Romance Classics (127 page)

“That’s very kind of you, Miss Newman.”

“Oh, my goodness,” laughed the girl, and Kristen realized that she was every bit as beautiful as Sherry had led her to expect. “I’m Marisa, not Miss Newman. Dad’s going to be overjoyed when he sees what the Caribbean Queen is bringing for his new hotel.”

Kristen looked puzzled, and Leon explained eagerly, “Marisa’s father, George Newman, built the hotel where we are to appear.”

“And I’m going home so I can be there for the opening,” Marisa said eagerly. “I can’t wait to see Dad—it’s been two
years since I was home, though he met me in Europe and we had a marvellous time. But I’m homesick for Martinique. You’ll love it. It’s so beautiful.”

“I’m eager to see it.” Kristen smiled.

“You must visit us at the plantation and see what we grow there,” said Marisa. “My father and Aunt Eileen will be so glad to have you.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Kristen.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Leon agreed, and looked about the room scowling. “I wonder where the band is. Oh, here’s Casey.”

Casey came across the big room, and his scowl matched Leon’s.

“Where are the boys?” demanded Leon.

“In bed and asleep,” Casey answered. And before Leon could manage an answer, Casey went on, “We held an indignation meeting last night.”

“An indignation meeting? About what?” Leon asked puzzled.

“About you and your determination to work them, Kristen, and yourself to death,” answered Casey. “And I have to admit the boys have a point. All this nonsense about rehearsing all day and dancing all night—”

“Now see here, Casey—”

“No, you see here, Lee,” Casey cut in. “The boys have been working all summer at a joint in the Catskills; playing for lunch on the terrace, for tea dancing in the patio, and for after-dinner shows, sometimes until two and three in the morning. They looked on this trip as a sort of vacation. And believe me, they need it. And then you start these shenanigans about rehearsing all day. They won’t go along with that, Lee.”

“You promised me when we left New York that Kristen and I would have the help of the band in perfecting our numbers,” Leon began heatedly.

“Perfecting your numbers, is it? Look, buddy-boy, the act looked swell to me last night. And you can polish it up with your nightly shows; put on a special dress rehearsal, if you like, by doing some numbers at the tea dance. But rehearsals for the boys are out! They don’t need it; they could do their work sound asleep! After the summer we’ve put through, it’s a wonder they can play at all.”

“Casey, listen—”

“No, you listen,” said Casey. “Work Kristen until she
drops in her tracks, if you like and she’ll let you; personally, I wouldn’t blame her if she kicked you overboard! But the band and I—well, we’re growing boys and we need our rest!”

And Casey turned and strode out of the room.

Leon stood scowling for a moment, and Kristen knew he was blindly furious. But he turned to her at last and said curtly, “We’ll have to use the record player, I suppose.”

He seemed to have forgotten Marisa and Madam Chapin.

“That is,” he added thinly, “unless you’d rather get more sleep.”

Kristen smiled at him sweetly.

“Oh no, I got a full night’s sleep,” she purred. “Remember, I was ordered to bed immediately after we finished our part of the show. But I imagine
you
could use some rest.”

Before Leon could answer that, Marisa, troubled and embarrassed, said hurriedly, “I’m afraid that was my fault, Kristen. I have always loved dancing, and I’d never danced with anyone like Lee before. I do hope I didn’t impose on you, Lee?”

His smile was warm, almost caressing.

“Of course not! What a thing to say! I enjoyed every minute of it,” he assured her.

Marisa’s smile was eager with relief.

“Oh, I’m so glad. So did I. It was wonderful!”

Madam Chapin looked sharply at her and then at Leon, and her expression was touched with hostility as she rose.

“Come Marisa, we mustn’t interfere any longer with Mr. Westerman and Miss Dillard. I’m sure they’d like to get to work,” she said firmly.

Docile as an obedient child, Marisa rose and answered, “Yes, Aunt Zelda.”

She gave Leon that warm, eager smile and added, “I’ll be looking forward to your numbers tonight, Lee. I know they’ll be wonderful. ‘Bye, Kristen.”

Leon watched as the girl followed the elderly
grande dame
from the room, and then he scowled.

“That old woman cracks the whip and she jumps! That I don’t like,” he muttered.

“She’s very young,” Kristen began.

Leon looked at her sharply.

“She’s nineteen. She told me so last night,” he countered.

