by Jane Arbor
‘An—accident? Oh, Gil! A road accident, do you mean? After she left?’
‘Since she left, of course. But not on her way back. That is, I’m not sure. She is at home now, anyway. It was her maid who telephoned and I
didn’t wait for details—’ He broke off and exploded suddenly, ‘Look, Fran, just do as I ask and let me go, will you?’
But she kept him for another question. ‘Do you want me to tell anyone else besides Pilar?’
He rounded on her. ‘Tell anybody you like. The lot! Get up on a chair and shout it downwind. And I hope they may enjoy the rest of their evening!’
The outer door crashed to behind him and Fran turned away, puzzled by a stirring of pity which, in relation to him, was unfamiliar.
Pity—for Gil who made such a gay virtue of his ability to turn most things his way? If she told him, he would laugh ... But it was pity. She recognized the tenderness in it and the fellow-feeling that understood he was suffering the conflict of two loyalties. For, remembering now his gasp at sight of Elena’s misguided choice of costume, Fran wondered that she had let herself doubt he had been just as outraged as had Don Diego. He hadn’t known anything about it! Yet Elena, in crisis, had only to call on him and he had gone to her. He was still fiercely, defiantly on her side, whatever mischief she had done.
Which proved, thought Fran, that he was genuinely in love with her; he wasn’t just flaunting the affair in the face of his family for some mischief of his own. Because that was what love was all about, wasn’t it? You disapproved, even were shocked by some traits in your woman ... in your man. You saw their faults, suspected their weaknesses, quarrelled with their difference from you. But loving them, you forgave them everything; they had only to need you and you would run—
That Fran knew for sure. As surely as she was admitting now that it was from the wonder and despair of herself loving Gil to that depth that she drew the experience.
Gil! There was pain and surprise to knowing it, but had there ever been a time when she hadn’t loved him? Even childishly at fourteen? During the ten years when other contacts had overlaid but never quite buried her memory of him? At their re-meeting while Elena Merced looked on; later, when she had been at pains to agree with him that they weren’t each other’s type, and so in no danger of romance?
That, she supposed, had been her first attempt to arm herself against an awareness of him which made an importance of his every mood, every coming and going and every small experience they shared.
His name, spoken by anyone else, could always alert her. Her own name, called by him, could set her pulses racing ...
But there was no future in it. Even if there were no Elena Merced for him, Gil was Spanish, a de Matteor. Fran, to him, was his ‘little cousin’, his chica for teasing and for making his confidante or his ally when he needed one.
No future at all.
CHAPTER V
Regaining the salon, Fran excused Gil to no one but his young partner, who pulled a face but quickly latched on to a group of her own age who adjourned to another room to practise dance steps to a record-player. Whether or not anybody else noticed his absence, it was not remarked on in Fran’s hearing before the party broke up in the small hours.
Nor, later, unless Lucia and Raquel discussed it themselves in private, was Elena’s bad joke mentioned again. Don Diego’s cold admonition to her remained his only comment on the incident and Fran had to admire the dignity with which it was ignored as if it had never happened. She judged that in future Elena was likely to.be less than welcome at the Quinta. But even if she were thick-skinned enough to come, Fran doubted whether the noblesse oblige code of the de Matteors would make them openly rude to her.
Rather more puzzling was that word of the accident which had taken Gil to her seemed to have reached no ears but his. Fran did not know when he had come home overnight, but when they met late the next morning she thought it natural to ask after Elena.
Gil chose to be obtuse. ‘She’s as well as you’d expect, I daresay. Why?’
‘Well, didn’t her maid ring to say she had had some kind of accident after she left last night? And you went to her, didn’t you?’
‘And so?’
Fran laid hold on her patience. ‘And so you must know what had happened—whether she was hurt, whether she is all right now. Or mayn’t one presume to ask?’
He met her eyes stonily. ‘If you’ve been deputed to ask, no. Nor if you’re being dutifully polite. Nor unless you’re more bothered about her than I know you can be. Nor if you’re being merely curious. Enough to be going on with?’
‘Quite enough,’ Fran told him coldly. ‘Though wouldn’t “Mind your own business” have taken a lot less time to say?’
Since Gil wasn’t telling, she expected to hear no more of Elena’s accident. But in fact the answer to her well-meant questions to Gil was to reach her in the most oblique way.
By now she was accepting her household chores with a good grace, joking with Raquel that by the time Lucia had finished with her, she would be able to shop and cook and budget far better in Spanish than in English. But she was not prepared one morning for Lucia’s brisk, ‘Now you must learn how to engage staff. Carlotta is leaving to be married next month. So we shall need a new parlourmaid, and I should like you to interview the girls the agency has listed for me. Three of them— And you have some idea of what you should ask them, no doubt?’
Fran laughed. ‘Not a clue, I’m afraid.’
‘But surely? When you are married you will need to interview domestics, and you should know how.’
