Nurse for the Doctor (18 page)

The friends, when they arrived, proved to be the extremely handsome-looking elderly couple who had had tea at the house the day after Dona Amelie’s return, and with them was a young man who, if he was not precisely handsome, was at least unusually personable. He must have been somewhere in his middle thirties, had the keen clever look of the lawyer which it later transpired, he was and at first sight of Josie his dark eyes expressed approval. So much approval that for a few seconds it confounded her a little, until the elderly man who was his uncle laughed and paid Josie the first outrageous compliment she had ever received in her life: “You are as lovely as a flower,
senorita
! So lovely that if all English flowers are like you I would like to spend the remainder of my days in England!”

His wife beamed as if she shared his sentiments to the letter, and when they set off it was in an atmosphere of extreme cordiality and expectations of a very pleasant evening.

Josie shared the back seat of the car with the lawyer, while the elder man drove, and his wife sat beside him. Josie’s escort, who also wore a white camellia in his buttonhole, asked her whether she was looking forward to the party.

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much about it,” Josie confessed. “In fact, I don’t really know anything about it—who’s giving it, or why.”

“It’s a birthday party,” the young man explained, in his grave, precise fashion. “It should be rather amusing.”

But he said nothing further on the subject, contenting himself with stealing side glances at Josie every few seconds, and when they arrived it was obvious that he intended to monopolize her as much as possible throughout the evening.

Josie could tell as soon as they entered the restaurant where the party was being held that it was one of Madrid’s most expensive and exclusive. There was an atmosphere of lushness that was sobered by discreetness, soft lights, many flowers, an orchestra that played away softly but never intruded itself upon the diners, unless they wished to join other diners on the glistening dance floor.

All the tables appeared to be filled when they arrived, but there was one table, much larger than the rest, where four places were still vacant—their places. Candles glowed amongst the flowers that seemed literally to bestrew this table, and an enormous birthday cake was its centrepiece. The birthday-cake was decorated with pink and white sugar icing, and the name SYLVIA was inscribed across it.

Josie glimpsed the name on the cake before she actually glimpsed Sylvia herself, and then it was to find that Miss Petersen was looking at her with slightly elevated, carefully plucked eyebrows. The American girl was wearing a mist of hedge-rose pink, to match her birthday cake, and a spray of creamily-pink orchids was attached by some skilful means to her bare shoulder. As usual, her small ears, and her throat, and her wrists, were ablaze with the jewels she favored most—diamonds. And to Josie, she looked like the fairy on the Christmas tree—or the tinsel ornament that should have adorned the birthday cake.

Josie heard someone say her name: “By all that’s wonderful, it’s Josie!” and she looked up into Michael Duveen’s blue eyes. He was so frankly delighted to see her that he reached across the table and grasped at both of her hands. “But I didn’t even know you were in Madrid! How did this come about?”

Before Josie could reply another voice, quiet, deep, perplexed, fell on her ears: “Yes, how
did
this come about, Josie?”

Josie lifted her eyes to the marquis’s chin—square and strong as she remembered it—to the beautifully shaped mouth, the straight, slightly arrogant nose, the eyes that were so dark and lustrous that they haunted her nightly in her dreams. She opened her mouth to say something, but found that no words would leave her lips, and the friends who had brought her with them made the explanation for her. The marquis’ eyebrows sank a little, his eyes seemed to narrow slightly, and he looked at Josie, in her dress of drifting white lace, as if he had never seen her before.

“You can be quite certain that we are delighted to have you,” he said. And then he waited for them to be seated before giving an order for the champagne cocktails to be served.

Josie had only a confused impression of how the remainder of that night passed. She knew that there were toasts—Sylvia’s health, and many happy returns of her birthday drunk in champagne—that the food was marvellous (or. would have been if the capacity for tasting anything hadn’t dried up in her mouth), that people were nice to her, and Dona Maria rather more than nice. She asked affectionately after her aunt, and was concerned because the old lady hadn’t let them know anything about her return to Madrid. They had been fondly imagining her still down on the Costa Brava, where the marquis, apparently, had ordered her to remain, and it was something of a shock to discover that she had made a long journey without even notifying them of her intentions.

