Man of Destiny (6 page)

As day followed day, and still Dom Vasco did not come, Caroline began to wonder what she ought to do about it. Their quarters were luxurious, but somewhat confined, as they were never expected to use the main rooms, except for meals, when the dining-
sala
was thrown open to them. And then it was somewhat of an ordeal, just the pair of them at the enormous table, with so much crystal and valuable china in use that Caroline was terrified lest Richard should have an accident and break something irreplaceable. And it seemed absurd to hav
e
a manservant waiting on them as well as a parlourmaid, when in a room of their own they could have dispensed with being waited on at all, or had one of the under-housemaids deputed for the task.

The drawing-room, or main
sala,
was always kept locked, and the only time Caroline had had an opportunity to study its furnishings was on the day of their arrival, when she poured out coffee for Senhor de Capuchos, as for some reason she preferred to think of him, after their first lunch in the impressive dining-room.

Now that there was no Senhor de Capuchos everything was a little flat, although certainly without any stresses. Their day began at seven in the morning, when they were aroused by one of the maids, and then breakfast was served to them at that solemn, long table—a breakfast of fruit and fruit juice, coffee, rolls, and many kinds of preserve. It was with difficulty that Caroline obtained milk for Richard, but she did obtain it by gentle insistence; and she also arranged for him
t
o be supported by cushions at the, table, otherwise he couldn’t possibly reach it.

After breakfast they went straight out into the garden, and from then on there was nothing much they could do apart from admire the scenery, play games when it wasn’t too hot, and watch the fish in the pond. Caroline wrote letters after lunch in her room, while Richard enjoyed a nap—she knew he was getting a little old for an afternoon nap, but it seemed rather pointless starting to deprive him of it
when there was nothing very much to put in its place.

It was true that they had one or two books, which they had brought with them
f
rom Africa, and they dipped into these faithfully. Richard’s reading improved with great strides as a result of his concentration on these books, and Caroline provided him with notepaper so that he was able to practise handwriting. But it was English handwriting, and they were English books he read, and if he was to go to a Portuguese school it seemed highly desirable that he should get to know Portuguese characters as well as English before very long.

For toys he had a somewhat moth-eaten lion, which had been bought him in Africa, and a pocket Solitaire which neither he nor Caroline could fail to work out successfully, even with their eyes closed.

After a week of this sort of unvarying day-to-day routine Caroline decided that it must end. She had had an airmail letter from
Il
se announcing dramatically that her marriage was
off,
and demanding news of Richard as if he was the one thing she lived for. And she thought this demand for information was a sufficient excuse for her seeking out Dom Vasco, if—as it seemed—he had no immediate intention of re-seeking out her and her charge.

So, although it greatly upset Senhora Lopes, and even Joachim, the chauffeur, looked distinctly dubious when given instructions about the destination to which he was to convey them, they set off one afternoon when the heat of the day had subsided a little, in the old-fashioned Daimler which was the means of transport placed at their disposal, and glided sedately through the lanes until they came to a surprisingly
modern
-looking white house set in a delightfully shady garden and she pressed the bell
on a gleaming, white-painted door, and Dom Vasco himself flung open the door and stared in surprise at his visitors.

He had been standing in the middle of a hall that was all cool black and white marble tiles and graceful arches, beneath which one could catch glimpses of other parts of the house, such as an open door to an enclosed courtyard, or patio, and a staircase that wound upwards like an uncurling fan to unseen rooms above, and with him was a woman of such elegance and quiet, restrained beauty that Caroline was fascinated by her.
She was like an exquisite portrait viewed through gauze, or a faded photograph of someone very beautiful
... someone who must, once, have been absolutely ravishing. Her hair was still dark, and she wore it in a neat little knot on the nape of her neck; her eyes were dark—magnificent, pansy-like eyes; she had a skin like a paper-white rose. And she was dressed by a top-ranking couturier with
modern
ideas.

A slim dress in elegant black and white, a hat that sat jauntily on the sleek hair and was a kind of white straw sombrero, long white gloves and elegant shoes
.
She carried a neatly furled white sunshade, and was plainly about to depart. He
r
hand had actually been in Dom Vasco’s at the moment that Caroline rang the bell.

Dom Vasco could plainly hardly believe the evidence of his eyes.

“There is something wrong?” he demanded.
“Ricardo is
ill...
?
” And then he saw that Ricardo was obviously well,
and standing beside—or a little behind—Caroline in the entrance.

