At the Villa Massina (2 page)

“Really?” murmured Juliet politely.

The young senora gave a deep shrug and said contentedly, “My brother will be married by then. At last he has agreed!” Then, as if suddenly aware that this was a stranger to whom she was spilling family news, she smiled and said, “This matter has become so important to me that I forget we are only just acquainted. Tell me about yourself, Miss Darrell.”

This was fairly easy. Juliet’s life had been hardly any different from that of many young English girls. She had worked, had fun at the weekends, studied library routine in order to help her uncle, spent holidays at the coast, belonged to an emergency nursing unit. To date, this trip to Spain was by far the most sensational happening in her life.

Inez de Vedro pointed out the fishing villages along the coast, and when presently they took a hill and rounded a headland, she waved a hand at a cluster of pink-washed cottages below, at a white yacht which stood in the bay.

“San Federigo,” she said. “The villas are behind the town, and the Castillo is over there on the opposite cliff. You cannot see it too well because of the trees, but I assure you that it is very fine. I am hoping very much that Ramiro’s novia will not become so enchanted with it that she will want him to keep it and turn me out!”

This was apparently a joke, so Juliet laughed. She didn’t know why she felt so ill at ease with the woman, nor why she found herself hoping she would have very little to do with the Castillo and its owner. She made appropriate remarks about the cottage gardens and vineyards, the pottery which was drying in the sun ready for painting and glazing; but she was relieved when Tony chanted suddenly,

“There it is, Juliet! The lovely, lovely, lovely villa! We’re home!”

The Villa Massina was built like a large-scale luxurious cottage, with bold eaves at each end and a long covered porch in the centre. There were wooden benches in the porch and tubs of blue and coral hydrangeas which were already in bud. And also in the porch stood Luisa, the swarthy-skinned elderly servant, who wore the traditional black frock to her ankles with a stiff white apron. The woman bobbed her tight knot of pepper-grey hair as she curtseyed. Senora de Vedro pressed the knob which wound down the window, and smiled out upon the servant graciously.

“Good morning, Luisa. Everything is ready?”

“Everything, Dona Inez. I trust the ankle is better today?”

“Oh, yes, but I am forbidden by the Senor Conde to use it; therefore I must stay in the car. But you will welcome Miss Darrell and the children, I am sure. The luggage will arrive soon.”

By now, Juliet, Rina and Tony were on the flagstones, and Inez inclined her head to them. “Luisa will take immense care of you, and I will call and see you as soon as I can. My brother will have telegraphed your arrival to your cousin in London, so for the moment you need do nothing but take lunch and rest. Adios, Miss Darrell ... and you little ones.”

The blue car swept away, and when she had caught her breath Juliet suggested the children should lead the way into the house. It was dim and cool inside, and for some minutes, while she walked from sitting-room to diningroom, from there to the bed-rooms, Juliet felt that everything was too dark and heavy. Then the restfulness of it all stole over her, and she decided to make the most of it and postpone examining the rooms in detail.

The lunch was ready; cold meats and salad, mounds of chopped fresh fruits in glass bowls, whipped cream, soft cheese and crisp golden rolls. The children ate without appetite, and both were glad to go down for siesta. Juliet came back to the dining-room, to find it cleared and impersonally gleaming; the old dark table and chairs, the ornate cabinet and serving table looked as if they had been polished daily for a hundred years.

The sitting-room was equally well cared for, but gay cushions relieved the sombre armchairs and sofa, and the french door was open into the shady porch. Just inside the room, but near the door, a low table had been set with coffee for one, and the servant was hovering, to enquire whether this was what the senorita wished.

“It’s perfect, Luisa,” Juliet told her gratefully. “If you’re used to siesta at this time, please go. I’ll dispose of the tray myself.”

“Just to put it in the kitchen, please,” the woman said. “I will wash the things when I come to make tea.” She gave a wintry smile. “The senorita has that same English habit—the tea?”

“I’m afraid so, but I’ll be perfectly happy to get it myself.”

