Master of Hearts

by Ives, Averil

  She smiled at him very slightly.

  "I haven't had much opportunity yet to find out

  senhor," she replied. "But it's very beautiful," she added.

  "And you are beautiful," he told her, with somewhat surprising directness. "When Inez told me the other

  day that you were a governess I could hardly believe her!"

  "Because governesses, in your experience, are normally plain?" she asked, wondering whether she ought to freeze him from the outset.

  The admiration behind his thick dark eyelashes grew so that she was certain she ought to do so.

  "As a matter of fact," he confessed, in his slightly accented English, while he looked down at her almost caressingly, "the only governess I ever had any really close contact with was the one who looked after me when I was a child, and she was as plain as a plate! A utilitarian, nursery plate!"

  "Then I only hope she made up in strictness what she lacked in looks," Kathleen answered, deliberately turning her glance away from him. "In my experience little boys need strict governesses, and are better off with tutors!"

  He laughed — rather an engaging laugh.

  "But if that is true you will soon find yourself out of a job! Don't tell me Inez's twins are too much for you already?"

  She looked down at her hands, with their delicate pink fingernails that shone like shells beneath the brilliant lighting in the sala, and replied a little stiffly:

  "I think at the moment we are getting along quite well."

  "Then you must continue to get along very well, because I want you to stay here." It didn't sound audacious, but she knew it was. "And that precious pair of imps have already accounted for half-a-dozen young women who have devoted themselves to their welfare. You mustn't follow the same road, because there isn't another golden-headed young woman in the whole of Amara . . . At least, not one I've been fortunate enough to encounter! Not one with pale primrose hair . . . Like the primroses you gather in England in the spring! I was in England last year, and—"

  A shadow loomed behind them, and the Conde de Chaves bent a remote, grave look on Kathleen.

  "If you wish to retire, Miss O'Farrel, you mustn't let us keep you," he said. "I realise you've probably had quite a tiring day looking after my nephews."

  She felt disconcerted, and, all at once, acutely embarrassed. Was he trying to make it clear to her she wasn't expected to mingle with his guests quite so freely once dinner was over, even if he did permit her to meet them at the table? With the colour mantling her throat and chin and brow she stood up, and her sudden confusion showed in her eyes.

  "I'm sorry, senhor!" she heard herself saying jerkily. "I mean, I . . . Yes; I would like to retire, if it's all right for me to do so . . ."

  Her voice trailed off, and Fernando said protestingly: "But the night is young yet! . ."

  His host silenced him with a curt reminder that the young woman he would shortly be escorting home was expecting him to rejoin her at the other end of the room, and Fernando bowed in front of Kathleen, with a slightly resentful expression in his extraordinarily beautiful brown eyes, and accepted the hint that he was neglecting his duty. Kathleen murmured rather an indistinguishable goodnight to her employer, and turned away, too. But he put out a hand as if he would stay her for a moment.

  "I'm quite sure you are tired," he remarked, regarding her thoughtfully. "No doubt you sometimes find the twins a little exhausting?"

  "So exhausting that I would be happier upstairs in my room after dinner," she returned crisply. "In fact, I would be happier if I could have dinner in my room as well."

  His black eyebrows ascended.

  "All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl," he said "That would not do at all. You must most certainly mix with my guests when they are here."

  "Thank you, senhor, you are most kind," she said, and left him with his eyebrows still a little raised, and she had the distinct impression that he watched her as she left the room.

  After that she was careful to remove herself from the sala at the earliest possible moment that she could do so without being noticed once coffee had been served in the evenings; and when there was a very large number of guests before coffee was handed round.

  It was always a relief to her to escape, for in the capacity of an employee she felt she had no right to engage the attention of any of the guests — hadn't the Conde made it plain that he disapproved of Fernando conversing with her just for a few minutes? And although most of the Conde's close friends spoke English beautifully, and made it quite unnecessary for her to try out on them her strictly limited Portuguese, she felt that they addressed her purely out of politeness and not through any desire to get to know her.

  They were well-bred, cultivated, quietly poised people, and their manners were impeccable. But to them she was just a young woman from England who earned her living by looking after other people's children, and very few of them entertained their own Portuguese governesses — if they employed them — in the drawing-room. Such useful people had quarters of their own, and it was almost certainly because she was English that the Conde and his sister permitted her to meet their friends. That and the fact that she had a brother and sister-in-law living in the neighbourhood who were not precisely socially inferior, but part and parcel of an artistic circle which was outside the milieu of these very conventional Portuguese.

  Kathleen didn't want patronage, and she didn't want to make herself a nuisance, so she stayed up in her room while the talk and the subdued laughter, and occasionally some light classical music arranged for the entertainment of the guests, went on in the sumptuous saki. And if it was a very warm and brilliant night she opened her windows wide and curled up on the window-seat, and listened to the seductive crooning of the sea, and watched the stars as if they fascinated her. And if she could escape from a side door without anyone seeing her she went out into the garden and walked the dimly-seen

  paths and delighted in the silken softness of the air, and the scent of the countless flowers.

