by Jane Arbor
Emma wondered what Pilar’s shocked reaction would be if she had to admit that she had gone driving alone with him or had accepted his invitation to the most frequented cafe-terrace in Tangier. While she hesitated her glance must have gone to the Maritime-Air building, for as if he were reading her thoughts he offered instead: “Or there’s my office, if you would prefer that?”
“If you wouldn’t mind -?” She would not have invited herself there, but in his office she ought to be able to make a brisk business matter of it which even Leonore could hardly misread. Besides, the hub of the enterprise he had created alone and from nothing had a curious fascination for her. She never failed to look up at the building as she passed, but she had never entered it. She understood now why Guy had had to make excuses for not showing her where he worked. She had often teased him about some imaginary pretty typist whom she must not meet; she could not have known that already by that time he had had no place and no right anywhere behind the facade of Maritime-Air.
Mark’s hand went lightly beneath her elbow as they took to the traffic hazards of the Place de France. At the revolving doors, she went ahead of him and, as he fell again into step with her across the wide foyer, she was acutely aware that his reappearance with her was responsible for the little hush of interest which fell upon all the busy reception counters and exchange grilles round about. She began to doubt the wisdom of her choice of scene for their interview...
He spoke to the Moorish liftman in Arabic, and, a couple of floors up, he ushered her into a room the size of a small cottage with wide windows looking out to the harbour and Port. The deep carpet was the characteristic blue of Fez ware; the large-scale maps on the walls were of the Mediterranean seaboard and the pictures were pastels and watercolours of Tangier.
Mark Triton either ignored or did not hear her little gasp of pleasure. He showed her to a chair and took sherry and glasses from a wall cabinet; offered cigarettes and made a gesture of raising his glass to her as he sat down. “And now -?” he asked, making the words a formal introduction to yet another of the many interviews he must have conducted across the wide desk between them. Here, in his own country, Emma saw, he was very much king. And then, in another moment of fleeting vision, saw the courage of spirit, the driving action and the arrogant optimism which had put him there....
She told him about her concern for Pilar in much the same terms as she had used to Leonore. She took the hospitals’ letters from her bag and passed them across to him.
Without reading them he flicked the envelopes on his thumbnail, watching her. “But why come to me?” he queried. “Isn’t Leonore’s agreement enough for Pilar?”
Emma said carefully: “I spoke to señora de Coria, of course. But we didn’t see eye to eye on the kind of occupation that Pilar needs. And it was Pilar’s own idea that the suggestion about the hospitals might come more acceptably from you.”
He nodded. “Yes, well - it sounds a good scheme.” He read both letters and passed them back to her. “I’ll put it to Leonore tonight. I think you may take it that she’ll agree.” He paused, his glance narrowing shrewdly upon Emma. “Do I take it, though, that you would prefer that I didn’t represent my mission as having been inspired by you? I could say, for instance, that I had heard that the hospitals would be glad of help -”
“I think that would be best,” said Emma, grateful to escape the embarrassment of having to ask him to do just that. But as she thanked him and rose, he was still watching her. Abruptly and out of context he asked: “You have found your feet at the Villa Mirador? You aren’t unhappy there?”
Again, she was grateful to him for the unspoken hint that he understood something of the difficulty and the diplomacy called for in being employed by Leonore. She said: “No, I’m not unhappy. Everything about the life - even the food and the hours we keep - is different, of course, from anything I’ve known before. For a time, I felt I had completely lost my bearings. But that feeling has passed now, and already there are compensations which I wouldn’t have missed for the world.”
“Compensations?”
The sharpness of his echo took her off guard. She said quickly: “I mean Pilar, of course. She is so lovable. Apparently biddable to a degree. Shy and unsure of herself, but with a lovely core of real character underneath, and discovering it gradually is like coming on a vein of pure gold. I think that all my life I’m going to be grateful for knowing her and glad that I’ve been able to help her - if I can.”
Mark said: “Pilar? Yes, she is rewarding, as I hoped you’d find.” On a change of subject he added: “I gather you would go with her to the hospitals?”
