At the Villa Massina Page 6

  “How nice. I’m going to miss Spanish gallantry when I get back home.”

  “But I was not being merely gallant,” he assured her. “We have not spoken a great deal together, but you will permit me to say that I find you muy simpatica ... very appealing. Ramiro says I must be on guard against this attraction of yours. He was joking, of course!”

  “Was he? Somehow, I feel he doesn’t much like English people. He doesn’t really trust us.”

  “About other English I know nothing,” stated Mario, “but you I would trust in any circumstances. You must not judge Ramiro; he has many things to think of just now.”

  “The eligibles?” she asked, smiling at him. “I mean the three charming ladies who are competing to become the Condesa.”

  He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “I think you cannot know that the Conde will almost certainly become betrothed to my sister, who has just returned from a visit to my aunt in Madrid. The dinner tonight is to welcome her, and also to give us an opportunity of greeting Don Manuel Verrar, who has been away on government business for a year.”

  About fifteen seconds passed before Juliet answered, “No, I wasn’t aware you had a sister. I daresay it will be a popular marriage.”

  “Yes. Our families have been connected for many years, both here and in business. But nothing is settled, you understand! Ramiro has not seen Carmen for some time, so there can be no announcement yet.”

  Juliet offered no immediate comment; the subject sickened her quicker than any other. She thought of Inez de Vedro and her preference for Elena de Mendoza, of the Conde out with Lupita in the rain; and now here was the third, Carmen Perez. If there had been any hope, other women would be falling over themselves to compete for the prize. And he went arrogantly on his way, only too aware of his mastery over the situation.

  “What would he do,” she queried evenly, “if he were to fall in love with the ravishing daughter of a fisherman?”

  Mario laughed, and lifted his shoulders. “All I know is that he would not marry her. He has great family pride; that is why his choice is so narrow.” He took a deep breath. “You can smell the mimosa? It is always much sweeter on a moonless night.”

  “It’s heavenly,” she said at once. “Go faster, Mario, and show me the nut trees.”

  “Very well, though they are better in daylight.”

  He accelerated, and the wind sped through the windows. There were cottages with lights in the windows, a somnolent donkey by the roadside, a crowd of young people dancing to the blare of an accordion and watched over by mothers with hands folded under the ends of their head shawls. There was a village, a sprinkling of men in sombreros outside a bodega, lovers clasping hands as they walked, and then darkness till the car beams swept over the vast pale billows of nut blossoms.

  Mario braked. “There,” he said. “Es bella, no?”

  “Glorious!” she sighed. “I’d love to run among the trees. Couldn’t we—just for a minute?”

  She moved, and he grasped her wrist swiftly. “No, please! You would ruin your frock and it is so late.”

  “But we’ll never see it again, just like this.”

  “I will bring you,” he implored her. “I promise. We must go at once to the yacht.”

  She sat back, said huskily, “I told you I was looking forward to the evening, but I’m not. I don’t know any of those people...”

  “You know our host,” he said in low tones, “and you know me.” He laughed again, shakily, slowly released her wrist. “You make me afraid, Juliet. I thought you would really run out among the trees. I ... I think I wanted you to do it, so that I would have reason to ... to follow.”

  “I’m an idiot,” she told him, and swallowed on an unaccountable ache in her throat. “Let’s go to the yacht.”

  They went down into San Federigo and along the waterfront, turned on to the jetty, where a string of cars showed that many of the guests for the yacht had already arrived. A launch had just left for the yacht; the women in their long dark gowns and the men in white dinner-jackets were easily discernible for a long way.

  Another launch tied up and the boatman leapt up on to the jetty.

  “Ah, Senor Perez!” he exclaimed in Spanish. “The Senor Conde has already asked for you and the senorita. Shall we go at once?”

  “As we have been missed, it would be best.”

