The Stars of San Cecilio (15 page)

‘No. Tell me,’ Lisa requested.

Gia put back her head and looked up at her. ‘ I wish that my papa would marry you! I wish that you would stay with us — that you would go back with us to Madrid — and that Dona Beatriz would go away somewhere where we need never see her again! ’

Before Lisa could make any sort of reply to this — and the childish confession robbed her, temporarily, of the power to assemble words— the door behind them opened, and Dr. Fernandez quietly entered the room. He looked at them both for a long moment in silence, the expression in his eyes neither enigmatic nor surprised, but still unreadable, and Lisa had no idea at all whether he had overheard his daughter’s words. But the thoughts that he could have overheard them all but petrified her.

‘I saw your friend, Miss Tracey, at the Carabela this morning,’ he said, advancing into the room. ‘Although it’s rather short notice, she has consented to dine with us tonight — she and, of course, her nephew. ’

‘Oh, yes,’ Lisa heard herself saying, her color coming and going so rapidly that he looked at her keenly.

‘It will be a change for you to have your English friends share a meal with us. ’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

Gia had made no move towards him, and he carelessly flicked her cheek.

‘You look rather sad,’ he said. ‘In fact, you both look rather sad! Is it because of the imminence of this parting between you?’

Gia answered in a small, hollow voice:

‘ I wish that Lisa was coming with me to Madrid! ’

‘Lisa will be waiting for you here when you return — and by rights you should call her Miss Waring. ’

‘She prefers that I call her Lisa. Isn’t that so?’ once more putting back her head and appealing to her

governess for confirmation.

‘That is so.’ And Lisa suddenly ignored his presence and hugged Gia to her again.

‘In that case, there is no real reason why I should not say Lisa, also! ’ He sat down on the window-seat not far away from them, and looked at them both quizzically. ‘It would seem that you are a very devoted pair, and you look a little hopeless in this evening light — and young! ’ His eyes brooded on them rather strangely. ‘Very young! ’

‘Lisa is twenty-four,’ Gia told him, although he already knew as much, ‘and Senora Cortina says that twenty-four is too old for a woman still unmarried. I heard her tell Senor Cortina so.’

‘Really?’ The quizzical look returned. ‘For a little pitcher you certainly have very long ears, and they should never incline in the direction of backstairs gossip. Hasn’t Lisa told you that?’

‘I------‘ Lisa began, but his smile at her was

suddenly impish.

‘How do you feel about this problem of being still unmarried, Miss Waring? Although I suppose in England twenty-four is hardly an age when you begin to look forward to spinsterhood? There are still several years for enjoyment, before domestic problems need claim you! ’ ‘Are domestic problems an inevitable part of marriage?’ Lisa asked quietly.

‘They seem invariably to arise — even in Spain!’ he admitted.

‘And enjoyment flies out of the window when those problems do arise? — as love does, according to a saying we have at home, when poverty enters the door! ’

‘ It is hardly the same sort of enjoyment as unfettered youth approves of. ’

‘But the opinion of unfettered youth is hardly a yardstick for the rest of one’s adult life!’ She looked down at the fingers of one of her hands, entwined in Gia’s small fingers. ‘And problems, when shared, should become less. If properly shared, I have been given to understand, they disappear altogether. ’

‘Sometimes,’ he agreed, ‘that is so, but it is by no means always so,’ and his voice was suddenly harsh.

She looked up at him, as if his change of tone intrigued her.

‘And when it is not so,’ she insisted, ‘disillusionment

is the result?’

It could not have been so in his own case, she felt certain. But it could have been so in his experience of other people’s lives — as a medical man.

‘Disillusionment is a very unpleasant and ugly word,’ he said, and he stood up and walked away from the brightness of the window, and Gia’s voice followed him.

‘I don’t want Lisa to go away, Papa! I don’t want her ever to go away! ’

Lisa felt her face flame, and she gave Gia’s fingers a tight, warning squeeze to prevent her saying anything further.

But Gia was determined to continue with her appeal.

‘Please, Papa! . . . ’

He turned and came back to them, and his dark, handsome face was set in lines of unusual gravity. In his lustrous eyes was a kind of deep and spreading sombreness as he ruffled his daughter’s elf-locks.