“I’d certainly like to, and señora de Coria would probably want me to.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And I’ll look into your other suggestion - that both of you might help the charities. They are run mainly from the English Club, and that would mean your being made junior members first. Leave it to me, though, will you? I’ll see what I can do.”
The interview had ended on the same impersonal note as that on which it had begun.
As usual, when Leonore had guests, they dined on the villa’s patio by candlelight. That night, besides Mark, their number was made even by Ramón Galatas and by a colleague of Mark’s. And small as the party was, throughout the evening Leonore subtly contrived to break it up into pairs - herself with Mark, Emma and Ramón, and less markedly, Pilar with the other Englishman.
Emma did not care at all for Leonore’s playful insistence that Ramón had eyes for no one but Emma herself. A brief acquaintance with Ramón had taught her that he could not help playing the flirt and the gallant. But it did not escape her that it was really Leonore who made his rain and fine weather, and it irritated her that Leonore should make her a second-hand gift of his unwelcome attentions.
Besides, she was sorry for Ramón. If Leonore had ever encouraged him, he deserved kindlier treatment at her hands; if she had not, she ought to realize the futility of dismissing him by thrusting him towards another woman. Emma guessed that, where Leonore was concerned, he hadn’t the sang-froid to make an answering weapon of assumed indifference to her. Even while he archly made much of Emma herself, she realized that he was jealously watchful of Leonore. And once, when Leonore had a proprietorial hand over Mark’s and laughed up into his face, Ramón’s fingers tightened convulsively on the stem of his wine-glass as if his feelings were tempting him to snap it in two.
In a swift effort to avoid a scene, Emma called his attention back to herself, and a minute later he was laughing with her, making an intimate privacy of what was amusing them. He bent his head very close to hers and whispered something in Spanish which she understood only imperfectly, but at which she thought it kindest to smile warmly.
She believed that Ramón shot her a look of gratitude. But across the table she saw Mark’s brows go up, and Leonore said on a studiedly guileless note: “So! Either Emma understands Spanish better than she would have us believe. Or there are certain meanings which apparently have no need of words! But you should not embarrass us, Ramón, by saying such things in front of us all. Keep them for the moonlight or the dark. And Emma no doubt would prefer that too -!”
For answer, Ramón shrugged and frowned. And when he made no attempt either to laugh off or to defend the embarrassment in which he had involved Emma, she more or less left him to the brooding gloom which descended upon him. But even that attitude evoked comment from Leonore. On her way from the table, at the end of the meal, she stopped behind Ramón’s chair to tease him: “Now, you see, Emma is piqued with you. When you join us for coffee after your port, be sure you make your very best amends!”
By this time Emma was seething. But she was deprived of any chance to protest, for Leonore went to her room until the men rejoined them. And then only Mark and the other man came in from the patio. Ramón, Mark explained, had found he must leave. It irked Emma still further that Mark had an air of passing on Ramón’s apologies as equally to her as to Leonore.
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sp; The party broke up shortly afterwards. Mark and Leonore were going on to a night club and Pilar’s dinner companion was returning to the airport to meet his fiancee off the Gibraltar night flight. By the time they left, it was already past eleven and Emma would have liked to go to bed. But Spanish late hours usually kept even Pilar up until twelve, and tonight Emma saw that she wanted to linger over their coffee and to talk.
Pilar sighed: “I wish I was not so shy and stupid when Leonore allots me just one of her guests to entertain. When the talk is going on all round the table, when it is general - is that the right word?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, then I can smile a great deal without anyone guessing that I can think of nothing to say. It is when I must talk to one man that I am dumb, quite dumb. Not like you, not like Leonore. Leonore can toss talk so lightly, reminding me of those little balls which dance on jets of water at a fair - do you know ? She was amusing Señor Mark all the time. And you, Emma, were talking easily to Ramón
“Don’t worry, Pilar,” advised Emma. “Everyone feels at a loss sometimes. The thing to do, I believe, is to forget that you are appearing awkward and try instead to mention something of interest to the other person. For instance, you could have asked Captain Chambers any little thing about his fiancée, and I’m sure he would have helped you out.”
