by Ives, Averil
CHAPTER FIVE
KATHLEEN was still looking perplexed, and faintly
disturbed, when she reached the head of the magnificent marble staircase on her way back to her own room.
She had the uneasy conviction that she was hopelessly lost, and it was something of a relief to see the Conde himself ascending the stairs.
"Ah, Miss O'Farrel!" he exclaimed, and paused within a few feet of her. "I was on my way to visit my sister, but you and I have a little something to talk about, and as my sister is, I understand, disinclined to receive visitors this morning, we will go down to the library!"
Kathleen said nothing, only gazed at him. She wasn't thinking so much about that 'little something' they had to talk about, as the narrow escape Dona Inez had had from being caught with a handsome masculine caller in her sitting-room—while she changed in the next room!
According to Portuguese standards that could hardly be quite right either!
"Well?" the Conde said, with his mask-like expression, as she stood staring at him. "You do realise that I must ask for an explanation of last night, and my nephew's extraordinary conduct?"
"Yes—yes, of course!" She moved forward so hurriedly to the top of the stairs that her foot caught in the thick pile of the carpet, and but for his ready hand she might have tumbled headlong down the entire flight. "Of course!" she repeated, breathlessly.
For the first time she saw him smile in a really whimsical fashion, and his teeth were far whiter than Fernando's, while the lips parted over them were firm as well as shapely.
"You are very agitated this morning, senhorita!" he told her, retaining possession of her arm. "Surely you
do not think that I will devour you whole once I get you down to the library?"
She tried to smile naturally.
"Of course not! But, I—I haven't much of an explanation, and I was thinking it was a pity I unpacked my things last night."
"Meaning that I shall once more inform you that I do not think you are good for my nephews?"
"Yes, I'm afraid that is what you will do!"
He said nothing more until they reached the library, where he put her into a chair, and then started to pace up and down. It was, as she remembered, a beautiful room, and he fitted into it so well that she couldn't help watching him as he moved about it. There was something slightly cat-like in his stride, and the dark beauty of his face was curiously satisfying if one could only study it without wondering what his reactions were likely to be to a certain set of circumstances. The gravity of his knitted brows lent him a look of austerity, and in repose his mouth was neither hard nor harsh. And the squareness of his chin bestowed a feeling of confidence.
This was a man to be trusted, even if he was easily tried and a little unreasonable. Very unreasonable, if he was going to tell her to re-pack her things after all!
"Miss O'Farrell" She had no idea she was quite lost in thought and speculation about him until he stood in front of her and spoke levelly. "Will you accept an apology?"
"An—apology?"
"Yes, for the reception you received on the first occasion that you came here! I'm afraid you were rather more sinned against than sinning."
"I don't quite understand," she said, quietly. "You found me on the floor with your nephews, and the room in an uproar. It was hardly likely you would receive a favourable impression of me."
"Nevertheless, I did!" he told her, surprising her utterly.
She stared at him. His dark-grey eyes gazed back into hers.
"You put in an appeal for the children, and once you had gone I realised that that was a most unusual thing for a young woman who had been summarily sent about her business to bother to do. They are impossible children, as even you with your sentimental views about young things must recognise, yet something about them touched you sufficiently to make you anxious lest I should exercise my right to stem disciplinary measures that would bring home to them the enormity of their offence in despoiling my library."
"They did make a frightful mess," she agreed, "but I'm sure it was only due to an excess of high spirits."
"And you don't think they're the deplorable imps of devilment I think they are?"
She hesitated, remembering Jerry's confession about the unfortunate Rosa.
"I think they could have been more wisely handled in the past."
"I agree with you," he said, and started to pace up and down again. "But, unfortunately, my sister doesn't!"
She interposed quickly:
"I met Dona Inez this morning. She sent for me, and we had coffee together."
He swung round.
"You did?" She couldn't tell by the expression in his eyes whether he was pleased or otherwise. "And did she explain to you that as an uncle I am an ogre, and as a brother capable of understanding all that she has gone through I leave much to be desired?" His voice was very dry. "Very, very much to be desired!"
Kathleen felt suddenly extremely awkward.
"I should hardly think Dona Inez has recovered sufficiently from the tragedy of her husband's death to have opinions about very much," she ventured. "And almost certainly she is grateful to you for providing a home for herself and her two young sons."
His eyes glinted with such harsh mockery that she didn't quite like it.
"In Portugal the family is everything, and she never doubted that I would do otherwise. But Inez is beautiful, and beauty demands homage. All her life she has received it, and she can't do without it now. She forgets that in addition she possesses a family she herself was partly responsible for creating, and that the claims of beauty must be temporarily set aside until the responsibilities of motherhood have been satisfied. In other words, I think if she was to devote herself to the twins a little more than she does many problems might be simplified."
"But—but, you said that she doesn't like them to be sternly disciplined."
"She prefers to allow them to do exactly as they please! And that is an easy way out when they are quite uncontrollable! If anyone is ever to gain control over them it will not be my sister Inez!"
