At the Villa Massina (20 page)

Luisa came through from the kitchen. “Senora, I have no instructions about the lunch. I thought the senorita would come to see me, but she has gone out.”

“It’s to be lunch for the two children and Miss Darrell, Luisa. Just as it used to be before the senor and I arrived.”

“There was something else I wished to ask Miss Darrell. Tonio wishes my son to take him out in the boat.”

“Does he—the little monkey! I don’t think he’d better go to sea till we get back from Cadiz. Oh, Luisa,” a pause, “have you tidied the bedrooms?”

“No, senora. I left them till later because I was afraid of disturbing you and the senor. I will clean the rooms and change all the bed-linen ready for your return, as soon as you have gone.”

“No hurry, Luisa. When you hear the senor come down you might bring two glasses of chocolate.”

The servant said that indeed she would; and indeed she did, when Ruy appeared, wearing a light suit, a cream shirt and navy tie. The children came in for lemonade, and it was then that Ruy exclaimed.

“You do not bring Juliet with you! Are you a gentleman or a rogue, Tonio?”

“Oh, she’s out,” said Tony unconcernedly. “She does that sometimes—goes to post a letter and looks in the shops.”

“I didn’t see her go,” stated Rina. “She generally tells us, and asks if we want to go with her. I expect she’s in her bedroom.”

“Run up and see,” suggested her father. “She may like some coffee or chocolate.”

Norma lay back in her chair and looked out at the garden. She said almost tenderly, “I do sometimes wish we had a garden in England, don’t you, Ruy? The flat’s lovely, but you do miss a view.”

“We are fortunate that we have this loveliness to come to for several months of the year. It has occurred to me again recently that your mother and father would appreciate this. It would give me much pleasure to watch your father’s astonishment at everything in Spain.”

“We’ve been over it before, darling. They’d be right out of their element. They’ve never travelled, you know—not even to the Channel Islands. The poor darlings would be terrified. Are you quite sure you wouldn’t like a biscuit with your chocolate, Ruy?”

“I’ll have another biscuit,” Tony said accommodatingly.

Rina came running. “Daddy! Mummy! Juliet’s not there and everything’s cleared up. This letter was on the table!”

Norma took the envelope quickly, fumbled as she slipped her thumb under the flap. She read the few lines, put a hand to her mouth, stared at her husband and handed the sheet of paper to him. His reaction was slightly volcanic.

“Juliet gone! I cannot believe this! Do you realize what she is saying here, Norma? Who would give her a lift—and where to? Why should she do this when we are here, under the roof, and will gladly take her anywhere she wishes to go! There is something very strange about this.”

“I know. I ... I feel quite faint.”

At this, of course, Ruy shooed the children out into the garden and hurriedly poured some bandy for his wife. When Norma appeared more herself, he walked up and down, throwing out his hands.

“What is the explanation of it? Can you think of what was in her mind to make her act so ... so uncharacteristically? This I find hurtful, Norma—that she should behave as if we have no kindness and understanding!”

Norma nodded and spoke sadly. “I think I do understand. Juliet has been different here in Spain—you’ve seen that yourself—and I’m rather afraid there’s someone she’s in love with, who doesn’t love her.”

“Then he is a fool,” said Ruy. “But where is the sense in going off like this to strange cities? You think she will still make the tour she talked of?”

“Yes, I do. She wants to forget something. Don’t let’s judge her for going off so thoughtlessly, Ruy. Juliet’s a deep one, you know, and very restrained. I don’t think we ought to be too inquisitive.”

“But while she is in Spain it is our duty to keep her happy. We have failed in it, Norma, and it is not agreeable to know! We must follow her.”

Norma said soberly, “I feel like that, too, but I do think it would be kinder to do nothing at all. It looks as if she badly needs to be alone. She’s twenty-two, Ruy, and in England, as you know, a girl of that age is thought capable of managing her own life. She says she’ll write, and I think we should wait till we hear from her before taking any action. You see, darling, I know Juliet—I grew up with her. At least, she grew up as my young sister, and we were very close.”

“Then it seems to me, cara mia,” he said despondently, “as if you are no longer close, or she would have confided in you.”

“I didn’t confide in her when I fell in love with you, darling.”

He smiled a little wearily. “No, of course not. She was too young. I am afraid I have made you grow away from her, and it was wrong. If she is unhappy she has been needing someone like you.”

Norma came beside him, placed her cheek to his. “No one can help her just now, my dear. She has to fight this out with herself. She’d be most miserable if she guessed you were taking it like this.”