Luisa said with dignity, “Senora Colmeiro would never come to the kitchen. I will make the tea.”

“Very well, Luisa. Thank you.”

A brief silence. Then: “The little Rina does not look well. She is half Spanish and the English climate does not suit her. Antonio is more English.”

“Tony’s robust.” Juliet leaned back in the low chair. “I suppose you know the children very well? They certainly know you.”

“I have always worked at this house—first for the uncle of Don Ruy and afterwards for Don Ruy himself.” A deep lift of the shoulders. “My family have always served the Colmeiros and at the Castillo.”

The Castillo. In spite of herself, Juliet said, “Senora de Vedro mentioned the Senor Conde. Who is he?”

Luisa’s forehead creased into innumerable lines, her black brows became almost vertical. “But you have met him this morning; Ramiro Fernandez de Velasco y Cuevora, the Conde de Vallos. He is the most magnificent hidalgo in Spain!”

This seemed rather excessive. Granted, the man was distinguished-looking and arrogant, every inch a nobleman; but Juliet conservatively drew the line at calling any man magnificent. So he was a count, and he owned castillos; What next?

She would have ended the conservation there, but Luisa, who alternated between periods of utter silence and garrulousness, was on a pet subject. She folded her rough dark hands primly in front of her, but leant forward slightly, to give eager emphasis to what she was saying.

“The Senor Conde does not come often to San Federigo, but it is said that this year he will stay several weeks. I have it from the personal maid of Dona Inez that he will certainly announce his betrothal before he leaves this time. Because Dona Inez has begged him he has come here for that purpose—to choose a wife. He has never found anyone to his taste in Cadiz.”

“Good heavens,” said Juliet. “Do you mean he intends to marry but hasn’t found the woman yet?”

“You do not understand; you English are very peculiar in these things. There are three eligible young women in this district, and Dona Inez will see to it that the Senor will meet them all very often.” She relaxed the grip of her hands and placed one finger along the side of her nose. “We shall then notice! There will be one whom he favors more than the others.”

“Doesn’t he know them yet?” queried Juliet curiously.

“But of course! He has known them for years. It is merely that now is the time he has chosen for selecting his wife. Naturally, he can marry only into a family such as his own, so there is simply the choice between these three.”

“He’s not so young. Why hasn’t he done this before?”

The woman lifted both hands, expressively. “There have been reasons, I suppose, but it cannot be delayed much longer. He has agreed to marry, and that is a cause for great joy in San Federigo!”

Juliet almost gave a deep shrug herself, it was part of the rich somnolent atmosphere of this place that one accepted the customs of the people. But after Luisa had padded away in her home-made zapatillas, Juliet poured a second cup of coffee and lay back in her chair, looking out at the pinks and roses, the tall agapanthus and the distant misty blue of wistaria draping a pergola ... and she wondered.

The Conde had at last decided to marry, because it was expected of him. As no alien or inferior blood could be permitted to mingle with that of the family of de Velasco y Cuevora, the field in which he might hunt was reduced to three, a fact which he apparently accepted with equanimity. For no man could have looked more suave and aloof, more completely master of his destiny than had the Conde de Vallos, at the quay this morning!

Which meant that he had no objection to marrying one of the three women convention offered him. She would be his Condesa, and presumably he would make love to her in the warm Spanish fashion. Yet he would have chosen her cold-bloodedly, possibly for her beauty and tractability. How romantic. And this was passionate Spain! Juliet gave it up. She had other things to consider.

Presently she went upstairs and began to unpack the cases which had arrived from the quay. Her own first, because the children were still sleeping. She hung away frocks and jackets, placed shoes on their rack at the base of the massive mahogany wardrobe, and set out the petit point brush set her uncle and aunt had given her last Christmas. She paused near the casement window and looked down at the garden, which was wild and fragrant, like an English cottage garden in high summer except for the orange canna lilies and the massed growth of floribunda roses. The next villa was so far away that only a glimpse of the pink tiles was visible, but to the south one could see the close zigzag of red roofs, the church steeple in the town and even a triangle of the waterfront and the sea. Actually, there was a beach much nearer, but the view was shut out by the ilexes and cedars at the back of the garden.