"Then—?" Kathleen gazed at him rather helplessly. "What—what do you suggest? Do you think that I—"
"Are the type to gain control over them in time?" He went and sat behind his desk and leaned his elbows on it and studied her openly. "Quite frankly, if you had asked me that question a week ago I would have said `No! Looking at you as you sit here now, so very much more youthful-looking even than Inez, and of rather slighter proportions, I am strongly tempted to say 'No'. But I remember that last night one of the children came seeking you, and that means that you must have made a tremendous impression. I am also strongly inclined to the view that Rosa was driven away from this house by their combined wickedness, and that they hoped you would be called upon to fill the breach. They are cunning enough for that!"
Kathleen couldn't resist smiling suddenly, so that a dimple appeared at one corner of her mouth.
"I don't think there's much doubt that they're a couple of little villains," she murmured. "But I also think it would be a mistake to take their villainy too seriously, and to treat it as unchildlike. And one mustn't overlook
the fact that they have been deprived of a parent recently, and that it may take a little time for them to settle down in Portugal — a country quite unlike America."
"And England?" he suggested, watching her still. "You find our ways a little difficult to get used to?"
"I have had no time as yet to attempt any real adjustment, senhor," she replied.
"True," he agreed, and rose and once more moved towards her. He stood looking down at her very intently. "And if I accept the fact that it may take a little while — perhaps even a considerable while — for my nephews to become adjusted to this new way of life, are you willing to cope with them for as long as that difficult phase may last? Do you promise that my home will not be altogether wrecked, and my peace shattered, if I entrust these limbs of mischief to you, and expect you to turn them into som
ething human?"
She stood up, her face flushing delicately.
"I will do my best, senhor, but I can't promise anything. That would be unwise."
"And although you look so young you are a very wise young woman?"
"I have learned to be cautious. But I do understand children, and I will do my best — that much I can promise you!"
"Excellent!" he exclaimed, and held out his hand. The colour deepened in her cheeks as she felt his fingers grasp hers, and to her surprise they were warm, and close, and somehow sustaining. She lifted her eyes a little shyly to his face, and the deep blueness of them seemed to hold his look captive. Then it grew mildly quizzical. "And I am forgiven for my summary treatment of you?"
"I am prepared to believe that you were feeling a little tried that morning."
"Perhaps." He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Although tried seems a mild word. For a bachelor to have his way of life upset is a serious thing, you know."
It almost escaped her lips that he wouldn't always be a bachelor, and as if he read her mind with ease he observed:
"But I promise you my children will not behave as Jeronimo and Joseph behave! Not under any circumstances!"
She turned away, feeling suddenly and most peculiarly embarrassed. Then she turned back to him. "And I am forgiven for—for last night?"
"Forget it," he said. "I don't quite know why but when I found an empty bed in the Night Nursery I suspected at once that the recent occupant of it was with you. Somehow it seemed the logical conclusion."
The dry humour in his voice caused her to send a quick look up at him, and then once more she looked away. She bit her lip.
"Nevertheless, I'm very sorry that it happened. I promise that it won't occur again."
"If I were you I wouldn't make rash promises," he said. "Remember you have just told me you have learned to be cautious." Then he terminated the interview by walking to the door and holding it open for her. "I wish you luck in this new enterprise of yours, Miss O'Farrel. If at any time you feel that you need some support I shall be on hand if you care to appeal to me!"
As she walked up the stairs she asked herself, Would she ever dare to appeal to him? Her earliest impression of him had been that he was barely human, but now she wasn't so sure. Just now he had seemed surprisingly approachable, and her fingers still tingled from that vital clasp of her hand.
And she was prepared to admit that Peggy had been right about his charm. He had a good deal of charm when he smiled.
CHAPTER SIX
BUT the next few weeks were not easy, all the same. Charm in rare moments has a great deal of virtue if you are never brought into contact with the qualities that take over when it is absent, and Kathleen found that her employer was more often aloof than friendly. And the twins were by no means easy to handle, even though she prided herself that she understood children.
By degrees, however, she discovered the knack of bringing them to heel when they threatened to become unmanageable, in the way that they had done whilst in the care of the unfortunate Rosa. She warned them that one really bad piece of behaviour on their part would recoil on her, and that would result in her dismissal. Whether she entirely believed this in her own heart she wasn't quite sure, but she did know that the threat of losing her was sufficient to bring an acute look of anxiety to the small faces of Jerry and Joe, and they promised to mend their ways without delay. Which, of course, they didn't do in any very noticeable fashion, but at least they refrained from deliberate naughtiness.
On the whole, Kathleen managed them in a fashion that should have merited approval, if any close observer had felt like rewarding her with approval. But no one apparently did. The children's mother merely looked amused when no one complained of their abandoned habits for over a week, and the Conde really saw very little indeed of them.
