A Cruise for Cinderella, page 11
David took her hand in his and smiled down at her. “I do want you and it won’t make difficulties, because we’ll meet in the town and there’s no reason why any of my superior officers should know where I am or who I’m with. In any case, this ban on our mixing with passengers isn’t a company rule, just a personal prejudice on the part of the staff commander, who’s never been able to forget he was once in the Royal Navy. Also I believe there was some sort of trouble on a recent cruise— a rather wild and riotous party in a junior officer’s cabin that got to the old man’s ears. There’s a feeling now that no one with fewer than three stripes on his sleeve is fit to be trusted within a cable’s length of an attractive female passenger. Which,” he went on softly, “you most certainly are, Janie. I’m beginning to realize it very forcibly. Especially with you standing there like that, with the moonlight on your face.”
“Oh, David!” Janie’s cheeks burned and she drew away from him, startled. “You shouldn’t say things like that. Not to me. You know you don’t really mean it.” In spite of all she could do, tears glistened in her eyes and she hid her face from him.
“I do mean it,” David argued. He came closer but did not attempt to touch her. “Something upset you tonight, didn’t it?”
“I—” Janie bit her lip “—well, yes, something did a bit. But it doesn’t matter, I’m just being silly.”
“The bullfighter?” David hazarded. “Cortes? I saw you talking to him as I went past about twenty minutes ago. You looked—” He sighed and spread his hands, as if what he had seen defied description. “Did he upset you?”
“No, of course not.” Janie kept her eyes resolutely on the moonlit deck. “How could he have, when he was only asking me to be his jockey in the horse race?”
“How indeed?” echoed David dryly. “Weil, strange things happen at sea! One of the strangest is the way people imagine they’ve fallen in love with each other— half an hour on the boat deck and they’re vowing eternal devotion,” He grinned. “I’ve got almost half an hour still—why don’t we try it, Janie—you and me?”
“Because we—” she looked up at him then and saw his smile, the affectionate mockery in his eyes “—because we knew each other too well. And because you’re just trying to be kind to me, David.”
“Am I now? Well, you know best. Silly kid, with your head full of romantic dreams! You always were, weren’t you, even when you were at school? And I suppose you really believe you’ve lost your heart to this fellow Cortes?”
Janie drew a deep, unhappy breath. “I didn’t say so—
“You didn’t have to,” David scoffed. It sticks out a mile. As you say, we know each other too well. All the same—” he was suddenly grave and the mockery faded from his eyes “—he’s not your kind, Janie, and loving him will only hurt you.”
“What is . . . my kind?” Janie asked faintly.
David’s hand found hers again. His palm was hard, callused and very strong. “I’m your kind,” he said, “just as you’re mine. My kind of girl, Janie, and you know it, really, deep down inside you. Like calls to like, you know, and always will.”
“But—”
“Hush! There’s someone coming—” David’s handclasp tightened and he pulled Janie after him into the shadows. Footsteps sounded on the A deck companionway and Janie bit back a cry as she recognized Paul Cortes. By the fitful light of the moon, his face seemed pale and drawn, but he was smiling as he halted beside them, to sweep Janie a stiff little bow. David faced him, jaw jutting aggressively. “Yes, Mr. Cortes? You wanted—”
“I was looking for Miss Brown. I wanted a word with her. But if it is inconvenient—”
“Miss Brown is with me,” David said coldly.
“So,” Paul agreed, “I perceive.” He waited, his eyes on Janie’s flushed, unhappy face, his own expression inscrutable.
There was a tense little silence and then David asked, “Well, Janie? Would you like me to go?”
Janie hesitated, looking from one to the other, miserably undecided. At the sight of Paul, her heart had begun to race, and she knew that if David were to leave her alone with him she would betray her feelings irrevocably. Memory of Doña Isabella’s words returned to her and resolution hardened. “It’s the luck of the draw, in horse racing as in love. If fortune smiles, one is grateful. But if it does not, then . . . one accept’s one’s fate. . . .” She wasn’t Paul’s kind of girl. And she wasn’t to be picked up and dropped, to be kissed so that he might win a bet. She said in a small voice, “You can tell me anything you want to tell me, in front of David.”
