WHITE ROSE OF LOVE
Anita Charles
When Steve arrived in Portugal to stay with her brother she was not prepared to be bowled clean off her feet by the first startlingly handsome man who looked at her in disapproval because she was wearing shorts; and he was a Portuguese who liked -- and, indeed, insisted on -- his women being feminine.
Dom Manoel likened Steve to a rose. She wanted to be a red one. He preferred to wear a white one in his immaculate lapel!
CHAPTER ONE
THE boat had rounded one of the rocky promontories, with umbrella pines adorning it, when Steve, who was supposed to be in control of the tiller but was actually admiring the scenery and thinking how brilliantly colourful it all was, heard a shout from her brother, Tim.
“Concentrate, girl!” he warned her. “For heaven’s sake keep your mind on the job, or we’ll be in trouble as sure as my second name’s Bertram. This is a tricky coast . . . and the wind has just veered on us. Which is unfortunate, as we were doing very well with the wind as it was.”
“We seem to me to be doing very well as it is,” Steve replied, wondering whether the gentle zephyr that was now fanning her face instead of lifting the ends of her hair on her neck could rightly be described as a wind in any case. Yet they were certainly moving through the water—cutting through the strangely translucent blueness, with gardens of coral and weed far below them, like the blade of a knife cutting through butter.
The simile pleased her. A silver-bladed knife, she thought, and the creamiest of creamy butter ... like the foam that was being churned up round the purplish- blue rocks inshore. Strung out like that on the yellow beach they looked like great chunks of some semiprecious stone that ought to be part of a necklace, and the thread was provided by the endless trails of sea-weed. The sand that was composed of millions and millions of pulverised shells glittered in the slanting afternoon light, and high above the beach the pink-washed villas with their green roofs and gardens ablaze with exotic flowers helped to create a fantastic blaze of colour that actually hurt the eyeballs.
Steve shielded her eyes with one hand from the glare, and wanted to know what the glittering white confection occupying a far larger space than any ordinary villa, and with fairytale gardens running right down almost to the beginning of the beach, was.
“Oh, that’s the Quinta Rosa, Dom Manoel’s place,” Tim told her, taking a reef in the sail in order to be on the safe side. “I pointed it out to you the other day when we were driving past the main gates. I said it was just possible you might be asked to dinner while you’re here, but it’s even more possible you’ll be asked for drinks. Dom Manoel does things gradually ... all high-ranking Portuguese do. They’re sticklers for etiquette, and that sort of thing. You’ll find them disconcertingly formal.”
“And is Dom Manoel the man you were telling me about?” his sister asked. “The one who is getting married soon, and who wants you to do the murals for his new sala, or whatever it’s called?”
“Yes. It’s a valuable commission, and I accepted it at once, of course. By the way”—he frowned across the few feet of space that separated him from his sister— “I wish you weren’t wearing quite such short shorts.” They were certainly very brief, and they allowed a length of deliciously slender, honey coloured leg terminating in pretty feet peeping out of open-toed sandals to be visible to everyone. Her sun-top was brief, too, and did the same thing for dimpled shoulders. Apart from that, she was everything Tim felt he had a right to be proud of in a sister who had just joined him, clear-eyed and soft-skinned and engagingly confident. Her hair was a warm brown like his own, and curled without the assistance of a hairdresser. Her eyes were startlingly, wonderfully blue.
“Why?” She was trailing her hand in the warm water, and delighting in the silky feel of it. “Is his Nibs a bit sticky about things like that? Short shorts, I mean ... I know I read somewhere that the Portuguese like their women clothed, and preferably in sombre colours. Is that true?”
“Oh, yes. No self-respecting Portuguese woman would ever be seen wearing slacks, let alone shorts. And black is considered very chic. . . particularly in the evenings.”
“I must remember that. I’ve got a couple of very smart black dinner ‘dates’, and I’ll wear one of them when I’m invited to the quinta.”