“For some girls, nineteen is very young.”

He studied her sharply, shrugged and said, “Well, there’s
no sense in rehearsing to records, and then working in front of a band. I guess rehearsals are off, Kristen, until we get to Fort-de-France. And then I’ll have some understanding with the band about adequate rehearsal time. Maybe by then they’ll be rested up a bit.”

“We could work the tea dance.”

“Cheapen The Act by doing two shows a day?” He was wroth at the idea. “We’ll do no such thing. We were booked for a single show, and a single show we’ll do.”

Kristen made a little gesture that dismissed the idea.

“Oh, and you must be very careful not to get too much sun,” Leon remembered to add. “A sun tan is the one thing that could just about wreck the effect of Nina’s costumes.”

“Yes, Master,” Kristen said gently.

For a long, angry moment Leon glared down at her.

“Still fighting me?” he demanded sharply.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Kristen said gently.

Leon ran fingers through his hair in a gesture of angry bewilderment and weary exasperation.

“I don’t get it, Kristen,” he admitted. “Here we are on the very first rung of a real, honest to goodness break; and you don’t seem to want to co-operate a bit. I thought we’d gotten all this settled before we left New York.”

“Did you?” asked Kristen. “Frankly, if I’d known that you were such a slave driver, I think I’d have gone back home to Wisconsin.”

“So now I’m a slave driver! Just because I want The Act to be the best of its kind in theatrical history!” he raged.

“Oh, don’t be a fool.” Kristen flung the words at him recklessly. “There have been fine dancing acts before; there’ll be more fine dancing acts after you and I are dead and gone. What’s so earth-shaking about a ballroom dance team?”

She saw that the words flung him into a towering rage. He waited a moment until he could control his anger, and when he spoke his voice had a tone that bit like acid.

“If that’s the way you feel about The Act, then perhaps it might have been better if you
had
gone back to Wisconsin,” he told her savagely, and strode from the room.

Kristen went back to her cabin, changed from rehearsal slacks into a cool, thin white frock and set out in search of him. She found him before she had gone once around the deck; found him engaged in a spirited game of shuffle-board with a group of young passengers. She saw at once
that his partner was the lovely Marisa! Madam Chapin sat nearby, watching with an enigmatic expression, and for a moment, Kristen, too, watched.

The afternoon before they were to reach Martinique, Kristen was in her favorite steamer chair in a shady corner when Madam Chapin joined her, with a pleasant, “May I?” as she lowered herself cautiously into a chair beside Kristen.

“I shall be very glad to see Fort-de-France in the morning,” said Madam Chapin wearily.

“Is it your home?” Kristen asked politely.

“Thank Heaven, No!” answered Madam Chapin with an intensity that surprised Kristen. “I’m a native-born New Yorker, and I can’t wait to get back home, free of the responsibility of Marisa! She’s a charming child, but at my age, a
responsibility
. I’ll be very happy to have her father and her aunt take that responsibility, I can assure you! I’m staying aboard the ship and going back with it.”

“I almost wish I could join you.”

Madam Chapin turned her head and eyed the girl.

“Oh, I think you’ll like the island. It really is a lovely place, and the
Martiniquais
are quite sure that Christopher Columbus was a fool only to stop there for a three-day rest before pushing on,” said Madam Chapin. “I’ve known the Newmans for years. George Newman’s mother was a schoolmate of mine, so when his wife, Marisa’s mother, asked me to be godmother to Marisa, I could scarcely refuse. When I was asked to take her into my home for two years and see her through finishing school—well, I didn’t dream how exhausting it was going to be. The poor child’s mother died when the child was nine, and she grew up here with governesses and tutors, and Eileen decided she should be ‘finished’ where she could meet girls and boys of her own class, as she would have done if her mother had lived.”

She sighed, and a slight shudder touched her.

“It’s been ten years since her mother’s death, but I can’t seem to get over it. Such a dreadful way to die! A
fer-de-lance
.”

Puzzled, Kristen asked, “A what?”

“A snake more deadly than the rattlesnake, and without a rattle,” Madam Chapin explained, and shuddered again. “Marie-Therese was walking alone in the garden. She was dead when they found her, from the snake’s deadly venom.”

“How horrible!” gasped Kristen.

Madam Chapin nodded sadly.

