White Rose of Love

by Anita Charles

  Steve moved restlessly. She couldn’t possibly stay here acting the part of an invalid, when it was her own fault that she had got into trouble and so nearly lost her life. . . . No doubt to-day Dom Manoel would reprove her severely not merely for breaking her word to him, but for involving other people in rescue operations.

  She looked round her a little wildly for the bell that would summon the maid, her mind made up about her clothes. She would insist that they were brought to her at once, and then, as soon as she was dressed, she would slip out of the house by a side or back door— the maid might be able to direct her footsteps—and then find her way back to Tim’s cottage.

  Poor Tim! ... He must have been dreadfully worried about her last night!

  She was about to untie the sash of the dressing-gown when a knock came on her door. Hastily she re-tied the sash, and called out to whoever it was to come in.

  Dom Manoel entered. Neatly and correctly attired in a lounge suit and his usual, carelessly flowing tie, he entered and looked surprised when he saw that she was already out of bed and sitting at the window. He walked across to her, omitted to bow formally because of his concern because she was up, and gave voice to the concern.

  “The doctor said you were to remain in bed! Stephanie, you had no right to get up so early....” He stood looking down at her from his superior height, and although she had risen it was still very superior compared with hers. He took her gently by the shoulders and put her back in her long, comfortable chair. “Stephanie, you are so small,” he observed, a trifle huskily, “and last night you had an experience which must have been an appalling shock to you. You need rest. . . complete rest, and quiet!”

  Stephanie couldn’t refrain from smiling a little.

  “But, I don’t,” she assured him, in a small voice. “I’m not as fragile as you seem to think, and already I’ve quite recovered from last night. And, if I did need rest, I couldn’t just settle down in your house—turning you out of your own room!—and enjoy it. I’d have to go back to

  the cottage----- ”

  “Why?” he asked, a little abruptly.

  She made a slight gesture with her hands.

  “Because it is your house, and—and Madelena might not approve. . . .”

  He sat looking at her very hard. His dark eyes were queerly, strangely inscrutable.

  “Madelena is not going to marry me.” He made the admission suddenly. “Our marriage arrangements are cancelled, Senhora Almeida is notifying all her friends and relatives, and very soon I shall be notifying mine.”

  “M-Madelena is not—not going to marry you?” she almost whispered the words, her hands locked together. “Why not?”

  “Because I asked her to release me from our engagement. I am not in love with her, she is not in love with me.... I am in love with someone else, and so, I believe, is she.... ”

  “You asked her to release you?” It was so important that she got it right—that there was no mistake about it. If Madelena, for some reason, had asked to be free it would be a very different thing to Manoel asking her to free him.... If he had done that he had behaved as no Portuguese of his birth and rank would consider it possible to behave! He had done something entirely opposed in his traditions and upbringing.

  “Yes.” He looked down at the cigarette he had just lighted—after asking her permission to do so. “Last night I nearly lost you, and I knew if I had lost you I would have died a thousand deaths myself. I couldn’t marry another woman knowing that the reason I live and breathe at all these days is because you live and breathe, and you are everything in the world to me. . . . In fact, I adore you!”

  He went across to her, and he slid to his knees beside her chair, and buried his head in her lap.

  “Oh, my darling,” he confessed, his voice not only muffled but choked, “if only I could make you understand how much I love you! I’ve been through a kind of nightmare. . . . Loving you and thinking I couldn’t have you! You thought I was cruel to you, but I was even more cruel to myself, because I was denying myself something that was a part of myself! In time you would have forgotten me. . . . Some Englishman would have taught you to forget!”

  “Never, never,” she assured him, her own voice trembling all at once with overwhelming emotion. “I love you, Manoel, as I could never love an Englishman, or any man. . . . ”

  “Then why did you go out in Carlos’s boat last night?” he asked her, lifting his head and looking at her with burningly reproachful eyes. “You gave me your word that you would not go out. . . .”

  She swallowed, her fingers fastening on his sleeve.

