Never to Love (15 page)

She was still puzzling this out when the gong boomed and she went downstairs. After dinner they had coffee in the drawing room, and then Justin showed her over the rest of the house. All the bedrooms with the exception of their own were shrouded in dust sheets, although they were evidently aired and cleaned regularly and had not the musty darkness of long disuse. The old-fashioned sculleries beyond the kitchen had been converted into storerooms
and the kitchen itself was equipped with the most modern appliances, including a washing machine and two refrigerators, one for dairy produce and the second for fish and meats.

As they left the kitchen Andrea thought she had seen everything, but there was a doorway leading off the hall which she had overlooked.

“We call this the music room,” Justin said.

The sun was sinking behind the woods and the roseate glow of the evening sky filled the room, tinting the white-paneled walls and lending a mother-of-pearl sheen to the white marble fireplace. It was a woman’s room, exquisitely furnished with French antiques. A crystal chandelier hung from the white and gold ceiling and beneath it, on a rosewood table, a foam of white lilac filled an alabaster vase. Then Andrea saw the painting. It hung on the wall above the grand piano, a full-length portrait off a girl in a white satin ball dress with a crimson stole falling from her shoulders—a girl with shining dark eyes, a cloud of dusky hair and a laughing mouth as vivid as the color of the stole.

“My mother,” Justin said. “It was painted a few months after she came to England. She was nineteen.”

“She was very beautiful,” Andrea said softly, gazing up at the lovely face that was so like and yet so unlike that of the man beside her. If Maria Luisa Templar had sat for her portrait in rags she would still have looked what she was,
the descendant of a long line of Spanish
hidalgos.
But for all the dignity and grace of her bearing there was no hint of coldness or pride in the painted features. The artist had captured not only her youth and beauty but the glowing warmth of her personality.

“It must have been difficult for her to come to a strange country,” Andrea said, speaking half to herself.

“It was. She hated living in London, and it was not until she was expecting Madeline that my father brought her to Cornwall. She fell in love with this house and seldom went back to town except for a few weeks in the season or for some special occasion,” Justin said.

His face had softened and his tone was gentle as if, across the years, he was remembering the summer evenings of his childhood ... a woman’s voice calling from the te
r
race ... a small boy pelting across the lawn
...
the two of them coming into the house together, hand in hand, laughing.

Andrea swallowed, momentarily stricken by a queer pang of emotion.

At that moment the telephone rang and Justin excused himself and went into the hall to answer it.

For a few minutes she stayed looking up at the painting. She wondered what Do
n
a Maria Luisa would have thought of her son’s strange marriage. Perhaps if she had lived Justin would not have grown into the man he was. Was it the tragedy of his parents’ deaths and the loneliness of his boyhood that had formed his adult character? Or had they merely increased a natural austerity of temperament? Yet sometimes, as a short while ago when he had spoken of his mother, she could almost believe that he was less self
-
sufficient than she had supposed.

They had been in Cornwall
a week, and had just come up to the house after a lazy afternoon in the cove, when Justin was called to the telephone.

“How do you feel about returning to the outside world for an hour or two?” he asked, coming to the drawing room where Andrea was feeding bits of biscuit to the dogs. “Rachel Bartley has invited us to dine on Tuesday. She and her husband live about fifteen miles inland. They’ve just heard we’re down here and want to welcome you to Cornwall. I think you’d like them. Rachel was a close friend of my mother.”

Since he was evidently in favor of accepting the invitation, Andrea agreed, although she would have preferred their holiday to remain uninterrupted. Tuesday started out badly. The weather had changed in the night, and instead of blue skies and bright sunshine Andrea woke up to find rain slashing at her windows and storm clouds rolling up from the southwest.

Something in the morning mail caused Justin to stifle an angry expletive, and instead of discussing how they should spend the day he swallowed his coffee and said curtly that he would be in the study making telephone calls until lunchtime.

After chatting to Ellen while she cleared the breakfast table, Andrea went upstairs to decide what to wear for the dinner party. She finally chose a very plain but beautifully cut dress of stiff cream silk with a close-fitting bodice cut high at the front and low at the back and a very full skirt.

After she had pressed a ruffled slip—it was the first time she had used an iron since her wedding day—and put out her underwear and accessories, she occupied the rest of the morning looking through some bound copies of
Punch.

After lunch Justin said he was going for a walk, but when Andrea got up to fetch her raincoat he said it would be advisable for her to rest in preparation for a late night, and hurt and puzzled by this abrupt change in manner toward her, she went upstairs, no
t
to sleep but to toss around restlessly wondering what had caused his displeasure.

