Meeting in Madrid (11 page)

‘I can’t promise.’

‘You will be at the
puerto
,’ she said confidently, ‘so why don’t you join us at Orotava for a meal?’

He drew a deep breath.

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘There is no reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘None at all,’ Alex assured him. ‘And now I really must be off or it will be dark before I get home.’

‘Which means your headlights still don’t function,’ Ramon grinned.

‘I’ve had them attended to,’ Alex smiled, ‘but they’re still unreliable.’

‘What you need is a new car!’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Alex picked up her shoulder-bag. ‘Nobody must opt out of the
fiesta
,’ she warned, her smile embracing them all. ‘Not even you, Lucia!’

‘
Fiestas
don’t interest me any more,’ Lucia declared, moving along the terrace to speed her on her way, ‘but this time I will come.’

She stood beside the white two-seater while Don Jaime opened the door on the driver’s side for Alex to get in, very much the gracious hostess bidding a safe journey to the departing guest. She won’t let go, Catherine thought. Lucia will never let go. If Don Jaime doesn’t marry her she’ll find some other way of remaining in command at Soria, whatever it might cost in heartache to others.

For the next few days Lucia seemed to be constantly in the background whenever Don Jaime was in the house. Ramon she could trust in Catherine’s company, but not her senior brother-in-law, although it seemed that he had few interests beyond the estate. He worked hard from early morning till nightfall, and after that he shut himself in his study with a mound of paper-work which seemed to grow higher every day.

‘What Jaime needs is an efficient secretary,’ said Teresa, ‘but I doubt if he would let me help. He declares that my writing is illegible and I can’t type, but I could go through the mail for him.’

‘Why don’t you suggest it?’ Catherine asked.

‘I have, but he seems to think I would be better employed with my schoolwork. He’s got this thing about education, you see, wanting me to be a regular “bluestocking”, as you say in your country.’

‘Not only in my country,’ Catherine laughed, ‘but I agree with your uncle, up to a point.’

‘It seems ridiculous calling Jaime my uncle,’ Teresa mused. ‘He is only a dozen years older than I am.’

‘Which is quite a bit. And you told me that Lucia is ...?’

‘Twenty-nine,’ Teresa whispered in a hollow voice. ‘Soon she will be thirty.’

‘How terrible!’ Catherine teased.

‘Now you are laughing at me,’ Teresa returned, ‘but you can mock all you like. I know she hates to be older than Jaime, though it is only by a year. Spanish women age more quickly,’ she added speculatively, looking closely at Catherine, ‘but they are more worldly-wise than English girls once they have been married.’

The married state was something that Lucia had greatly prized, and Catherine was quick to recognise the fact, although she could not discuss it with Teresa. Almost every day since their arrival stepdaughter and stepmother had come to verbal blows on one issue or another, and because she was the older in experience Lucia had generally won the argument. Some of their battles were over such trivial things that Catherine felt impatient with them both, but she reminded herself that she was not well enough established at Soria to interfere in these matters. She might try by mild suggestion to influence Teresa, but she could not confront Lucia on her stepdaughter’s behalf.

‘Perhaps it would be easier if you didn’t always address her as
madrastra
,’ she suggested. ‘Nobody likes to be constantly reminded that they’re second best.’

Teresa turned round in a fury.

‘She is not my mother!’ she cried. ‘Why should I call her that? My mother was good and sweet and
delicada.
She died when I was very young.’

‘But you remember her?’

Teresa hesitated.

‘Why should I not?’ she protested. ‘I remember how kind she was and really beautiful. She wasn’t tall, like Lucia; she was small, like me. Small, with black hair. There is a portrait of her in the study, where Lucia seldom goes.’ Don Jaime seemed determined to keep the memory of her mother alive, whatever Lucia might think. Everything else which might have belonged to Eduardo’s first wife had been removed from view, but the portrait might have been hung in the study by Eduardo himself before his death and Don Jaime had kept it hanging there. He would not have it banished to a store-room or destroyed altogether.

How could she possibly guess at the emotions of these people she had come to work with? Catherine wondered. How could she ever hope to understand the fundamental desires they cherished?