“Yes, she would. I never knew a girl less selfish. But I cannot help this feeling that we have failed her.”

But to Norma’s relief he was calmer. She took his arm and moved with him to the front door. “We must do what we feel is best for Juliet. We can’t hear from her for a day or two, and I’m sure she takes it for granted that we’ll go in the yacht today to Cadiz. Let’s do just that, Ruy. And for her sake we’ll say nothing whatever about her running out. She’s not likely to be missed for some hours, and by then we shall be able to speak as though she has merely put forward her departure by a day or two, because she was offered a lift to ... shall we say, Malaga? That’s the first large town she’ll visit.”

Ruy was not easily persuaded. Even Juliet would have been amazed at his concern, and Norma, naturally, was annoyed. But she kept her tones soft and depressed. She repeated that they had to take the kind attitude, and leave Juliet alone. In any case, within a week or so Juliet would be leaving for England and after that they would know she was safe with her uncle and aunt.

“Let’s think only of Juliet,” she ended. “This swift exit with no goodbyes is what she wants. It’s easy to arrange farewell parties and take her to the ship, but we’re called upon to endure the hard way, and I’m sure we love her enough to go through with it. We’ll say nothing about her to anyone, till they ask, and then we’ll deal with it casually, as if she went with our blessing. Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

Ruy sighed and said he supposed it was, and Norma left him. She felt she had wasted enough time over Juliet, and in any case she had to prepare their luggage for a night or two at the Castillo near Cadiz.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JULIET stayed for only a couple of hours in Manca. She knew the tiny port quite well, and it was too soon after leaving San Federigo for her to settle to sight-seeing. After coffee and a sandwich at a cafe, she caught the bus which would take her half-way to Malaga, and learned that it connected with a service which would get her to the town that night. Thankful, she put herself into the hands of the bus company and relaxed in a window-seat.

It was a small old bus, fairly full of people travelling from one sparkling white village near the sea to the next, so that the occupants were for ever changing. Women with large bundles on their laps chatted with others half-way down the bus, men exchanged news or jests, and under the seats an occasional hen squawked in its reed cage. It was all very friendly, though through lack of the language Juliet lost the point of the remarks addressed to her.

“Turista?” she was asked companionably, and when she admitted to it, was treated to lectures about the district and offered streams of advice of which she never really discovered the value.

Now and again the road wound away from the sea and over a low mountain, but there was fertility everywhere. Fields were lush with early wheat or being ploughed by teams of oxen for summer planting. There were miles of olive and orange groves, plains packed with bananas, stretches of market gardens, the neatness of plantation and garden a tribute to an industrious peasantry.

The mountains ahead became tipped with the gold of the setting sun, the sky assumed the deep purplish hue of hyacinths, but still the people worked on their terraced lands, even where height made it stony and barely profitable.

The bus, Juliet learned, was running late, but it was thought the one for Malaga would wait at the terminus. But by now, Juliet was beginning to wonder. Was a call at Malaga such a good plan, after all? It wasn’t very likely that Ruy would send after her, but if he did, Malaga would be where he would expect her to be found. She couldn’t be compelled to return to San Federigo, but it might save unpleasantness if she missed Malaga and went on to Granada. On the map it looked easy. She would have to find out something about it when the bus stopped.

It grew really late. They were in the mountains now, travelling round hairpin bends at five miles an hour. The view from Juliet’s window was chiefly of stars, for the mountain-side dropped away into blackness and the light from an occasional cottage was a white pin-point. No one within the bus seemed to object to the tedium of the journey. They talked or slept, ate polony and offered it.

Then suddenly they arrived. A village full of lights, a single cafe and a plaza where the bus turned and made its final shuddering stop of the day. Stiffly, Juliet got out into the glorious air which had a slight nip from the mountains. She waited for her case to be unloaded, ascertained that the Malaga bus had not yet left, and crossed to the cafe.

She was served with fino and tortillas, fruit and cheese, and detachedly, she watched the Malaga bus depart. She spoke to the waiter in English, and was astonished when he bowed and ran away. But a moment later he returned with an English couple in tow, and thankfully left Juliet to their mercies.

“You’ve got some pluck, I must say,” stated the Englishman, who had a very large ginger moustache. “We’re touring by car, and staying at the government albergue down the road. They’ll have a room for you, if you want one.”

“I do, just for tonight,” Juliet said. “I was going on to Malaga and changed my mind.”

“You can come with us, tomorrow,” the wife said. “We’re doing the coast now. Malaga, Almeria, Alicante, and so on. Stay with us as long as you like.”