He was late for tea but seemed in better spirits, and as the weather also showed signs of improvement Andrea hoped that his earlier taciturnity had been just a passing mood engendered by the break in the heatwave.

At six o’clock she had a leisurely bath and spent some time arranging her hair in a new way. She had finished dressing and was putting her powder case and lipstick into her evening bag when there was a tap on the communicating door and Justin came in.

“Is it time to go? I won’t be a minute,” she said, looking for a clean handkerchief.

“No hurry.” He strolled across to the window seat and sat down.

Andrea gave herself a final inspection in the looking glass.

“Is this dress right, do you think?” she asked.

“Why ask me? You’re the fashion expert,” he replied with a smile.

“
Mmm
...
but I haven’t been to this sort of dinner party before. I don’t want to look out of key,” she said seriously.

“Isn’t that inevitable?” he said dryly, in the tone that she was never quite certain how to interpret.

He rose and came to stand behind her, his dark face reflected above her own in the mirror.

“The dress is very suitable, but a swan is always out of key among moorhens,” he said softly.

Then very gently he put his hands on her waist and drew her against him so that she could feel the crispness of his dress shirt against her bare back.

“Tell me, have you been happier here?” he asked quietly. Her heart began to beat in slow heavy thumps as it always did when he touched her deliberately.

Willing herself to be calm, she said, “It would be difficult not to be.”

“Happiness is something you feel. Not a place.
”

His dark eyes held hers with a look that made her queerly breathless.

“Places change people,” she said. “You
...
you’ve been different since we came here.”

“Have I?” He seemed amused. “In what way?”

“I’m not sure I can define it. More
...
more friendly.”

“Was I unfriendly in London?”

“Not exactly. It’s hard to explain.”

“I certainly never intended to be.” His hands tightened slightly and she was very conscious of their warmth and strength through the thin material of her dress. A slow flush crept upward from her slim throat.

“If, three months ago, you had known what you know now, I wonder if you would be here?” he said speculatively.

“Sometimes I wonder if I know any more about you than I did when we first met,” she answered in a low voice, looking down at the folds of her skirt.

“You should, my dear.”

“You aren’t an easy person to know, Justin.”

“Oh, come, what dark secrets d
o
you suspect me of concealing?”

She made a movement that he seemed to think was an attempt to draw away, for he held her more firmly.

“No dark secrets
exactly. It’s just that I’m never very sure what you are thinking.”

“Can you usually read people’s minds?” he inquired, with more than a trace of mockery.

“No, of course not. But it’s generally possible to sense something of their feelings. I think you enjoy being a complete enigma,” she returned.

His eyes narrowed. “It is sometimes expedient to keep one’s thoughts private. However I’m quite willing to amend any gaps in your knowledge of me. What do you want to know?”

“Oh, you’re just fencing with words. It isn’t anything specific that I don’t know about you,” she said rather crossly.

“Then I’ll ask you a question. Do you regret our bargain?”

He must have felt her tense. As usual he had contrived to catch her off guard, and while at a distance she might have been able to mask her emotion, she had been unable to check that involuntary stiffening of her body.

“What exactly do you mean?” she asked, playing for time.

“Are you sorry you married me?” His voice was expressionless, but she knew he would not let her evade the issue.

“No,” she said flatly. “I’m not. Are you?”

“You should know by now that I never repent considered decisions.”

“Do things always work out the way you want them to?”

“Eventually. Fortunately, patience is one of my few virtues.”

The Dresden clock on the maplewood tallboy tinkled the hour, and he let her go, picking up the short silk cape that matched her dress and putting it over her shoulders.

As Andrea tied the velvet ribbons fastening the collar she found that her fingers were shaking, although not badly enough to be noticeable while she had some occupation for them.

“We can continue this interesting discussion in the car,”
Justin said, opening the hall door for her with a slight bow and a glint of quizzical amusement in his eyes.

But it was not until they were on the main road that he said, “You say I am enigmatic. I wonder if you realize your own reserve. Understanding is usually mutual, you know.”

She gave him a startled glance.

“But you seem always to know what I’m thinking,” she protested.

“Largely by guesswork and some knowledge of basic feminine psychology,” he told her. “Your face doesn’t often give you away.” He paused and added, “I suppose you will counter that by saying it’s a man’s prerogative to initiate the advances in any relationship between people of the opposite sex.”

This was certainly what she had wanted to say, but had been uncertain how to put it.