“If you’re invited to the quinta!” His eyes gleamed at her a trifle ruefully. “But if we run into Dom Manoel on the quay, and he takes one really good look at you, I don’t think that’ll be very likely.”
“Why?” Her scarlet lips pouted at him, and her eyes mocked. “Because I’m wearing light make-up, and I won’t be able to conceal my legs? What rubbish! I hope we do run into him in that case, and that he receives a shock!” She glanced at the approaching quay, and realized that they were already under observation by one or two pairs of eyes. “Is he likely to be drifting about the waterfront at this hour of the afternoon . . .?”
“Oh, hang it!” Tim exclaimed, in answer as he switched off his tiny outboard motor which had been helping out the sail. “That’s his car on the quay . . . that cream one! I expect he’s in the harbour-master’s office, talking to him. They do a lot of business together . . . Dom Manoel’s interests are largely concerned with export and import. Mostly export . . . He’s one of the richest growers in the district.”
Steve lifted her eyes to the quay as they approached nearer to it, and she could make out with ease the long cream car—she would have called it white rather than cream—standing with one or two others near the collection of buildings which she knew housed the harbour-master and his staff. Beneath a sign Alfandego —the Portuguese for Customs—the harbour-master himself was standing and talking earnestly to a very much taller man wearing a white suit, who had just emerged with him into the open. They both looked with curiosity as Tim sent his sister ahead of him up the ladder to the quay, and then followed her and sketched a polite salute to the man in impeccable white.
“Good-aftemoon, senhor. This is well met, because I would like you to meet my sister!”
Dom Manoel had stepped forward and was already extending a hand, and Tim grasped it with a readiness that proved he had nothing against this exceptionally tall man whose hair shone like black satin in the sunshine ... whatever his sister thought of the mental limitations of people who could not approve her way of life, or the little foibles to which she was addicted. He was a very good-looking man, in a bronzed, out-doorish sort of way, and he grinned affably as he felt the grip of the other’s long, firm fingers, and then made the necessary introduction.
“Dom Manoel, this is Stephanie . . . You may remember I told you she was coming to stay with me for a few weeks. Steve, this is Dom Manoel de Romeiro, our most influential neighbour and a very kind friend to me! Since I arrived in this corner of Portugal he has brought me endless commissions, and I am very grateful to him.”
“There is nothing to be grateful for, Tim,” Dorn Manoel returned, his voice and accent that of a cultured Englishman, although Steve knew he was nothing of the kind. He bowed over her hand and looked at her with a pair of amber-brown eyes that reminded her of amber-brown velvet more than anything else, and they were certainly the handsomest pair of eyes she had ever observed in a man of his physique. Long-lashed thickly and blackly lashed—slightly inscrutable, ever so slightly almondshaped.
His face was thin and dark, his features astonishingly regular. He barely allowed his lips to part as he regarded her with open interest, but she caught a glimpse of his faultless and beautiful white teeth. He was dressed with the very maximum amount of care, his tie knotted correctly, the crease in his trousers enough to make Tim aware of his slightly dishevelled appearance; a wine-dark silk handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket flut
tering very slightly in the breeze that rippled over the quay.
“I am delighted to meet you, senhorita, ” he murmured, and Steve forgot for a moment that she had decided at the outset it was unlikely to bother her whatever his opinion of her might be, and felt all bare tanned legs and brightly lipsticked mouth. “Of course I remember that your brother told me you were to visit him. But I had no idea you had arrived. You like Portugal, yes?”
It wasn’t so much a question, as a statement ... as if she couldn’t possibly do anything other than like Portugal. And, there was no doubt about it, his faint air of condescension was not imagined. It was part and parcel of his aloof, aristocratic and elegant grace; his air of being who and what he was.
Steve heard herself say docilely that she thought Portugal was wonderful, senhor, and realized that he had dropped her fingers almost as soon as he touched them. Nevertheless, she could not accuse him of being a limp hand-shaker ... the feel of his clasp remained, tingling oddly along the nerves of her arm, exceedingly brief though it had been.
