Stephen’s voice broke in, chilly and level. “Will you escort Miss Paget to the launch, Ramon? We’ll follow.” Ramon continued to talk, charmingly, as if there were no other woman in the world so worth the effort. He saw her ensconced in the launch, stood correctly till Elfrida, too, had come to rest, then dropped to the cushioned seat at Melanie’s side. As they neared the jetty he pointed out various landmarks—the government offices, the crumbling chateau of the de Vaux family, which made the heart ache for its erstwhile grandeur, did it not? The Hindu mosque, the Anglican church.
“Up there, among the trees, is our villa. My father has owned it for many years, but he does not come here often. Not far from us is the house that Mr. Brent will occupy. And you, senorita—you and Mrs. Paget will stay at the hotel?”
She answered something. He was so agreeable, so Latin with his facile compliments, his meaningless but delightful ardor. It was exciting to be looked at as Ramon was looking at her, breathtaking to realize that even allowing for an excess of gallantry, she did attract this finely featured young man.
The men and the two women walked up the jetty, paused where several cars were parked in the shade of the wide flame trees.
Stephen turned to Elfrida. “Your luggage will eventually be delivered at the hotel. The colonel has kindly offered to drive us to our respective abodes, and we’ll settle you and Melanie first.”
“That’s sweet of you, Stephen.”
He flicked a smile at her, twisted to take leave of Senor Perez. Ramon cut short a whispered conclave with the older man, stepped forward and bowed to Elfrida.
“My father has just said that it would please him very much if you and your cousin would favor us with your company for English tea tomorrow morning. We will also invite Mr. Brent, your countryman, to make all in order.”
Elfrida hesitated prettily. “You’re kind. My cousin and I will be happy to visit you.”
“And you, Mr. Brent?”
There was nothing pretty about Stephen’s hesitation; he looked almost sour. “Morning tea isn’t much in my line, but I’ll probably be free.”
“I will send a car to the hotel at ten-thirty,” said Ramon. He bent over Elfrida’s hand, lingeringly held one of Melanie’s while he sought her eyes. “Till tomorrow, then, senorita. I can hardly wait.”
The two women sat in the back of the colonel’s car, while Stephen slipped in beside the colonel. The elderly senor inclined his bead courteously and went to his own luxurious limousine, but Ramon stayed there with the sun dappling him through the branches, his teeth very white in a smile that shut out everyone but Melanie. As the car moved away he raised a hand in salute.
Stephen let out a prolonged and cynical sigh. “These Spaniards! At the old senor’s age they’re often noble, but the young have only two interests. ‘
The colonel gave a humorous little laugh. “Ramon’s a nice boy and very popular. You must be getting old, Stephen.” Melanie didn’t listen for Stephen’s reply. She was too intent upon the crowded streets, the quaint mixture of architecture, the great velvety flowers pasted close together over the shrubs in pots and in tiny gardens where Indian children swarmed.
The hotel was small but quite imposing. It lay back from the main avenue of shops, a two-story structure with ornate balconies and pretentious green shutters. The courtyard contained a garden of exotic and dazzling profusion, in the center of which a playing fountain reflected rainbow tints from the sun and veiled a full-bosomed nymph.
The colonel got out of the car but did not accompany the women to the vestibule. With English restraint he said, “In a day or two, when you’re rested, my wife will be charmed to meet you. I hope you’re going to like Port Fernando.”
“We ourselves will be to blame if we don’t,” Elfrida returned. “We seem to have made some friends already.” Stephen inquired at the desk about their reservations, bent one of his suave smiles upon the French proprietress, who was a woman of large and firm proportions. Everything, he was told, had been arranged: two bedrooms, large and small, and one of her servants to wait on the two ladies. But naturally everything was always of the best, and she herself would show Mrs. Paget and her cousin to their rooms.
Stephen glanced from Elfrida to Melanie. “Seems all set. I’ll get along now to my own place. So long.”
He was gone, and Melanie was panting her way up the wide stone staircase by which one arrived at the corridor between the bedrooms. The rooms to the left were large and well furnished, and each had a private balcony overlooking the courtyard. The back bedrooms were much smaller and without balconies, but each deep window had a stone platform outside it, enclosed by a grille.