‘ Who is talking of Lisa going away? It is you who are going back to Madrid for a few days, and as a matter of fact Lisa will be there, too, and perhaps—’

‘Yes Papa?’ eagerly.

‘ Oh, nothing. . . . Nothing that we can plan. We will see.’ He actually smiled into the small girl’s eyes, and his hand on her head was very gentle. ‘ Miss Waring — and you must not get me into the habit of making use of her Christian name, because she might not approve! — will probably have plans of her own, and there is no reason why they should include a child like you! ’

Lisa was about to protest almost as eagerly as her charge that any plans she made in Madrid could certainly be elastic enough to include Gia, but a sudden look of cold formality overspread his face, and she realized that the brief period of intimacy that had linked the three of them was over. Over and would probably never occur again! All in a moment he was very much her employer.

‘Miss Waring, you mustn’t let my daughter make unreasonable demands upon you,’ he said, ‘and while you are in Madrid I hope you will do better things than arrange meetings with a small girl. You are young, and Madrid can be quite gay, even in a temperature that will probably defeat you a little, at any rate at first. And it is absurd for the pair of you to behave as if you are parting forever! You will meet again in a very short while. But it will be as well if you bear it in mind that the final parting will have to come! ’

Once more he ruffled his daughter’s hair.

‘You will have to get used to that idea, chiquita! Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Papa! ’ she barely whispered.

He didn’t look at Lisa again before he walked out, and she felt quite certain as the door closed upon him that he had overheard his daughter’s impulsively expressed wish when he entered the room. And that was his way of letting them both know that the notion was not one that appealed even to his sense of humor.

‘It will be as well if you bear it in mind that the final parting will have to come! . . .’

That night Miss Tracey and her nephew dined at the villa, and it was a matter of surprise to Lisa that Miss Tracey got on extremely well with her host, and that they seemed to have quite a lot in common, and a number of things they found interesting to discuss.

While Dona Beatriz engaged Peter in spritely conversation, Dr. Fernandez and Aunt Grizel ranged over such varied subjects as art and world politics, travel and the value of universal language for drawing people together; and after dinner they continued the conversation in the glassed-in verandah, while the stars shone almost frostily in the night sky outside, and the sea murmured at the foot of the garden.

Aunt Grizel wore a dress of black lace which made her look unexpectedly distinguished, and as her jewellery was good it was a distinction that was backed up by a suggestion of considerable affluence. She seemed to know so many of the right people — the people Dr. Fernandez knew

— and her knowledge of Spain and Spanish ways was inexhaustible. Her enthusiasm for Spain was apparently unquenchable.

‘I am looking forward to having Miss Waring stay with me,’ she said. ‘I shall show her such a lot! ’

‘And your nephew will help you to show her all that we feel she ought to see?’ Dona Beatriz interposed, with a charming smile.

‘Peter?’ Miss Tracey looked a little surprised. ‘As to that, I can’t say. . . . Peter may follow us to Madrid. ’ She looked more quizzically at her nephew, and then at Lisa. ‘Yes; I think it very likely he will follow us!’ she admitted.

Dr. Fernandez bent towards her with his cigarette-case, containing the long thin cigarettes she so enjoyed.

‘I think it is almost certain Miss Waring will have someone to escort her in Madrid,’ he said, with a suavity in his voice that caused her to look at him for the first time in surprise; and then she looked quickly at Dona Beatriz who was presiding gracefully behind the tray of coffee-cups, and once more at her nephew, who was frowning ever so slightly.

‘Yes,’ she said emphatically, as if she had all at once quite made up her mind. ‘I think you are right, Doctor. I shall insist on Peter coming with us to Madrid, and he shall escort us both

— myself as well as Lisa. We will combine to give Lisa a really good time — to make her feel young and carefree for the first time in her life! ’ Her eyes dwelt thoughtfully on the slender, silent figure of the girl. ‘And you know, my dear,’ she added, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever been really young and carefree before, although you look so very young. Peter says it has been other people’s children for a year or so now, and that is a year or so too early when you’ve hardly lived yourself. You want a little interlude of freedom! ’

She shifted her glance to her host.

‘Don’t you agree with me, Doctor, that that is what Lisa really wants?’