“You must bring your sister to have dinner with us one night, Tim,” he said, with the utmost condescension, although his smile for Tim himself was warm. “We are expecting my fiancee to arrive any day now with her mother, and they will be delighted, I am sure, to make the acquaintance of Miss Wayne.”
“That’s very kind of you, senhor,” Tim replied. “Steve and I will look forward to meeting your fiancee. The wedding is very close now, and the whole village is agog and waiting breathlessly for the moment when the beautiful Senhorita Almeida arrives amongst them!”
Dom Manoel smiled slightly.
“Naturally, I am a little impatient myself,” he said.
He turned politely back to Steve again.
“And how long do you expect to remain in Adara, Miss Wayne?” he asked.
“Oh, as long as Tim will let me stay,” Steve returned, quite certain she was creating a very bad impression, because even her speech was stilted and she was so overwhelmingly self-conscious in the presence of this man. “His cottage is in a hopeless mess, and I think he needs a housekeeper. I’ve decided I’ll take on the job in return for my bed and board.”
Tim said, a little hastily, because he thought that sounded crude:
“My sister paints a bit, like myself, and she also models. Heads ... not clothes,” he amended.
“Indeed?” The Portuguese allowed his eyebrows to ascend a little, and his brown gaze flickered softly over the English girl. “You must be quite a talented family. What kind of heads do you model, senhorita?”
“Oh,”—she shrugged her slender shoulders—“just heads. If they appeal to me, I like to model them. But I prefer children and animals for subjects.”
“And beautiful women? You would not, I take it, refuse a commission to model the head of a beautiful woman?”
Her blue eyes met his directly for the first time, and she realized that he was thinking of his fiancee. She replied brashly: “Not if the commission means a fat fee. I’m a bit hard up at the moment—that’s why I’m sponging on Tim, here!—and I can’t afford to look a gift-horse in the mouth ... or, rather, a gift-client! If you know of a beautiful woman who will sit for me while I’m here you can take it that I won’t say ‘No’.”
“We’ll see,” Dom Manoel replied, his brown gaze hardening a trifle until it made her think of a less resistant surface than velvet. He removed it altogether to Tim’s face, and concluded: “When Madelena is here, we’ll see.” He bowed gracefully. “And now I’m afraid I have business to attend to. You must excuse me.”
As soon as they were alone, and Dom Manoel had disappeared once more into the harbour-master’s office, Tim turned to Steve and protested almost angrily because she had gone out of her way to impress Dom Manoel as someone she most certainly was not.
“All that about a fat fee!” he exclaimed. “And saying you were sponging on me! . . . The sort of things he would hate to hear.”
Steve shrugged her shoulders somewhat petulantly. “And does it matter?” she asked. “Him and his beautiful women! ... Is this Senhorita Almeida something quite spectacular since all Adara can’t wait to see her? Have they heard that she’s fabulous? Or is it simply that she’s got fabulous possessions?”
“I don’t know about her possessions,” Tim replied, “but I do know that everyone says she is beautiful. Apparently her mother was one of Adara’s most beautiful belles, and as you heard Dom Manoel say she’s arriving with her daughter very soon now for the wedding. So you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether Portuguese women mature well.”
“I don’t expect I shall receive an invitation to the wedding,” Steve remarked carelessly, “any more than I’ll receive that invitation to dinner. I’ve no doubt Dom Manoel is properly shocked by everything about me. However, since I’m prepared to take pity on you, and we’re going shopping, I’ll buy myself a skirt to wear over these shorts if that will make you any happier,” slipping a hand inside his arm with a slight repentant gesture. “Sorry I showed up so badly in front of one of your favourite benefactors!”
“Don’t be silly.” He squeezed her arm. “But it mightn’t be a bad idea about that skirt ...” noticing how one or two of the quay idlers were staring. “In Spain, you know, they can send you home in a taxi if you’re improperly dressed, and I know they don’t like it here.”
