The Wings of the Morning Page 5

  The Marques, too, had seen all the places poor Gerald still hoped to visit before he died, and when lunch was over the latter carried the guest off to his study with him and asked wistful questions about the climate on the other side of the world. From this topic they progressed to subjects that had no bearing whatsoever on climate or climatic conditions, and by tea-time, and to the astonishment of the feminine side of the Sheridan household the Marques stayed to tea — Kathie’s father was looking happier than he had done for a long time, if a little dazed.

  Eileen went about with a bright, vivacious look on her face, and a soft look in her eyes every time they encountered Sebastiao’s. She was beginning to suffer from perpetual flutterings in the region of her heart, and when her father succeeded in keeping the important guest closeted for so long in his study, a thought attacked her that rendered her absolutely breathless as she assisted with the washing-up in the kitchen — or rather, put one or two things away while the rest did the actual washing and drying. And when Kathie took up her position at the kitchen table to make a hasty batch of scones for tea, and a few almond croquettes besides, the thought was so shattering that it caused the color to waver in her cheeks.

  The Marques had struck her as a very forthright person, and it was unusual for a man in his position to have very much in common with a retired, elderly stick like her father. Even if they discussed their old school, and the changes brought about by time to an establishment that never changed on the surface — an institution that drew men together from all four corners of the world if they had once been a part of it — the discussion could not go on for ever, and when Eileen glanced at the clock she saw that it was fully two hours since they disappeared from view. Two hours ... And her father not normally a talker! What, then, were they finding to talk about...?

  In the sitting-room Mrs. Sheridan placed a vase of fresh blooms in the middle of the table with its lace- edged cloth, and over the delicate array of Minton china and the silver spirit kettle her eyes met those of her favorite daughter.

  “You look flushed, darling,” she said. “Why not slip upstairs and put some powder on your face, and slip into something fresh? Your yellow jersey dress, with the silvergilt girdle.” Her eyes were conspiratorial. “And the turquoise earrings that go so well with that dress.”

  As Eileen obeyed her, and went flying away up the stairs, Bridie — to whom the Marques had been gravely charming — thought contemptuously that that sort of thing never really landed you your man. You had to be much more subtle ... Oh, much, much more subtle!

  When the Marques rejoined them he was looking perfectly cool and composed, and Mr. Sheridan preferred to have his usual solitary tea in his study. Eileen was as golden as a daffodil in her yellow jersey dress, and the turquoise earrings looked like turquoise flowers in her ears. Her eyes went straight to the Marques when he entered the room...

  “I humbly beg your pardon,” he said to Mrs. Sheridan, bowing to her in his quaint and very formal fashion, “for absenting myself for the entire afternoon; but I had much to talk about to Mr. Sheridan ... Much to talk about!”

  Kathie handed him his tea, and he commented on the delicious lightness of the scones. She felt herself coloring — as a matter of fact, she was still hot from the stove — as she admitted that she had made them, and his eyes grew mildly quizzical as they roved over her face.

  “You seem to be an extraordinarily capable young woman.” His white teeth gleamed at her a little. “Secretary, cook — and you undoubtedly prevented me from catching cold the other night!”

  Eileen’s eyes were questioning, but he refrained from satisfying her curiosity. Mrs. Sheridan drew him into conversation about his stepmother, and said how sorry she was that she hadn’t had an opportunity of meeting her. She was almost certainly charming! But perhaps there would be an opportunity after all? If Lady Fitz was to be lucky enough to keep her guests a little longer?

  “A week,” Sebastiao answered, with great preciseness. “I shall remain here another week, and then I shall go to London. My stepmother may accompany me, or she may return direct to Portugal. I imagine she will return direct to Portugal.”

  “And after London?” Mrs. Sheridan enquired, archly. “Not Paris? I expect you know Paris very well.”

  “I have an apartment there. But it is not my intention to visit Paris in the immediate future. As soon as my business in London is completed I, too, shall return to Portugal.”

  Eileen looked as if she had a hard job not to protest, but her mother sent her a warning look. He turned to Bridie and asked her what her hobbies were, and she admitted that collecting gramophone records was one of them. He stayed to hear one or two of the records, and then rose to take his departure. He thanked his hostess graciously for her entertainment, and bowed over her hand, and then bowed over each of the girls’ hands in turn. Eileen tried to persuade herself that his look for her was particularly personal — that it even promised something — but in her heart she knew that she was deceiving herself, and beside her Bridie smiled faintly with the contempt anything too obvious aroused in her. Kathie was the last to have her hand gripped, and she was also persuaded to accompany him into the hall.

  “If my godmother invites you to dinner tomorrow night will you come?” he asked quietly.

  “T-tomorrow night?”

  “She will of course send her car for you.”

  “But—but why should Lady Fitz...?”

  “Will you come?” he insisted.

  She put back her head and looked up at him, and clear brown eyes and dark blue ones met, and for several seconds continued to meet. Kathie felt as if something extraordinary hadn’t merely happened, but was actually happening to her ... And that it was going on happening while she gazed up startled into his face. Just as the echoes from the loch on Sunday morning had sought to warn her, now his eyes were preparing her for something quite inevitable.

