The House of Adriano (3 page)

Aileen had felt too shocked and sick even to cry when she first heard about it, and she did not know how she was going to break the news to Peter. He had been left at home while Mandy and Eric had gone into town to see a show, and Aileen had been minding Peter for them. She had been faced then with telling him that his mummy and daddy had gone away and would not be coming back. He had been only five years old at the time and, although he had cried a lot, he had not really understood, and ultimately he had come to accept it as natural that it was Aileen who should be looking after him now. He never remembered a time when she had not been there and she had always been a great favourite of his. His mother and father had gone away, but Auntie Aileen was still there, and slowly his tears had dried and he had smiled again.

As for Aileen, it had seemed quite natural that she should take on the responsibility of caring for him. After all, there was nobody else, and they had all been so close, besides which she had lost everyone herself except Peter.

There had to be change, though, and perhaps it was just as well, because there were reminders of the three people who had died so soon after each other all over the house. She had found a small flat more suited to her means, and Peter and herself had moved in and settled down quite happily after a while. That was two years ago now.

Sometimes it had been suggested to her that she was spoiling her chances of marrying, as it would be hard to expect any man to take on a ready-made family - and a child who was not even related to his wife at that - but Aileen had never even considered any other way out than that she should take Peter. Mandy had no living relatives and Eric had always claimed that he was quite alone in the world - or at least that he was quite cut off from the Adrianos - so it had seemed quite natural to Aileen that she should care for Peter. She did not want it any other way.

In any case, she had already proved people wrong when they said that Peter would prove an encumbrance if she wanted to get married herself. Paul had asked her time and again to marry him - he and Peter got on very well together, in fact he jokingly said their very names went together - but she had not been able to accept him. It was not that she disliked him, in fact very much to the contrary, but her feelings went no further than liking.

It would work out, she always said when anyone mentioned the matter. She did not know in what way, but it would work out. And if she was one of those girls destined by fate never to marry, then she would still have Peter. Quite naturally, since she was as normal as any other girl, she had hoped that she would marry some day, and there had always been the thought at the back of her mind that the man she loved and who loved her - when and if such an unknown arrived on the scene - would not be able to help loving Peter as well.

Sharp at five o’clock Aileen hurried out to catch .the tram that would take her to Bronte, the suburb on the sea where she had
her little flat. It was right up high and overlooked, far down below, the crescent-shaped little beach with its golden sand, the green of the park and the tall pines in it. Further away, near the beach roadway, palm trees waved feathery fronds in the breeze.

Actually she was very lucky in that near to her flat there was a special school for working mothers. Attached to it was a nursery that was open from eight in the morning to six at night. Children could be left there before school started, when at the correct time they would all be shepherded into the big grey stone school next door. When school finished the two maiden ladies who ran the nursery would collect their charges and keep them there until their mothers could come and take charge.

It could not have worked out better for Aileen. She was able to leave Peter there on her way to work, knowing that he was in good, safe hands. Since they were both happy and comfortable in their little flat and could go down to the beach over the week-ends there should have been no reason for anything ever to change it, unless of course she got married. The charges at the nursery were reasonable and she was well able to support Peter and herself. She was good at her work and Jenton paid her a correspondingly good salary.

When she reached the nursery, Peter was at the gate waiting for her and, as always, started dancing with excitement. He did not rush out to meet her because the catch was placed too high for the younger children to reach, so that they could never run out into the road, and in any case was of a type that was rather complicated even if some of the older ones did manage to reach it.

Today something was different. As she looked at him she could not help noticing that fleeting resemblance. The resemblance to Duarte Adriano, Conde de Marindos. Peter was an Adriano, however much Eric might have renounced his family. She remembered Mandy once looking at Eric with a whimsical smile and remarking that genetics was a funny thing when two redheads like Eric and herself should have produced a
black-haired
little Adriano - and Eric’s immediate retort that Peter was no Adriano, he was a Balgare. But even Eric had not been able to deny that, even though he had the Balgare red hair, his features had been the aquiline ones of the Adriano family, and blue Irish eyes in that dark face had somehow heightened rather than detracted from the family resemblance he wished to deny.

Peter was wholly Adriano in looks and, even though he was only seven years old and his little body had all the chubby sturdiness of young boyhood, it was already beginning to take on some hint of an inherited, natural pride. It would become more developed as he grew older, and she realised now that Eric had possessed it too. They were both members of the house of Adriano, however much that aristocratic family might have renounced them. Even Duarte Adriano would have had to recognise the beginning of that proud heritage in Peter as a reflection of his own
n
atural, proud poise.

She went into the house, thanked the Misses Carstairs, collected Peter and went home, stopping only at the small
corner
newsagent to pick up a paper. While she went into the little kitchenette to prepare their dinner, Peter settled down on the floor with his toys.

About ten minutes later: “Auntie Aileen, the wheel’s stuck.” Aileen came in, looked down at him quizzically. “You’re supposed to be the engineer of this family.”

He grinned up at her roguishly and held out a toy lorry. Aileen fiddled around with it for a moment, but the wheels seemed to be well and truly stuck, so she handed it back with a helpless little shrug.

“I think we’ll have to get the engineer to look at it.”

Paul Renby was not an engineer, but he received so many of Peter’s toys to mend that he jokingly called himself that. Peter unfortunately had a great habit of taking things apart, not from any destructive urge, but from sheer, downright curiosity, to see what was inside, and then was not able to put them together again.