Paul bowed, tight-lipped. “Then,” he returned, “I have nothing to say—except to offer my thanks to you for having ridden my horse this evening. And to bid you good-night.”
A moment later he had gone, his footsteps receding as he crossed the deck. David put his arm around Janie’s shoulders, felt her tremble against him and said gently, “All right, Janie, I see how it is. It hurts now but it’ll come right in the end, I promise you. And now I’ve got work to do, I’m afraid, so I’ll have to leave you. But I’ll see you as far as your alleyway. And tomorrow we’ll have fun. Won’t we?”
Janie smiled up at him shakily. “Yes, we—we’ll have fun, David.” She felt cold, utterly drained of emotion, and was grateful for David’s supporting arm as they descended to the deck below. At the end of the alleyway he left her, with a quick pressure of the hand. “Tomorrow,” he said, “at a little restaurant called Vittorio’s, in the Piazza Dante. I’ll show you how to get to it tomorrow at breakfast, on a street plan. Good night, Janie.”
“Good night, David,” Janie answered.
David watched her open her cabin door. Then, with a sigh, he looked at his watch. He would have to go or he’d be late relieving the second officer. Crossing the boat deck on his way to the bridge, he encountered Paul Cortes. The young matador was no longer alone. Doña Isabella de Carmela was beside him, her arm resting lightly in his, and they were talking earnestly together, while, out of earshot but within sight of them, Don Ramón paced slowly with the duenna. The echo of Doña Isabella’s musical laughter followed David to the bridge, but he shut his ears to it. He was glad now that he had come between Janie and her foolish, romantic dreams. Because they couldn’t lead anywhere. The Cinderella story didn’t come true in real life.
“Mike,” he said, interrupting the second officer’s complaints concerning his lateness, “what was the name of the other chap, in the Cinderella pantomime?”
The second stared at him. “Buttons,” he answered, “but what on earth do you want to know for? Don’t tell me you were ten minutes late because you’ve been reading fairy stories?”
David grinned. “Something like that. I’m sorry I kept you. But i’m here now, so—”
Grumbling, the second handed over the watch to him.
“Buttons,” he growled, as he stumped away. “Buttons . . . .” With a derisive forefinger, he gestured to the brass buttons on David’s uniform jacket. “You’ve got plenty, young McNab! And, for your information. Buttons doesn’t get the girl, the prince does.”
He didn’t hear David’s reply.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was warm and sunny in Naples, and Janie was enchanted by all she saw—the dark-skinned, laughing bambini, the huge, luxurious shops lining both sides of the Via Roma, the magnificent churches and museums and art galleries, the glimpses she caught of Vesuvius, the graceful curve of the sunlit bay and the blue, sparkling water . . . the narrow streets of the poor parts of the town, with washing strung across from house to house, casting long, flickering shadows over the colorful crowds . . . the open-air markets, the wonders of the Galleria Umberto.
With Nina and Molly, she joined one of the organized sight-seeing tours and, after visiting the Cathedral of San Gennaro, the San Carlo Opera House and the royal palace. she was glad to sit down and drink iced fruit juice in a delightful open-air tearoom in an orange grove overlooking the bay.
The other two girls had booked on the afternoon drive to Pompeii, and Janie left them just before lunch and found her way. with surprisingly little difficulty, to the Piazza Dante, aided by a map David had drawn for her and had thrust into her hand at breakfast.
Vittorio’s was a small, unpretentious place, its tables covered with gaily striped cloths, at which a few people sat, most of them sipping wine or drinking coffee and reading illustrated papers, apparently provided by the restaurant. David wasn’t there when Janie arrived, but she was tired after her strenuous morning, and when a waiter in shirt-sleeves showed her to a table and brought her. without asking, a carafe of red wine, she settled down to wait for him quite contentedly, finding the wine refreshing when she essayed it. None of her fellow passengers from the Goldinia appeared, but the people were friendly; several of them smiled at her and a young man with black, tousled hair and a pair of bold eyes toasted her gallantly every time she glanced in his direction.