“It’s generous of you, but I haven’t much time and I do want to see Madrid.”

“Getting hot there, very hot,” the man told her darkly, “far better to stick to the coast.”

“I just haven’t the time for it, I’m afraid. Do have some coffee with me.”

Before long the couple were knee-deep in maps and brochures, many of which they pressed upon Juliet. She accepted them because she would not have offended them for worlds, but it did seem that they took their pleasures rather sternly. Perhaps she herself was not in true touring mood.

The albergue was excellent; clean and well-serviced, plenty of hot water and fine airy bedrooms. Juliet did not go down to dinner, but neither was she tired enough for bed. After a few bad minutes in which she thought about the crowd who were even now at the Castillo in Cadiz, and particularly about Ramiro, she decided to find her diary and fill a few pages. Her uncle and aunt would enjoy it.

Later, she took a walk, and at about midnight, while there were still people strolling about the village, she went to bed.

Next morning she felt rather better. Glorious crystalline light lay over the mountains and valleys, men and women went off to the fields, donkey-carts meandered round the square, and the big rose-red church pointed its proud steeple against an azure sky. She bought some espadrilles for Aunt May, a book-cover for Uncle George; for better gifts she would wait till Madrid. Perhaps she was deliberately bringing her uncle and aunt nearer, but that didn’t matter. One’s self-esteem is important, and Juliet was clinging fiercely to hers.

The English couple sought her out and insisted that she must leave with them. The road was pretty bad for some way and the buses were slow. The couple were persistent, and Juliet was tired of being alone and fighting off memories.

The three of them set out in a small dusty tourer, complete with some food and a bottle of wine. Just outside the village they crossed a stream where women and girls were washing their clothes, banging away on the stones, chattering and laughing, while children played about them.

“We already have several shots of such scenes,” the man explained to Juliet, who sat in the back of the car, leaning forward. “Picturesque, what? Can’t resist that sort of thing myself.”

“I’m not a camera fiend, I'm afraid,” she confessed. “I’m a poor tourist.”

“Oh, but I adore the pictures,” he woman said. “We look at them in the winter and remember lots of incidents. After all, these holidays take a great deal of money and arranging, so one should get all one can from them.”

No use telling these people that she didn’t want to remember too much. She smiled. “I find my memory is almost too photographic. I doubt if anyone who’s been here could forget Spain.”

They took their touring heavily, these two. They talked continuously—about the wild flowers, the villages, the hint of Moorish or baroque in a certain building, the winding roads, the bamboo sheds where crops were drying, the rough stone walls around the pastures, the old sombreros worn by some of the campesinos, the tiled patio in front of a cottage. When the country did not change for an hour they told Juliet about the Ahambra and the Sierra Nevada, the cathedral at Burgos, the Roman amphitheatre at Sagunto, the fiestas of Seville. It occurred to her, dispassionately, that to their friends in England they were probably the most crashing bores.

The picnic was eaten by the roadside, and they eventually ran into Malaga at about four o’clock. In a wide palm-lined street outside a medium-sized hotel the car was stopped.

“Quite sure you won’t come on with us to Almeria?” demanded the Englishman. “I don’t think it’s too good for a girl who knows no Spanish to hang around here alone.”

“Spain is the safest country for a woman in the world,” Juliet answered. “A man will compliment as he passes, but he never stops unless he’s encouraged. I find the compliment refreshing.”

He eyed her seriously. “Don’t know what girls are coming to. You be careful, young lady.”

He called a porter for her bag, goodbyes were said, and Juliet was once more on her own. In the hotel she signed her name several times and took her key, decided suddenly that she wouldn’t go to her room yet. She was beginning to feel achey round the throat, and the best cure Malaga had to offer was its buildings and flowers and sea front. So she went out and walked towards the smell of the sea.

The Conde’s yacht nosed out of the Bahia de Manca about four hours after Juliet had left San Federigo. The guests had come aboard and been greeted by Inez and Manuel Verrar. Ramiro had stayed at the Castillo till the last moment because two car loads of guests were leaving by road, and only five minutes after he had reached the yacht it was moving out into the Bahia and heading for the open sea.

Norma and Ruy sat in the lounge cabin with several others, and they lunched from a magnificent trolley-load of foodstuffs and wines which had been wheeled in by a steward. Then the men cleared off and left the women to rest and Inez suggested that Norma might like to share a cabin with her for an hour or two.