Teresa decided to sulk for the remainder of the morning, declaring that she wanted to ride out on her own for a change.

‘I never get a chance to gallop when you are with me,’ she informed Catherine with the deliberate intention to hurt which made her sound ominously like her stepmother. ‘We just keep plodding along.’

‘You will take Manuel with you?’ Catherine asked.

Teresa drew herself up to her ridiculously small height.

‘I have no need of you or Manuel to watch over me,’ she said rudely. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘I hope you can,’ said Catherine. ‘Where will you go?’

‘I have not yet made up my mind.’ Teresa kicked at the stone pavement with her kid riding-boot. ‘To Las Rosas, perhaps, or San Juan. It is accepted,’ she added quickly when she saw the protest in Catherine’s eyes. ‘I have been there many times.’

San Juan de la Rambla was some distance along the high coastal road, Catherine had observed from frequent reference to her map, but she could not challenge that pointed ‘it is accepted’ with which Teresa had sought to silence any further argument.

‘You are entitled to some time off,’ Teresa pointed out in order to justify her decision to go alone, ‘and you wouldn’t be able to ride all that distance, anyway.’

Earlier Lucia had set off in the car to pay a call on a friend in distant Tacoronte, saying that she would return by four o’clock, but she had not taken Manuel with her this time. He had been left ‘in charge of things’ in her absence and he looked apprehensive when Teresa announced her intention of riding out alone.

‘You will keep to the
hacienda, senorita
?’ he begged. ‘It is safer there.’

Teresa scowled.

‘I may do, Manuel, but it is not for you to advise me. You are not my servant and certainly not my master!’

He flushed, reaching up to catch at the rein she held loosely in her hand.

‘You know that I should accompany you,’ he said. ‘The
senora
wishes it.’

‘And the
senorita
does not!’ Teresa struck him over the shoulder with her whip. ‘Stand back, Manuel, or I will ride you down!’

It was an ugly exhibition of temper which Catherine had not encountered in her own dealings with Teresa, a protest, perhaps, at yet another form of control which she could very well do without. It could also be attributed to the fact that Manuel was her stepmother’s adoring servant, someone to whom Lucia’s every whim was a command to be obeyed without hesitation, even without thought.

‘Go after her, Manuel,’ said Catherine when Teresa had galloped off in the direction of the main road. ‘Keep her in sight, if you can.’

He looked at her as if in doubt.

‘What is it?’ she asked impatiently. ‘Why don’t you go?’

‘I take my instructions only from the
senora
,’
he said uncertainly. ‘She did not say to follow the
se
n
orita
today while you were with her.’

‘But I am not with her, Manuel,’ Catherine protested. ‘That is just the point. She has gone off on her own to Juan de la Rambla or somewhere called Las Rosas.’

‘It is a house,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘It is on the other side of the valley.’

‘Who lives there?’ Catherine asked sharply.

‘Nobody—now,’ Manuel answered. ‘It was once the home of Don Jaime before he came to the
hacienda
to live.’

‘I see. Do you know why Teresa would go there?’

‘I do not know,
se
n
orita.
She is in an evil mood and she must fly off into the hills. Sometimes she will go to Las Rosas and sometimes to the gipsy encampment where they dance
flamenco
in the true way. She goes there to watch.’ Dismay surged into Catherine’s heart.

‘We must find her,’ she said, in spite of the fact that Lucia was not present to give him his orders. ‘Manuel, you will go with me. Saddle Vivo and your own pony. I’ll be ready in five minutes.’

She hurried towards the stairs before he could offer any further protest, mounting them two at a time in her haste and scrambling into Teresa’s yellow jodhpurs and a silk shirt in under five minutes, hoping that Manuel would be waiting with the ponies by the time she returned to the
patio.
When she reached it he was nowhere in sight.

Used by now to the mule-like reluctance of the average Spanish servant when he did not wish to obey or thought an order unjustified, she ran through the house in the direction of the stables where Manuel was struggling into his
poncho.

‘You will not need that,’ she told him impatiently. ‘Have you saddled both ponies?’

