Perchance to Marry

by Celine Conway

  “Mother’s always a little tired after the morning at the store,” said Sally hastily.

  “And my sister-in-law is not easy for Senora Sheppard to understand?” He smiled. “Isabel likes you, Sally. She is fuming against the slowness of this week, because she wants to see you so much at the fiesta.”

  “She’s very sweet. If I laugh at the way she speaks English it’s because I enjoy it. She’s one up on me, anyway; I can’t talk Spanish.”

  “But you will learn. Dona Inez was telling me that you read to her this morning.”

  She nodded. “I sent her to sleep. How is she today?”

  “Remarkably well. As it is now so warm, I have given permission for a small day-room to be prepared for her downstairs. She may use it when she is in the mood.”

  “I’m so glad.” Sally hesitated before asking idly, “Do you think she’s quite recovered from that stroke, or whatever it was?”

  “The condition is still there—the cause of the attack. But she is as well as I have known her during the past few years.”

  “Is her heart good?”

  “For her age, excellent.”

  “Which means it’s a bit tired?”

  “Yes. With care she may last for several years.”

  “Then she’s in far better shape than when I first came here?”

  He was looking down at her as she sat near the wrought-iron table, and the fact that he thought her questions a little odd was audible in his voice. “You have brought comfort and security to the senora. Why do you wish to know this, Sally?”

  She answered quickly, without looking up. “I’m interested, naturally. We’ve taken care that nothing in the least controversial shall reach Dona Inez, and I wanted to know whether such precautions are still necessary. She seems so very alert and understanding that I wondered if she could stand rather more than we think. What’s your opinion?”

  He shrugged, characteristically. “Be honest with her as far as you feel it is wise, that is all. You have seen her daily for some time, and I am sure you are by now aware if there is worry or even a slight uneasiness in the senora. While there is no sign of this uneasiness you may say what you please in her presence. I feel you already knew that.”

  “Yes, I did. But you’ve put it plainly for me, Carlos. Thank you.”

  He lingered, as though he would have liked to say more. But Sally didn’t look straight up at him, and after a bit he gave his small bow and departed.

  Viola came for lunch and went to bed after it. Later she told Sally she had been invited to Mr. Essler’s villa for the evening. A dinner party for eight. He was very charming—didn’t Sally think so? His villa was sure to be furnished in the best possible taste, which was rather more than one could say of Captain Northwick’s cottage. Really, the Captain was hopeless!

  For Sally, the evening was long and very quiet. Once, in her room, she listened, and thought it was like the long minutes of stillness before a storm. A few rustlings outside, the discreet murmur of servants below in the dark patio and then a deeper silence which would not be broken till midnight, when a car brought her mother to the foot of the steps. Sally got into bed at eleven, and perhaps because she had made her decision, however painful, she slept.

  It was about ten-thirty next morning when she tapped gently at the door of the senora’s room. Dona Inez was sitting in her padded mahogany wheelchair and was close to the balcony. She waved Katarina away.

  “Chocolate at eleven, Katarina. Maria may bring it in. Go out for an hour if you wish.”

  Katarina frowned, but obeyed. Sally, seated half facing the old senora, turned her head and looked out towards the climbing roses. The full-blown blossoms had been snipped off and new buds had appeared, some of them already bursting from fat green sheaths. A cloud of gnats hovered above the balcony rail, and moved off downwards.

  Dona Inez allowed her sharp little glance to travel over Sally’s fair head and down to her shoulders. “That is one of the dresses from Barcelona? It is pretty, on you. You must order more of them.”

  “There are some more on the way. Would you like me to read to you again?”

  “I have no wish to sleep yet! Tell me what you do with yourself while Marcus is away.”

  This wasn’t quite the sort of opening Sally needed. She answered, “I’m afraid I’m being lazy, but I may go down to the nursing home this afternoon.”

  “You still wish you could work there?”