“There is a space for a deck chair,” stated madame with pride, “but you will doubtless wish to share the front balcony. Here, the meals are at the English times but you will have the best French cooking.” Suddenly she shouted, “Jacques! Bring for the ladies iced orange juice.” Then she creaked away.
Elfrida smiled; she had often smiled lately, thought Melanie gratefully. They sat together in the balcony, drinking the fruit juice that had been brought by the slim Jacques, who was half French, half Indian.
“I love the atmosphere of this place,” said Elfrida. “It’s cosmopolitan with a strong dash of the Oriental. And it isn’t so devastatingly hot. I wish I’d come before.”
“You mean with John?”
This was an error for which Melanie at once mentally kicked herself. Elfrida frowned.
“No, I don’t mean with John! My first marriage was a mistake, but I don’t intend to endure its consequences for the rest of my life. Few of these people will remember John and I shall stay clear of those who do. Please don’t mention his name again.”
“Very well.”
“Especially not to Stephen Brent,” emphasized Elfrida. “He can’t help but be aware that I’ve been married, of course, but a man hates to be reminded that he isn’t the first.”
Melanie obediently murmured the apology that was expected of her and finished her drink. She was watching the fountain, wishing she might join the gaily attired throng in the streets and peer into those absorbing shops. But in the back of her mind a picture formed and persisted. In one of the French towns they had visited Elfrida had become acquainted with the husband of a woman doctor, Melanie had seen the two of them one night in the hotel grounds, embracing in the shadow of a tree. It had sickened her, but next day she and Elfrida had moved on, and the scene had receded. Now it came back, and with it the renewed conviction that Elfrida was a cheat. Much as she disliked Stephen, Melanie hoped he was not becoming interested in her cousin.
That such an eventuality had occurred to Elfrida was apparent in her next remark. “And by the way, Melanie,” very casually, “I’m twenty-nine—four years younger than Stephen, not two. Fortunately he prefers a woman to know her way around.”
Some small devil caused Melanie to forget the acquiescent role for a moment. “You can’t be sure of that,” she retorted, even with a shade of warmth. “Stephen is worldly and he can’t help but react to them with ease. But who’s to say what kind of woman really appeals to an unmarried man?”
“You’re too young to know what you’re talking about!” Elfrida admonished her sharply. “The fact that the Spanish youth finds you a temporary remedy for boredom doesn’t entitle you to give yourself airs. You have neither the experience nor the type of mentality to understand a man like Stephen Brent.” Having, to her own satisfaction, put Melanie back where she belonged, Elfrida finished, “You’d better go down and ask that Frenchwoman if our luggage has arrived; use your French on her—it got us by in France. All my clothes will have to be pressed.”
From habit, Melanie obeyed, but for the first time since Elfrida had rescued her from the school and taken her on as an unpaid lady’s maid, her spirit revolted. She walked down those stairs with her chin high and hands clenched.
Neither went out during the rest of the day. For most of it Elfrida lay sleeping or reading, while M
elanie unpacked, used the ironing room, and hung up their clothes. After dinner Elfrida spread out on her bed a large-scale map of the island that plainly showed the plantation. It was situated on this side of the coast between Port Fernando and a large inland village. Different types of shading indicated various crops, and from the key at the foot of the chart it appeared that John Paget had specialized in coffee, but grown some tobacco and tea.
The house, now occupied by a manager named Jameson, was isolated but close to the shore. It was connected by a track with the network of roads that joined up the tiny towns of the island.
“I can’t decide,” said Elfrida, “whether to have Jameson here for an interview or to surprise him at the house.”
Knowing that this observation was more in the nature of a spoken thought than a request for her opinion, Melanie went on quietly examining the map. What a delicious tangle of names! Pointe Douce, Carimari, Pere Fouchet, Small Man’s Bay, Gossemada. There were rivers and mountains, waterfalls and springs. At sea, but close to the coastline, a coral reef was shown as a series of worms encircling the island. A coral reef!