“I’m sorry if we arrive at an awkward time,
senhor
...”
Caroline began awkwardly, and he forgot his surprise and became extremely urbane and polite and invited her and his employer’s great-nephew to come inside out of the hot afternoon sun. He made some
sotto voce
remark to the effect that quite a lot of people found it necessary to rest in the afternoon, particularly in a country where the temperature was so consistently high at that hour of the day, and then without enquiring further why they had come presented them to his lady visitor.

“Carmelita, this is Ricardo’s governess, Miss Caroline Worth. You have not yet met Ricardo, but he has already acquired the knack of making of himself something of a nuisance
... and will be an excellent Portuguese subject one of these days!” He smiled quite amiably at the boy, who was beautifully brushed and gleaming with cleanliness, and looking very handsome in a dark, slightly undersized, Portuguese way. “Say ‘how do you do’ to the
senhorita,
Ricardo,” he ordered. “You will be seeing quite a lot of one another in the future.”

Richard obeyed, using the Portuguese words with which he had been familiar for years, since his father was a Portuguese; and Carmelita smiled at him, also, and took his hand and murmured to him softly, in a really enchanting voice.

“Welcome to Portugal, Ricardo,” she said. “Welcome
home
!”
she added, with delicate emphasis.

Dom Vasco completed the introduction by letting Caroline know to whom she had been presented.

“My cousin, the Senhorita de Capuchos. By some odd coincidence I was discussing you with her just now.”

“
Oh, really?” Caroline said, feeling ridiculously nonplussed.

Carmelita de Capuchos looked faintly amused.

“Nothing to your detriment, Miss Worth, I assure you,” she said. “As a matter of fact I was hearing how extraordinarily successful you are with young men as youthful as this,” laying a slender, gloved hand on Richard’s head. “Apparently they become almost unbelievably devoted to you!”

She glanced round at her cousin and her glorious eyes fairly danced with amusement for a moment
.
“It is a pity you have not the same qualities,
querido.
Poor Ricardo must have been in much awe of you from the start.”

“Quite terrified,” Dom Vasco admitted in an unruffled manner, looking at Richard as if he was not yet quite certain of their attitude to one another. “However, I have hopes that one day we will be friends, eh, Ricardo?” he added. “Possibly at some distant future date very good friends
.
”

Senhorita de Capuchos laughed.

“You will have to be married before that happens, Vasco,” she told him. “Only marriage will soften you sufficiently to enable you to meet on equal terms such a one as this,” and again the gloved hand fluttered , lightly and rested on Richard’s head.

Dom Vasco looked as if the prediction merely amused him, although two pairs of rather remarkable dark eyes met and held one another’s gaze for rather a long moment, Caroline thought. And then Carmelita moved purposefully towards the door.

“I must leave you, my dear. Not only does Miss Worth wish some conversation with you, but I have promised to take tea with Senhora d’Albrantes. We
will meet again soon, I hope? It would be good if you would dine with us one evening soon.”

“How soon?” He was smiling down at her as he accompanied her to the door.

“Tomorrow evening?”
The graceful head was bent backwards as the slender brows rose a little archly.

“Tomorrow evening is perfectly convenient for me. In any case I would make it so in order to be with you and my aunt. Convey my warmest regards to her, won’t you
?
”

“Of course.” She gave him her hand, and he put back the glove a little and kissed the inside of her warm white wrist. “That is understood as always.”

“As always,” he murmured, and opened the door. “Your car is waiting
?
Or had your chauffeur instructions to pick you up later
?
”

“Here he is,” she answered, as a sleek black limousine made a faint crunching noise on the drive. “I had no idea how long I might be detained by you,” with laughter in her eyes as she turned and waved carelessly to Caroline.
“
Au revoir,
Miss Worth! I have no doubt we will meet again soon, and the next time I see you, Ricardo, I promise you an outsize box of sweets! You may even receive them before we meet again
!”

She disappeared into the sunshine on the drive with a soft swish of silk and a faint stirring up of the perfume she used rather lavishly, and Caroline waited until Dom Vasco returned after putting her into her car and watching it gliding away beneath the trees and out on to the road. And because she feared she had been guilty of an intrusion she apologised with a stiffness that sounded just a little ungracious.

“I realise that I shouldn’t have come here,
senhor
,
not without some sort of warning. I’m afraid Senhorita de Capuchos might have been driven away because of me.”

The man appeared mildly surprised.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he answered, casually, but his expression was preoccupied and he walked to the door of a room that was obviously his study and held it open for her and Richard to enter. “Please sit down,” he requested formally, pushing forward a deep leather chair for her, while Richard was plainly expected to stand, and then walked away to the , window and remained as if in a brown study staring
out into the garden.