‘It is better if I follow alone,’ he said.

‘No,’ she protested, ‘I must go with you. I should never have let Teresa go off on her own.’

‘She will return,’ he declared philosophically. ‘She does not stay away for long.’

Teresa rushing headlong into the mountains appeared to be an accepted fact among the servants, but suddenly it seemed to be something Catherine had to stop, an act of bravado or petulance which could yet be nipped in the bud if only they could catch up with her. It was something she had to do, not only to save Teresa from Don Jaime’s wrath, but to protect herself. It would have to happen like this, she thought. Dona Lucia will say she left me in charge!

They took the main dirt road, going down across the valley to the other side. The sun was very hot on the lower slopes, and dark
barrancos
cut into the mountainside, scarring it deeply to make the going more difficult. Nothing would grow in them until the black volcanic soil became more friable and then they would become rich, cultivated land to add to the wide boundaries of Soria, more acres for a man to survey from the saddle of a white Arab horse.

Almost as if he had made his appearance on the horizon above them, she could see Don Jaime de Berceo Madroza riding along the nearby ridge looking down on his extended kingdom, triumphantly aware that it was his for as long as he lived.

Then, suddenly, she saw that he was really coming towards them, riding the white horse as she had imagined, his black Cordoban hat pulled forward over his eyes to shield them from the sun. He rode leisurely at first, as if he had yet to recognise them, but when he did he dug his heels into the Arab’s flanks to cover the remaining distance in a cloud of dust.

‘What are you doing here at this time of day?’ he demanded, narrowing his eyes against the strong light. ‘And where is Teresa? She must be mad to let you ride out in this heat.’ He looked beyond them, realising quickly that they were alone. ‘Where is she?’ he repeated sternly. ‘You had come to look for her.’

‘I thought Manuel should be with her when she was going so far.’ Catherine could tell him nothing but the truth. ‘I ride so very slowly, and she wanted to be on her own. Which is no reason why I should have let her go,’ she added honestly. ‘I’m to blame.’

He swept her apology to one side with a gesture of his whip.

‘Do you know where she has gone?’ he demanded.

‘She spoke about San Juan de la Rambla.’

‘I have come from that direction.’

‘Then she must have gone to Las Rosas,’ Catherine admitted. ‘Don Jaime, I’m truly sorry. I’d forgotten about the heat, about not riding until later in the day.’

She knew now why her head was aching and why the dark volcanic soil seemed to shimmer beneath her. Foolishly she had come without a hat or even a scarf to protect her from the midday sun. Don Jaime made a swift calculation, computing the distance between them and the
hacienda.

‘It will have to be Las Rosas,’ he decided. ‘We are more than half-way there.’

He drew the silk kerchief from his throat, holding it out to her as he spoke to Manuel in rapid Spanish.

‘Put it on,’ he commanded when she sat, undecided. ‘Or would you rather I gave you my hat?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It would fall down over my eyes!’

He had made her feel as irresponsible as Teresa, yet he did not seem to blame her entirely for the present situation. He sat looking down at her for a moment as she tied the kerchief about her head.

‘You would have been better with the hat,’ he said. ‘The wide Cordoban hat which shelters us from the sun. Sometimes I think it is like a family responsibility, protecting everything in its shade.’ He took the pony’s rein. ‘We will go straight to the house,’ he decided, speaking over his shoulder to Manuel. ‘Then we will search for Teresa.’

‘I will go now,’ Manuel offered eagerly.

‘No, we will search together.’

They rode to the edge of the ridge, looking down into the
barranco
where there was little to be seen but wicked black rocks and an old lava stream which had burned its way among them. Although she now wore Don Jaime’s silk kerchief over her hair, Catherine was conscious of a lightness in her head which made her feel sick, and every cautious movement the little pony made seemed magnified a thousand times, drumming in her ears until she could no longer think clearly. She couldn’t afford to slip from Vivo’s back, however, although she wished for nothing more than the feel of solid earth under her feet and the chance to prove that the world was not upended and spinning about her.

Don Jaime came to ride beside her.