  Mario stepped down into the launch, lifted his arms to receive Juliet. In the darkness she came to rest close to him, very close, and he kept one arm around her as the boatman pushed off. There were seats, but he leaned back against a locker, steadying her with that arm about her. She could feel his breath in her hair, and was suddenly conscious of the quick beating of his heart. Odd, she thought detachedly, that such a wealthy and good-looking young man could get excited over mere contact. Herself, she was cold and numb. She watched the nearing lights of the yacht, heard laughter and music across the rippling dark water. Her earlier reluctance was fast becoming a positive dread, and if it had been possible she would have turned the launch and gone back to the villa.

  But they were close to the yacht. She saw the crest on its white side, the family name, and then they were close to the surprisingly firm flight of steps. With startling suddenness a floodlight illuminated the launch, threw into relief the two figures near the locker. Mario released her swiftly, and in a reflex action be bowed and took her elbow, to help her on to the steps.

  Juliet went up carefully, with Mario close behind. Almost simultaneously, they arrived on deck, to be greeted by the Conde and his sister. Ramiro bowed with a rather sharper click of the heels than was his wont. His mouth smiled, his dark eyes were watchful.

  “You young ones are the last to arrive,” he said coolly, in English.

  “I do beg your pardon, Ramiro, and yours, Inez,” Mario answered hurriedly. “We met too early and went for a drive which took longer than I intended.”

  Ramiro nodded dismissively. “You will take Miss Darrell to the saloon and make introductions. I will see you both later.”

  For Juliet, the following hour or two was no more real than a series of pictures thrown across a screen. Practically all the conversation was in Spanish, though her various companions battled along bravely in English. She met Don Manuel Verrar, who was about forty, with white wings at the temples and very black hair across the top of a very fine head; seemingly, he was in the diplomatic service. She also met Carmen Perez, who was only a little older than herself, shy like Mario, and possessed of a dusky, large-eyed attractiveness. The other two girls were in evidence with their families, and there was a supply of young men to balance the sexes.

  Dinner began with a fabulous array of hors d’oeuvres, which was followed by prawn salad, escalopes of veal garnished with asparagus tips, fresh peas and tiny new potatoes, chicken cutlets cooked in wine, pastas filled with all kinds of fruits and topped with nuts and cream, and different varieties of cheese. The wines were legion, the coffee unbelievably rich. Juliet found herself memorizing the names of the bottles for her uncle’s benefit, remembering the courses for Luisa and Aunt May. It was the only way to get through a meal which seemed endless and peculiarly painful.

  When she came out on deck she found her way to the cabin where the women had powdered and left their wraps. It was small but luxurious, with a bunk at each side spread with a royal blue monogrammed bed-cover. The carpet was deep-piled, the dressing chest a model of modern beauty in carved fruitwood. She went to the window and looked out at the crowded lights of San Federigo. In the months to come she would remember all this; the tiers of lights, the small bouncing boats; the Spanish guests, the women in sheath-like or flounced dresses, the men impeccably correct; the noble Ramiro, circulating urbanely and dropping a word here, a jest there, so that olive cheeks took color and swift new life leapt into dark eyes.

  No, she didn’t want to remember it. Far better if she could erase the whole thing from her mind. This place and these people were too strong for her; if she let them they
would become an obsession.

  Juliet poured a glass of water from a jug in which ice still floated, sipped some of it, and then used a comb and her compact. She was ready to go back and face the others when the door opened and Inez de Vedro came in.

  The older woman smiled, sweetly but with reserve. “I thought I would find you here, Juliet,” she said quietly. “You were not hurt, I hope, by my brother’s coolness when you arrived?”

  “No, senora. I daresay we deserved it. I’m sorry we were late.”

  “You were not so very late. Ramiro expects always that young people will forget themselves in their anxiety to be polite. For me, I was rather glad that you made Mario unaware of the time.” She smiled. “He is overdue for his first affair of the heart, and if you have awakened him we owe you gratitude. I saw that he could not look at anyone else tonight.”

  “I’m afraid that was just flattery.”

  “How good that you are so sensible! Yes, it was flattery, but it shows he is roused. When you have left us we will find him a novia.” Inez absently stroked a cape of summer fur which lay across the foot of a bunk. “You have seen over the yacht, Juliet?”