  It was such an enchanting place, not in the least like a formal English garden, and the little nooks and arbours delighted her. In one small enclosed space there would be a fountain playing in a tile-lined basin, and in another a square of velvety turf would feel delicious to the tread. There were roses blooming in profusion, and they were finer than any she had seen at home in England, and goldfish transported themselves in translucent pools. There was also a magnificent terrace at the rear of the house where dinner guests frequently sipped aperitifs before the leisurely meal was served, and often strolled during the course of the evening.

  Kathleen, when she was enjoying one of her nocturnal walks, was always careful to keep out of range of the windows that opened outwards on to this terrace, and the stray pair of observant eyes that might follow her movements in the garden.

  Not that there was any reason why she shouldn't stroll in the garden, but the Conde was an unpredictable person, and he might have views on the correctness of her doing so at that hour, and alone. It might not be in accordance with Portuguese punctilio.

  In the mornings — and what glorious mornings they were, before the heat of the sun cast its inertia over the flowers and the walks — Kathleen and the children took their daily exercise in the garden. She had made the discovery that for her and the two lively small boys placed in her charge life was to be very restricted, and any entertainment that was to come their way they must make for themselves. Apart from weekly visits to Amara for hair-cutting, the odd visit to the dentist, and so forth, there were no organised outings. There was no question of walks, unless they were walks in the grounds, and visits to the beach were not encouraged. Although they were so close to the sea, and holidaymakers poured into Amara who took fullest advantage of it, when Kathleen approached Dona Inez for permission to take her sons for an hour or so on to the sands where she herself

  had relaxed and enjoyed herself during her brief holiday it was somewhat regretfully refused.

  "T
his is not America, and my brother would not approve," she said. She shrugged her shoulders and looked languidly amused. "You do not understand how rigidly he feels about these things! . . . Our kind of families do not mix with the hoi polloi! And on the beach there is no caste distinction!"

  Kathleen gazed back at her rather helplessly.

  "But surely there must be children in the district, suitable children with whom Jerry and Joe could play sometimes?" she suggested.

  Dona Inez shook her head with sudden firmness.

  "That would cause a disturbance in the house," she replied; "and I agree with my brother that such a disturbance would be undesirable."

  So it wasn't only the Conde who held views about the children that were not altogether for the children's good!

  Thrown back upon her own resources Kathleen invented games that kept the young Curtises out of mischief, and it was surprising how successful she was in getting them interested in the once despised lessons. She had handled backward children before, and Jerry and Joe were distinctly backward, but that was because no one had ever persevered with them not because they were lacking in intellect. On the contrary, their intelligence was rather high, and her method of teaching them to read resulted in an earnest desire to master for themselves the contents of the books on the shelves. Not the Portugese ones! "I will never learn to read Portugese like fat Rosa!" Jerry declared once, but as Kathleen felt certain he would be attending a Portugese school before very long she could have told him that was an idle vow.

  On the whole the days didn't hang too heavily on either her or the children's hands, but there were moments when she felt peculiarly isolated in the Quinta Cereus. There was no one of her own kind with whom she could talk even for a brief while, and the servants she felt sure regarded her as an outsider. She didn't

  speak much Portugese, and she was the sister of an artist who sold pictures for a living in Amara. It didn't matter that they were good pictures. The gulf between her and the Conde and his sister was vast—or so she persuaded herself.

  After three whole weeks she hadn't had an afternoon off, and when Peggy telephoned her one morning and suggested that she get permission to have dinner with them that night she decided there was no real reason why she shouldn't. Dona Inez seemed a trifle surprised when she approached her, and then belatedly seemed to realise that the girl was entitled to a certain amount of free time. She said that Maria could take over a few hours each week if she wanted to visit her relatives, and delighted by this somewhat niggardly concession Kathleen sped back to the telephone and told Peggy she would be with them in time for tea.

  "I'll leave everything ready for the twins, and Maria will see to their supper," she said. "I'm simply longing to see you both again!"

  "I should hope you are!" Peggy exclaimed. "We're longing to see you, and I'm dying to hear all your news! Shane, however, is annoyed because you seem to have been kept a prisoner since you took on that job!"

  "Oh, no," Kathleen assured her. "It isn't as bad as that."

  Dona Inez hadn't offered to place a car at her disposal, or told her to request one of the chauffeurs to drive her into Amara. So she set out and walked to her brother's villa, and although she arrived fresh and smiling—or reasonably so—Shane was still further annoyed, because it was a very hot afternoon and she was undoubtedly perspiring a little. Also her white buckskin sandals that had been immaculate when she started off were covered with dust from the road.

  "The very least the Conde might have done was offer you some means of transport," Shane declared indignantly. "What does he think you are? A Portuguese peasant woman?"

  Kathleen sank down luxuriously in one of the deep, comfortable chairs in the cool lounge, and smiled at him soothingly.

  "The Conde is the Conde," she said, "and one doesn't trouble him about small matters such as a governess's means of transport. And, besides, I don't think he knows I've got the afternoon off.'

  "It's high time you had an afternoon off," Shane returned belligerently. "The question of your off-duty should have been gone into when you accepted the post."