  “I did enjoy nursing,” Sally said, as though casually stating a fact. “But I’ve never really wanted to be just a nursing assistant. I used to be terribly determined to get through my training, and I still hanker for it a little.”

  The senora’s expression softened. “It is because you are young and active, and at the moment there is not much for you to do here. When you are married you will feel differently. I am sure you know that Marcus will be an exacting husband.”

  Sally nodded, while she searched for words. “You want his marriage very much, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “All you wanted to hear, when he returned from England, was that he had brought a fiancée?”

  “Yes, that is true.” The bony little face looked thoughtful. “He is the only del Moscado—I no longer count. He must marry.”

  Sally moistened a dry lower lip, but managed a lightness in her tones. “So it didn’t really matter very much whom he’d chosen, did it?”

  “I trust his good taste,” said Dona Inez dryly. “I will not pretend that I would not have preferred that he choose a girl brought up in the Spanish way—someone who was educated for marriage to a man of his standing and not taught to earn her living—but his own feelings were more important. It is imperative that Marcus should marry a woman he loves.” She slanted another of the eagle glances at the pale young face that was slightly turned from her. “You must not expect too much of an old woman. The only love I have left is love of family, and to me that means Marcus and his wife.”

  “I realize that.”

  “What you are asking,” said Donna Inez shrewdly, “is whether I could ever have loved someone like you for yourself. Is it not so?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then please forget it. When you marry Marcus you will become part of him, and for me that is enough.”

  It was half an answer, a rather painful half. But Sally had to know the rest. For the moment, though, she thought it best to remain quiet, while Dona Inez relaxed. Not that the old senora had become in the least anxious. On the contrary, she had looked keen-eyed and interested. And it was she who broke the short silence.

  “It is because you are young and away from your own country that you feel insecure. And it is because Marcus did not take you with him to Barcelona that you are asking yourself whether he has enough feeling for you.”

  “I’m not wondering that,” said Sally at once. “I was only curious to hear how you feel about ... about me personally.” She gave a brief laugh which she hoped sounded less brittle to the senora than it did to herself. “Just as a point for discussion, senora—supposing Marcus’s fiancée had turned out to be someone quite different? Supposing she were a dress designer or a journalist ... or an actress? Would it have made any difference to your own feelings?”

  “None,” said Dona Inez firmly. “To me, it is only important that there is a fiancée. I think you wish me to be quite honest, do you not?”

  Sally nodded. A sort of fright seemed to have paralyzed her throat muscles. Dona Inez gave her another long penetrating glance, sighed and said,

  “Be content, cara mia. You are a sweet girl and you will be a loyal wife. Later you will have maturity and the power to make Marcus adore you. Until then you must be happy with as much affection from him as you can inspire. You understand?”

  “Yes,” said Sally in a thread of a voice. “I understand.” She understood so well that the pain was a probe, needling into her heart. She had asked for a little, just enough to make quite certain that Sally Sheppard, as
a person, could never harm Dona Inez. But, gently and ruthlessly, she had been given the whole works. Not only was she dispensable, so long as another fiancée were there to take her place, but it was also known—to Dona Inez at least—that Marcus was not in love with her!

  She tried to pull her shattered thoughts together. There sat the old Spanish woman, tranquil, with the tiny smile upon her patrician features. What had she felt—that she was giving sound advice to a young woman about to tie herself to the del Moscado Durant family? And what had she imagined—that Sally would be content without love because she would be gaining so many material things?

  Sally would rather her thoughts had remained in splinters. The thing didn’t bear thinking about.

  Somehow she stayed on till Maria brought the chocolate. But the cloying smell of the stuff was too much for her. She pleaded a slight headache and said she would go down and get rid of it in the garden. As she left the senora she avoided meeting those wise old eyes; she had to.

