by Susan Barrie
Presently Sebastiao crossed over to her.
“I think we ought to be going, Kathie,” he said.
But Inez appeared at his elbow, and protested at once.
“Oh no, Sebastiao, not yet!” She slid an appealing hand inside his arm. “Not until you’ve seen those miniatures I brought back from France, and which you promised to look at. I believe they’re quite a find! They’re in Papa’s study, and he’s going to get someone to look at them. Do come and see them!”
Everyone in the room knew Inez — just as well as they knew Gil — and there was a slight stiffening of black-clad bodies as Sebastiao plainly hesitated. Eyes looked at each other — black, darting eyes — and on the settee beside Kathie, Gil looked suddenly amused.
“It won’t take a minute,” Inez pleaded, smiling at Sebastiao. “And they’re unique ... I promise you!”
“Then you’d better come along too, Kathie,” Sebastiao said, plainly anxious to please Inez.
But the brilliant-eyed beauty in scarlet laughed with sudden derision.
“No one’s going to steal your wife, darling!” she told him. “Not even Gill” and she dragged him purposefully away.
Once they had disappeared together, Kathie was conscious of a sudden, new tension in the room. Everyone resumed their conversation, but the black eyes went on communicating unspoken thoughts to one another, and over in a corner the hostess looked concerned. She came across the room to Kathie and sat down on a chair near to her and started to talk to her rather quickly and nervously, and Kathie was surprised. Hitherto her hostess had struck her as very pleasant and placid, but now she was definitely agitated.
Gil said softly, for Kathie’s ear alone:
“Inez doesn’t care what people think about her, you know. She’s a law unto herself! My poor aunt looks all of a dither, doesn’t she?”
Senhora Peniche, if she wasn’t exactly all of a dither, was definitely striving rather hard to interest the Marquesa in a number of things she hadn’t thought it necessary to try to interest her in before, and her plump ringed hands clasped one another a little tightly. She wanted to know whether Kathie liked open-air picnics, and said they would be having a wonderful picnic on Inez’s birthday. It was all arranged. And then Papa Peniche had promised them a new music-room, and they would be celebrating the opening of it with a really formal concert — some excellent artists from Lisbon. Did Kathie like music? Was she, perhaps, musical herself? She had heard that the Irish were great singers, and they went in for the melancholy songs a little like Portuguese fados. But if Kathie hadn’t ever heard real Portuguese music, she must certainly come to the opening of the music-room.
And so it went on and on, bewildering Kathie, and Gil looked more and more amused, and the many pairs of black eyes started to watch the door. Half an hour passed, and they were still watching the door, another twenty minutes, and then Senhor Peniche disappeared. When he reappeared after an absence of only a few minutes, his expression gave away nothing at all, but his wife looked at him searchingly. He refused to meet her eyes, and she let out a tremendous sigh of relief when the door opened and her daughter and the Marques came back into the room.
Inez was even more bright-eyed than when she left the room, and there was a rather high color on each of her delicate cheekbones. Her mouth was almost passionately scarlet — as if, Kathie thought, with her heart giving a kind of sick lurch inside her breast, she had recently been passionately kissed!
Sebastiao was a trifle pale, and his eyes were vividly blue. His mouth looked set.
He once more went across to his wife and said, “I think we’d better be going, Kathie.”
No apology for keeping her waiting so long — for keeping the whole room in a kind of suspense. Inez said almost insolently to Kathie:
“You must come and see the miniatures some other time, Kathie!”
Kathie ignored her. She was aware that for close upon an hour she had had the silent sympathy of everyone in that elegant room, and because she had no idea why they were sympathising with her — or hadn’t she? — she began to feel a trifle sick. An actual physical nausea.
Her hostess took her hand and held it gently.
“You will come to the picnic, won’t you, Marquesa?” she asked as if she was pleading with her. “And you won’t forget our concert.”
Kathie looked back at her gently.
“Thank you,” she said, quietly. “It is very kind of you to ask me.”
“And Sebastiao, of course,” Senhora Peniche added a trifle hurriedly.
Inez and Gil accompanied them out to their car. It was a wonderful night, full of the scent of flowers, and with a late-rising moon climbing above the sea. Kathie could see Inez’s face, looking rather mutinous in the veiled light, and she still seemed to hover close to Sebastiao’s elbow. But when he had put his wife into the car, she went round and spoke to her like a child through the open window.
“I meant it when I said you must come and see the miniatures, Kathie! Sebastiao thinks they’re early eighteenth century, and they’re quite exquisite. I was lucky to find them!”
“I’m not interested in miniatures,” Kathie said, without any truth, but with an urgent desire to rebuff rising temporarily above all other desires.
Inez shrank back. Sebastiao said curtly, when they were gliding smoothly down the drive:
“Why did you speak to her like that? There was no need to be rude!”
“Wasn’t there?” Kathie glanced at him briefly, her face very pale and set. “Perhaps if you’d waited an hour in a room that was filled with people all wondering what you and Inez were doing, you would think differently about that!”