  “I saw you and Madelena together, just before we left her yesterday. . . . I couldn’t believe that you could behave towards her as you did and love me as well.”

  He looked amazed.

  “But, she is such a child! . . . Or she seems a completely inexperienced child to me! And she had not been well, and it was her birthday! . . . And on her birthday I was loving another woman so hard and so desperately that I was in a state of mental anguish! I had to do and say something to try and make it up to her. . . . Surely you understood that, Stephanie?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t,” she whispered.

  He took her hands and carried them up to his face and rested his forehead against them.

  “And then I was tormented because of what I was doing to you, my loveliest. . . . A woman born to be adored and protected, cherished, guarded in every possible way. I couldn’t go on seeing you—running into you in peoples’ houses as I was doing. It was an agony. And we were always so cruel to one another.”

  “I know,” she barely whispered.

  He once more lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes.

  “But it is over now! I asked Madelena to release me, and she agreed at once. . . . She is not so much a child, that one! Apparently she has had a shrewd suspicion how I felt about you for weeks. . . . And last night she knew I would willingly have died to save you. If I could have swum out to you I would have done so, but that wouldn’t have helped you. It was left to Carlos D’Castelos to save your life for you.”

  “But you must have been in the water, too. You were so wet.... ”

  He sighed.

  “I took you from Carlos, but he was already treading water. I shall be eternally grateful to Carlos, although I hold him responsible for taking you out in the Silver Streak. It was a mad thing to do when a storm was brewing. An irresponsible thing.”

  “Poor Carlos,” she sighed, remembering. “He gave me his coat, and he promised me he would save my life. . . . And, apparently, he did.”

  “And now that life belongs to me!” He took her face between his hands and forced her to gaze back into his sombre dark eyes. “I may not deserve it, because my pride wouldn’t let me do the one thing I should have done weeks ago. . . . But I did it at last, when it was nearly too late, and Madelena knows that I love you more than anything in life. I begged her to let me know whether there was something I could do to make amends, but apparently it is not necessary to make amends. . . . Madelena was the happiest young woman in the world last night when she found herself free! Did you know that she is in love with your brother?”

  Steve hesitated.

  “I knew that Tim ------- ”

  “Is in love with her?” He nodded, and smiled wryly. “It seems that all along I have been deceived. . . . Madelena never had anything but a kind of grateful affection for me, whereas for your brother she conceived a girlish adoration as soon as she set eyes on him. She has admitted as much ... to me, the man who was to have married her! And Tim has admitted that life without Madelena is impossible to contemplate, and so— to the complete bewilderment of all our relatives—Madelena is to marry Tim, and you and I. . . !”

  He stood up. He drew her, also, to her feet, and although she thought his arms were at last going round her they did nothing of the kind. He merely held her, lightly, by her shoulders in front of him, and he looked down at he
r with eyes that seemed suddenly to plead with her, and were astonishingly humble for Dom Manoel de Romeiro. His face became a little pale, too, as if with anxiety.

  “If you and I had met under normal circumstances,” he told her, huskily, “there is no doubt I should have begged you to marry me in the first week of our acquaintance. I couldn’t have waited any longer than that, because I would have been afraid to lose you. . . . As it was, I couldn’t ask you to marry me, because I was not free. Now I am free—” she saw the muscles of his strong, dark throat working—“I implore you to have pity on me, beloved, and say you will marry me at the earliest possible moment it can be arranged. Say you will become my wife, my sweetest, loveliest, utterly adored wife! ... ”

  Steve felt for one moment so overwhelmed that she could say nothing. But he could feel her trembling in his hold. Then she lifted dark blue eyes to his, and for one instant a gleam of pure amusement shone in them.

  “But, Manoel.... Is it possible to decide against marrying one woman one week, and another the next?” she demanded unsteadily. “I mean.... Even in England it would be considered peculiar. Surely, in Portugal...?”