Fran laughed again. ‘I doubt if I’ll ever be engaging a parlourmaid; in England they’re a dying race.’ At her aunt’s look of perplexity she went on, ‘However, I suppose I’d ask for their references, why they were leaving their present place, when they would be free to come—things like that.’
‘Exactly,’ approved Lucia. ‘You would also want to know how long they were with their latest employer and what their duties were. You would also say what would be expected of them here, discuss wages with them and any other points which might arise, and decide between them accordingly.’
‘According to what?’ protested Fran. ‘I don’t know about wages, nor all the things Carlotta does.’
‘These I will list for you, also what she earns and her free times,’ promised Lucia.
‘And you’ll be there, to see I do it properly?’
‘No. I think you should be alone. You will gain confidence so. But when you have made your choice I will see the girl myself and confirm it,’ was all that Lucia would concede. Which caused Fran to wonder yet again why the Quinta should be so anxious she should learn its domestic ways when, a month or two hence, they would be of no concern to her at all.
She put the question to Raquel. ‘This thing of Aunt Lucia’s, that I should even interview staff—what’s the point of it, do you know? I remember you said they rope in young wives pretty early, but do they really do the same with any female who stays in the house more than, say, a week?’
Raquel smiled. ‘Of course not, dear. You must remember that to Father and Lucia and Gil, you’re not “any female” house guest. You’re one of the family, and here girls are trained in household chores long before they leave school. In fact, Lucia was quite shocked when I told her that, until you were engaged, I thought you had quite enough outside responsibility, earning your living and partly mine. To that she said, All very well, if that was the English way. But it wasn’t theirs ... ours. And as a daughter of the house, which is how they regard you, while you can you should learn as much of its workings as if you were really one.’
‘In other words, “When in Rome—” ’ murmured Fran.
‘Something like that, yes,’ agreed Raquel vaguely.
On the morning of the interviews Lucia took Raquel shopping, leaving Fran, feeling foolish and inadequate, to await the three candidates the agency was sending.
The first girl, to Fran’s relief, was paten
tly unsuitable. She had none of Carlotta’s experience, and Fran had scarcely to question her at all to decide she would not do. The second was quite different. She was experienced, her manner was excellent, she could come as soon as Carlotta left, and she obviously regarded a job at the Quinta as the peak of her ambition. Showing her out, promising Lucia would be in touch with her, Fran thought, ‘You’d be the one for my choice,’ but supposed she had better see the third girl who was waiting.
Lila Ortiz. Lila was a common name, and having never heard her surname Fran was entirely unprepared to see Elena Merced’s discreet maid walk in. Recognition flashed between them and Fran smiled, ‘Please sit down. Don’t we know each other? You are with Senorita Merced?’
The girl took a chair. ‘I was with the Senorita, but I have left her.’
‘Oh— Well, I expect you know Senorita de Matteor’s requirements. A parlourmaid to take the place of her present one, who is getting married.’ Fran outlined Carlotta’s work, adding, ‘Supposing my aunt thought you would suit her, I expect Senorita Merced would give you a reference?’
Lila coloured. ‘I have other good references. I should prefer not to ask Senorita Merced to speak for me.’
Fran said again, ‘Oh,’ and then, ‘That makes a difficulty, unless you have a very good reason for not asking her. Perhaps you would say at least which of you gave the other notice?’
‘It was I who gave the Senorita notice.’ A pause. ‘Because, though I obeyed her at the time, she should not ask me to tell lies for her. To say “Not at home” to unwelcome callers—that is nothing, for it means only that she is not at home to them. This is understood. But to lie over the telephone, to tell Senor de Matteor she has suffered an accident when she has not, but is only very angry, that is wrong and I am sorry I did it. This I told the Senorita and that, lest she should expect it of me again, I would prefer to leave. To which she agreed, though warning me she would refuse me a reference. You see, Senorita Page?’
Fran bit her lip. ‘Yes, I see.’ Feeling she must know, she added, ‘That would have been the evening of the party here at the Quinta, when Senorita Merced went home from it early?’
‘That night, senorita, yes. You knew she called the Senor away from the party?’
‘Yes. He told me Senorita Merced—needed him.’ Bleakly Fran saw it all—the black mortification that had had to take its revenge by a ruse calculated to bring Gil running; the girl used as Elena’s cats-paw for the telling of the lie; Gil so bewitched by Elena that, though he must have learned the truth as soon as he went to her, he had fobbed off Fran with evasions, stonewalling in a defence of Elena which in his heart he must know she hadn’t earned.
That was Gil, loyal to a fault. Just then Fran knew she would give all she had to think that in any trouble of her own, he would ever be as quixotically on her side.
Meanwhile with Lila she continued her stock questions and learned to her relief that the girl only wanted a temporary job. She was half-Maltese and would be returning to Malta in the spring, and that, thought Fran, would serve to tell Aunt Lucia as her reason for rejecting her. No need at all perhaps even to mention her name in recommending the other girl to her aunt. Lila would mark time in another job and go home in the spring, and Elena’s shabby little secret would be safe with Fran’s own loyalty to Gil.
