by Susan Barrie
“I should not,” Don Carlos remarked, still observing her, “have said what I said in front of you just now. You will forgive me?”
She shrugged.
“There is nothing to forgive. You were angry, and you wanted to make your ward understand that her dress was outrageous.”
He frowned.
“But that could have been done without involving you. I apologize!”
She spread her hands ... a gesture she had probably copied from him, and Rodrigo, who was much more Latin.
“It doesn’t matter. But I’m sorry I gave Constancia the opportunity to copy me. I should have been more discreet in such a household as yours.”
His black brows actually met as he frowned this time, but there was the merest suspicion of a twinkle at the very backs of his eyes. “But you were discreet. You chose the early mornings for your appearance in the type of semi-masculine garb we frown upon here, and although it is true I have glimpsed you myself...” He paused, the twinkle becoming more noticeable. “And I must say you looked very delightful! A charming boy! But it is not a boy a man wishes to marry!”
“Of course not,” primly.
“It is a woman who can look really feminine in the clothes that were designed for her ... softly falling skirts and draperies that make the most of her naturally graceful shape, and not harsh outlines that conceal them. A woman in trousers is an offence in Spanish eyes, because she is not a true woman. But that does not mean she may not be permitted to wear them occasionally, if they please her ... and she happens to be English!”
April had not been able to resist a smile at his picture of an ultra-feminine woman in ultra-feminine draperies, but her lips tautened again when she caught the condescension in his voice. She was not making any apologies for being English!
“But it was Senorita Hartingdon who persuaded Constancia to forgo her feminine appeal at odd moments,” Don Carlos continued. “On a shopping expedition together, apparently. So no real blame attaches to you for the metamorphosis I saw this afternoon ... Constancia as I do not wish to see her. As I hope never to see her again!”
April felt as if all her features grew so taut they actually hurt her.
“It is most unfortunate, Don Carlos,” she said, “that you introduced two alien influences to your ward, two young women from England! You should be more careful when it is of the utmost importance to you that she develops along the right lines, and you should certainly be more careful than you obviously have been when selecting someone to introduce to your friends as a future wife! A future wife—particularly if she has to influence Constancia!—should surely be without blemish?”
She realized that she was speaking with biting sarcasm, and that her tongue was running away with her, but she was unable to prevent herself. He looked so suave and condescending now that his anger had past, and even the humorous gleam in his eyes did nothing to soften her feeling of resentment. In fact it increased it, for she should not forget the way Dona Ignatia’s glance had travelled over her in the patio, as if she was indeed an alien influence, and there was little or nothing that could be done about her.
“If your plans for Constancia are so important,” April rattled on, “why didn’t you tell me about her when you asked me to marry you? When you insisted I’d have to marry you!” correcting herself in some confusion.
“You put it rather crudely,” Don Carlos said, his expression suddenly grave. “The circumstances under which I proposed to you were unfortunate, but I think you can forget that there was any necessity for my proposal. The reason why I said I shall not rush you into marriage was because I think it is only right that you should have an opportunity to get to know me.”
“Thank you,” she said, her expression scarcely altering. “But we were talking about Constancia. It doesn’t seem that I shall be a good influence for her...”
“That is nonsense,” he declared, lighting himself a cigarette. “There is no reason at all why you should not be a very good influence. You are not very many years older than she is, and the one thing she has always lacked is young companionship. My sister has done her best for her for years, but Ignatia has never married, and her ideas of the life young people should lead nowadays are, perhaps, a little out of date. Nevertheless, she is an excellent disciplinarian, and Constancia needs discipline. All young girls—in fact, all young things—need discipline.”
April tightened her lips.
“That sounds to me somewhat barbaric.”
He regarded her coolly.
“No doubt it does, when you were brought up in a country that neglects to discipline the young. But we are realists compared with you. We recognize the dangers ... you recognize them only when it is too late. Or very often too late!”
April looked down at her tightly linked hands. “You mean,” she said quietly, “that if I had been a young girl brought up in this country—someone like Constancia, for instance—you would not have been forced to marry me!”
“We get back to the same subject,” he observed, his tone a little harsh. “And let it be clearly understood, I do not permit myself to be forced into anything. Anything, is that quite clear?”
“Then...?” She regarded him with faintly perplexed eyes.
He ground out the cigarette he had just lighted in an ash-tray at his elbow.
“And of another thing you may be certain. If you had not all the qualities I expect Constancia to have and which I am certain she has!—then I would most certainly not have asked you to marry me. The Formera women measure up to a certain standard, and I would be the last to let my family down. Although it is true I took a risk when I asked you to marry me, I no longer have the slightest doubt that in actual fact I took no risk. You have everything Constancia will have when she eventually takes a husband, and the only difference between you is that she has been guarded carefully and you have not.”
April felt the slow colour rise to her cheeks. So they were back again at Constancia, and Constancia had everything! Then why didn’t he marry her himself? Since he was so cold-blooded about this business of marrying, and at least he was devoted to Constancia! Possibly much more so than he realized!