C H A P T E R T W E L V E

But before they went to Madrid they spent a couple of days in a small fishing village farther along the coast, where Miss Tracey did some painting. She told Lisa that the village had impressed her the first time she saw it, and that she had always wanted to capture on canvas the simple charm of the fishing-boats drawn up on the beach, and the way the coast curved into an inlet at that point.

Once Gia had departed in her father’s car, with Dona Beatriz wearing the serene air of one in charge of an expedition, Lisa had felt almost painfully eager to get away from the villa, and although the fishing village was no real change of scenery, Miss Tracey was a welcome change of companionship, for she, too, was serene, in a much pleasanter way than Dona Beatriz, and there was something about her that filled Lisa with confidence.

She didn’t feel any longer like the paid governess. She felt as if her presence was wanted by someone who was taking an interest in her for a reason that was highly flattering, because it could mean that she enjoyed her society. For if she didn’t she certainly wouldn’t have put herself out to give her this little holiday when, but for her offer to do so, Lisa would have been left alone at the villa with only Senora Cortina and her husband — and the puppy she had rescued! — for company.

Not that she wouldn’t have been able to bear that; but without Gia and her father . . .!

Miss Tracey gave her rather a careful scrutiny when she came down to dinner that first evening in the small hotel where they had booked for a couple of nights; and then she remarked:

‘That’s a very pretty frock you’re wearing, my dear.’ Actually it was the plain ivory taffeta with the poppies surrounding the skirt that Lisa had worn on what she thought was her last night in San Cecilio. ‘But you should have pretty things at your age. There are some wonderful shops in Madrid, and we’ll have a real shopping burst when we get there, shall we?’

But Lisa looked dubious.

‘I haven’t a great deal of money . . .’ she was beginning, when Aunt Grizel interrupted her, reaching across the table and laying a hand on hers.

‘Of course you haven’t! Not when all you receive is a governess’s salary! And even if it’s a generous salary, it won’t go far in Madrid. But I’ll tell you something, shall I?’

Lisa looked at her expectantly.

‘I’m a vulgarly wealthy woman — and I really mean vulgarly! One day it will all go to Peter (and I think that’s one reason why, knowing that his future is taken care of, he puts off looking for serious employment!) But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t spend some of it between us, you and I. I never married, so of course I never had a daughter, or knew any of the delights of dressing her up for a party. But if you’d only let me have the happiness I could dress you up! ’

Lisa gaped at her.

‘But—but what for?’ she stammered.

Grizelda Tracey smiled.

‘For all the fun and jollification that lies ahead! My dear, I’m going to warn you — Madrid will cook you at this season of the year, but the nights are wonderful! If you’ve never seen Spanish stars over Madrid, then you’ve something to wait for. ’

‘I’ve seen them over San Cecilio,’ Lisa got in, a little breathlessly.

‘Yes, my dear, you’ve seen them over San Cecilio — and San Cecilio is highly romantic, and the stars make you dream dreams. But in Madrid the dreams come true! Or it is possible for them to come true! Therefore the stars are that much brighter. Wait until you see them! ’

Once again she lightly touched the girl’s hand. ‘I know a lot of people in Madrid. It is not like Paris, but the shop-window displays will make you think of Paris, and the women are smart. Madrilenas are all smart! There are enough beauty parlors to ensure that no one looks really plain, and you and I will visit one of them! I’m not suggesting that you need a visit to a beauty parlor, but I do

— it’s something I’ve secretly wanted to do all my life, but never had the courage! And with you I think I’ll find the courage. And then we’ll do that shopping, and then I’ll get in touch with my friends. A good many of them will be away just now, of course, but enough will remain. . . . And Peter shall take us to shows, and night-clubs — yes; we’ll visit a night-club! You must see flamenco! My dear, even an old woman like me gets excited at the sight of flamenco, and as soon as I hear castanets I feel the most extraordinary sensation creeping over me! ’

She went on talking this way, and Lisa listened until she felt bemused. But although the programme sounded almost too much for one whose life had flowed in such a narrow channel from the moment she was born, she wouldn’t have been twenty-four if it hadn’t quickened her blood just to listen to Miss Tracey talking, and the only thing she insisted on when she got an opportunity to speak was that she should pay for any purchases she made.