Rina called, asking if she could get up, and Juliet ran into her room; a fairly bright room, this, though the bed and dressing table were definitely antiques. But there were vast built-in cupboards into which clothes and toys could be packed, and there was a book-case filled with children’s reading matter in both Spanish and English. Tony’s room was similar, even to the gaudy peasant rugs on the floor, and both children seemed already to be established.

It was, “Luisa will get Juan to mend the scooter for me.” Or, “We’ll ask Anna-Maria to find us some strawberries in her father’s shop.” Or even, “We might ask Tia Inez if we may go on the yacht.” They had hardly spoken to a Spaniard since arriving in the country, yet both slipped in a word or two of the language without being aware of it. Perhaps unconsciously they had absorbed a little of their father’s accent; it definitely came to them as smoothly as English. Involuntarily, Juliet began to accept her surroundings as natural and comprehensible. Because nothing was strange to the children, the peculiarities became dulled for Juliet.

They walked through the garden in the early evening, found arbours covered with jasmine and roses, and benches thick with pink blossom under the almond trees. They descended a flight of steps hacked out of the rock, and found the beach, an almost deserted stretch of golden sand where a few cockleshells were pulled up high and draped with nets. There were one or two cottages on the low headland, and they wandered up the road, past them, to look over at San Federigo nestling in its own particular bay.

“Our beach is much better for bathing,” Tony said condescendingly, “and it doesn’t smell of sardines. I’ve been out to catch sardines.”

“In nets?” asked Juliet, idly.

“Yes, but they have to be special, because sardines are little. Rina didn’t come.”

“I didn’t want to,” said Rina. “The fishes wriggle and then die.”

“That’s exactly my reaction,” commented Juliet. “Let the men do their fishing. We’ll find other things to do.”

“Tony was only four when he went fishing,” Rina submitted. “He only pretends he remembers.”

“I do remember,” he asserted belligerently.

“All right, you remember,” put in Juliet pacifically. “We’ve done enough for one day. Tonight you’ll have an early supper and go straight to bed. Tomorrow you must show me the town.”

When Rina lay in bed that night she looked white but happy. Having already dealt with Tony, Juliet bent over the bed and kissed the little girl’s forehead.

“Glad to be here, darling?”

“So very glad. I hope Daddy will come soon, but I want you to stay, too. Goodnight, Juliet.”

“Goodnight, honey-bunch. Sleep well.”

Juliet came out of the room and closed the door, went quietly downstairs. Neither child had mentioned Norma till she had reminded them to do so, in their prayers. There was something wrong about that, yet perhaps it could be explained by the fact that they were used to being handled by servants, both in England and in Spain. Still, there should be no one closer to a child than its mother; what a fool Norma was, to relinquish her right to the most important place in the children’s hearts!

By eight-thirty Juliet was again drinking coffee near the open french window. But as she relaxed she caught sight of the smart little hold-all with which Norma had presented her only an hour or so before they had parted. It held the passports and papers, Juliet’s return ticket and some Spanish money which Ruy had pressed into her hand at the last moment. There was a safe, she had been told, behind a picture in the dining-room, and it seemed that that would be the best place for valuables. So Juliet reached across to the table near the wall and transferred the square bag to her lap.

She drew out the passports and the manilla envelope bulging with paper money, felt around the soft kid lining for anything else she might have dropped into the bag during the voyage. There was Rina’s thin blue necklace, a couple of safety-pins ... and a hard angular object which seemed somehow to have secreted itself within the pocket of the bag. She pulled the zipper, took the four-inch square package into her hands and unwrapped it from the sheet of notepaper. For quite some seconds she thought there must have been some curious error which could probably be traced to the assistant from whom Norma had purchased the bag; then she recognized her cousin’s writing on the pale blue sheet, and saw that it was a note addressed to herself.