  “Most of it, I think. It’s amazing that so much can be packed into the space available for cabins, and so on.”

  “Yet you have not seen my brother’s cabin, which is the largest of all and delightfully modern.” She paused, palpably preoccupied with something else. “At functions such as this you feel strange, do you not? It would be so much better for you if you had an English companion.”

  “I don’t really mind, senora.”

  “But it is a pity to be lonely. Did my brother mention that I would have been happy to welcome your friend here tonight?”

  Juliet said stoically, “There’s no one I’d care to ask.”

  “Then you are not on such terms with the Englishman who called on you yesterday, as I was leaving?”

  There was something ominous about this probing. Juliet said, “He’s a naturalized Spaniard, senora, and I don’t know him well enough to call him a friend.”

  Inez was smiling gently. “I thought he looked interesting. I have always thought so, since the first time I saw him some weeks ago.”

  Juliet’s fingertips turned clammily into her palms; she hadn’t foreseen a situation of this sort. “Then perhaps,” she said non-committally, “you know him better than I do. When the Senor Conde said that I might bring a friend, I gathered that you didn’t know him at all.”

  Inez shrugged. “Ramiro is not here often, and this is his longest stay for many years. He is well acquainted with the people of San Federigo, but has little reason to become intimate with others who live in the Bahia de Manca. Mr. Whitman has a house at Cortana, I believe?”

  The cold dampness of Juliet’s hands was communicating itself to her shoulders and spine. She was sure that sweat stood out on the bare skin below her nape.

  She answered briefly, “Yes, he has.”

  “He is in business?”

  “No, he’s a writer.”

  Lights showed in the usually uncommunicative eyes. “We have a writer among us? But I must certainly meet him! Juliet, you will ask him to take tea at the Castillo. Both of you, of course. Tomorrow.”

  Juliet floundered. “I’ve no means of getting in touch with him. Senora, I’d much rather have nothing to do with it at all. I really believe it would be better to ignore him. He’s not such a good writer—he said himself that...”

  “But that is the way of writers,” replied Inez with animation. “He speaks ill of himself so that one will be all the more astounded by his books! I insist on meeting this Englishman turned Spaniard,” her tones lowered, “but it would be as well for the occasion to have a casual appearance, and not to tell my brother about it at once. Yes, that is best. You will arrive at the Castillo at four-thirty with Mr. Whitman, and we three shall be alone for only a short while. As for getting in touch with him,” she sounded almost gay, “there is not a man anywhere who will not respond to a note from a pretty girl. You are English, you will think of what to write to him.”

  “I can’t do it, senora.”

  Inez looked at her dispassionately, unsmilingly. “That is a peculiar attitude, is it not? You have acquaintance with this man, and I feel he is unusual enough to be worth at least one small meeting; no one else need know of it. It is nothing, Juliet—but you will not do this small thing.”

  “I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Juliet desperately. “You see...”

  “And what if I tell you it has a very special meaning for me?”

  Juliet was hot now, and wretchedly woolly. What on earth could Inez de Vedro, sister of the Conde de Vallos, want with the dissipated Lyle Whitman? And how would Ramiro react if he were told about it? As for Norma ... Juliet shivered.

  “I’d like to think more about it,” she said.

  The other’s voice softened. “You are cautious, which is a quality I admire in any girl. But I am much older than you are and I am always very sure of my actions. This encounter with Mr. Whitman will be in the nature of an experiment for me; there is something I wish to prove, and I believe he can help me.”

  “But the Senor Conde...” said Juliet drowningly.

  “Ramiro knows my sense of propriety—he would not object, I assure you, and I have chosen tomorrow because he will be away all day and it may not be necessary to tell him. Will you bring Mr. Whitman to the Castillo for tea tomorrow?”

  “I’ll try,” despondently, “but I can’t promise he’ll come.”

  “He will come,” Inez stated confidently. “I have no doubt at all about that. I will look forward to it, Juliet, and you must not worry. I have demanded this, so it is my responsibility.”