He was doing so for the third time, hopefully, when David entered the restaurant, out of breath and, to Janie’s dismay, still in uniform.
“Well!” He sat down opposite her and his smile was rueful. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, Janie. It was just one of those things again. Actually I’m ashore on duty and I’ve got to go back, first to the company’s agents in the Via Piliero and then to the ship—which. I’m afraid, puts the lid on our plans for the rest of the day. But I tell you what—” he signed to the waiter “—we’ll eat and then I’ll see you on the steamer to Capri and come across and join you there about six. How would that do?”
He looked so crestfallen that Janie hastened to assure him that she didn’t mind.
“Capri’s a lively place to wander around, even by yourself, and there’ll be lots of Goldinia passengers going over,” David went on anxiously. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I’m most awfully sorry, Janie, honestly I am.”
“Don’t worry about it, David. It’s not your fault.”
“No,” David conceded grimly, “it’s not. It’s my superior, the staff commander—who has himself gone off to Amalfi and Sorrento in a large private car owned by a very luscious Italian marchesa! I saw him with my own eyes. Oh, well, can’t be helped, I suppose, but I hate spoiling your day.” The waiter, who had donned a shabby white jacket now, brought the menu, and David studied it knowledgeably. After long and, to Janie, unintelligible consultation, he ordered a Neapolitan bouillabaisse—which, when it came, proved to be a most appetizing and exotically colored fish soup—and maccheroni al pomodoro, which Janie found delicious.
They talked and ate happily enough, but all too soon David began to cast anxious glances at his wristwatch, and Janie said, “Ought you to go?”
“I should,” David admitted, “if I can move, after all that food! Did you like it, Janie?”
“It was wonderful,” Janie told him with sincerity, “only it’s made me awfully sleepy.”
“Has it?” He laughed down at her. “Well, we’ll get a taxi to the steamer jetty—it’s quite close to where I’m going, so I can see you on board and walk from there. And you can doze quite peacefully on the steamer.”
Janie felt very much alone when, finally, having bought her ticket and found her a seat, he left her on the deck of the little steamer and she watched his tall, uniformed figure striding off out of sight across the quay. But by the time of departure, several people she knew by sight from the Goldinia had appeared, and there was so much of beauty and interest to be seen that she ceased, almost at once, to feel lonely.
David, she thought, was being awfully kind to her. He was a dear and she was proud of him, proud of all he had achieved. Her mother had always been fond of David; her father, too. She wished she could forget Paul—to go on dreaming about him was to invite misery and heartbreak, and yet—even as this thought crossed her mind, with it came the memory of Paul’s lean, handsome face, and Janie’s heart quickened its beat. Paul had kissed her once, cruelly and in order to win a bet, but she couldn’t forget that kiss or her own response to it. In his arms she had known so brief an ecstasy, but it had burned itself into her memory and captured her heart, so that it was impossible to forget, impossible to drive his image from her mind. Paul was all her romantic dreams come true, he was the Prince Charming who enchanted her and only he could break the spell.
Tears pricked at Janie’s eyes and a lump rose in her throat, almost choking her. The small steamer chugged on and all the beauty of the Bay of Naples was spread out before her in the warm golden sunlight—the little villas, the orange groves, the gracious sweep of the Strada Nuova della Marina and the distant vista of tree-clad hills, of Vesuvius, of Naples itself and now of Capri, as the steamer approached it in a flurry of churned-up water . . . it was here for her to enjoy, but she was seeing it dimly, through a mist of tears. Was this, then, the stuff of which dreams were made, she asked herself bitterly— was it? Pain beneath the beauty, heartbreak behind the smiles, a yearning ache, for which there was no palliative? Was David right—was she foolish to dream? Had Cinderella really “lived happily ever after” with her Prince Charming or was that just another illusion—would she have been happier with a more ordinary young man, who had all the sterling qualities but wasn’t romantic or charming or a prince? Did like call to like?