  Quite inevitable ...? How absurd! What on earth was the matter with her? What was she thinking?... She felt confused and bewildered, and stammered at last:

  “If—if I receive an invitation ... I will come!”

  “You will receive an invitation,” he assured her, and let go of her hand and released her from the blue searchlight compulsion of his eyes at the same time.

  When he had gone Eileen and her mother looked at one another. Bridie suddenly laughed.

  “What is it, I wonder, that you possess and we obviously don’t?” she questioned, looking at Kathie. “For the second time you, and you only, are singled out for attention!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  KATHIE wore a very becoming, but old, leaf green dress, and a pair of Eileen’s cast-off sandals in brown suede when she went to dinner at Mount Osborne the following night. Eileen didn’t watch her go, but remained shut up in her room sullenly concentrating on giving herself a new kind of facial treatment as the old-fashioned Daimler bore Kathie away from Little Carrig.

  On arrival at Mount Osborne Kathie found Lady Fitz bubbling over with some kind of secret excitement, but wearing a slightly dazed expression all the same. She took one look at Kathie, approved the green dress but frowned at the suede shoes, and carried her off to her bedroom where she insisted on her borrowing a slim pair of black satin slippers with diamante buckles for the evening.

  “They are not quite right for you, but they’re more ladylike than those too glamorous accessories of Eileen’s,” she pointed out. “Stiletto heels may be all right for certain occasions, but this isn’t one of them.” Kathie gazed at her godmother in astonishment.

  “But surely it doesn’t matter...? — My feet won’t show below the dinner table.”

  “You won’t be spending the entire evening with your feet beneath the dinner table,” Lady Fitz exclaimed. She was unlocking her jewel case, and she hurriedly handed Kathie her pearls. “Put these on. They’re just right for your skin. I’ll have to give them to you for a wedding present.”

  “I wouldn’t accept them,” Kathie gasped, qui
te shocked by the idea. “As if I would accept anything so valuable from you, even if I was thinking of getting married, and I don’t think I ever will.”

  Lady Fitz smiled at her oddly.

  “You might be surprised at what you’ll be doing before long,” she remarked, and then hustled Kathie towards the door. “The Marquesa dislikes being kept waiting for her pre-dinner aperitif,” she explained. “And she is not in a good humor today!”

  Kathie found that this was quite true when they entered the drawing-room. The Marquesa, wearing her inevitable black, was sitting tightly in a corner, and her eyes were the hard black buttons Kathie had thought them at first. Her fingers blazed with rings, and instead of returning the girl’s shy smile, she gazed fixedly at her hands, and barely acknowledged her arrival. Sebastiao, on the other hand, stood up at once and came towards Kathie.

  He was wearing an unusual black velvet dinner jacket and a soft silk shirt, and Kathie felt herself literally almost brought up short by his staggering good looks. The rays from the chandelier above his head shone down on his burnt-gold hair — in certain lights it reminded Kathie of ears of wheat that had been lightly scorched by the sun — but its brilliance had nothing to do with wheat. Its brilliance was the result of vigorous brushing with exactly the right type of hair-brush, and possibly just a light application of hair-cream. He shaved himself beautifully, and the smooth darkness of his skin was an effective contrast with his light eyebrows. How his eyelashes managed to be quite so dark and quite so luxuriant Kathie couldn’t imagine.

  “Kathie, my dear, you look like the very spirit of Ould Ireland,” he told her, smiling at her with a kind of affection — the affection he might have reserved for a young sister newly released from boarding school. “In that dress you could be a dryad, and live in the greenwood. And on Sunday morning I thought you were the spirit of the loch.”

  It was the first time he had called her Kathie, and she felt her heart give an unexpected plunge. Before that it had been Senhorita Kathie, or simply senhorita. Now, all at once, it was ‘Kathie, my dear!’

  “Come and sit down,” he said. He led her to the fire, for the evening was chilly, and her hands had felt cold to his touch, and then himself fetched her a glass of sherry. “The color of your eyes,” he told her, gazing at her as if he was making discoveries about her.

  Lady Fitz seemed anxious for them to enter the dining-room, and she was plainly relieved when the dinner gong sounded at last. Kathie’s eyes, in addition to resembling the liquid in her glass, were beginning to look wide and questioning, and the Marquesa was determined to add nothing at all to the conversation.

  The dinner — as always, at Mount Osborne — was excellent, and then came coffee in the drawing-room once more, and the manservant building up the fire with fragrant-smelling logs. Kathie caught sight of her diamante shoe-buckles winking at her, and then out of the tail of her eye she recognized that Sebastiao was watching her. He was balancing his Sevres cup in his hand, and the firelight was playing over the crested ring on his little finger. Suddenly the crest came nearer, and he touched her hand lightly.

  “Come outside,” he said softly. “It’s warm in here.”

  “Outside?”

  “The Garden Room.” For an instant his smile could have been impish, and as always she was slightly dazzled by the abrupt parting of his lips and the flashing whiteness of his teeth. “There’s the usual mist hiding the loch, and there won’t be any stars if we go for a walk, and in any case you’ll get your feet soaked in those thin shoes. So let’s renew our acquaintance with the Garden Room.”