Caroline felt certain she had blundered badly, and in addition she had made a discovery. This tall, aloof,
extremely masculine man whom she would have credited with little softness was preoccupied because a woman—to whom, it is true, he was related—who smelt like a whole bed of violets and looked like an enchanting Goya that had been subjected to rather too much strong sunlight had paid him a whirlwind visit, and gone away leaving much of her personality behind.

In fact, even this room, with its book-lined walls,
reeked of it
...
unless her imagination was working overtime. The glowing colours in the Bokhara rugs that strewed the polished floor, the warm chrome of the chairs, the amber of the curtains, might have been chosen by her, because although in appearance she was a paper-white rose, the whole essence of her was something that was quite intoxicating, Caroline felt sure.

And the fact that she was a cousin couldn’t matter very much, when she was such an enchanting
woman ... and in Portugal, in any case, those things didn’t matter. Far more important was
why
a marriage took place, and what purpose it would serve. Carmelita de Capuchos had the aura of a very rich woman, and Dom Vasco had the aura of a very rich man, despite the fact that he looked after another relative’s estates. Possibly it was a marriage that had been arranged for years. Possibly it was
planned to take place any moment now!

“Well,
senhorita
?” The cool voice addressed her across the room, while he thoughtfully smoked a cigarette and studied the tip of it. “What can I do for you and Ricardo? What brought you here this
af
ternoon
?
”

She explained in an awkward rush. She felt positively
gauche
after the departure of Carmelita.

“Richard hasn’t any
books
...
or only one or two. We have no schoolroom in which to work. I thought perhaps that something could be
arranged
...
It is important that we should have some system of working together.”

“But of course.” He strolled leisurely across the
room to her and studied her, instead of the tip of his cigarette, with an embarrassing directness. “It was very sensible of you to come and complain that you are both too idle. Boredom naturally results when there is not enough to do to keep the mind occupied. But this young man,” taking him by the shoulders and drawing him between his knees after seating himself in a chair, “is entitled to a little leisure while he is still
so young ...” H
e
glanced at her ironically.
“
I quote you, Miss Worth, that the young are entitled to quite a lot. And when school is
only a few months ahead, well, why not enjoy a period of idleness.
”

Richard, standing very stiffly between his knees, naturally enough didn’t answer. But Caroline did so for him.

“I mentioned boredom,
senhor.
It would be different if there was a library of books to which we had access.”

“Portuguese books?” One of his black eyebrows lifted, and his expression was drily amused.

She coloured faintly.

“Well, no, I’ll admit I was thinking of books in English, and possibly one or two on the subject of the Portuguese language. It is high time Richard started to learn Portuguese seriously, since he is to go to school here, and to all intents and purposes is Portuguese.”

“You mean his father was Portuguese, and he gets his nationality from him
?
Quite right! And if his father had had any sense he would have seen to it that his son spoke his native tongue fluently by
this
time.”

Caroline looked down at the
pleated skirt of her dress, and fingered it a little nervously. She admitted that she knew little or nothing about Richard’s father, except that it had been his wish that his son should be handed over to his relatives.

Dom Vasco said, “Quite right,” again. “There, at least, he showed sense. Although naturally we would not have expected the widow to be responsible for the upbringing of her son.”

“I had a letter from her the other day,” Caroline admitted, still pleating and unpleating the skirt of her dress. “She is very anxious to receive news of Richard. That is partly the reason why I am here.”

“Then she shall receive it.” He put back a lock of dark hair from Richard’s forehead, gave him a light pat on his small rear and advised him to go out through the open window and play. “We will call you when Senhorita Worth is ready to leave.”

“Very well, sir.” Richard escaped thankfully. Dom Vasco started pacing up and down the room. Then he came back and stood in front of Caroline.

“I realised that your charge was confronting me with a problem, so I contacted his uncle, the Marques,” he explained. “His health has recovered very much in the past few weeks, and he will be joining you at the
quinta
in a matter of days. He has a particular desire to see Richard for himself, and between us we will decide whit his future is to be. Have no fear,” as she looked suddenly almost alarmed, “that he will send you about your business as hurriedly and inadvisedly as I did,” very drily, “or attempted to do! The Marques de Fonteira is, above all things, a reasonable man, and I have already given him a report of you that should incline him to look upon your retention with favour!”

“Thank you,
senhor
,” she heard the words escape her in surprise.

He smiled in a way that, she realised, had a great deal of curious
c
harm—for a woman. Although there was something about it that was still distinctly hard, and aloof.

“Don’t thank me,
senhorita.
As you once told me, it was my fault that Richard ran away.”

She blushed with a kind of mixed horror and confusion.

“Oh, but I didn’t really mean it,
senhor.
You must realise that I was
upset...”

