Night of the Singing Birds Read online

  NIGHT OF THE SINGING BIRDS

  SUSAN BARRIE

  Angela had been bom and brought up in Spain, and in the Spanish way it had been arranged that she make a highly suitable marriage with Don Felipe Martinez.

  But half of Angela was English, and the English do not take very kindly to such arbitrary arrangements ...

  CHAPTER I

  There were three women kneeling on the floor at her feet, and on the faces of two of them Angela watched expressions of fanatical zeal and devotion to the task in hand crowding all other expressions out of their tense and concentrated and somewhat elderly features. The other was a much younger woman, a novice at this sort of thing—a recent addition, in fact, to the establishment of Madame Renee, of Paris—and her principal function in life appeared at the moment to be the collecting of pins and holding of measuring tapes when they were thrust at her by one or other of the other two women.

  Angela could feel the heat of the room sapping her energy and blunting the edges of her wits. It actually seemed to be coming at her in waves, and in them the sharp outlines of the furniture and the suffocating thickness of the carpet seemed to dissolve and be about to disappear as if they were no more than a mirage.

  She pushed the heavy burnt-gold hair back from her brow, and protested that she must surely have been standing for far longer than was reasonable. Certainly in such a climate, and with the noise of the cicadas outside the windows creating a clamour that was enough in itself to give one a headache.

  Madame Renee, who had made this journey specially from Paris to give satisfaction to one of her oldest and most valued clients, looked up in a vague way and sought to remember that the girl was young, and therefore some allowance had to be made for her and her inability to rise fully to such an occasion.

  ‘If I could sit down for just a few minutes,’ Angela requested a trifle faintly.

  ‘Mais certainement, mademoiselle,’ Madame Renee replied. ‘But first I will remove the dress!’ she added, with an expression of genuine horror lest some accident at this late stage should befall the confection in satin and lace that was one of her greatest causes for satisfaction at the moment.

  The dress was removed, with such infinite care that it was some little while before Angela could utter a long-drawn sigh of relief and revel in the sensation of being free of the clinging satin and the hampering closeness of the waist and hiplines. Then she wandered over to the nearest window and extended her arms to the slight puff of air that came in at it.

  Madame Renee regarded her a little thoughtfully. She was too immature to give her a feeling of absolute satisfaction in a job that would undoubtedly be well done. A little more flesh on the bones, in the right places, fewer hollows in the neck, and definitely a better developed bust would have provided her with more of a challenge, and drawn murmurs of awe from the beholders once the wedding gown was an established fact. At the moment the hemline was wavering, and in order to emphasise that slim waistline something would have to be done about the thirty-two-inch bust.

  Padding, perhaps? ... She doubted whether Dona Miranda would consent to that. Members of the Cazenta d’lalgo family were unlikely to make concessions, and although Angela was only half a Cazenta d’lalgo—an uncompromising English Grevil, in fact, who most unfortunately took entirely after her father’s family— the limitations would be the same, particularly as Dona Miranda, her grandmother, was footing the bill for the entire bridal outfit.

  Madame Renee tapped her teeth with the end of the gold-mounted pencil with which she made calculations in connection with her client on a slip of paper that frequently got lost, with the result that the calculations had to be made all over again, and reflected that she would have to talk earnestly to Dona Miranda and persuade her that in this case something would have to be done.

  Not that the girl was unattractive. Straight from her finishing school in Switzerland, she was all, and rather more, than one might have expected. She had escaped the Cazenta pallor, for one thing, and had an enchanting magnolia pale skin with a delicious hint of colour just over the cheekbones—when she wasn’t being fitted for her wedding gown, and the temperature was very high, that is. And her hair was lovely and her eyes quite remarkable—like blue lakes in summertime. She had fluttering eyelashes, too, that were brown-gold at the tips, and a shapely little chin that was unexpectedly firm. And her mouth ... Well, in a year or two it would draw men’s eyes as surely as if it was a magnet, Madame Renee felt convinced. And because she was a romantic at heart she hoped that it would.... Not, perhaps, the eyes of Don Felipe Martinez, who was to be her bridegroom, and was not merely a good many years older than his future bride but definitely rather hard-bitten and experienced in the ways of the world.