  “It doesn’t matter what is done in Portugal, or England,” he returned, just as unsteadily. “If I choose to marry you tomorrow—and it can be arranged!—I shall. It doesn’t any longer matter what people think . . . what anyone thinks! It is your life and mine, our happiness, our future! There will no doubt be surprised looks, whisperings behind our backs. ... But does it matter, beloved? Madelena has decided it doesn’t matter. She is going to live with Tim in his cottage. I am asking you to live with me—here!”

  Steve swayed towards him, but still his arms refused to take her.

  “Say that you will marry me, Stephanie.” His voice was almost stern. “Until you say it I cannot—I will not assume that marriage is what you want. . . .”

  “Marriage is what I want?” Her blue eyes were swimming with love and the craving to be with him for ever and always. “Oh, Manoel, I had made up my mind that I would never marry! . . . That marriage was not for me! I thought it would kill me the day you made Madelena your wife. . . . And now! Oh, darling! . . . Oh, darling, darling! Manoel, of course I’ll marry you! . . .”

  His arms took her and held her close. Not fiercely, at first, for they were both too overwhelmed, and she seemed to him too fragile after her shattering experience of the night before. But when she put back her head and frankly pleaded for his kiss she felt a tremor ran through him. . . . His arms crashed her up against him, and she felt as if her very ribs would crack. In swooning ecstasy she surrendered her lips.

  A full ten minutes later his sense of the correctness of things reasserted itself. This temporarily was her bedroom, she was wearing a dressing gown of the flimsiest silk, and somehow or other they had both succeeded in occupying a single rather narrow arm-chair. She was crushed up in his arms, lying against him, with her cheek just under his and both their hearts beating wildly against one another. . . . And it wasn’t the sort of behaviour he would ever have permitted himself to indulge in with Madelena (even if he’d wanted to) until they were married. Steve was more precious to him than a thousand Madelenas, and he wanted to remember what was due to her.

  He put her gently, but firmly, off his knee, and told her that if she was quite sure she felt like it she must dress, and then they would all foregather in the sala.

  “Tim is very anxious to see you, and naturally he was consumed with anxiety about you last night. You mustn’t think he hasn’t been in to have a look at you, because he did so while you were sleeping. But at the moment I think he’s somewhat preoccupied with Madelena, so we won’t ask him to come up here. We’ll all drink a celebration aperitif before lunch!”

  As he turned to leave her she caught at his arm, as if she couldn’t bear to let him go.

  “Manoel! . . .” Her eyes pleaded with him. “This —this is real, isn’t it? I’m not just dreaming?” Instantly she was back in his arms.

  “It’s completely real, my dearest,” he assured her. “This is no dream! And if you’ll be quick with your dressing I’ll wait outside for you in the corridor, and then we can go downstairs to the others together!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEN he led her into the sala Tim and Madelena were already there, talking to one another beside one of the tall windows that opened out on to the main terrace.

  Madelena was looking bright and animated, Tim had a clear-eyed look of satisfaction on his face. He went straight up to his sister and took her closely into his arms, ruffling the bright brown hair, and examining her face searchingly for signs of strain or reaction. But Steve’s expression was so utterly serene—radiantly serene—that he knew he had nothing to worry about. Certainly not on her account.

  Madelena gave Steve a quick, impulsive hug, also. “You look wonderful!” she declared. “We thought you would stay in bed for to-day, at least, but here you are . . . looking marvellous!”

  “I feel marvellous,” Steve admitted, and looked towards Manoel. He put her into one of the most comfortable chairs the room contained with an air of handling something precious, and then took up his station near her.

  “We have something to tell you,” he announced. Steve, turning her head sideways to study him and keep him under her eyes, had never seen him look handsomer . . . and, certainly, she had never seen him look so confident, or so supremely sure of himself and the future. She had seen him arrogant before, but never gay, as he was now. “Stephanie and I are going to be married. . . .” He smiled at his former fiancee, and she smiled back. “I am the happiest man in the world!” He bent over Steve, lifted one of her hands and kissed it humbly.

