Doctor at Villa Ronda (23 page)

Nicola towelled herself, then with a wave went to the changing cubicle, dressed as fast as she could and left Sebastian and Elena together, as no doubt had been their intention.

CHAPTER IX

Nicola
worked hard at her part of the bargain during the month that had been agreed on between her and Sebastian, and was only held back from finishing the doctor’s lengthy book by his revisions and additional chapters. It would have been flattering to pretend that he was reluctant to part with her or even her services, but with Dona Elena constantly in and out of the Villa, although she had recalled her staff and opened her house farther up the hill, Nicola did not delude herself.

Lisa went out every day on some mysterious business of her own, sometimes dropping a casual remark that she was well on the way to getting herself a delightful job. Nicola worried about what kind of job it would turn out to be, but knew that if Lisa was not in the mood to answer questions there would be no information forthcoming.

A certain coolness seemed to have sprung up again between Ramon and Adrienne, and while he spent a lot of time on the yacht, Adrienne either painted or drove about the
c
ountryside in her own white car. Sometimes Nicola accompanied her on these jaunts, and secretly wished that Adrienne would not drive quite so fast, especially round blind
corner
s and along twisting roads.

Nicola noticed how the long summer had already changed the colours of the landscape. The almond trees bordering the roads had lost their fresh green look and become dusty. Soon the pickers would come for the harvest,
shaking
down the nuts into large sheets spread below. In the villages the walls of houses were decorated with brilliant scarlet banners of pimentos hung from the windows to dry in the sun.

“When will your sister leave us?” Adrienne asked one day when the two girls were driving to a small seaside place farther up the coast.

“Soon, I think,” returned Nicola. “She speaks of a job she has in mind.”

“Soon, I
hope
!”
retorted Adrienne, unconsciously putting her foot down on the accelerator and narrowly missing a donkey laden with pottery.

“Careful!” exclaimed Nicola.

Adrienne stopped the car. It was impossible to turn in the narrow road, but she began to back. The irate donkey
-
owner was gesticulating and shouting.

“It is lucky that you possibly do not understand all he is saying,” commented Adrienne, as she alighted and walked towards the man.

Nicola, sensing the curses and imprecations, could well imagine, but Adrienne’s smile and no doubt honeyed words soothed him at once. He became all smiles and courteous bows as he displayed his wares. Nicola understood at once that Adrienne was about to purchase some small article as a peace-offering. Nicola stepped out of the car and joined Adrienne.

“We must buy each other small presents,” said Adrienne. “What would you like?”

Nicola had long been meaning to buy as a souvenir a small reproduction of the terra-cotta jugs commonly used everywhere in Spain for fetching water from wells or street fountains.

She chose one about nine inches high, faithfully made in all its details, the spout on the side, with a knob opposite for balance, and the curved top with its small pinhole.

“A mini jug,” said Nicola. “And what would you like, Adrienne?”

This, of course, was coals to Newcastle, but Adrienne with innate courtesy considered the pots and baskets, the sacred pictures, and finally chose a small glazed bowl with a bird’s beak for spout and curving tail for handle.

“It is a piece I can use for still life painting,” she said. “A million thanks.”

The picturesque hawker in his long, baggy red and black striped trousers, black waistcoat and wide-brimmed hat was determined to give good measure for custom and now took out his bagpipes decorated with red and white ribbons and wheezed out an air unrecognisable to Nicola’s ears, but intended as a token of cordiality all the same. Eventually, with the exchange of many salutations and gracious bows, the two girls returned to the car.

In resuming the journey, Adrienne also continued the conversation. “I am sorry, but I cannot like Lisa. It is a pity that she had to be found. Oh, I do not wish to hurt you, Nicola, and it is very ill-bred of me to tell you, but she is not a good sister for you. She is a bad influence.”

Nicola tried to smile. “I don’t think she will influence me in wrong directions.”

“That is just what she can do,” declared Adrienne firmly. “She is selfish and is only anxious to have everything she wants. She is what I think you call a gold
-
digger.”

Nicola remained silent for a few moments, searching for words that were non-committal. Finally she said, “Lisa hasn’t always been very lucky. Things don’t always come right for her.”

“Why should she expect it?” queried Adrienne. “All of us must suffer sometimes.”

Nicola knew that this was a dangerous discussion, especially when Adrienne continued, “She is too eager for men with money.”

Nicola laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

“No, I think you’re different. The kind of man is more important to you than money.”

Nicola reflected ruefully that it would not have mattered if it were Sebastian himself or his position that appealed to her. The result was the same.

One day Nicola made a strange discovery. She was in the salon of the Villa Ronda gazing idly at the portraits of former members of the Montal family. Most of the men looked as though they had stepped out of Velasquez groups, but the women were more like Goyas. Sebastian’s portrait, painted by Adrienne and exhibited, hung at the far end next to one that seemed a slightly older edition of him. Would that be his elder brother, Eduardo? Nicola wondered.

Then she saw the portrait of the woman whose photograph Sebastian kept in his desk. Young, very beautiful, delicate features but not Spanish type, her eyes brilliantly blue.

Adrienne said quietly, “That was my mother.”

Nicola spun round. She bit back an exclamation of surprise and controlled herself to say, “What a beautiful woman!” She glanced at Adrienne. “You are almost exactly like her, except that your eyes are grey.”