  But someone ... some time! ...

  And then Madame Renee had the grace to feel somewhat ashamed of herself, and a little uncomfortable. For this was a Spanish bride she was dressing, and a very conventional Spanish bride.

  There could be no question of affairs for her.

  ‘Would you like some coffee, or perhaps a very small cognac?’ she suggested, preparing to ring the bell. ‘It is true that you have been standing for rather a long while.’

  But Angela, revelling in the comparative coolness by the window, shook her head.

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll be all right in a minute.... But I find all these preparations a bit exhausting.’ Her delicate brows puckered as she caught sight of the gleaming bonnet of a car that was turning in at the entrance to the courtyard below the window. The car was slightly rakish, long and low, of the same thick cream colour as Devonshire cream, and with attractively contrasting sky-blue upholstery. It also appeared to have many glittering attachments as it came to rest before the main entrance door of the villa.

  Angela’s brows, that were considerably darker than her hair, positively contracted as she recognised both the car and its occupant.

  ‘It is Don Felipe,’ she said, and backed automatically from the window.

  Madame Renee and her two assistants just as automatically gravitated towards the window. She was so interested and intrigued that she forgot to warn her client that she was clad only in a pale peach-coloured slip, and that the balcony outside the window did not render it impossible for anyone glancing upwards rather

  suddenly to see her.

  But Don Felipe was not the type who glanced upwards with much curiosity, even when the house contained the woman he was planning to marry. A Romeo of the true type might have been all eyes and ears and expectations, but Don Felipe had come from a consultation with his solicitors who were drawing up various documents in connection with the marriage settlements, and other details in connection with the marriage itself. He felt that he had provided very handsomely for the woman who was to become Senora Martinez, and share the elevation of his position in life; and even her maternal grandmother, Dona Miranda Cazenta d’lalgo, would find little to complain of when the documents were submitted to her for her approval.

  Another important piece of business he had transacted that morning was concerned with a visit to his bank, where a strong-box had been brought up from the vaults and the Martinez jewels displayed in broad daylight for the first time for quite a number of years. Felipe had opened case after case and decided that the contents would have to be sent away to be cleaned and re-set in a slightly more modern setting. He did not approve of anything ultra-modern, but a girl of nineteen had to have some sort of consideration meted out to her. And there was no doubt about it, many of the rings and brooches and heavy necklaces could not be worn as they were.

  He would sacrifice his feeling for continuity and make a few concessions.

  He was actually feeling rather pleased with himself as he
alighted from his car, and without glancing upwards for a moment strode towards the entrance to the villa. The young woman he was to marry could think herself fortunate, since so much was being done to secure her happiness and wellbeing in the future. Certainly her grandmother would share his opinion, and as he admired and respected Dona Miranda that pleased him.

  The sunshine was falling like golden rain from a brilliantly blue sky that was utterly without sign of cloud as he ran lightly up the steps. The courtyard was heavy with scent and hot with dust from the brazen hillsides as he turned into a cool colonnade, crossed another courtyard where a fountain played refreshingly in a marble basin, and was out of sight of the upstairs windows; and then, as the main door was standing open, entered the marble-floored hall of the villa.

  Madame Renee and her assistants sighed regretfully. They had been permitted a glimpse of an extremely attractive masculine figure, dark and sleek as his Spanish ancestry demanded, taller than most Spaniards, and with well-held shoulders—he was a first-class tennis-player, and most of his winters were spent skiing down mountain sides. And as for riding and sailing ... well, he had yet to mount a horse that could succeed in unseating him, and he had his own yacht and was interested in water-polo.