“Yes, I thought of that. But of course too late!” Leonore was already leaving the table.” Pilar paused and sighed. Then: “You were not too much annoyed, were you, about her little play at dinner that Ramón’s attentions were all for you?”
“Did I show I was annoyed?”
“No, and you were gentle with poor Ramón. It was only I who guessed you were not happy about it.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” admitted Emma. “It seemed quite unnecessary to me.”
“Yes, it would,” allowed Pilar. She looked thoughtfully at Emma. “And though, of course, I understand why Leonore did it, one could not expect you to know too.”
“It was deliberate, then?”
Pilar nodded. “Yes. But you must not be hard upon her. It is difficult for her - the position in which she finds herself. She thinks that I am too young to understand and feel for her. But I do. You see, Ramón has loved her for a very long time. Perhaps even before Jaime died. But I don’t know about that, and of course Leonore would not have listened to Ramón then. Since, though, she has grown fond of him and perhaps allowed him to believe she would marry him one day. And that is not to say,” added Pilar, as if answering a criticism Emma had not made, “that she forgot Jaime too soon. Neither should you judge her for being a woman who - who cannot live for ever without love and a man of her own.”
“No one would dare to judge her for that,” put in Emma gently.
Pilar said gratefully: “No. But it was not so simple for Leonore - to marry Ramón when she stopped mourning for Jaime -”
“Why not, if they were in love?”
“Oh, Emma! Because, of course, Ramón has no money! He comes of a good Spanish family who allow him a little to live on here in Tangier. But he has nothing at all, and no work of his own. He could not think of being able to marry Leonore! ”
“Do you mean,” asked Emma doubtfully, remembering the alacrity with which Ramón had been willing for Pilar to buy him luncheon, “that he is too proud to ask her to marry him?”
Pilar shook her head. “No, not that. It is Leonore who could not marry him. Because of Jaime’s will -”
Emma began to see light. But she said nothing, and Pilar went on: “You see, Jaime was rich, but he left everything to Leonore only until she marries again. If she does, she keeps nothing of his; some of the money goes into trust for me, and the rest to some distant relatives of ours. He did this because he loved Leonore and he did not want to think that some other man might want to marry her just for what she had. That was wise of him, was it not?”
Emma doubted this. She felt strongly that a man had no right to attach strings to the future of a loved and trusted wife. But clearly, for Pilar, Jaime had had no more feet of clay than Leonore had. Jaime de Coria had tied his fortune away from Leonore if she contemplated replacing him, and Pilar thought that right. And when Leonore showed no intention of sacrificing Jaime’s money to love of Ramón, Pilar could “understand” that, too! It was a simple faith in her loved ones which Emma could not share but which she knew she must not destroy for the girl. For her own part, Emma saw only too starkly just how Leonore meant to make her own terms with her husband’s will. But if Pilar was in no doubt of it, either, could she even justify that to herself?
Pilar could. In answer to Emma’s non-committal murmur of: “I see-” she said eagerly: “Leonore could never bear to be poor, you know. I, for one, could not ask it of her. And, of course, when she marries Señor Mark, she need not be. Besides, it will make her very happy to know that it is what Jaime would have wished for her - that she is to marry a man who is rich enough himself not to care that she will bring him nothing of her own.”
“Yes, that must be a consolation,” said Emma - and heard too late the betraying irony in her tone.
Pilar’s brows drew together. “You promised you would not judge Leonore,” she accused.
Involved now against her will, Emma said: “Not for wanting, as you put it, Pilar, ‘love and a man of her own’. But from what you’ve said, you must see that it is difficult not to wonder whether señora de Coria may be going to marry Mr. Triton while she still loves Ramón Galatas. And if that is so, I’m afraid I do see it as cruelly unfair to them both.”
