White Witch (10 page)

‘As pleased as a cat whose mouse has escaped,’ she said bitterly. ‘Oh, don’t say any more about it,’ as he seemed about to protest. ‘I must go.’

As they reached Passport Control, he asked: ‘You will let us know how you are faring?’

With whom should she communicate? His mother, who was jealous of her influence over Peter? Mercedes? That would be a laugh. Himself? She knew how that would be interpreted, and he would soon forget her among his bevy of girl-friends. Luis? God, no! She never wanted to have anything to do with him again.

‘When I’m settled, I’ll send Peter some postcards,’ she told him.

Esteban looked dissatisfied. She looked so lost and forlorn. ‘If you are ever in any difficulty...’

‘I’m sure I won’t be,’ she interrupted. She would not ask the Aguilas for help if she were starving.

‘Ah, well,’ he brightened. ‘When all this mess is cleared up, Luis will get in touch with you, he will want to make amends.’

A stiff note of apology perhaps, which she could do without. He would have to be circumspect now he was becoming formally engaged to Cristina.

Her flight was called again.

Esteban kissed her gently. ‘
Vaya con Dios
,’ he said huskily.

Go with God. She would need to ask for divine protection as she could not claim it from any man.

The plane rose high in the heavens, bearing her away from Andalusia, the flowers and scents of Mijas, and the love she had found and lost.

CHAPTER NINE

Upon
her return to London, Laurel found refuge at her old home, the St Agnes’ Foundation, which was always ready to provide temporary accommodation to former inmates who were in difficulties. The warden liked to keep in touch with them, and in answer to her phone call told her to come along and he and his wife would shelter her until she could find lodgings. Laurel liked his choice of words. ‘Shelter’ was what she needed, and the grimy building in a north London square was the only place she could call home.

St Agnes’ had been endowed by a rich philanthropist to be an orphanage for destitute girls. It had originally been two large houses, and was still divided into two sections, one for the under-fives, the other for the school age girls. Attempts had been made to modernise it from time to time and introduce advanced ideas, like the breaking up of the children into groups or families, but shortage of funds and inadequate staff, consisting mainly of young trainee nurses, who were more interested in boy-friends than their charges, had produced poor results. The children were well fed and clothed, which was the main thing. Though foster-parents are considered a better idea than an institution, there were always more children than people willing to foster. The warden and his wife were a kindly, dedicated couple, and Mrs. Carter had always favoured the Lester girls, who were so pretty and for the most part docile, though Joanna was liable to tantrums. Several couples had wanted to adopt one of them, but she thought it would be cruel to part them, and nobody had been ready to take them both. Laurel had kept contact with them until Joanna had come back from Spain and then perforce had severed the connection.

Laurel gave the good lady an expurgated account of the past three years, but she could not conceal the fact that Joanna had left her husband. Mrs. Carter thought that was understandable, mixed marriages were always a mistake. She was very sorry to hear of Joanna’s death, and it was a comfort to know Peter was being well provided for. Privately she thought the Aguilas had treated Laurel very shabbily, turning her adrift after her care of him.

Upon contacting her old firm, Laurel was told regretfully that they had been unable to keep her job open, in fact they were cutting down staff. She visited an agency and the employment exchange, but it seemed likely she would have to subsist upon Social Security for an indefinite period, with far too much leisure to think.

It was then that Mrs. Carter suggested she might like to work in the home. They were short-staffed, as the employment was not popular—‘Too much to do for too little pay,’ she explained wryly. Laurel would have her keep, her own bedroom and a small wage, until she could find something better. Laurel accepted gratefully, and her days became full with feeding, bedding and superintending a variety of infants, many of whom were black. She was not averse to scrubbing floors, a perpetual chore, her object being to be so occupied she had no time for brooding. At night she was so exhausted she tumbled into bed and was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Upon sober reflection, she began to doubt very much if in his heart of hearts Luis had really believed Peter was her child. Egged on by his sister, he had tried to make himself do so, for the same reason that she had invented James Baron, to combat the primitive urge in both of them that was always seeking to draw them together. That he had no prejudice against the boy himself was significant, but he meant to marry Cristina Ordonez, so had sought to raise an impenetrable barrier between them, and by making himself believe she was despicable, could eliminate her from his thoughts.

Perhaps she should have stayed as she had been bidden to await the outcome of his investigations, presumably he would have had the grace to apologise, but he was not a man who would enjoy having to abase himself, and an apology would not have done much towards soothing her outraged feelings. She would have had to leave Mijas eventually, and she was glad that by enlisting Esteban’s aid, she had managed to get away without any more distressing scenes.

