Rachel Lindsay - Alien Corn by Rachel Lindsay

Author:Rachel Lindsay [Lindsay, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-11-04T00:37:54.372000+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

'Fortune favours the daring' - during the next few days Lorna remembered the Rodriguez motto and wished with all her heart that it was part of her own heritage. There was so much she did not know about Rafael, so much that was strange. Their only bond was their love, and she doubted whether it would be strong enough to surmount the barriers of tradition, race and background.

She had asked Rafael to keep their engagement secret because of his mother, yet her reason went deeper than that. She would have to become accustomed to the idea of turning her back on England, to forsake her mother tongue for a foreign language and accept a new way of life as her own. Would she be able to maintain her own personality amongst all these strangers - to stop herself being absorbed into a way of life with which she did not wholly agree?

And then there was the question of fidelity. Surely Rafael must know she would never allow her marriage to become a replica of Manoel and Amalia's? The more she thought about it the more confused he became. There were so many difficulties they had not acknowledged, so many rocks lying beneath the surface that could wreck their life together.

But with that arrogance that was an essential part of him, Rafael refused to admit that there was anything they could not overcome.

'You are enlarging it out of all proportion,' he said finally. 'It is merely a matter of compromise.'

'Compromise,' she cried in her heart, but on whose side?'

If the Senhora noticed a difference in her son's attitude to his cousin's companion she gave no sign of it, and was as studiously polite to Lorna as ever. Since Rosalia's arrival she had begun to take more interest in the house, and Lorna would see her making a tour of inspection, peering into comers, running her fingers along the ledges and occasionally rebuking a maid with an asperity that dissolved the girl to tears.

Amalia was the first to guess the change in Lorna's relationship to Rafael, and one morning as they were strolling in the grounds she taxed her with it.

'You needn't deny it,' she concluded. 'You're positively alight whenever he's round. What's all the secrecy for?'

Lorna paused to pick a flower, holding it in her hands and studying the blossom as intently as if she were Proust. 'I don't think we know each other well enough,' she said at last. 'Why, even in the short time I've been here we've quarrelled like a cat and dog!'

'And you'll go on quarrelling as long as you're not married! I've been through it too. I don't know who said an engagement is the happiest time of your life. You're on edge and ready to fight with your shadow.' She spoke with some of her old animation. 'But heavens, it's perfectly obvious why! Two people in love can't be expected to behave normally when all they want to do is to rush into one another's arms.

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