“I won’t do anything in a hurry,” Elfrida was saying. “Jameson won’t know that I’m here, and it will be just as well to find out more about Mindoa before quarreling with him.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“No.” Acidly, she added, “And I wouldn’t want to meet him now if the estate were showing a profit. Quite obviously he’s a slacker; he’s been comforting himself with the thought that a woman can be hoodwinked, particularly if she happens to be several thousand miles away. Well, he’s going to learn differently!”
Upon the topic of her reduced income Elfrida could become violently eloquent. During her nervous indisposition Melanie had had to bear hours of carping and venomous conjecture; by turns she had felt sorry for Jameson and hopeful that there was some simple explanation for the diminishing profits.
“Perhaps he’s been ill,” Melanie suggested. “People here do get fevers.”
“Well, we shall see! The plantation made good money once and it can do so again.” Methodically, she decisively refolded the map and placed it in a dressing table drawer. “It’s bedtime. Good night, Melanie.”
CHAPTER FOUR
IN SPITE OF being the only, pampered son of a rich father, Ramon Perez was an excellent companion. Having looked at Melanie and decided that her exquisite fairness and modesty concealed a passionate intensity of nature, where she was concerned he was also an instant and tenacious friend.
When Elfrida and Melanie drove up in a Perez car next morning, Ramon met them on the wide path that curved up to a villa of spectacular proportions. In white slacks and silk shirt, a crocus-blue tie floating in the breeze, his thick, glossy hair slicked back, he was even more arrestingly handsome than yesterday. Or perhaps Melanie was better equipped to judge him. His manners were impeccable, which was more than could be said for Stephen’s, when they came upon him sitting in the dim veranda with Ramon’s father.
Stephen merely half stood, said, “Good morning, Elfrida ... Melanie,” and sat down to resume his discussion. Not the ghost of an inquiry as to how they had fared at the hotel; though, to be sure, he must have heard their replies to Ramon. His politeness to the old man was marked, his attitude toward Ramon cool and verging on the contemptuous. The young Spaniard, however, insensitive to anything alien in the atmosphere, was a youthful and agreeable host.
“It is really tea that you desire, senora?” he demanded of Elfrida. “You, too, Melanie—I may call you Melanie?”
“If you wish.”
“I do wish—very much. And I will teach you to say ‘Ramon.’ Tea, then. Mr. Brent, you will have whisky with my father?”
Magically, within seconds, the tea was brought to the veranda by one white-suited, barefoot servant and the tray with bottles and glasses by another. Ramon had an innocuous tall drink and showed much interest in the tea. His mother, he told them, who could not be persuaded to leave Spain, boasted that she had never drunk tea in her life.
“She is of the old type,’ he Said, “what you English call ‘starchy,’ but she likes the English. Her brother, with whom I stayed during my vacations in England, is married to an Englishwoman. I was very happy there.”
Stephen put in, “What are you planning to do when you return to Cadiz?”
“Do, senor?” inquired Ramon, mystified.
“To justify your existence,” Stephen elaborated with some bluntness.
Ramon glanced rather blankly at his father. The old man smiled and shrugged.
“Stephen is afraid that you have grown up useless, Ramon. His father had wealth, but once his son was started on a chosen profession, he did nothing more for him.”
“But what became of the money?”
“A large percentage of it,” Stephen explained with a blandness that nevertheless had edges, “was appropriated by the state for death duties. The rest, with my consent, went a long way toward building a hospital.”
Ramon looked confused, and then he brightened. “One day I, too, will finance the building of a hospital—the Perez Hospital.” Having sidestepped Stephen’s contention that man was put on the earth to work, he stood up and bowed gracefully to Melanie. “Now that you have finished your tea, I would like to show you the gardens. Nowhere else in the world will you find so many different kinds of flowers. But, needless to say, senorita, you will be the sweetest of them all.” Much as she would have liked to witness Stephen’s reception of this piece of extravagance, Melanie daren’t look his way. She followed Ramon down the steps, allowed his light touch on her arm as he led her along a path between palms and cypresses.