“And that is my father next to Sebastian,” Adrienne pointed out. “Oh, I wonde
r
if he will ever come back! Sebastian really believes that he is dead, but I am sure he is alive.” '

Nicola reflected that the Villa Ronda household had its full share of the anxiety caused by a missing member. Sebastian and Adrienne both knew the desolation of the long silence just as she, Nicola, had longed to hear even the smallest wisp of news about Lisa.

Possibly Sebastian had taken more trouble to search for Lisa because he sympathised with Nicola’s similar position.

A perplexing thought niggled at the back of Nicola’s mind. Why did Sebastian keep the photograph of Adrienne’s mother in his desk? Why couldn’t it be displayed openly on the top? Why didn’t it belong in
Eduardo’s rooms? But then Nicola had no means of knowing what portraits or photographs were still in the elder brother’s suite.

When she had free time Nicola painted local scenes while Adrienne helped and criticised her efforts.

“You must make the contrasts sharper,” advised Adrienne, “or it does not look like our country, all sunshine and shadow.”

“Yes, I’m more used to our own English grey-greens.”

One afternoon Nicola was painting in the patio of the Villa. Her picture represented the arched entrance flanked by palms and one giant cactus that had suddenly burst into flower, scarlet and salmon pink tassels hanging from the dark menacing leaves with their serrated edges.

Sebastian’s car drove up, but Ignacio took it out of the way as soon as he could, and Sebastian came towards Nicola where she stood at her easel, protected by a large umbrella.

“I gather you don’t want my car spoiling your picture,” he said, gazing critically at her half-finished effort. “It’s coming quite well,” he continued, after a pause. “But you must put more yellow with the white. Just a touch, then it will dazzle much more than pure white.”

“Yes, I see.”

“I notice you have learnt the lesson I gave you about the shadow revealing what is underneath.”

“I’ve tried to remember,” she answered smoothly. He had taught her more lessons than how to paint shadowed brickwork. Some of those lessons had been painfully sharp.

“I cannot remember if anyone has ever painted the entrance to our Villa before. What are you going to do with the picture?”

‘Take it home with me, I expect, as a souvenir.” She controlled her shaky embarrassment by searching for a tube of cadmium yellow.

“You’ve decided, then, to return to England?” he asked.

“It’s probably the best thing I can do,” she muttered, hoping that he would go away and leave her alone.

“
When you’ve finished it, would you give me the picture, Nicola?”

S
he raised a startled face. “It won’t be good enough. It’s only a daub. I—I don’t know enough about the technique.”

“
Let me be the judge of that.” His smile was warm, with just a hint of amusement in his eyes.

W
hen he had walked away, Nicola stared first after him, then at the painting, which would never be a success now, for he had made her nervous and inhibited. Still, it was something that he took any interest at all in what she did or what her future plans were.

L
isa did not return to the Villa that night, but since she often came in long after midnight, Nicola did not know of her sister’s absence until next morning. This time, however, Lisa lost no time in informing Nicola. A letter came at midday and the brief note explained that Lisa had gone on a short cruise somewhere in the Mediterranean.

“
Yachting holidays appeal to me,
”
she wrote
.
“Don’t worry
,

Love,

Lisa
.”

Nicola’s first alarming thought was that Lisa had gone off with Ramon in the
Clorinda,
but a reassuring glance through Adrienne’s binoculars verified that the
Clorinda
was still in harbour. As Ramon eventually arrived in the evening, it was evident that Lisa’s yachtsman was someone else.

“I am delighted to
hear that she has gone for a holiday,
”
was Adrienne’s frank reaction to the news of Lisa’s absence.

Ramon began to chuckle and his dark eyes glinted with fun. He broke into hilarious laughter.

“
Ah, the American has. been trapped!” he managed to say at last.

“
What American?” asked Nicola.

“There were many days when Lisa came to the harbour and signalled for my dinghy. When she came aboard the
Clorinda
I could not get rid of her.”

“Did you try very hard? Or was it too difficult?” queried Adrienne acidly.

R
amon gave Adrienne a teasing glance. “Sometimes both,” he declared, leaving the girl to make what she could of that answer. “But one day the American was on my boat and Lisa asked me many questions about him. She could see that his yacht was larger than mine, and no doubt his house in Florida, his apartment in New York, his ranch in Arizona are all most luxurious.”

Nicola was uncertain whether Ramon knew these facts or had invented them to rid himself of Lisa’s pestering.

“
That was clever of you,
querido
,”
commented Adrienne. It was the first time that Nicola had heard the girl call Ramon
‘
querido
,’
although he often used the ‘darling’ endearment to her.

Perhaps Lisa’s intrusion had not been entirely in vain after all. If she had supplied the catalyst to spark off Adrienne’s dormant jealousy and succeeded in awakening her love for Ramon, then Lisa had unwittingly contrived more good than harm.

Nicola excused herself and left Adrienne and Ramon to their own confidences. She was slightly uneasy as to the outcome of Lisa’s new venture. Was this to be another Tony affair with nothing to show at the end except disappointment and a handful of unpaid bills?

When Nicola told one of the maids that her sister would not be at the Villa for the next few days, it occurred to her to find out if Lisa had taken most of her personal belongings with her. The wardrobe was entirely empty, the drawers likewise. Not even an odd nylon stocking remained. Her brushes and cosmetic bottles were cleared from the dressing table, but in one of the compartments a small object was wrapped in an envelope. Inside was the topaz brooch that Nicola had found in the flat occupied by Lisa on the Paseo Maritimo in Barcelona, the only evidence that Lisa had really stayed there.
Nicola had returned it to her sister soon after the latter had come to the Villa Ronda.