Late in the afternoon, Inez went out on deck, where she found her brother alone at the taffrail. She looked down at the foaming wake of the yacht, spoke to him in Spanish.

“We cannot be far from Cadiz now. Will there be enough cars at the quay for us all?”

“I have arranged it.” He smiled at her. “You are happy about all this, Inez?”

“You know I am.”

“Manuel loves you very much.”

“I know. It is what I need.”

“Need is not enough. You must want him as much, Inez.” He paused. “I have never understood why you sent him away.”

“I did not send him, Ramiro, but it was best for him to go just then. I was not clear in my thoughts.”

“You are clear now?”

“Very clear. I am only unhappy about you. Will you never find a woman you can marry?”

He lifted his shoulders, looked back along the deck. “Perhaps. You must go back to the guests. They are yours, after all. You had Norma and Miss Darrell in the cabin with you?”

“Not Miss Darrell. Did you not know she had stayed in San Federigo?”

His glance veered sharply. “No, I had not heard. I took it she was with Norma. Miss Darrell accepted the invitation!”

“Norma told me, privately, that Juliet was so unwilling to come that she begged for nothing to be said—not even an apology—unless someone made enquiries. Please say nothing about it, Ramiro. I would not like Ruy and Norma to be distressed.”

“But why did they not insist that she come? I promised her this trip to Cadiz, to show her the Castillo and many things in the salas. She was not unwell?”

“Oh, no. It was merely a matter of inclination.”

“So,” His tones were hard and non-committal. “I feel it was Ruy’s duty to explain to me at once.”

“It was awkward for him—do you not see? He does not wish to offend you, or to make too much of Juliet’s refusal to accompany us to Cadiz. You will admit she is one of our circle only because of the Colmeiros. I believe she is constantly aware of that. If you wish her to explain she will do so when we return to San Federigo, tomorrow or the following day.”

After a moment, he repeated, “Go to the guests, Inez. We shall have refreshments before landing at Cadiz.”

Inez did not mention the subject again to Norma. She was in a mood to admit only the happy things to her consciousness. She poured tea and coffee in the lounge, and by the time the social interlude was over the yacht was tying up at Cadiz.

Four large cars were waiting, and soon the guests were in procession, up the narrow streets and past the pleasant little squares planted with flowers and palms and brightly lit, right on through the outskirts of the town into the country. They came to the great castle, saw it pale grey in the floodlight.

The party for Manuel and Inez that night was outstanding, even for the Castillo. As Norma said to Ruy while they were dressing in the privacy of their spacious suite, “This is the sort of experience that isn’t likely to come more than once in our lifetime—unless, of course, Ramiro does get married, after all. Even if he does, it might be while we’re in England. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

“Yet I feel that Ramiro himself regards this as only a duty,” Ruy commented. “One gets the impression that he will be glad when all these celebrations for Inez and Manuel are over, and he can settle to normal life. You know, I am sure he will not stay much longer at San Federigo.”

“I believe you’re right. It’s a pity, because he gives such a tone to social occasions, and if Inez is away with Manuel the whole place will be dead.”

“Except at the Villa Massina,” he reminded her fondly.

“Always excepting the Colmeiro family!” she exclaimed swiftly. “Darling, this is the new gown I bought just before we left England. Do I need pearls or the sapphire necklet? Your taste in such details is infallible.”

Norma did look lovely as she came down the great staircase into the reception hall. The black frock billowing from a tight waist, the sapphires at her slim throat, the Titian hair beautifully brushed so that the shallow waves framed her face and curled over each other at the back, and her fine rounded arms and white fingers showing starkly as she greeted other guests.

Altogether there were two hundred guests, some of them friends of Manuel’s from diplomatic circles in Madrid, and others friends of the Conde in Cadiz. They dined late and sumptuously in the baroque splendour of the dining-hall, there was a little dancing, strolling on the terraces and in the garden, talk and laughter, light scandal among the ladies. Norma had never conversed with so many titled people in all her life as she did during that evening. Being Norma, it went slightly to her head and she scintillated.

It must have been well after midnight when Ramiro came to sit beside her on one of the ornamental couches in the terrace. Ruy was in a chair nearby, and he immediately leaned forward to congratulate Ramiro on the function.

“It is a tremendous success. Inez must feel as if the world is magic tonight,” he said warmly.

“Yes, I think she does. After this, we shall be justified in having a quiet wedding in San Federigo. By the way, amigo, you will not mind if we return there tomorrow? Some of the guests are remaining here with Inez, but you will want to return in the yacht with me, no?”