  * * *

  Dona Isabel came to view the fiesta gown that afternoon. She sat in Sally’s bedroom and crooned her delight, came downstairs and had tea, still praising the “mos’ lofly zing in ze vorld.” In her old chauffeur-driven car she took Sally to the fiesta ground, where marquees were already flaunting their striped roofs and scalloped awnings, and islanders worked upon the wooden structure for the lilac bower. The smell from the presses, a quarter of a mile away, was too concentrated to be sickly. In fact, it hardly reminded one of lilac at all.

  The donkeys were out to grass again, and several of them wandered cheerfully among the sideshow tents. Ranged close to the road stood cartloads of tarpaulins and other gear, and in groups on the grass women were sewing gay flags and painting straw hats they had made earlier. There was laughter and gossip, an air of anticipation and zest. Someone lit a jumping cracker and was good-humoredly chased. A tenor soulfully tested his low notes and a woman threw him a flower.

  Feeling thoroughly out of place, Sally was glad when Dona Isabel suggested it was now time to leave; she always cooked dinner herself and tonight it must not be late because Carlos was coming, as well as Sally. So much for her stupid efforts to keep away from the doctor, thought Sally. As if it mattered.

  There were just the four of them that evening, and Dona Isabel was jubilant about the success of her pastas and trasajo, heavy dishes that Sally tackled as bravely as she was able. But the coffee was excellent, and taking the risk of shocking Dona Isabel, Sally accepted a cigarette from Carlos and let him light it. She lay back in an easy chair, smiled dutifully whenever she met the other woman’s glance, and let the men do the talking. Seeing that this was the custom in this house, she could withdraw in thought while appearing to be present. Not that she wanted to be alone with herself. What she wanted was the impossible; to fade right out and be nothing at all.

  Between nine-thirty and ten Carlos said about six times that he must leave, and each time he was smiled at and drawn once more into discussion. Carlos was a gentle man, but Pedro was even gentler; he was entirely without envy or dislike, and very willing to think the best even of people whom Carlos shrugged off. You got the impression that Pedro regarded his brother as headstrong, self-assertive and dogmatic, a man who would mellow with age. It was rather touching.

  At last Carlos got up. “The evening has been so pleasant that I would prefer to stay, but I still have to see a patient at the hospital. I will drive Sally home.”

  “Unless she would care to stay with us for another hour?” said Don Pedro courteously.

  “Thank you, but no, senor. I think I must go too. You and Dona Isabel have been most kind, and I’ve enjoyed the evening immensely.”

  “Mucho sleep for fiesta, no?” beamed Dona Isabel. “Zis vill be our mos’ zuccessful Fiesta of Lilacs!”

  In her plump good nature she was overwhelming, but a dear. Sally touched a cheek to the one Dona Isabel offered, said goodnight and accompanied Carlos to his car. They drove away into a faintly lucent darkness.

  Carlos said, “My brother and his wife feel honored each time you go to their house. They are both simple people.”

  “They’re very sweet. I’ve never been to your house. Carlos; you don’t seem to spend much time there yourself.”

  “For me the house is sleeping quarters and an office—not much more.” His shoulders lifted. “I eat at the nursing home, with you and Marcus, with Pedro, with a patient here and there. It is a bad habit, you think?”

  “Very bad. You should marry one of the nurses in the British section of the hospital.” She saw him look at her quickly. “I was only joking, but is there someone?”

  Carlos smiled, but his negative did not sound entirely convincing. “Do I look like a man in love?”

  “Not terribly. How long have the British nurses been here?”

  “For some time,” he replied, almost offhandedly. And she said no more.

  Sally could not prevent his getting out of the car when they reached Las Vinas, but she did place restraining fingers on his arm as he made to mount the steps with her.

  “Please don’t bother, Carlos. You still have work to do. It’s been a lovely evening—and thank you for the lift.”

  “My pleasure. Goodnight, senorita.”

  Sally went up the steps into the light of the courtyard, turned, with her head still bent, towards the house. Then suddenly she was halted, and her head lifted sharply. “Marcus!”

  He seemed to be smiling, but in the darkness she wasn’t sure. “I got a lift home too,” he said, “with some of the Navy who’d been on leave and were coming back by their own plane. It’s good to know you haven’t been lonely.”