Kathleen wished he hadn't insisted on her having meals in the dining-room, for this was not merely a strain which she could have dispensed with but it imposed on her a burden of anxiety which robbed the meals of any sort of pleasure. They were usually long-drawn-out, and although Maria took over the twins at lunch time Kathleen could never be quite certain that her charges wouldn't take advantage of her temporary absence. They delighted in tormenting Maria, as she knew, and the
harassed wonder concerning what they were getting up to while she sat in state at a long table went close to upsetting her digestion for the first time in her life.
At lunch, however, she could sometimes count on being alone, for the Conde seemed to have many luncheon appointments in the course of a week that kept him away from the quinta for several hours at a time. When he did lunch at home he frequently contrived to be a little late, so that Kathleen was more than half-way through her meal when he put in an appearance. His sister kept so much to her apartments that she seldom, if ever, conferred the benefit of her society on Kathleen in the middle of the day; but at night it was different, and she liked to make a kind of grand entry into the dining-room wearing something so spectacular that Kathleen felt inclined to gasp when she looked at her.
Her wardrobe must have cost a small fortune, and although it contained a lot of black it was not what a Portuguese widow might normally have been expected to choose. It was extremely smart and ultra-fashionable black, and usually it was relieved by touches of gold or silver, and frequently by a daringly bright colour.
Kathleen felt she would never forget the first night that she dined at the same table as the Conde and his sister. To begin with the room was so magnificent, and the Conde was wearing a white dinner jacket and a black cummerbund that made him appear almost devastatingly handsome and far removed from the type of men with whom she was accustomed to sharing evening meals. Shane, for instance, who usually wore an open-necked shirt — admittedly he liked it to be freshly-laundered, and he had a weakness for silk shirts
and was persuaded with difficulty into a dinner jacket he had had for years.
Dona Inez looked quite as startling as her brother in very dark crimson silk, and there was a collar of rubies encircling her lovely white throat, and a heavy bracelet of rubies weighed down one of her slender wrists. Kathleen, in embroidered white linen that actually suited her very well indeed and was a bargain she had
picked up at quite an exclusive little dress shop before she left London, felt as ordinary as a white china teacup by comparison with some lovely pieces of Sevres as she sat there at the flower-decked, glittering table between them.
Dona Inez merely picked at her food, and she attributed her lack of appetite to one of her heads. Her brother directed at her a long, cool, somewhat disconcerting stare, and suggested that her 'heads' would disappear altogether, and her appetite improve vastly, if she took a little more exercise, and remained less segregated.
Dona Inez didn't attempt to argue the matter, but she slid rather a peculiar smile along the table at Kathleen.
"You'll remember I told you that my brother has ideas about women," she murmured. "They must conform to pattern!"
"Which you most certainly do not," Miguel said shortly.
She made a slight movement with her shoulders, and again her eyes rested on Kathleen.
"I do not think our little Miss O'Farrel here is the type to conform to pattern, either," she observed softly.
This time the suave, dark man at the head of the table didn't answer, and instead he seemed to give extra attention to the careful paring of the peach he had selected — which in any case he did very beautifully with his long, sensitive fingers. And Kathleen was certain the reason why he remained silent was because he didn't think there was any real pattern she need conform to —unless it was the pattern of a capable governess!
Another night there were several dinner guests, and amongst them was the brown-eyed Fernando who had waited while Inez completed a hurried toilet in order to be with him as quickly as possible. His full name was Fernando Queiroz, and on the second occasion that Kathleen came face to face with him he was in a very subdued mood
, and nothing could have been more correct than the manner in which he bent over her hand
when they were introduced. He was accompanied by —or, rather, he was escorting — a very plump matron and her daughter, and there could be no doubt about it the latter looked upon him as rather more than an acquaintance. She was rather a colourless, shy young thing, and she obviously had her mama's full permission to send shy, adoring looks up into his eyes whenever he was not making strenuous efforts to avoid them, and also to avoid the strangely inscrutable gaze of Dona Inez on the opposite side of the table.
Kathleen thought, with a slight sensation of shock, that Inez was deliberately seeking to compel him to look across at her, and remembering that he had been described as a 'very particular friend' of the widow, she wondered what sort of a relationship there existed between them, and whether the Conde had the least idea of it. If he had he seemed to go out of his way to be particularly pleasant to the pale young girl, and in the magnificent sala after dinner he was most noticeably attentive to her and drew both her and Fernando into a long conversation which isolated the three of them from the rest of the room. Inez, looking bored, turned to one of the other guests for diversion, and although she continued to look bored she refrained from attaching herself to Fernando when a little later on he was left temporarily standing alone.
Instead she turned a slightly disdainful, and creamily beautiful, shoulder to him, and it was Kathleen he hastened across to, as if he had been hoping for an opportunity to speak to her.
"You like it here in Portugal, senhorita?" he asked, and once more his brown eyes told her that to him an attractive young woman was a magnet which must unfailingly draw him, even though it was highly likely he was betrothed to be married.