She had told Esteban not to say where she had gone, but Luis would know there was only one place where she could go, and she did not flatter herself he would look for her, even to make amends, no need to stir things up again, since she had passed out of his orbit, and by her own action. Nevertheless, she caught herself agog every time the telephone went and a visitor came to the door. But as the days passed and nothing happened, she ceased to be on the alert.

She sent picture postcards to Peter, views of the Tower, the Houses of Parliament, and colourful ones of the Horse Guards. Eventually she received a reply, a note in Dona Elvira’s elegant script:

Dear Tia,

Thank you for the cards which I liked very much. Fifi is going to have pups. Lots of love, and signed by himself in sprawling capitals:
‘PEDRO.’

So Peter Lester was no more, and Pedro de las Aguilas had taken command. It was the only communication from Mijas that she did receive.

Laurel carefully refrained from visiting their former doctor or any of the sources which Luis might contact in his search, mindful of his last cruel stab. He might have let her know that she had been vindicated, she thought resentfully, but he might have been incensed by her flight, and think she deserved to be kept in ignorance, or maybe he had let the matter slide for the time being, his time begin occupied with preparations for his marriage. They would have the record of the birth of Pedro Lester de las Aguilas, if they couldn’t find a death certificate, and it would be a long time before Peter came of age.

Summer passed into autumn and one bright morning with a touch of frost in the air, Laurel having gone on an errand found herself in the vicinity of the block of flats where she had lived with Joanna. On impulse she went to have a look at it. The tenants in her old flat had put up smart new curtains in the windows, and the building had been repainted, as if it wanted to eradicate all memory of the Lester sisters. She stood on the pavement thinking about poor Jo. Esteban had confirmed the truth about her, but she felt no blame, only pity for the foolish, feckless woman who had made such a mess of her life. She had been so lovely, but her beauty had been her bane, that silvery fairness that had enchanted the impressionable Pedro, and the other dark lover at Marbella. If only she had not written that lying letter that had ricocheted so unpleasantly upon herself, or at least told her sister what she had done so that Laurel could have explained its information was false, before turning up in Spain with a suspect child. Then Luis could have made his enquiries beforehand, and that shattering scene by the swimming pool need never have occurred.

A woman came along the pavement carrying a shopping bag, and seeing her, exclaimed:

‘Well, I never, if it isn’t Laurel Lester! How are you, my dear?’

It was Mrs. West, her neighbour in the old days who lived in the flat above the one she had rented.

Laurel explained that she had come back after leaving Peter in Spain, for Mrs. West knew all about that, had in fact attended Joanna’s funeral. The good woman seemed to have something on her mind, and insisted that Laurel should come in with her and have a cup of tea. Pleased to see a friendly face, Laurel agreed. Over their stemming cups, she told Mrs. West as much as was good for her about Peter and Mijas, and how well he was settling down with his Spanish relations.

The flat, similar to the one below, comprised two rooms, bathroom and kitchenette, and was furnished in Victorian style with pieces from her former home. Mrs. West was an ageing widow. There was Nottingham lace at the windows, small tables with bric-a-brac on them and an aspidistra in a pot, in front of the windowsill. The sight of its glossy green leaves recalled the ones in the hotel, though it was a far cry from this overcrowded little room to the Reina Isabella’s marble vestibule, and Laurel faltered in her recital as she caught sight of it.

Her hostess refilled her thin china cup and looked at her compassionately.

‘Bit of a wrench parting with the kiddie when you’d practically brought him up, but you’ll be going out to see him, I don’t doubt.’

Laurel said vaguely that she might do, knowing very well that she would not.

‘And that reminds me, I’d almost forgotten, but seeing you brought it back to me. Some weeks ago I had a visit from a foreign gentleman ... very nice he was too though I was a bit chary about letting him in, there’s some funny characters about nowadays, but he said he’d known Joanna out in Spain, and didn’t she used to live in this block.’

Laurel tensed. ‘Didn’t he know she was dead?’ ‘Didn’t seem to, but of course I told him. I know your sister always kept to herself, like, but seeing as she’s gone I didn’t think it mattered talking about her, and he did ask a lot of questions, mostly about the little boy.’ Mrs. West looked a little conscience-stricken. ‘Somehow he led me on. Oh, but he was that nice, so sympathetic about my rheumatism, said I ought to winter in Ada ... Ada-something. It’s the damp here that’s so bad for it.’