  But what about Norma, thought Juliet wildly. How in the world had all this muddle come about? It didn’t seem possible that one could live quietly in a villa and have so many bricks tumble about one. It was just as though the posting of that little packet of Norma’s had knocked away a stanchion, and she had to sit tight under the battering that followed.

  Inez already had the cabin door open. She turned and did something Juliet would never have imagined her doing to any woman; she slipped a cool hand round Juliet’s elbow and gave it a faint squeeze.

  “Let us now enjoy the night. Here is Mario, hoping very ardently that you will dance with him.”

  But Juliet had no urge to dance. All she wished was that she could dive overboard and swim as far from San Federigo as her strength would take her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DANCING on deck can be an ecstatic experience. If one is not in love the partner does not matter very much because there is the magic of the star-coined sea, the salt breeze, the perfume of massed flowers which are conveniently tethered where they will provide half-sheltered spaces for pausing and gazing, and the music blending with the wash of waves below the rail. But to savour such rapture even impersonally, it is necessary to have peace of mind. Juliet’s mental equipment that evening was by no means peaceful.

  However, she danced with Mario and with several other young men, and she was drawn aside by the diplomat, Don Manuel Verrar, who no doubt considered it wise to be attentive towards the least of foreigners in Spain. Later, she noticed the man dancing sedately with Inez de Vedro, and she wished, despairingly, that he would waft the woman away somewhere for a long, long time. Long enough, at any rate, for Juliet Darrell to be on her way to England before the senora could show up again.

  But nothing of the kind happened. Two o’clock came, and the first contingent was taken ashore. Eight more of the guests were escorted down the steps to the second launch and wished goodnight by the Conde. From her position at the rail, Juliet saw him touch his lips to the wrists of the serene Elena de Mendoza and her mother, of the lively Lupita. She saw their brilliant smiles and Ramiro bending towards them as if each in her turn were, for that moment, the only women on earth.

  At Juliet’s side, the youngest of the three, Carmen Perez, drew a long sig
h, and said something softly in Spanish. Juliet nodded, as if she understood, as in a way she did. She watched the launch zoom away, and Ramiro mount the steps. He came to the last of his guests, Juliet and the Perez family.

  “I think we will all go over together,” he said in English, and then he changed to Spanish for a minute or two, before turning politely to Juliet, and explaining for her benefit: “Senor and Senora Perez with Carmen will go home in Mario’s car. Inez and I will take you to the Villa.”

  As the launch moved away from the yacht, Juliet looked up at him in the near-darkness. Perhaps it was a trick of the night that made him look like some enigmatic conqueror who has plans for his subjects. Certainly by the time they came alongside the jetty he was again the wholly agreeable host.

  He put the Perez family into Mario’s car, raised a hand as it moved away. Then he saw his sister and Juliet seated in the back of his own car, and set it moving along the waterfront, which even at this hour was not entirely deserted. Juliet had never quite believed Luisa’s assertion that the Spanish people lived by night, but here was proof. There was even a family making its way home, a young father with a drowsy child on his shoulder and his wife holding the hands of two more ninos whose feet dragged as though they were sleep-walking.

  The car swept up the hill and round the high sea road, turned on to the drive of the Villa Massina, where a light hung in the porch. Ramiro got out and opened the door. Juliet said goodnight to Inez, caught the woman’s gaze for a second and read its smiling message. Then she went up into the porch and placed the door-key in the hand he held out.

  They entered the hall and he switched on the lights and glanced about him. “I will go up first and look at those children,” he said.

  “It isn’t necessary, senor. Luisa is sleeping upstairs tonight.”

  “Bueno.” He paused, looking down at her without expression, except that the dark eyes were a fraction narrower than usual. “I was talking with Mario Perez in the smoking-room of the yacht this evening. He was vaguely ligero ... what you call, in the clouds. I do not blame him for that,” though to Juliet he looked as if he did, “but there was a thing he said which stayed with me. We spoke of the marriage of my estate manager, which I shall attend for an hour tomorrow in Cadiz, and in jest he mentioned that I might soon attend my own wedding. He is young, and it is unlike him to speak of what does not concern him, but he had taken an unusual quantity of champagne.”