“You’re right, of course,” he went on. “Most men do prefer to set the pace, but that is not to say that they don’t want some indication of how their overtures are being received. For instance, a man doesn’t normally propose to a woman unless she has given him a discreet hint that the answer will be yes. I asked you to marry me without knowing your answer because the circumstances were unusual. From then on I hoped to be on surer ground.”

There was a short silence while Andrea digested this statement.

“You mean it’s my fault,” she said presently.

“I haven’t said there is anything for which either of us is at fault. What exactly do you imagine is your fault?”

She made a nervous movement.

“The fact that we’re not
...
very close,” she said with some effort.

He laughed, but the sound held no mirth.

“You’re a mistress of understatement, my dear. No, we are not ‘very close’ as you put it. In fact I should say we are farther apart than the majority of couples at the outset of their relationship.”

“And you blame me?” she said miserably.

He was silent for so long that she was afraid they would reach the Bartleys’ house before he answered her. The prospect of meeting a crowd of strangers and having to make light conversation with the knowledge that Justin was furious with her was appalling. That her new confidence in the future, which had grown daily stronger since their arrival in Cornwall, should be so abruptly terminated was like a physical shock. She felt chilled and sick and so utterly forlorn that it was only with a supreme effort that she managed to blink back the hot tears that smarted against her eyelids.

Then, as she was wondering how she could possibly get through the dinner party without betraying her wretchedness, Justin reached out and took her hand in his.

“Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions. They are invariably wrong,” he said shortly.

His tone was admonitory, but the pressure of his lean fingers and his smile—that rare smile that lighted his dark face with so mu
ch
charm—were like the glow of a lantern to a wanderer who has lost his way on lonely moorland and given up hope of finding shelter.

The relief was so great that Andrea’s rigid self-control gave way and, fumbling for a handkerchief she turned her head away to hide the foolish quivering of her lips.

Before she could recover herself, Justin had pulled onto the grass verge and switched off the engine.

“My dear child, there’s nothing to cry about. Here, try this.”

He turned her around, removed the flimsy square of embroidered cambric from her hand and replaced it with his own large linen handkerchief.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said in a choked voice, horrified at the thought of arriving at the Bartleys’ with reddened eyes and streaks of mascara on her cheeks.

“I’ll tell you,” Justin said when she had wiped her eyes and was peering in the mirror of her powder case to find with a sigh of relief that her makeup was not seriously damaged.

“The trouble with you,
querida
,”
he said gently, “is that you look a great deal more sophisticated than you actually are. It isn’t always easy to remember that.”

He lighted two cigarettes and placed one between her lips.

“It’s just as well we set out in good time, because I think this is the moment for some straight talking,” he said after a quick glance at his wristwatch.

“Now, don’t argue. This is important,” he said, recapturing her hand. “I brought you to Lingard because in London there were too many distracting influences and we could have gone on living in polite detachment indefinitely. I wanted you to relax and stop being on the defensive, not
only with me but with life. I said a moment ago that you were less sophisticated than you looked. Perhaps I didn’t realize until we came here just how inexperienced you are beneath that very polished exterior.”

His glance ranged from the silky crown of her head to her beautifu
ll
y manicured hands.

“We were pretty frank with each other before we made our contract, Andrea, but not frank enough. You told me about your early life, and it was a convincing reason for your determination to make your fortune secure. What you didn’t say and I didn’t guess at that stage was that your apparent hardness was just a protective shell for a soft core. You’ve never admitted to yourself that you are secretly guilty about marrying for purely mercenary reasons and you’re still convinced that you don’t need emotional security because it’s only lately that, emotionally, you’ve begun to wake up.”

He paused and drew on his cigarette, watching her with a hint of a smile at the corners of his firm mouth.

“Now it’s your turn to tell me a few home truths,” he suggested.

Andrea studied the tip of her cigarette for some seconds before replying. She wished she had time to think over all he had said before committing herself either by accepting or refuting any part of it. But there was no time, and if she lost this chance to explain some of her difficulties it might not come again
.

“Perhaps I have felt guilty,” she admitted cautiously. “It hasn’t been as easy as I thought—taking everything and giving nothing. Sometimes I’ve wondered why you wanted a wife at all. You aren’t like most people. You don’t need someone to confide in, to help you.”

The smile left his mouth.

“You seem to know me better than you thought you did,” he said dryly.

“I only know what you want me to, Justin,” she answered, meeting his eyes, wishing he understood how difficult this was for her.