this. . . . Naturally it has upset her very much to think that she might be making you unhappy. But you will admit that she is young, and perhaps you rather swept her off her feet, and—and then let her feel that you expected rather more of her than she could possibly give. . . .”

  She felt the words were meaningless and stilted, and they appeared to make him smile. Not, however, a nice smile.

  “We will agree that what I wanted Jay was not prepared to give, and as for making me unhappy . . . I am fortunate to be spared greater unhappiness! Don’t you agree, senhorita.”

  Lois looked at him for a moment as if she wished she could understand the riddle that he represented to her just then—and would always represent because she would probably never see him again— a
nd then fumbled in her handbag for the ring case that contained the enormous diamond ring, set in shoulders of platinum, that had been the seal of the betrothal, and handed it back to him.

  “Jay asked me to return this to you,” she said, deciding that it was best to say no more in her cousin’s defence.

  But Dom Julyan waved the ring aside.

  “Tell your cousin that I would like her to keep it as a souvenir—perhaps a guard against future imprudence! And tell her also that she is fortunate in the possession of a cousin who is somewhat braver than she is, and willing to undertake unpleasant tasks for her!”

  But Lois looked at him for the first time in quite noticeable concern, and with eyes that were wide with a desire to correct a wrong impression.

  “But of course, I had to help her when she—when she badly needed my help!” she said. “What else could I do?”

  “Unless you whole-heartedly agreed with her that this was a suitable manner in which to break off an engagement you could have declined to come here this afternoon,” he told her in a stern voice. “Although I do not think you were very happy about coming here, were you?”

  ‘ ‘No,” she admitted, in a whisper.

  “And if you had promised to marry a man and then changed your mind about him, you would not permit someone else to convey your altered decision to him, would you?”

  “No,” she admitted again, in a less audible whisper this time.

  “Then in case, you are certainly braver than your cousin!” He turned away, and his manner became cool and dismissing.

  “If you will not take tea, may I show you out to your car?” On the way to the car his shoulder knocked against the camellia hedge, and one of the waxen stems fell to the ground, and Lois all but put her foot onto it. She stopped with an exclamation to retrieve the fragile thing, and as he put her into the car he looked at her oddly.