It was really a gay garden. Terraced emerald lawns, flaming flower borders, branches laden with blossom: frangipani, magnolia, the scarlet tulip trees. The garden finished at a low, ornamental wall that dripped with blue and yellow rock flowers.
Melanie gazed down over the vista of treetops and heavily thatched roofs at the close streets of the town. The dome of the mosque gleamed gold in the glaring sun, its sides, encrusted with semiprecious stones gathered from the beaches, gave back a gaudy glitter. The other churches stood out whitely against the excessive blueness of the sea, and between them huddled the countless stucco dwellings, the bazaars, the shops, the offices of the exporters and shipping agents.
“The view is good is it not?” Ramon, at her side, had gestured toward the sea. “Before you came I had grown a little tired of it, but I can see that you are bewitched and remember how I, also, was entranced when first I saw it. Senorita, how long will you be here, at Port Fernando?”
“I’m not sure. Two or three months, perhaps.”
“That is good. Is Mrs. Paget your duenna?”
Melanie gave an uncontrolled little laugh and Ramon’s dark eyes glowed. The pretty smile, the white throat, the soft, husky voice. She was not beautiful in the stereotyped way that many of his countrywomen were beautiful, but she had tenderness, an inner light, and no girl with such a lovely mouth could be so cold as this Melanie would have one believe her.
“Mrs. Paget is my cousin,” she said.
“Your parents are in England?”
“I have no parents. My father was in the navy—he died in the Far East when I was a child—and my mother died four years ago.”
“My poor Melanie! So you are alone, except for Mrs. Paget.” He let a minute slip by, then asked smoothly, “I am not quite sure how you are related to Mr. Brent. Is he, in some measure, your guardian?”
“Of course not. Stephen was just a shipboard acquaintance who happened to have the same destination.”
“Yet it seems to me that he appoints himself your formidable big brother. I do not care for Stephen Brent.” Seeing that this lack of fondness probably had a stronger counterpart in Stephen, Melanie said nothing. She picked a saffron blossom from the wall and sniffed at it. Urgently, Ramon moved to face her. He was not much taller than she and took no pains to veil his expression.
“Is it permitted that we dine alone somewhere? There is a place called the Miramar where one can have a good dinner and also dance. Nice people go there, and I would take great care of you and see you early to your hotel. Is it possible that Mrs. Paget would consent?”
“She might.”
“And if she did?”
Ramon was young, handsome and smiling, his boldness just a scrap of audacious. To Melanie he was in part an answer to the yearning of her unfledged heart, in part an escape from Elfrida. With a flash of daring she replied, “I would like to go to the Miramar, senor.”
“Then I will certainly win Mrs. Paget’s permission!”
After which he seized her hand and pressed his lips to her wrist.
“Senorita...” he stopped himself and stood very straight. Stephen had come upon them, had paused to regard with complete distaste the fire in the eyes of Ramon, the pink flags in Melanie’s cheeks.
“We’re going now,” he said. “There’s no need to use the senor’s car. We’ll go in mine.”
“I didn’t know you had one at Mindoa,” she managed.
“Didn’t you?” he said abruptly, but offered no enlightenment.
The three of them moved off together, toward the driveway where Senor Perez chatted conventionally with Elfrida. Goodbyes were exchanged. Ramon bent to speak into the back of the car.
“I will give myself the pleasure of calling upon you later today, senora,” he said. “I have a favor to beg of you.”
“Why not ask it now?” Elfrida queried graciously.
“It will keep for a few hours.” He stepped back and addressed his final farewell exclusively to Melanie. “Adios, senorita.”
The car shot away, out of the driveway into the avenue that gradually twisted down into the town. Elfrida was gently smiling to herself, and Stephen, behind the wheel, was staring ahead.
“Senor Perez is quite nice,” said Elfrida, as if mildly surprised at the discovery. “The young man has his good points, too. How much longer are they staying on the island, Stephen?”
His response was noncommittal. “They were about due to leave when we arrived. I sent Colonel Davidson a cable from Alexandria, and the senor was good enough to hang on till I came.”
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