“I’ll go and see him now,” he said, scrambling to his feet and making for the door before she had half realised what he intended.

“Oh no, you don’t!” She caught him in full flight by the waistband of his shorts. “You’ll wait until after dinner.”

Paul lived only next door, all alone, in another little flat, and Aileen half suspected that he deliberately encouraged Peter to visit him, knowing how persuasive a child could be. Peter had more than once asked her if Paul was going to be his uncle.

Having settled him down on the floor with a batch of comics, she returned to the kitchen and silence reigned. Not for long, though. About five minutes later small footsteps pattered in.

“I’m hungry.”

Aileen looked down at him and smiled. “I won’t be long. Want to set the table for me?”

They had dinner and washed up, just as they did on every other evening. Aileen settled down to read the paper first and found that Duarte Adriano once again intruded into her thoughts. It was hardly likely that he should not have done, because there was a photograph of him in the paper.

Apparently a reporter had been sent down to find out if there was anything interesting, any story to be had, from new arrivals in the country that morning. The arrival of a Spanish Count seemed to have been interesting enough to mention, but he had not got very far with any story apparently. On being asked was he in Australia for a holiday and was the Condesa de Marindos going to join him, he had replied that he was in Sydney on a personal matter and there was no Condesa de Marindos for her to be able to join him. That at least answered the question of whether or not he was married. Aileen could not help smiling slightly at the thought that if Betty saw it, it would most certainly heighten that idiotic romantic interest of hers, then she dismissed him and turned her attention to the rest of the paper.

After a little while she laid the paper aside to do some mending, listening to music from a portable radio she had bought when they first moved in, while Peter curled up on the couch with an adventure book.

It was a satisfactory life, she thought contentedly, watching the smooth dark head bent over the book. Sometimes one of the neighbours’ children would come in for a short time during the evening and sometimes Peter would go out to their homes instead. Other nights Aileen would be washing or ironing, cleaning up the flat or perhaps, all her chores done, just sitting down with a book or a piece of embroidery. Occasionally she would go out in the evening with Paul, either to a cinema or a dance, and young Jill Conway, a teenager from nearby who was still at business college during the day and who did baby-sitting for a little income until she was able to go out to work, would take care of Peter for her. She never felt afraid of leaving him with Jill since the girl, young as she was, was reliable. In the mornings it was always a rush of course, making the beds and getting breakfast down them to a strict schedule, so she would not be late for work. The week-ends were the highlights of the week for both of them. Aileen had to work on Saturday morning, but it was still possible to leave Peter at the Misses Carstairs’ nursery, where he was quite happy playing with the other children. In the afternoon, if it was a fine day, they would go down to the beach together, paddling in the shallows and teaching him to swim. On S
u
ndays they were often at the beach again, but on Sundays Jill, still supplementing her pin-money and to help with her fees since her parents were not very affluent, would collect a party of youngsters and shepherd them along to a little rock pool at one end of the beach where they were always quite safe under her eagle eyes. Aileen, who loved swimming, would then plunge into the breaking surf. Sometimes she would go with Paul to one of the big, net-enclosed pools that were free from sharks, slip rubber “flippers” on her feet and pull on a glass face mask, and both of them would spend long enchanted moments exploring the underwater depths. It was at those times that she wished she loved Paul. They had so much in common.

Having delivered Peter to the Misses Carstairs, Aileen proceeded on to work, but this morning there was a surprise for her. When she entered Mr. Jenton’s office to take him some letters that had been typed the night before but not signed because he had left early, Duarte Adriano was in the office with him.

She hesitated just inside the office door, having received his call to enter when she knocked, but seeing who was with him did not know whether to come further in or retreat.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy,” she said quietly. “It’s nothing urgent. I can come back later.”

Jenton, however, had noticed the letters in her hand. “It’s the letters from last night? Good. We’ll get them off by the eleven-thirty post.” He slanted an almost impish glance at his companion. “I don’t think Duarte will mind waiting for a few minutes.”

Duarte! So not only did Jenton know him, he was on christian-name terms with him. Then Muddled Marius further confounded her by introducing her to Duarte Adriano. She did not know whether that was socially correct or not, but it was done, and she found her hand clasped momentarily by fingers that were slim and, even though their grip was impersonal, felt as if they could be steel-hard. He made the conventional remarks, his voice deep and melodious, with just the faintest trace of an accent, and Aileen made the same sort of remarks back. She might have known the conventional decorous air could not last, though, because old Marius Jenton had an almost boyish sense of humour and a complete disregard for any social code if he felt like it.

He peered down at one of the letters. “Did I say that?”

“Well, not exactly,” Aileen admitted. “But I think it was what you meant.” That particular letter had been even more muddled than usual.

“Ah, good. Very good.” He nodded in satisfaction and scrawled his sprawling signature across the bottom of it, slanting another side glance at the dark man at the side of his desk. “She knows better than I do what I want to say.”

Aileen had an odd feeling of flinching, mixed with antagonism, as that dark glance met hers.

“You are lucky,” that impersonal, melodious voice remarked. “I am told that efficient secretaries are hard to find.”

Jenton’s mischievous glance slid over Aileen this time. “Not only efficient - good-looking as well.”

Jenton’s teasing had always amused her before, but this time she felt she could have hit him.

“Living evidence that you can have beauty as well as brains,” he teased. “You don’t have them like that in Spain.”

“No?” The monosyllabic word was amused. “You think our beautiful women are completely brainless?”