Josie was in no mood to care very much just then whether Dona Amelie had notified them or not, and Dona Maria found her a little reserved in her answers. Michael seized every opportunity to talk to her, telling her she was quite lovely in Dona Maria’s hearing, and the young lawyer who was in actual fact her partner for the evening grew noticeably restive when it seemed she was likely to be monopolized elsewhere, and asked her as soon as he could to dance with him.

It was a perfect floor, and she enjoyed the dance, but she didn’t even look to see whether the marquis, in spite of the slight awkwardness that the possession of only one arm might occasion, led Sylvia out on to the floor. She only knew that there were several other young men who all, in turn, danced with Sylvia—the star of the evening—and one or two of them also danced with Josie. Michael danced with her twice—the first time holding her so closely that she thought it must be noticeable.

When they returned to the table the marquis was sitting there alone with one of his guests, talking to him as if absorbed, but when Michael disappeared, and the other guest jumped up to claim a young woman who had distinguished herself throughout the evening by having eyes for him alone, the host and the one guest he hadn’t expected to swell the party found themselves temporarily isolated together.

Josie didn’t wait for him to address her, but said in a cool, bright voice: “It’s a wonderful party! I had no idea it was going to be a birthday party.”

“Hadn’t you?” His eyes rested on her, and it struck her that they were intensely grave. “And you are enjoying it?”

“I’ve just said it’s a wonderful party!”

Her voice this time had a faint tinkling of ice in it.

He continued to look at her with that strange gravity. “Josie, it was very wrong of my aunt to attempt that journey. And without letting me know. Why didn’t you let me know?”

She looked at him as if mildly surprised.

“Dona Amelie is my employer,” she reminded him. “If she didn’t wish to let you know, then naturally I could hardly go behind her back.”

“But there was no one to meet you ... You should have been met. Arrangements should have been made. And it shouldn’t have been necessary for you to be brought to a party of this sort because one of the other guests fell out.”

“Shouldn’t it?” Her eyebrows ascended a little. “But it was lucky for me that the other guest fell out, wasn’t it? Unless, of course, you feel that my inclusion is a little bit of an intrusion? After all, I suppose I hardly rank as a friend of your family, but Dona Amelie is so kind that that aspect of it probably didn’t occur to her.”

He looked at her so hard for a few moments that she had to look away.

“Do you really think that that is what I meant when I said you should not have been brought to a party of this sort in the way you were?”

She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“It doesn’t matter, does it, so long as you are not annoyed? Or Miss Petersen is not annoyed...” She looked away across the room, and the thrumming of a guitar seemed to be beating into her brain. “I shall remember how fond you are of guitars in this country when I get back to England. Its melancholy music, but exciting, somehow ... And that reminds me. Dona Amelie is so very much better that I should like to be able to leave her very soon now. I don’t mean that I haven’t been happy with her, but I must go home to England, so perhaps you could arrange something? Although really Carlotta is extremely capable, and looks after her very well.”

He was just about to reply when Sylvia came whirling back to the table, her recent dance partner beside her, and Michael made his reappearance.

“They’re about to play a tango, Josie!” he said. “Come on!” And literally drew her up out of her chair.

When they were well away from the table, and the others, he spoke seriously.

“You do realize what this party means, don’t you, Josie?”

“Means?” She looked up at him a trifle blankly.

“Yes. I was watching you just now, and—I don’t want you to be upset! But as a kind of tailpiece there’s almost certain to be an announcement. Do you think you can stand it?”

“Stand it?” Her eyes were wide, and then all at once she fully comprehended what he meant. A lavish birthday party given for a lovely girl, the giver of the party a man who had been paying her attention for many weeks ... an announcement of an engagement. A betrothal, as the Spaniards would call it.

