Island in the Dawn Read Online Free Page B

Surely he had everything to look forward to? Within a short while Life, with a capital L, could, and would, open out before him again!
    Michael returned with the luggage, and they were shown up to two rooms adjoining one another where it would be pleasant to settle themselves in for a fortnight. Cassandra looked round her with approval, commenting on the fact that the rooms were far more luxuriously furnished than in Uncle James’s day.
    “Our musician may not do much entertaining,” she said, “but he is prepared for it! He has obviously spent a lot of money on this place. I wonder why?”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    FELICITY was in the bathroom that separated the two rooms, running a bath for her employer when Cassandra expressed her wonder anew at Paul Halloran’s behavior. Felicity returned to the slightly larger of the two sleeping apartments to find Cassandra making a detailed examination of the low French bed, which was draped in a coverlet of thick oatmeal-colored satin. The headboard was painted in a design of cupids and flowers and gilded scrolls. Cassandra declared it was a genuine period piece, and ran her hand lovingly over the headboard.
    She also admired the dressing table which stood in a petticoat of primrose damask, and the little Empire couch that was covered in primrose damask also. There was a wonderful Florentine mirror on the wall in which Cassandra could see her complete reflected image, and the rags on the honey-gold floor were pale oatmeal to match the bed coverlet and the curtains.
    The curtains were drawn at the moment of their entry, but an ebony-faced maid called Florence, whose wide smile, in the course of an association which was to last a considerable while, Felicity never really saw vanish from her face, had followed them in and drawn them back. While Cassandra had tossed her wide - brimmed hat and handbag upon the bed, Florence had arranged the slats of the cool green Venetian blinds so that enough light entered to make it possible to see clearly everything in the room, and at the same time prevent the hard glare of the sun finding its way in.
    Florence had wanted to do the unpacking and prepare the bath, but Cassandra had dismissed her, saying coolly: “No, my friend will do it. I’ll ring when we’d like to have breakfast. We’ll probably decide to have it up here in our rooms.”
    “Very good, missy — beg pardon, ma’am!” Florence had said, as Cassandra sent her a cool look. The friendly maid had then backed her large white-aproned person cut of the room.
    Cassandra had looked across at Felicity.
    “We don’t want anyone fussing round just now, and I wouldn’t care to trust the contents of my suit-cases to those ho rn y black hands! You’ll put everything away far more carefully than she’d be likely to do, and besides I’m exhausted, and want to be alone and rest for a while.”
    It hadn’t apparently occurred to her that Felicity was also affected by the sudden change of climate — it had been a bleak October day when they left England, and now they were in the midst of tropical heat — and had not yet had an opportunity to re c over from the journey. The younger girl, however, willingly got her out something fresh and cool to put on, and then started to run a bath, while Cassandra went round the room making her careful examination.
    “All this is a little beyond me,” she told Felicity, when the latter rejoined her. “That room downstairs is full of priceless things. In my uncle’s day it was just a comfortable room, and very masculine at that. Uncle James has lots of money, but he’s one of those people who dislike spending it, except on themselves, and I can’t think what sort of an arrangement he has entered into with this man, Paul Halloran, to make the latter decide that it’s worth while filling the place with his own things. Do you think he proposes to stay here some time? I suppose it’s just possible Uncle James is b ored with his island, and doesn’t