She tried to subdue the turmoil inside her—partly resentful, partly concerned—and asked:
“And have you any plans for a future husband for Constancia? As Spanish girls mature much more quickly than we do in England—” with a decided edge to her voice, “it shouldn’t be very long now before you are making arrangements for her wedding!”
She studied her lightly polished nails as she spoke, and then looked upwards quickly at Don Carlos. As she had expected, his face assumed a mask-like expression.
“There is no hurry for Constancia’s marriage,” he said curtly.
“You have no man in view?”
He frowned.
“To say that would not be entirely truthful, but I do not wish her to marry yet.”
“Then there is... someone? Your half-brother, Rodrigo, would seem to be a likely choice. I know they’re inclined to fight now, but—”
She was not prepared for the violence of his reply, or the fierceness of the way he interrupted her.
“Rodrigo is not for Constancia! Understand that! If she marries anyone, it will most certainly not be my half-brother!”
“If she marries anyone...? But surely you intend that she shall marry someone?”
He stood up, thrusting back his chair so that it grated on the floor of the arbour. He looked so tall, and aloof, and hostile standing above-her that April rose too, and without taking her arm he started to lead the way back to the house. The night was descending with a rash, and it was very dark in the ilex-bordered path, and she stumbled a little behind him,
“If you please, we will not discuss Constancia,” he said in remote tones. “Her future is something that rests with me entirely, and therefore I prefer not to make it a subject for open discussion.” He suddenly realized that he was striding ahead of her much too fast, and he paused to polit
ely offer her his arm. But she declined it.
“Thank you, but I find that I walk better alone in these narrow ways,” she said, and the coolness and clearness of her voice caused him to glance at her for an instant in the light of the first stars. Then, as it was his instinct to be chivalrous and protective, he fell back and walked a little behind her.
April tried hard not to stumble again as she forged ahead, and she tried even harder not to loathe the very thought of Constancia.
CHAPTER X
Dinner that night was not such a formal affair as it usually was, for Rodrigo refused to be formal. He was a young man with quite an attractive personality as well as the most engaging looks,-and although slightly in awe of his half-brother—who, incidentally, was his employer as well—he was not in the least in awe of Ignatia, whom he teased quite openly at times, just as he teased Constancia. But his teasing of Constancia had a different note from that which predominated in his teasing of his half-sister.
Constancia was a very lovely young woman indeed when she was dressed in one of the expensive frocks with which her wardrobe was obviously very full. Mostly they were dark dresses of lace or silk. But there was one that flamed like the short skirt in which she rode pillion behind her guardian, and another of delicate cream lace which lent her the look of an exquisite cream-coloured rose, especially as she nearly always wore roses, or a gardenia, in her hair.
Ignatia went in for heavy satins and velvets, in which she must have felt very warm on airless Andalusian nights. But she always looked remarkably cool and composed as she sat facing her brother at the opposite end of the long dining table.
April was the one who felt shabby and out of it, and she made up her mind that the next time she went into one of the larger towns she would buy herself a few additions to her wardrobe.
After her conversation with Don Carlos on the terrace she had hardly bothered about what she wore, but Rodrigo’s eyes told her he found her very satisfying to gaze at. In the big sala, before dinner, he had been most attentive, putting a glass of sherry into her hand before Don Carlos could possibly reach her, and inviting the displeasure of his brother by taking up his position beside her on the damask-covered settee and commencing a conversation with her that excluded every one of the others.
On any other night Don Carlos might have revealed his displeasure—indeed, April was becoming quite adept at recognizing the signs of rising displeasure in her fiancé, and not least amongst them was the cold flash of the dark eyes, and an uncompromising setting of the lines of his handsome mouth—but tonight he seemed too preoccupied to be aware of very much that was going on around him. He had an unusually gentle smile for Constancia, when she made her appearance, as if he was forgiving her for the incident of the afternoon, and he was gravely courteous to his sister. But April had the feeling that he looked through her whenever his eyes turned in her direction, and Rodrigo he merely humoured occasionally.
At least, until they were halfway through dinner, when he caught his brother looking very earnestly at Constancia, and the girl flushed. Flushed quite unmistakably.
Don Carlos spoke sharply.
“You will not return from Madrid until you have news for me, Rodrigo? I wish this business to be settled without the necessity for a second visit.”
“I promise you I will do my best,” Rodrigo assured him, the sudden intentness fading from his expression, and his look shifting to April. He sprang up to pull out her chair for her as she rose to leave the table, and then he held open the door of the dining sala for the ladies to leave.
“It is a fine night, senorita,” he whispered to April. “While Carlos is attending to some papers I have to take with me tomorrow, may I show you the garden?”
She was about to reply that she knew the garden very well by this time, but Don Carlos spared her the necessity. Behind her she heard him thrust back his chair at the table and come after them, and as soon as he spoke she knew that the liqueurs and cigars would be ignored for once.