CHAPTER TWO
THAT night she sat on the cushioned window-seat in the room they called the studio and watched him catching the last of the sunset in the picture he was painting.
His cottage was small, but it was comfortable, and he rented it furnished from ... of all people, she thought wryly, tucking her legs up under her, Dom Manoel de Romeiro! It had the most superb views from its windows that overlooked the sea, and on the other side of the house there was a tiny enclosed garden. A most romantic spot, she thought, smelling of trumpet-shaped waxen flowers such as she had never encountered before, and as secret as a convent garden. Inside the house elegance prevailed, as one might have expected when Dom Manoel had had a hand in the furnishing, and it most certainly was not in a dreadful mess, because Tim was an unusually tidy person considering that he was also an artist.
He certainly needed a housekeeper, but he would probably find one one day . . . perhaps a pretty Portuguese girl who would marry him and between them they would start a family in the tiny
cottage.
Steve leaned her chin on her hand, and regarded her brother with affection. He was the only close relative she had left in the world, and it was because they had always been really close that she had felt able to get in touch with him when her funds were running low and her talents were being largely ignored and ask whether he could put up with her for a while, at least. And not merely had he sent her a telegram saying, ‘Delighted, come at once,’ but he had sent her the money to pay her fare, and to settle any little debts like a fortnight’s rent due on her flat before she left.
Now, as she looked at him she felt her heart swell with gratitude because she was where she was; and so far as Tim was concerned she could remain where she was indefinitely, apparently.
Of course, if he had had a wife she couldn’t possibly have thrust herself on him. But, being single, there was a certain amount of naturalness about her invasion of his bachelor stronghold. She could cook for him when his fat Maria, who came daily to clean up the house, was unable to leave her family for various reasons—usually connected with toothache or toothcutting on the part of the most recent addition to the family; and she could sew on his buttons and mend his socks, and add a few feminine touches to the masculine severity of the rooms, such as filling the vases with flowers and seeing to it that they didn’t die from lack of water once the vases had received them.
The trouble was that Tim’s buttons didn’t seem to come apart from his garments very easily, and he wasn’t the type to wear holes in his socks. And as the garden simply rioted with flowers he didn’t seem to see any reason for bringing them inside.
And amongst other accomplishments he was an excellent cook, and could whip up an omelette as feathery and light as she herself could achieve in a matter of minutes when the necessity arose.
She slid to her feet and went across to him, admiring the canvas on his easel, and above all that lovely Portuguese light which he had managed to imprison for all time with his colours. She stood with her hands in the pockets of a pair of Matador pants—black velvet, and enchantingly boyish on her slim shape, and worn with a white silk blouse open at the throat and with her sleeves rolled up above the elbows—put her head on one side, and commented approvingly.
“Um, it’s going to be good . . . really good! I wish I could paint as well as you can, Tim. I can model, but that isn’t the same, somehow.”
“Some of your models are exquisite,” Tim replied. “I’ve seen them.”
“Oh, occasionally I do something quite good. And very occasionally I sell for a really good price. . . . But not often! Tim,” she sounded suddenly diffident, “I want you to know that I appreciate your having me out here tremendously. I know I had no right to call on you when I did—after all we both received a similar sum of money when Daddy died, but somehow I’ve got through mine. I don’t seem to have the knack of making money spin out.”
Tim smiled at her.
“A lot of other people suffer from that same disability, darling. It’s by no means a rare complaint.”
“But I’m not really extravagant.” She frowned, as if the problem worried her. “I buy clothes, and of course I have to have my hair done, and things like that. But those are trifling expenses compared with the expenses I could incur if I was a reckless liver. I mean, I don’t drink or smoke very much ...”
“I should hope you don’t ... at your age!” He added a touch of white to an incoming wave, breaking like cream on the shore. “By the way, while you bring out the bottle and glasses from the corner cabinet—bottom shelf, left-hand corner—and provide me with a drink, even if you don’t want one yourself, you can tell me how old you are now. I’ve the sort of memory that never keeps pace with these things.”
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