Pilar said quickly: “You need not pity Señor Mark. He is in love with Leonore and he must know the value she will be to him as his wife. She is always at pains now never to displease him, and when they are married she will be even more so. We Spanish women make loyalty to our husbands a matter of honour, whether we love them or not. And I do not know that Leonore loves Ramón. Sometimes she treats him so badly that I think she cannot. At others, she does not seem willing to let him go. And of course it is difficult for her when, in Señor Mark’s presence, Ramón cannot hide how much he adores her.”
“Wouldn’t it be wise to see that they didn’t meet, then?” asked Emma, with dry distaste.
“Leonore does not allow it to happen often. But I think she is sorry for Ramón, and touched that he does not take his defeat without showing some passion. When Señor Mark is there, though, naturally she cannot let Ramón make love to her, even with his eyes. And that is why, Emma, she had to annoy you at dinner by claiming that he was making love to you. You see, it is so very important that Señor Mark should ask her to be his wife.”
“Does she fear that he might not?”
Pilar hesitated. “She may fear his - his certain reputation with women. Even I have heard that he likes to conquer - and pass on. But I am sure all that is changed for him now. For I cannot imagine, can you, that he would give a second glance at any other woman, once he had known Leonore?”
But Emma did not reply. For she saw that Pilar was confidently stating a fact. She was not seeking a reassurance which Emma found herself oddly reluctant to give.
Mark’s intervention was evidently successful, for Leonore made no further difficulties about outside interests for Pilar. Within a week or two, both girls were elected as junior members of the English Club and were giving two afternoons a week to voluntary hospital work.
The club sponsored aid to various local and international charitable causes and under a tireless Chairman of Committee, Lady Bysshe, there was a continual demand for her younger helpers to organize raffles, to act as stall-holders at fêtes and to sell tickets for gymkhanas and dances to all their long-suffering friends.
For Emma, their new busyness was a nostalgic echo of English community life. But for Pilar it was a widening of her whole horizon, and for the increasing hours of her escape from Leonore’s subtly carping criticism, it was good to watch her expanding in confidence and natural poise like a flower opening to the sun.
Towards the end of August, Lady Bysshe announced that the summer season of activity was to be crowned by a grand Ball in aid of a formidable list of combined charities, to be held in the grounds of her own palatial villa on the Mountain. And though nothing, Lady Bysshe indicated confidently, would be wanting in its efficient organization by herself, she conceded that for its certain success it called for Character, a certain Difference. Therefore, if her satellites took her meaning, she invited suggestions for giving it a quality which would make it, not only the most talked-of Ball of the summer, but of all Tangier seasons, past, present and to come. A suggestion box would be affixed to the door of the chief lounge forthwith....
Naturally, the question of character for the Ball was discussed at every tea-table on the club terrace and wherever a quorum gathered round the swimming-pool. Mothers were canvassed for their memories of formal dances of the ’twenties; fathers’ suggestions, on the whole, were slightly ribald and, therefore, suspect at the outset. And when little more original than “Fancy Dress”, “Masked” and “Cinderella” had been mooted, it was Pilar who ventured her own shy contribution..
She and Emma were working in the villa garden one morning when she said diffidently, “Emma, about the Ball - I suppose you wouldn’t have heard about the Flower Dances they used to hold a couple of centuries back, not in Spain, but in the great houses in Spanish America... in Cuba, in particular, I think?”
Emma straightened from the border she was weeding. “No, I haven’t. What was a Flower Dance?”
Pilar explained. “It was a kind of betrothal fiesta. What happened was that a posy of flowers for each lady present would be grouped in a specially built bower or round a central fountain. And at candle-lighting time - when the half-light was mysterious arid romantic - each girl would take a posy and be free to offer it to any man of her choice. The offering would bind him to dance with her for the next dance only, but it was regarded as the most important one of the evening, and I have read that the posy often showed a gallant that he could pay his court where he had not known before that it would be welcome. But perhaps it is too old-fashioned an idea for the Ball,” she concluded lamely.