“There was her garden basket full of wilting blooms, and her garden shears still in her hand, because the
fer-de-lance
kills swiftly,” she sighed. “Poor George nearly went out of his mind, of course. He had warned her repeatedly never to go out in the garden alone. But there was the small Marisa, and so Eileen gave up her home in England and came to live with him and to help him bring Marisa up.”

She turned suddenly, and Kristen knew this was the reason Madam Chapin had joined her.

“This infatuation the child has for your dance partner, my dear,” she said quietly, “must be stopped. It’s most unsuitable.”

Color poured into Kristen’s face.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that, Madam Chapin,” she said through her teeth.

“No, no, of course not,” Madam Chapin agreed. “I merely thought that perhaps you might be—shall we say worried?”

“But why should I be?” asked Kristen.

The old woman’s eyes were piercing.

“You are not in love with him?” she asked.

“Good heavens, no!” gasped Kristen so sincerely that Madam Chapin could not help but believe her.

“Odd,” said Madam Chapin, studying her curiously. “I’ve watched you dance every night, and I could have sworn that there was some very deep emotion between you.”

Kristen laughed.

“That’s quite a compliment, Madam. It’s what we are trying to convey to the audience. Leon feels that it makes The Act more appealing if the customers feel we really are in love.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Madam Chapin. “I mean I had hoped that you two were seriously interested in each other and that, as soon as we reached Fort-de-France, Marisa could be convinced of that. You see, any attachment
between the child and a professional dancer would be
most unsuitable
.”

“I suppose it would,” Kristen agreed.

“Oh, it’s not that
I
disapprove of theatrical people, my dear, you mustn’t think that,” Madam Chapin said anxiously. “It’s just that I know something of George’s plans for the girl. His holdings here on the island constitute a small empire, that has been in the family for generations. Naturally, since Marisa is his only heir, she will be expected to marry someone who can carry on the empire. You
do
see what I mean, my dear?”

“Of course,” Kristen answered, and added impulsively, “If it will make you feel any better, maybe I should tell you that Leon is born and bred to the theatre. He could never visualize any other life; I can’t imagine him ever being sufficiently in love with any woman, even one as lovely as Marisa, for him to give up show business. He wants to be the greatest of all male dancers, and he’s quite sure he can be.”

Madam Chapin studied her for a moment.

“I’ve been worried about their being together so constantly,” she admitted. “But aboard ship like this, it’s very difficult to keep them apart without locking Marisa in her cabin and I’m sure you realize that couldn’t be done. I can only hope that when she is at home again, George will keep her away from Fort-de-France, at least until your engagement ends.”

After a moment, Madam Chapin asked anxiously, “Have I offended you, my dear?”

“Of course not,” Kristen answered. “I really am only an innocent bystander, anyway. I can see that your attitude is quite right; but I can’t help believing that you are troubling yourself unnecessarily.”

“You do think, then, that once the voyage is over, the affair will be over, too?”

“If there is an affair,” Kristen answered. “Marisa is a superb dancer, and Leon enjoys dancing with her. She’s a lovely person, and everybody likes her; I really don’t think you have much to worry about, Madam.”

“I do so hope you are right,” Madam Chapin answered, and patted her hand lightly. “It was good of you to listen to an old woman’s problems, my dear! You’ve made me feel much better.”

“I’m so glad.” Kristen smiled at her as the woman rose.

“Well, I shall go now and have my nap,” said Madam Chapin, on her feet and steadying herself against the steamer chair’s back. “And I shall see you after dinner, my dear, to say goodbye.”

She smiled and nodded at Kristen and took her slow-paced, dignified walk down the deck.

The night’s show went smoothly, and at its finish Leon nodded to her as they left the floor.

“That was very good, Kristen,” he told her. “If we can do as well opening night at the Riviera, we’ll be a hit.”

“I’m so glad you were pleased. I thought it went very well.” She smiled at him.

Leon nodded a good night and turned back to the ballroom, and she knew that he was going to look for Marisa, and wished him luck.

In her cabin Kristen finished her packing and went to bed. She was very tired and fell asleep almost at once. Sometime in the early hours before dawn she roused sleepily, and realized that it was not a sound that had awakened her; rather it was a cessation of sound. And then she realized that the engines were silent for the first time since they had sailed fourteen days ago! That meant that they had already docked. But going-ashore time was not until nine in the morning, so she settled back once more to sleep.