  “I’ve been out to dinner at the Suarez house—Don Pedro’s.”

  “I imagined that. You’re looking very lovely. How are you?”

  “I’m ... all right.” She was walking with him into the house. “We went up to the fiesta field this afternoon, and Dona Isabel invited me to their place for dinner.”

  “If you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t know Carlos would be there, I believe it already. Come into the study and have a nightcap with me.”

  “It’s rather late.”

  “Only eleven. You can tell me what you’ve been doing since Monday.”

  And would he reciprocate? Not that she’d dare ask him to. She wouldn’t be able to speak to him about it, not yet. She didn’t really want to know the details. She knew too much already.

  She entered the study with him, and was glad that he switched on only one light, the lamp on the desk. Lowering herself into one of the armchairs, she asked, in a steady voice, “Did your business go well?”

  “So-so.” With a lift of the shoulders he dismissed it. “What will you have—a spot of gin?”

  “No drink, thanks, but I’d like a cigarette.”

  He gave her one and lighted it, before setting the flame to his own. “Well, how have you been amusing yourself?”

  “Quietly. Reading, mostly.”

  ‘“No visitors?”

  She shook her head and saw a change in his face; a dilation of the nostrils, a narrowing of the lids. Offhandedly she said, “I suppose you’ve heard that Josef came here on Monday evening. He had a drink, and left.”

  “That’s not true,” he said curtly. “He had dinner here. Katarina told me.”

  “Did he?” She flickered a glance across at him. “I wasn’t aware of that. While I was here he had one drink ... no, two. I didn’t want anything to eat. He went out to the veranda and I naturally thought he was leaving Las Vinas. I went straight up to bed.”

  “Josef came because he knew I was away, didn’t he?”

  “So he said.”

  “And what was the other reason?”

  Sally wasn’t prepared to answer that. Almost unconsciously she had come to the conclusion that nothing could be done about her own problems till Sunday. She owed that much to Dona Isabel Suarez. With the fiesta past she would be free to act in her own interests. Early on Sund
ay morning she would tell her mother she couldn’t marry Marcus. And then, as soon as she could see him alone, she would tell Marcus himself.

  She tapped ash into a tray he had placed nearby. “Josef doesn’t like you, Marcus.”

  “I’ve known that for years.”

  “Well, that’s why he came while you were away.”

  “That was easy to guess.”

  His cigarette had gone out and he put another between his lips. She saw the faintly bitter pull at his mouth as he jutted the cigarette to his lighter, die brief, fed-up glance he gave her as he blew smoke through his nostrils and dropped the lighter into his pocket. She sat without speaking, a little taut, with her legs extended and her head back, so that the slender throat looked vulnerable.

  He said abruptly, “Josef will be leaving San Palos shortly. I doubt whether he’ll come back again.”

  “He didn’t know that on Monday. He looked most prosperous—said someone had offered to finance his ceramics.”

  “He’ll have to start his factory elsewhere. I’m giving the house to one of our own workers.” With a vicious flick of his fingers he added, “That little house used to be quite a show place; you should see it now.”

  Perhaps it was her very silence that gave Sally away. It was a frantic kind of silence, as though her mind were desperately casting round for something, anything she might mention to get past that moment. But her expression must have revealed that she had seen Josef’s cottage. Marcus looked at her queerly and stood up. He jabbed out the new cigarette and walked to the window. Looking out into the night he said tightly,

  “I’m not going to row with you; I’m certainly not in the mood to keep a quarrel within bounds. A plain warning wouldn’t be any good; I can tell that from the way you looked at me when we met out there in the patio. So I’m afraid I shall have to be autocratic. I forbid you to leave this house before the fiesta on Saturday. I’ll take you up there myself.”

  Sally’s lips quivered. She pushed herself up out of the chair. “I doubt whether I shall want to go out. But if I did, Marcus, I wouldn’t ask you first. Goodnight.”