Trying to make the question casual, Laurel asked what he had looked like.

‘Oh, tall, dark and handsome, romantic hero type, though I like fair men best myself. My poor George was fair.’ She looked anxiously at Laurel. ‘Did I do wrong, dear, to talk so much? You know how it is when you’re on your own all the time, your tongue does run away with you.’

Shame on you, Luis, for pretending you didn’t know Jo was dead and pumping a garrulous old woman. I suppose Peter told you our old address. Laurel said slowly:

‘I don’t mind. What else did you tell him?’

‘How brave you were, coping with the kiddy’s illness and then your sister’s decline. Oh, I sang your praises loud and long! I always was struck with the way you shouldered your double burden and kept your job at the same time. I told him too how Peter used to come up here when he was convalescing so I could keep an eye on him when he was too much for his ma. Little monkey he was too; shame there weren’t no other children for him to play with.’

‘Your visitor must have found all this very edifying,’ Laurel remarked. ‘Did he tell you his name?’

‘Said I’d never get my tongue round it and I could call him Mr. Lewis.’

Luis the sleuth, Laurel thought. Mrs. West was looking anxious.

‘I hope I didn’t bore him, but he seemed really interested in everything I told him. I said as how I hadn’t had word nor sign of you since the day you left, and had he run across you. But he told me Spain was a big country and it was unlikely he would.’

A neat get-out, Laurel thought. She was deriving a melancholy pleasure from Mrs. West’s conversation. She could imagine Luis sitting where she was sitting, being oh, so suave and charming—while he probed into her past history, the wretch. But Mrs. West’s next question caused her to stiffen.

‘You never knew a fellow called ... what was it? James something, did you?’

‘No. How did that come up?’

‘I think he said they were mutual acquaintances, and they discovered he, this other chap, had met you and Joanna. Perhaps it was someone from your office?’

Oh, Luis, you ... devil!

‘Might have been, but I don’t recall a James Baron.’

‘Oh, yes, that was the name.’ Mrs. West looked at her sharply. ‘So you had met him?’

‘Must have done, somewhere, some time, or I wouldn’t remember the name,’ shrugged Laurel.

As if she could ever forget it! Had her phantom lover followed her to England?

‘Well, anyway, I told him as you didn’t have no boy-friends, never went out with anyone, didn’t have time.’

What had Luis made of that?

Laurel thanked her hostess for the tea, made a few banal remarks and said she must go. Out in the street she made her way back to St Agnes’, deep in thought. So Luis had been to London and had pursued his enquiries with a thoroughness she would have expected of him. Mrs. West’s innocent revelations must have been enlightening, and that chatty lady had told him she had not seen her since her return so he could not accuse her of complicity. How clever of him to pretend his interest was in poor old Jo, and how mean of him to bring up James Baron! She had nearly tripped up over that herself; if only she had never invented the creature. Some weeks ago, Mrs. West had said, so he had come and gone without contacting herself. The address on her cards to Peter would have told him where she was living now, and he might have called to tell her she had been exonerated. He would be angry with her because she had run away from Mijas when he had told her to stay put, and would imagine she was busy getting herself engaged to James, but all the same ... Oh, what was the use of expecting anything from him? She had gone out of his life and he did not mean to allow her to reenter it.

She reached the home, opened the front door and went into the maelstrom of howling children and scolding staff. This was her life now. Coming back to St Agnes’ had recalled vividly her teenage years and Jo. She had often had to cover up for her sister, even then, for Joanna was always getting into some foolish scrape. The wheel had turned full circle and she was back where she had begun. The interim years were fast taking on the unreality of a dream. Laurel went into the kitchen to don an apron and help with the children’s teas.

About a week later, Laurel had just finished loading the dishwasher after midday dinner, when someone shouted to her: ‘D’ye mind answering the front door, Laurel if you’re not busy, there’s someone ringing the bell fit to bust it.’

As if anyone at St Agnes’ was ever not busy!

Without bothering to remove her apron, she wiped her work-roughened hands on a towel, pushed her straggling hair out of her eyes, and went to the door. Probably it was only some travelling salesman, or no one at all. Urchins often rang the bell and ran away—their idea of a joke. Feeling hot and tired, she drew back the latch and pulled it open, only to recoil in astonishment, for immaculate in grey suit, blue shirt, dark tie, was Luis de las Aguilas.

‘Is Miss Lester available?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘I would like to speak to her.’ He did a double-take. ‘Laurel!’