  "If you'll remember I didn't exactly accept the post," Kathleen murmured demurely. "In the end I was more or less commandeered by the Conde."

  "All the more reason why he should treat you decently," Shane said bluntly, with ready Irish aggressiveness.

  Peggy intervened.

  "Kathleen doesn't look as if she's been treated badly," she observed. "On the contrary, she has a smug look of satisfaction about her, as if she's well aware that she's succeeded where it was strongly suspected she would fail." She seated herself in a corner of a chesterfield close to her sister-in-law, and offered her the cigarettes. "Now, darling, begin at the beginning and tell us all about it!" she requested. "What sort of a room have you been given, and are you wallowing in luxury? Do you and the Conde fight frequently, or only once a week? And how do you get on with the twins?"

  Kathleen derived a certain satisfaction from admitting that she and the Conde had ceased to fight, and the rest of Peggy's questions she answered with as much detail as the other could desire. The afternoon and evening passed pleasantly—particularly for Kathleen, who had had such little adult conversation recently—and even Shane grew mollified when he realised that his sister had few complaints. In fact, as she admitted, she would be unreasonable if she complained about anything. So far as her creature comforts were concerned she had never been so lavishly provided for in her life.

  Shane drove her back to the quinta at about ten o'clock, but she insisted on being dropped at the ornamental gates, instead of allowing him to proceed up the driye to the impressive front entrance. It wasn't, as she explained, that she didn't want to be seen returning, but she had formed the habit of keeping out of the limelight as much as possible—particularly in the evenings—and she would prefer to slip quietly in at the side door.

  Shane looked at her, so young and slight and touchingly lovely in the moonlight, and resentment stirred in him afresh.

  "Look here, Kathie," he began. "If this isn't the sort of job you really like—if you'd rather go back to England and find something else! , ?If these people make you feel an outsider . . ."

  "No, of course they don't," she reassured him. But she spoke quickly and quietly, almost as if she would have liked to put a finger to her lips to warn him not to be too loudly because she didn't want anyone to overhear . And even to herself she couldn't have explained that disinclination for being seen just then by anyone from the house. She wanted to steal away, as she had said, and enter her room without the knowledge of anyone who visited at the quinta, or normally dwelt beneath its roof.

  Shane frowned a little, and let in his clutch. The business of turning his ancient car in rather a confined space seemed to make a shatteringly loud noise in the silent night, and Kathie felt herself frowning a Little, too. Then she kissed her hand to Shane, and turned away.

  It was a wonderful, warm, and rather breathless night, and the noise of the sea was a soft and sensuous murmur. The atmosphere seemed laden with exotic scents, and Kathleen paused for a moment to draw them deep into her lungs before she moved forward like an anxious white ghost in the gloom.

  But she had barely taken a step before someone stepped in front of her. The Conde's voice asked quietly:

  "Was that your brother who was with you just now, Miss O'Farrel?"

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KATHLEEN was so startled that she actually recoiled. The Conde looked down at her from a height that seemed far above her, and the whiteness of his dinner jacket pierced the gloom like a knife. She could see the dark carnation he wore in the lapel, and above the bewildering scents that were all about her she seemed to catch the spicy odour of it as if its perfume was extra penetrating.

  "Was that your brother, Miss O'Farrel?" he repeated, and she nodded silently, and then found her voice.

  "Yes, I—I've been spending the evening with him and my sister-in-law."

  "I noticed your absence at dinner.
My sister dined out, but Filippo informed me that you'd been granted permission to take the rest of the day off."

  She heard herself saying defensively:

  "It was the first half-day I've had since I came here!" The Conde nodded.

  "That is so. And I'm afraid your brother thinks that you've been rather badly used!"

  Kathleen felt oddly appalled.

  "You—you overheard . . .?"

  To her considerable surprise the dark face above her smiled in the richness of the shadows, and his white teeth gleamed with unmistakably dry humour.

  "You know the proverb ... Listeners seldom hear any good of themselves!"

  Suddenly she felt his fingers grasping her arm, and he led her up the drive towards the lighted quinta.

  "Tell me," he said quietly, "why do you persist in haunting these grounds alone at night as if you were a restless spirit, or a lonely wraith? I've watched you from the windows, and once I nearly came in pursuit of you, but I knew that you would evade me if you could and probably slip inside by the back door!" His fingers held her arm strongly. "It isn't good enough," he said, with

  a sudden touch of gravity in his rather charming voice —particularly when he spoke English in that effortless way. "It isn't good because you're a young and very attractive woman, and these are deserted grounds at night! And you even declined to allow your brother to drive you up to the front door. Why?"

  "I—I don't know. . . ." She heard herself stammering. "At least, I know why I usually walk in the garden. . Because I like walking in a garden at night, and this is one of the most beautiful I've ever known! Also it's very warm, and I'm not always ready for bed."

  "Then why do you leave the saki so early?"

  She felt caught, and didn't answer.

  "No matter," he said, in the same quiet voice. "Obviously you do not wish to remain with the rest of us, possibly because you find us all excessively dull and your own company much more preferable. But, your brother, tonight. . . . He disliked setting you down at the gates, and he seemed to think you are not very happy amongst us. Is that so?"