  The white-hot sunlight of Granada did wonderful things for his satin-smooth black hair, and like Angela he had quite a noticeable jaw ... softened in her case because she was feminine. And Madame Rende, who had been presented to him quite recently, knew that he had a pair of lustrous, if slightly mocking, dark eyes.

  She was not a woman to be made to feel

  uncomfortable, even when circumstances were against her, but Don Felipe Martinez had actually, for some reason, made her feel just a little uncomfortable and by no means as sure as she usually was of the eminence she thought she had created for herself in life.

  What sort of an effect he would have on a girl like Angela she actually shuddered to think ... unless, of course, she was in love with him. And if Angela Grevil, who was being groomed for marriage, was in love, then Madame was slipping. She was actually being deceived.

  CHAPTER II

  Angela, who had been pulling a dress over her head, and doing it rather awkwardly and hastily while her fiance was making his way into the presence of her grandmother, emerged with her hair a little ruffled and a complete absence of anything that could be described as either joy or excitement in her face to meet the sudden smirk on the lips of Madame Renee, and the obvious insinuation in her eyes despite her own very private beliefs.

  ‘The session is ended, mademoiselle,’ she told her, as if she understood perfectly that it would be downright cruelty to detain her when anyone so vitally important to her whole future happiness had arrived. ‘Senor Martinez is here, and of course he will wish to see you! ... You cannot wait to see him! We will deal with the matter of the hem another day. For the moment there is enough to attend to with the embroidery on the bodice and the going-away clothes—’

  But Angela ran a hasty comb through her hair and shook her head.

  ‘It is all right, madame ... Don Felipe is not here to see me! He will have come for a word with my grandmother.’

  ‘But, mademoiselle! ...’ arching her eyebrows dramatically. Angela replaced the gold-mounted comb on the dressing-table, that was littered with all sorts of toilet bottles, and was the most delightfully feminine thing in the room, and took a long, probing look at herself in the mirror.

  ‘You are French, madame,’ she reminded her. ‘Are not these things sometimes arranged in France?’

  ‘Ah, oui!’ Madame pretended to look enlightened. And then her whole face puckered as she strove to express denial of such a situation, and thrust out her hands. ‘But you are so young, mademoiselle!’ she protested. ‘So young, and—if one is permitted to say so!—so pretty!’ Secretly she thought she would be prettier in a year or so’s time. ‘And when your wedding dress is finished you will look quite ravissante.... And also, you are partly English,’ she added, as if that altered the situation whichever way you looked at it, the English being a different breed from either the French or the Spanish.

  The girl smiled bleakly at her reflection in the mirror and admitted as much.

  ‘My father was English,’ she agreed.

  ‘And you bear an English name. The English are terribly independent!’ Once again she thrust out her hands, as if she had encountered that independence on more than one occasion to her cost.

  Angela continued to smile, without any actual

  brightening of her eyes, and wielded a lipstick experimentally.

  ‘This is too pale for me,’ she declared, as she viewed the result with distaste. ‘It is much too young-girlish. I should like to be more sophisticated!’

  But Madame Renee shook her head at her, and for the first time offered her a piece of advice which she knew was quite valuable.

  ‘No, no, mademoiselle, you must not grow up too soon! It is a great mistake! When once the ageing process begins it travels at speed, and that is a thing all women must deplore! ’ With a nod of her head she indicated to the other two that they could commence gathering up the wedding gown and all the attendant materials, and then she walked across to the dressing-table and laid a hand—rather hard and bony-looking, but marvellously deft when handling costly silks— on her youthful customer’s arm.

  ‘Listen, my dear,’ she said, speaking in English, ‘you will find that your double nationality will harm you a little at times. The English are not merely independent, they carry this independence to extremes ... and if only you were one hundred per cent Spanish, or even one hundred per cent French, you would look forward to your marriage with delight. It would not matter to you in the least that Don Felipe is so much older, and so very much more experienced. But as it is—! ’ And she rolled her eyes expressively.