But he was utterly silent, and she had the feeling that he was very angry indeed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They went straight up to their private suite when they arrived back, and although there was a tray of drinks on the table in the sitting-room, and a silver flask of hot coffee, Kathie didn’t pause on her way through to her room.
But Sebastiao called her back.
“Kathie, I want to talk to you!”
She came back slowly.
“Isn’t it rather late to talk?”
“Not too late.” He seemed to be tightening his lips, and his face was still unusually pale. She was aware of all the proud arrogance of the Barrateira family behind the straightening of his back and his superbly held shoulders. But she wasn’t prepared for what he suddenly said to her. “Kathie, don’t you know how a married woman should behave in this country? Don’t you know that there’s a vast difference between the freedom permitted to a single girl and that which a wife can be allowed? And here in Portugal even single are circumspect. They don’t invite criticism!”
Kathie gaped at him.
“Are you — are you suggesting that I haven’t been circumspect?”
“I think you devoted far too much of your time this evening to Gil Peniche. You should have been talking with the older women, mixing with them more freely. They were all delighted to meet you, but you left them to share a settee with Gil, who is the local Don Juan! And I suppose if Robert Bolton had been there you would have had him sitting on the other side of you!” Kathie found it impossible to utter a sound. She could only gaze at him in stupefaction. He had disappeared for a full hour with Inez, and remained alone with her for that hour, to the acute uneasiness of her parents, and yet he talked to her like that! She could hardly believe it at first.
Sebastiao’s blue eyes blazed in a way she had never seen them blaze, and yet they remained sullen at the same time. Sullen as if he had a genuine grievance.
“Haven’t you anything to say?”
She shook her head at last.
“No. Except that I am reminded very forcibly of the pot calling the kettle black! I thought perhaps you wanted to apologize for your own behavior this evening.”
“My behavior?” he thrust at her, and she saw the aggressive tilt of his chin. “My good Kathie, I wish you would get it i
nto your head that I have known Inez practically all my life, and I don’t care for unpleasant innuendoes from a woman I have just made my wife.” His lips curled, and there was a slight dilation at the corners of his nostrils. “If I had wanted to make Inez my wife I would have done so, and that is the only explanation I intend to offer you of any conduct on my part which you may choose to consider strange. Apart from that, I am not going to allow you to behave towards Inez as you did tonight! ... You snubbed her in front of her own cousin, and before you ignored her in front of a large assemblage of her parents’ guests!”
Kathie swallowed.
“You mean, when you came back from being alone together?”
“I do. And if I choose to be alone with Inez, I shall be alone with her! You must remember that our marriage is not in accordance with the ordinary rules of marriage. You agreed to become my wife because of material benefits for your family — and I don’t suppose you were altogether blind to various benefits for yourself! — and I asked you to marry me for reasons of my own that I still consider quite sound. Or I will if you remain as sensible as I always thought you!”
This time Kathie paled — she became far paler than he was — and then a scalding color leapt up and banished the pallor until the whole of her face and brow and throat were burning. He had stalked to the table to help himself to a drink, but with the stopper halfway out of a decanter he turned and looked at her with an entirely new expression on his face.
“Forget that, Kathie!” he said, with swift urgency. “It was a thing I never intended to say, and I’d like to pretend that I never did say it! No; not pretend ... believe that I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t been in rather a foul mood!...”
“It’s all right,” she said quietly, clinging on to the back of a chair as if she suddenly needed support. “You don’t have to apologize for the truth ... Those were the only reasons why we married! Only — only I’d like you to believe that it wasn’t for any advantages for myself...” Her voice seemed to fade, and to tremble. “Really it wasn’t...”
“Kathie!” He set the decanter down with a clatter on the heavy silver tray, and took a swift stride towards her. “Kathie, I’m an utter beast! ... I didn’t mean it! I know why you married me, and it was for the most praiseworthy of reasons. Darling, I didn’t mean to upset you...”
For a slow tear was trickling down her cheek, and she wiped it away with a shaking hand. For hadn’t that reason he called ‘praiseworthy’ ceased to be a reason even before she married him? If only she had known in time!
Sebastiao looked distressed.
“Don’t look like that, Kathie,” he pleaded, his hand going out to her. But she drew back before it could even alight on her shoulder. “Darling, don’t!”
But she drew her slim figure up suddenly very straight and erect, and the second tear that was about to spill over was banished by a surge of indignation.
“There is no need to call me ‘darling’,” she said chokily. “That sort of thing doesn’t enter into the kind of marriage we contracted. And you were absolutely right to remind me of the terms of the bargain we entered into. They don’t give either of us the right to criticise the concerns of the other, and in future I shall be most careful not to offend you. I’m sorry if you thought I behaved badly to Inez tonight ... Would you like me to apologize next time I see her?”
He frowned.
“Of course not. And, in any case, she behaved badly to you this afternoon.”