  “It is what I have wanted ever since I saw her,” he admitted, huskily. “But then I was not free. I was going to involve Madelena in a loveless marriage. . . . But now she, too, is going to make a happy marriage, and I wish her the utmost joy in the future and with the man she has chosen!” He extended his hand to Madelena, and with tears streaming down her face from her velvety brown eyes she carried it up to her cheek and kissed it impulsively. Then Tim bent over his sister’s chair and lifted her out of it, hugged her and kissed her.

  “I’m delighted, Steve,” he whispered to her. “You’ve had a bad time. . . . I knew about it, but there was nothing I could do. I hated to see you looking so wretched! . . . But now it’s all over, and Manoel will see to it that the future makes up for everything.”

  “And you and Madelena will be happy, too,” she whispered back. “Oh, Tim, I’m so glad for you! .... I never dreamed you’d fall for anyone as you fell for Madelena.”

  “Or you for Manoel,” he returned. His eyes looked puzzled for a moment, and then he grinned. “It must be the Portuguese air. And in a short time you’ll be Portuguese yourself. How do you like the idea of it?”

  Her eyes went adoringly to Manoel.

  “I shall try and become a model Portuguese wife!”

  Tim’s grin expanded. “You may try, but I’m afraid there’ll be occasions when you’ll break out and come all over English. . . . We ought to warn Dom Manoel! I’m afraid he hardly realizes what he’s in for.”

  “I think I do,” Manoel said softly, once more very close to his new fiancee’s side. “And whatever I’m in for it will be wonderful! . . .” He put his arm round her, and drew her head to rest against his shoulder. Madelena, who had never even dreamed he could behave like that, watched with slightly wondering eyes. “We mustn’t allow you to become over-tired, my dearest,” he breathed huskily. “But to-day is a day for celebration, and I suggest that we all drink a toast to one another ... in champagne! Tim, will you attend to the matter, and give us our glasses. The materials are over there, in the ice-bucket and on the side table.” Senhora Almeida made her appearance and was also provided with a glass of champagne. She looked a trifle bewildered at this sudden complete alteration in plans that had been settled for months; but as her daughter was a very wealthy young woman, and it didn’t gre
atly matter whether she married a wealthy man or not, she decided that she would be wise to accept them. And it was so obvious that Madelena was happy in a way she had never been before that the mother’s heart was satisfied. Madelena was so lovely. . . . Senhor Tim was a very nice young man, and he had painted her daughter’ s portrait as only a man very much in love could have painted it, so why raise even the smallest amount of opposition?

  Madelena, as gay as a butterfly with her glass of champagne in her hand, announced to Steve that they had already discussed marriage plans, and it had been decided that the existing arrangements need not be completely cancelled. Madelena’s bridegroom would be altered—and Manoel’s bride—but that was all. It could be a double wedding, and the local people would not be disappointed or done out of their festa, and all the excitement of a local wedding. If Steve agreed, there need not even be any alteration in the date.

  Steve felt her heart pound so thickly she could hardly breathe. The thought of becoming Manoel’s wife in so short a space of time when she had been resigned to never becoming his wife at all was almost too much, and the fingers Manoel grasped trembled a little. He squeezed them tightly.

  “If it is too soon for you, beloved. . . ?” But his eyes implored her.

  “Oh, no, no. . . . Of course it is not too soon!” Her heart cried: ‘It is not soon enough! I never want to be separated

  from you again! ’ “But I was thinking that I haven’t any clothes . . . not suitable clothes. I’ll be the shabbiest bride.

  “No, no, you won’t,” Madelena reassured her. “I’ll help you to choose clothes quickly. . . . We can go to Lisbon together. My mother will help us.”

  “Or you can wait until we are on our honeymoon,” Manoel said quietly. “I thought you might like to go to Paris, and in Paris you can choose whatever you like.” She felt his arm pressing her closer to his side. “There is no need for you to be rushed, my darling. I refuse to have you rushed, and in your wardrobe I’m sure you can find something suitable to be married in. . . .”