  ‘As it is?’ Angela looked at her intently, with sudden interest. As it is, madame ...?’

  The older woman laid a cautious finger to her lips, and looked warningly at the two other occupants of the room.

  ‘I should not speak to you like this, Miss Grevil, and your esteemed grandmother might find it hard to thank me if I offer you some advice—But I feel that I must, all the same! You see, I have English blood myself—in fact, my mother was English!—and I know what it is to feel—well, outside things! These arranged marriages—so practical, so very sensible from so very many points of view, and so extremely unromantic—do sometimes turn out to be the most sensible marriages of all! They can even be happy marriages, but it is a matter of bringing the right approach to them ... the

  right—’

  She sought for a word, which her limited amount of contact with her mother’s family made difficult, and Angela helped her out.

  ‘The right attitude of mind?’ The sea-blue English eyes sparkled contemptuously. A submissive attitude? ’

  Madame Renee nodded her head.

  ‘It is always better to submit,’ she said. ‘To fight does nothing but harm oneself! ’

  Angela tried to look appreciative of the other woman’s good intentions, but the antagonistic sparkle remained in her eyes.

  ‘I will see what I can do about it, madame,’ she promised.

  There came a light tap on the door, and a smartly uniformed sleek-haired maid put in her head. With the same amount of awe in her voice that might have been expected to be there if she had been about to announce a miracle, she declared:

  ‘The Senor Don Felipe Martinez is waiting to see you, senorita! He is in the salon! ... He says that he has little time to spare, so will you be so good as to hurry and not keep him waiting!’

  Angela and Madame Renee looked at one another. Madame Renee smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Remember that you will look tres charmante on the day! ’ she urged. ‘I, personally, will see to that!’ Angela did not actually thank her, but she sent her a thoughtful look and then hurried after the maid along the corridor. The house, at that hour, was as still as a pool—barely an hou
r before the silver-toned gong in the hall announced luncheon—and the polished marble flags in the hall reflected the outlines of the handsome black oak Spanish furniture as if they were indeed composed of water, with an iridescent shimmer where a determined shaft of the bright sunlight outside found its way through one of the slats of the securely closed green shutters. The dimness rendered the place mysterious, and it certainly helped the coolness, which was additionally aided by whirring electric fans, although there was nothing in the way of air-conditioning.

  Dona Miranda, unlike many Spanish women of her class, liked to be surrounded by flowers, and they gleamed waxily in the gloom as Angela and the maid walked past towering erections of blooms that were heavily scented, and mingled with the perfume of a cigarette that the man who had been waiting impatiently in the salon, and had just stepped out into the hall to meet them, had absent-mindedly crushed out in a fine specimen of a pot-plant that was sharing a jardiniere with other plants.

  He realised too late what he had done, and muttered irritably to himself. Why did women have to surround themselves with these things? His own mother amongst them! Flowers were meant to grow in a garden, and not to be brought into a house.

  ‘Ah, buenos dias, senoritaV He bowed low before his fiancee, and then possessed himself of her hand and kissed it lightly. ‘I trust that I have not burst in upon you at an inconvenient moment? Dona Miranda said something about you being shut away from the world with your dressmaker— But even dressmakers have to be dismissed when other, more pressing, problems have to be dealt with. And it is a question of a setting for a sapphire ring! ’

  ‘Oh yes?’ But there was little enthusiasm in Angela’s tone as she glanced at him for a moment. She led the way into the salon, which he had just vacated. ‘I have been receiving fittings for my wedding gown, senor, but no doubt to a man that is scarcely important.’

  There was great dryness in her tone, and to say that it astonished him was no understatement. He glanced at her far more sharply and alertly than she had glanced at him, observed that she was wearing something pale and cool in linen, and that her burnt-gold hair was quite casually caught back with a hair-ribbon that took at least four years off her acknowledged nineteen, and was the same colour as her dress, and thought—as he had thought once or twice before—that in some ways she was rather a curious and an aloof little thing.