She didn’t know. She was conscious only of the fact that her heart was breaking when, less than half an hour ago, she had believed herself in control of her emotions. In David’s company, or when she was with Nina and Molly, she had to keep Up the appearance of enjoyment, she had to pretend. When the other passengers from the Goldinia had come on board, when they had waved and smiled, she had smited back, but now, as they lined up by the wooden gangway to go ashore, Janie deliberately avoided them. She was the last to disembark and it wasn’t until they were out of sight that she ventured to set her feet on the first steeply curving path that led upward, she had no idea where, from the picturesque stone jetty.
She passed through the sleepy streets of a small village and her way led her by a restaurant, with tables set under striped umbrellas on a terrace, and through a tiny market square and up, under shady trees, into a courtyard where she saw a whitewalled church. lt was on impulse that she entered it, for it was obviously not a church that held any historical interest for the tourist; but for Janie, just then, it held out a promise of peace and serenity that she found irresistible.
Inside, after the dazzling sunlight from which she had come, it was dark and a trifle airless. Two tall candles emitted a flickering gleam as they burned on the altar, and there were flowers banked high around it, from which came a sweet, heady fragrance, mingled with the scent of incense.
Janie, moving softly on tiptoe, slipped into one of the carved wooden pews and dropped to her knees. Not far away from her. a peasant woman in a dark shawl knelt with clasped hands, her lips compressed and her eyes closed. She was an elderly woman, with wisps of graying hair showing beneath the shawl, and her hands were rough and toilworn, her cheeks lined. She reminded Janie a little of her mother, but when she crossed herself and rose the resemblance ceased, for the woman was much older than Mrs. Brown and her features heavier.
Janie knelt with bowed head, and gradually the peace she had sought came stealing over her troubled spirit. The occasional scuffle of feet told her that others, too. had come to share with her this moment of escape from the bustling world outside, but it wasn’t until she was leaving the little church that she realized that Paul Cortes was among them.
He was kneeling in the pew behind her own. and as she tiptoed past, he turned his head and looked up at her, his gaze at once surprised and reproachful. Then he let his head sink into his hands and Janie went on. out into the sunlit evening.
She knew then that she had hurt him and that he would not follow her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAVID REACHED CAPRI at six, as he had promised. He was very cheerful now and he had changed out of uniform, so that he appeared as one of the carefree crowd of holiday-makers and tourists, bent as they were on enjoying themselves.
Janie did not mention her encounter with Paul Cortes in the little church on the hill. And, when David suggested dining in one of the open-air restaurants where they could dance, she did not demur, for it did not occur to her that Paul and his party might choose the same place for their evening rendezvous.
They arrived ten minutes after David and Janie had ordered their meal—Doña Isabella looking cool and lovely in a linen suit, her duenna fussing around her, Don Ramón and Paul behind them, both in immaculate gray slacks and open-necked silk shirts. Their dress was less formal even than David’s yet neither looked like a tourist.
Seeing Janie, both men bowed and Doña Isabella gave her a gracious inclination of her small, dark head. They seated themselves at a table on the opposite side of the floor and instantly waiters clustered around them, sensing, with the alert instinct of their kind, that these were no ordinary tourists but people of importance, accustomed to good service.
David said bitterly. “Oh. Lord, that’s torn it!” His eyes met Janie’s with a question in them. But she managed to smile back at him. and when he asked her to dance she rose at once with every appearance of eagerness. When they were on the floor, she was uneasily aware that Paul was watching her. and David asked, the color creeping up beneath the tan of his cheeks. “Do you want to go, Janie? Because if you do—”
Janie shook her head. She had no right to spoil David’s evening. “I don’t want to go. This is a lovely place, and I’m enjoying myself. Truly I am.”
David’s arm tightened around her. “All right then.” he conceded, “but I wish they hadn’t come. Oh. dash it, Janie, everything’s gone wrong today! First the fiasco this afternoon, and now this. And we could easily go back to Naples—”