“In future I won’t allow myself to be so sensitive.” She stood holding on to the back of the chair, and her fingers felt numb because she was clutching it so tightly. “As for my conduct this evening, I wasn’t aware I was doing the wrong thing. Gil Peniche seemed to speak my language — really speak it, I mean — and that’s why I talked to him. If Mr. Bolton had been there, I’d probably have talked to him, too, for the same reason. You must realize that I’m feeling strange out here, and your women are a little formal in their manners. Although Senhora Peniche was kind.”
“They liked you, Kathie,” he said gently. “They liked you very much.”
“Although they thought I behaved badly?” She turned away, feeling inclined to stumble a little, because she was tired, and she had received a kind of shock. “You must explain to Inez that I didn’t mean to be rude, and in future I’ll do nothing to upset either of you. She must come here as often as she pleases, and you must devote as much time to her as you wish.”
“All I wish is that you two would be friends,” he said urgently.
She looked at him with tired eyes.
“Very well. If that’s what you want, I’ll try to be friends.”
“Just remember that she’s temperamental, and not particularly happy at the moment ... He looked away from her, biting his lip, his blue eyes almost black with concern. “In many ways she could be a great help to you, Kathie,” he pointed out. “You’re shy, and you need bringing out, and Inez could put you into the picture out here much better than I could, and far more quickly. She’d like to introduce you where she feels it might be to your advantage to be introduced, and when we go to Lisbon, she’ll put you in touch with her dressmaker, and so forth. I know it’s early days yet, but we’ll have to do a lot of entertaining, and she could be behind you— give you a lot of confidence!”
Kathie shut her eyes, and clung to the back of the chair.
“You mean I’ll have to be groomed for my position?”
“Something like that.” And then his eyes softened miraculously as he looked at her. “But you won’t need a lot of grooming, Kathie. In some ways you’re quite perfect as you are!”
But Inez is perfect in almost every way, Kathie thought. Then why, why hadn’t he married her?
Once more she turned blindly towards the door which led to her bedroom.
“Do you mind if I go to bed now?” she asked. “I’m awfully tired,” in rather a smothered voice.
“Of course not.” He came behind her, and she had the feeling that he wanted to touch her, but tonight had put a gulf between them that had never been there before. “Go to bed, and have a good night’s rest, and forget everything in sleep!” as if he was suddenly excessively anxious about her.
She reached her door, and then turned and looked at him.
“There’s one thing to remember, Sebastiao,” she said quietly. “A marriage like ours should be the easiest thing in the world to put an end to. An annulment would be perfectly simple if you want it — or when you want it. And as for me, I told you the night before we were married that I had only one reason for marrying you. That reason no longer exists, and I’d be happy to go back to Eire.” Her voice shook. “I wish I could go back to Eire!”
His eyes grew darker than ever, as if the strain he was feeling at that moment was well-nigh intolerable, and his elegant figure stiffened.
“Don’t talk like that, Kathie,” he said, and there was a strange note of rebuke in his voice.
“But I mean it!” she cried. She felt as if she might become hysterical at any moment. “I’d far rather go back to Eire!”
“Go to bed,” he said quietly.
She went to bed, and she wept silently in the darkness. For she couldn’t go back to Eire and the life she had once led. It was finished, finished! And it wasn’t true that she had married for her father’s sake only. She had married because Sebastiao was Sebastiao, and no power on earth could have prevented her accepting his proposal when he made it!... That night when he took her back and told her parents they were to be married she had known it. When he tipped her face up to meet his in the badly-lit hall, and told her that in a few days it would all seem quite real.
He had kissed her forehead, and she had been holding her breath in the faint, faint hope that he would kiss her mouth.
And now he would slowly but surely break her heart for her, for Inez was determined to fight for him, and whether he knew it or not, he was strongly attracted to Inez. If Hildegarde had never entered his life, he would pr
obably still be in love with her.
And what had happened before could happen again. The flame could be fanned!
But so powerful is the effect of morning sunshine in a land where it can make itself felt before the dew is off the grass that Kathie was not as deathly miserable as she felt she ought to be when she slipped out of bed the following morning and stepped on to her balcony. She even felt her pulse leap a little at the glimpse of the world beyond the balcony rail, the garden with its sloping terraces and fountains playing in tiled basins, the little square patches of lawn surrounded by hedges of box and ilex, the triumphant blaze of flowers, and the secluded garden seats.
There were butterflies skimming through the clear air and alighting on the roses, and a pool of bright fish gleamed in the sunshine. A gardener was hosing the floor of the terrace below her, and over the tops of the trees was the sea. She could smell the combined coolness and sweetness of the gardener’s hose, and the always exciting tang of the sea.
She stood there in her nightdress, that was the same blush pink as the one or two fleecy clouds low down on the horizon, and unaware of the gardener, stood holding on to the balcony rail. When the man moved out of sight round a corner of the house, another figure took its place, and moved purposefully until it stood below her balcony. Then Sebastiao called softly, and at the same time a white rose landed at her feet.