“You are somewhat over-attentive, Rodrigo,” he remarked with dry curtness. “I wish your co-operation in the library. You will come with me?”
And Rodrigo had no option but to go with him.
Two mornings later Carlos took her to lunch at the house of one of his numerous relatives, an elderly aunt, who lived in a good deal of state nearby. She too had a house in Madrid, and she took it for granted that April knew all about the alterations and improvements to Don Carlos’s house, and she talked of little else during the long-drawn-out lunch in a somewhat oppressive dining sala. She was plump and affable, and not in the least like Dona Ignatia, but April had the feeling that she was even more surprised than Dona Ignatia because her nephew was to marry a young Englishwoman he appeared to know very little about.
She pumped April in a quiet way about her background when the meal was over, and they were sipping coffee in a shuttered main sala, with the fans whirring, but Don Carlos came to his fiancée’s rescue and explained that she was an orphan, and her father had been a clergyman. He said nothing about the way in which they met—and April certainly didn’t expect him to do so—and Dona Amalia made sympathetic noises, and said how sad a thing it was to be a member of a small family.
“But when you marry Carlos you will be one of us,” she added complacently. She looked with pride at her nephew. “He is the recognized head of our family, and we all look to him for guidance in all our affairs. I cannot imagine what life would be like without someone so tolerant and capable to advise and direct.”
“Flattery, Tia Amalia,” Don Carlos accused her, with an affectionate smile in his eyes, “will get you nowhere.”
She patted his arm with her plump hand, white as all Spanish women’s hands were white—whether young or elderly.
“Then in that case there is nowhere that I wish to go. I am happy having you look in upon me sometimes, remembering when I am not so well and sending me the little things that cheer me ... books I cannot choose myself, and always such qualities of flowers and fruit! And now you bring me this young lady who is to be your wife. It is a surprise, but a pleasant one!”
She beamed benignly at April.
Outside, Carlos apologized to April in case she had been bored.
“I’m sorry you had to listen to so much eulogizing, but old ladies become very repetitive. And Tia Amalia is a very fond old aunt”
April, who was glad there had been no mention of Constancia—not even many inquiries about Ignatia—and no overwhelming surprise because a nephew who might have married almost anyone was marrying an unknown girl and thrusting her upon his family without warning, admitted truthfully:
“I liked her. She is obviously very devoted to you.”
“As to that,” he replied, as he took her arm lightly, in the manner he had, and guided her towards the car, “I am very devoted to her. She is perhaps the easiest of my relatives to get along with, and for that reason I decided she must be one of the first to meet you. She makes few inquiries, and is content to accept things as they are. I thought I would introduce you gradually to all the people that I know here, most of whom have known me all my life, and for that reason I have not so far encouraged Ignatia in her desire to give a big dinner party to introduce you. But Constancia has a birthday very soon, and we could give a party for that occasion.”
April arranged the skirt of her gown carefully as she got into the car.
“You mean make it a double event?”
“Yes.”
She studied his face carefully as he drove, his dark, slightly hawk-like features outlined by the brilliance of the afternoon, his black hair very black against the blueness of the sky. His hands rested lightly on the wheel, his shoulders were broad and relaxed, there was an aura of calmness and concentration about him.
He puzzled her acutely.
“Constancia will be seventeen on her birthday?”
“Yes.” He smiled through the windscreen at the road ahead, bordered by houses with flat roofs and blank
walls, so like Arab houses that it needed the gay confusion of their gardens, their intricate wrought-iron entrance gateways and the inevitable cascade of flowers above the gateways to identify them with the Spanish soil in which they were set. “It is difficult to believe that she is growing up so fast, but it is certainly something that one cannot ignore. And so important a birthday as a seventeenth birthday will have to be marked in a special fashion.”
“Of course.” But April was thinking of her own seventeenth birthday, when already her father’s health was failing, and somehow the occasion had gone unmarked. But she was fully prepared to admit that a seventeenth birthday was an important birthday. “So you plan to give a dinner party?”
“Not just an ordinary dinner party. We can have that as well, but I do think some other form of celebration is called for as well. Constancia will look for it, and I’m afraid I have always humoured her.” April also stared through the windscreen, but her expression was considerably more thoughtful than his.
“In that case we’ll have to give the matter a lot of thought.”
He glanced at her sideways.
“I would appreciate it if you would give it a lot of thought. What do you do in England when a young girl is seventeen?”
“We invite her friends ... her closest friends. And sometimes we arrange a small dance.”
He frowned.
“That would hardly satisfy Constancia. It will have to be on a more impressive scale than that.”
“Then you could give a really big dance ... a formal affair. Something in the nature of a ball and she could be the belle of it. If that would coincide with Spanish ideas of what is correct.”
“It would, but I have already explained to you that it is to be a double-purpose affair. It is to introduce you—to celebrate our engagement!—as well as to proclaim Constancia’s emergence from young girlhood. For in this country seventeen really is a marriageable age.”
“Why not concentrate on Constancia?” she suggested.
He glanced at her much more sharply.