Suddenly she recalled that night when the marquis had kissed her—and she wondered rather dazedly whether he made a practice of kissing young women like herself like that! Young women who were alone, and out of their element in a foreign land. But, no—surely not. Surely he was not like that. She remembered what he had said about the rewards of virtue—about being sweeter for waiting, and suddenly she knew that she had been living with those words for the past few weeks. That they were words that had buoyed her up, and kept her hoping in spite of common sense...

But, now ... Any minute now perhaps she would hear something she couldn’t bear to hear. She felt almost panic-stricken. Michael saw the panic in her face.

“You could slip away,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

“No—that would be too obvious! And Dona Maria would wonder! No, I—but I must go!”

Then she remembered her young lawyer. He had regarded her reproachfully across the room several times while she was dancing with Michael, and as soon as she could persuade the latter to let her go she smiled at him. He came to her side at once.

“Senor Cavalho,” she said, a little pathetically, “I have a headache—the sort of head one gets sometimes after dancing too much. Or
I
do. I—I don’t really feel like remaining much longer. Do you think...?” And she looked at him almost beseechingly.

“But of course,
senorita
,” he answered at once, and she could see that there was genuine sympathy in his face. “I’m a little inclined to suffer from migraine myself, so I can fully sympathize with you. If you like to slip away and fetch your wrap I’ll be waiting for you in the main entrance.”

“Oh, that is kind of you!” There were tears not very far away from her eyes.

He smiled, and he had a very nice smile.

“Perhaps I am hoping that my kindness will bring its own reward. Sometime when you are free of the headache perhaps you will let me—see you again.”

“Perhaps,” she answered, although at the back of her mind she knew that she was never likely to see him again under the circumstances he suggested. She had only one real thought in her mind just then, and it was a thought that would grow stronger with daylight.

She had stayed in Spain too long, but now that Dona Amelie was really better she could go away at once. She must go away at once.

There was a light burning softly in the hall when she returned to the house where Dona Amelie slept peacefully, with her devoted maid in the adjoining room. And having said good night—or it should, strictly, have been good morning—to Senor Cavalho, and thanked him afresh, she crept upstairs to her room and turned the key in the lock.

She didn’t know why she locked her door, except that she wanted to feel absolutely safe from intrusion. She couldn’t have faced inquiring eyes just then, while she got rid of the white lace dress that had done so little to ensure for her a happy evening.

CHAPTER XVI

The
next morning, in spite of such a short night, she made her way to Dona Amelie’s room early. The old lady was lying comfortably against her pillows, sorting out her morning’s mail, and drinking very black coffee, which she enjoyed. But she looked up eagerly at Josie when she entered. “Well?” she asked. “Did you have a pleasant evening?”

“It was very pleasant,
senora
.”

“And the dress?—It was admired?”

“I—I don’t know. But it was very good of you to give it to me, and to lend me your wrap, and the pearls. I have handed the pearls back to Carlotta, who has restored them to your safe.”

Dona Amelie said nothing, but she lay looking up at her with very shrewd, bright eyes.

“My nephew has already telephoned,” she announced. “He was very cross because I neglected to let him know of our return to Madrid, and also I think he is a little annoyed because you were at the party last night—the birthday party for Miss Petersen!” She watched Josie closely. “And apparently you left early!”

“I—I had a headache. Senor Cavalho brought me home.”

“Hm,!” Dona Amelie examined a pale beige envelope of the crackly kind that meant that her correspondent was as well placed as herself. “A pity, because I hoped you would enjoy yourself thoroughly. However, perhaps you are a little over-tired after concentrating so much on myself,” and she smiled—but whether wisely or gently, Josie could not tell. “My nephew has invited himself to dinner tonight, and it is to be an early dinner because he has some sort of engagement afterwards.”

Josie clutched suddenly at the bed post.

“To dinner...?” Then she took a deep breath. “
Senora
,” she got out, with difficulty.