“And if I’d had my way you would now be back in England.” He studied her with an interest and a curiosity that caused the flush to bu
rn
more deeply in her cheeks, especially as his dark eyes were gazing
at her quizzically. “Tell me,
senhorita,
had you no desire to return to your own country
?
Has it so little appeal for you
?
”

She answered with complete truth.

“It is my country, and I love it, but I have few friends and hardly any relatives there now.”

“
Your parents?”

“Are both dead.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and his eyes were suddenly all softness, too. “I had no idea you were an orphan. In fact I knew very little about you.” And wanted to know less, she thought.

But he contradicted her.

“The Marques de Fonteira would like to know quite a lot about you, Miss Worth. I’m afraid you will have to answer quite a number of questions when he is here. In the meantime perhaps you will give me a little information concerning yourself that I can pass on to him.”

“Information about what?” she asked, instantly so plainly on the defensive that it amused him.

He spread his hands in a typical, Portuguese gesture.

“Information as to your future plans,
senhorita.
You may be planning to marry. Young Englishwomen marry without making very many plans, I am aware, but still it is an important step,” with an extremely cynical expression, “even for an Englishwoman.. Is there someone whom you are planning to marry, Miss Worth?”

“There is no one,” she answered and the indignation in her voice caused his lips to twitch, although he also looked surprised. “No one at all. But even if there was,” she added, with growing indignation, “I
fail to understand how it could concern the Marques.”

He spread his hands again, almost indolently. “There is a simple explanation to that. A young woman who was planning to marry would be unlikely to settle down for a year or so.”

“Then—” her heart giving an eager bound—“there is some possibility that he may wish me to stay for—a year or so?”

“There is a possibility, yes,” Dom Vasco admitted. He sat looking at her with an inscrutable smile on his lips, an utterly unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Does that prospect afford you any pleasure?” he enquired. “Or does it simply appal
l
you
?
”

“Why,
no
...
no
,
of course not! I mean,” she explained herself, “I would be happy to stay here if— if it was thought necessary, and Richard needed me—
”

“Then the fact that you have been bored for the past few days doesn’t mean you are bored with Portugal?”

“Oh, no, no,
no!”
she exclaimed with emphasis, as if it was important to convince him of this. “And it is quite untrue to say that I have been bored for the past few days. It was simply that we seemed to be wasting time, and Richard could easily become bored with nothing to do. He is a child, and children need variety and something practical to occupy their minds. But as to becoming bored with Portugal—” she paused, as if she was giving the matter her serious attention. “To be honest, I’m rather bemused by it at the moment. It’s rather like a slice of very rich iced cake after a diet of plain bread and butter.”

He elevated his eyebrows a little, as if the simile intrigued him.

“And you are not afraid that the very rich iced cake will give you indigestion
?
In time, if not immediately
?
”

She shook her head, quite vigorously.

“Oh, no. On the contrary, I’m a little afraid that it will spoil my palate ... for the plain bread and butter,” with a tiny smile in her eyes as she glanced at him quickly, and then away. “I will let you know,
senhor
, when Portugal gives me indigestion.”

“Yes, do,” he returned, with a certain dry inflection, and then stood up. She stood up, also, and he accompanied her to the door. “As to the child’s mother writing to you for information, I wouldn’t bother about that. The
senhor
Marques is in touch with her, and any information it is desirable she should receive will reach her through him.”

Richard came running to join them on the drive, and he put them both into the back of the car. Then, just before he closed the door on them, he said, addressing Caroline directly:

“We mustn’t allow you to become dull and dispirited. I will arrange for some friends to call upon you, and perhaps some excursion can be arranged for you and Richard. As yet you have seen nothing at all of Portugal or Portuguese people. We must do our best to eradicate any unfortunate impressions you received when you first arrived here, and when the time comes for you to go back home to England we will hope you will leave us with regrets.” He bowed, and the car moved forward slowly over the gravel. “In the meantime, take advantage of our wonderful climate. Order your day in any way you please, so long as you have good care of Ricardo
!”

As the car glided smoothly back to the
quinta
, Caroline lay back against the well-upholstered seat
and thought over certain of his words.

H
e had used the expression ‘back home to
England
’
...
but nowadays she had no real home in England. And—she glanced about her at the brilliance on either hand, and felt Richard wriggling childishly on the seat, but humming perfectly contentedly under his breath—home is, and always will be, where the heart is. She kept seeing Dom Vasco’s graceful, tall form as he turned to stride back to the house, and she thought of Carmelita de Capuchos, and how warm his voice was when he spoke to her—and tender? A kind of indulgent tenderness...