  She was about to ask — as she seemed to be asking

  so much nowadays — “But why —?” when Lady Fitz glanced at her, and although she was laying out Patience cards while the Marquesa looked like dropping into a doze on the other side of the fireplace, there was such a look of alertness and intentness on the hostess’s face that Kathie was quite surprised by it. It said to her plainly, “Don’t ask questions, my dear!” And Kathie decided not to ask questions, or look as if she thought it an odd thing that the noble Marques should wish to spend any part of his evening in the Garden Room with her.

  For one thing, it was just a garden room, not a conservatory, and there was nothing particularly inspiring about the sight of the tools collected there, the watering-cans, and the piled-up vases. There wasn’t even a chair to sit down on, and the mist seemed to be pressing close against the glass of the windows when they entered.

  Sebastiao turned on the electric fire, and Kathie stood warming her hands at it, just as she had done on the first evening that she had met him.

  “Not cold?” he asked, with a show of concern, as she seemed to repress a shiver.

  She shook her head. How could she explain to him that it was a shiver of uneasiness — or something strange like apprehension — that had raised momentary goose pimples on her flesh? That inside her leaf green dress, with its out-of-date lines, she was suddenly taut for no reason that she could think of, save that it was a new experience to be alone with an attractive man at night. One, moreover, who gazed at her rather oddly and persistently.

  He dragged forward a disused garden bench for her to sit down on, but she refused, even though he went so far as to offer to turn his beautiful dinner jacket into a cushion for her to sit down on.

  “No, no!” she protested, in horror lest the dinner jacket was soiled. “You mustn’t do that! I don’t want to sit down.”

  “Then we will both stand,” he said. He took her hands and held them with extreme firmness. “Kathleen, I wish to make you a formal proposal of marriage. I wish to ask you to be my wife!”

  She stared at him, her mouth falling slightly open, her eyes incredulous.

  “W-what are you saying?” she whispered.

  He didn’t smile.

  “I have your father’s permission,” he assured her. “I spoke to him about it the other day when I had lunch with your family. In fact, it was my reason for having lunch with your family!”

  She found it quite impossible to utter a sound.

  “I also have Lady Fitz’s permission, if that means very much to you.” This time he did smile slightly. “She is very fond of you, and I think I have made her very happy. All that remains now is for you to reassure me about your willingness to exchange a most unsuitable background for one that will be more becoming to a young woman of your delightful appearance and excellent qualities.”

  The Garden Room spun round Kathie, and she made a little clutching movement at the Marques’s arm. He responded by putting it round her and holding her strongly. There were strange noises in her ears — the most disconcerting hollow booming noises — and there seemed to be a wheel revolving in her head, and making her feel dizzy. In addition to these serious discomforts, she was quite sure there was something radically wrong with her hearing powers.

  “You — you had lunch with my family in order to — to get my father’s permission...?” she stammered at last.

  “Naturally,” Sebastiao said smoothly. “Without your father’s consent I could not have approached you!”

  “But—but...” She wanted to laugh suddenly, hysterically. (Was she doomed to say nothing but ‘But’?) “In any case, I thought it was Eileen you admired. You behaved as if you did!”

  “Eileen?” He sounded supremely disdainful. “Don’t you realize that lovely young women have pursued me almost all of my life? And your sister is nothing more than a pretty little gold-digger who would like very much to become a marquesa! My dear girl!” as she flinched from this description of her close relative. “I had Eileen summed up within ten seconds of meeting her, but I’ll admit I was appalled by her obvious methods. Your mother is not particularly wise, because she aids and abets her, but your father is everything a father of yours should be. I liked him very much.”

  “I’m — I’m glad,” she said faintly.

  “Your sister Bridie is more sensible than your other sister, but I dislike the way she allows
you to be kept in the background.” He frowned and mimicked her mother: “Kathie, fetch some more hot water, Kathie, offer the scones, Kathie, answer the telephone! It went on all the time, and I was simply furious! I thought how happy I shall be when I remove you from that little nest of unappreciative females!”

  Kathie gave her head a shake, and pushed him away from her. She looked at him with eyes she strove to make clear, and lucid, and understanding.

  “You don’t really realize what you’re saying,” she said gently. “You can’t possibly want to marry me, because there isn’t a single reason why you should have even the faintest desire to do so. And only a few days ago you told me that you would never marry again!”

  “I said that I would never marry for the reasons I married the first time,” he corrected her just as gently. “That is, for love, and all the usual things one marries for!” She felt as if a cold air was blowing through the Garden Room, and the wheel stopped spinning in her head. “This time my marriage will be for quixotic reasons, perhaps, but I think they’re admirable. I shall not in future be pestered by eager young women like your sister Eileen — and their even more eager mammas! — and my stepmother will no longer be able to drive home to me the advantages of a union that she would like to see contracted in my own country. Ever since my widowerhood she has been trying to persuade me to marry a certain young woman, and I know that it would be better not.” His face grew quiet and thoughtful.