Lucia duly approved her choice and showed scant interest in the other two. Carlotta left and Pepita, the new girl, took her place and as if she owed it all to Fran, thereafter could not do enough for her.
January became February and the sun still shone. Now Raquel could walk for an hour or more without tiring and she often accompanied Fran on her latest design project.
Walking alone one day on the road Gil had taken on her first journey up to the Quinta, she had been struck again by the forlorn dignity of the abandoned gateways and doors which no longer guarded anything but the weed-ridden wasteland behind them.
In particular there was a pair of double doors, at least ten feet tall, flanked by broken stonework and with only a crumbling lintel above. It was the carving of the doors which arrested Fran. For each of the six square panels which went to the lower half of each door was ornate with a different design which Fran frowned over and traced the relief with a finger before their significance dawned on her.
Most, though not all, showed an animal—a bull, a stag, rearing horses, a snake, a three-headed dog. But she got no clue from these until she noticed that in each of the twelve a man was also depicted and in one only, a tree and three women.
Of course! The labours of Hercules! The tree, the ‘golden apple’ of El Naranjal. The women, the three Hesperides, the sisters who guarded it, and in the other panels the—yes, the bull of Crete and the horses of—oh, someone or other in Greek legend. Excitedly Fran had peered closer, examining the exquisite detail. Copied and translated into pewter or brass, what a wonderful set of plates they would make for wall-decoration or as standing pieces!
Her fingers itched to set to work on them. It would mean long patient hours, here on the roadside, with her sketch block. But it would be a work of love. She could hardly wait to get back to the Quinta to airmail the suggestion to her firm, and it was only when she was doing so that the question of her right to copy the design of a derelict doorway occurred to her.
Who could tell her? She thought Gil, but Lucia sent her to Don Diego. And though Fran demurred that he had frowned on the idea of her working at all, Lucia said he, if anyone, could help her.
To Fran’s relief, that proved true. He had access to island papers and charts which traced the ownership of properties for generations back. The great house in whose sad facade Fran was interested had originally been on leasehold to the de Matteor family; over a hundred years ago the owners had lost a succession of banana crops to disease, had failed and left the island. The abandoned property had eventually reverted to the de Matteors and so it was Don Diego’s own permission that Fran wanted and got.
He seemed pleased at her interest in island history, told her she could browse further in his library any time she wished and at that time only vaguely disturbed her with his promise that one day he would trace for her the long, involved line of his family—‘which of course is also your own, nieta mia,’ he reminded her.
So, almost daily, sometimes alone, sometimes with Raquel, Fran walked the kilometre or so down to the doorway, set up her stool and sketched, while Raquel read or dozed in some nearby shade.
Cars on the dusty, rutted road were few. But such passers-by as there were seemed full of curiosity, peering unashamedly over Fran’s shoulder and even summoning others to debate what l’inglesa was doing. It was on a morning when she was alone and had attracted such a knot that a car passed, stopped and its driver, Rendle Jervis, walked back.
‘I thought it was you,’ he told Fran. ‘Are you being annoyed?’
‘Good heavens, no. Only being flattered and offered advice, I gather.’
‘That’s typical. They’re a busybody lot,’ he disparaged. He came forward to look and the amateur critics moved off. ‘Are these the designs your grandfather told me you were working on?’
‘I suppose so. Did he?’
‘Yes. I gather you did the “in” thing by showing an interest. What’s this one?’—indicating her half-finished sketch.
‘That? That’s Hercules cleaning the Augean stables. You know,’ Fran added, ‘I doubt if I’d have caught on what it was all about if you hadn’t reminded me about the Hesperides. Do you remember?’
‘Glad to have been of use, ma’am.’ Rendle pulled an imaginary forelock and changed the subject. ‘I’ve seen very little of you lately. What about a date? For tonight, at the Casino? There’s an English band on tour and a floor-show—yes?’
Fran said, ‘Thanks, I’d like that. What time, and what does one wear?'
‘Oh, anything goes. Nine-ish for time, but I’ll call for you if I may?’
They agreed that he should do that and he went on his way. Fran thought uneasil
y, I’m not using him, am I? To get back at Gil for making a duty of taking me out when he does? She hoped not. It would be—petty, less than worthy of her conviction of loving Gil. But it did something for that particular nag of conscience that, when Rendle called for her in the evening, Gil’s own reaction was petty to a degree, his studied politeness to the other man a poor cloak for his hostility towards him.
On their way Rendle grumbled, ‘What a dog in the manger the man is! He’s got one woman to himself, hasn’t he? Why should he bristle with jealousy over you?’
‘Jealous of me? Gil?’ Fran could only wish it were so.
‘Well, what else? Anybody’d think I planned to abduct you. “Where was I taking you?” “What time would you be home? I’d expect your mother to ask questions like that, but not another man, unless I was cutting in on his girl.’
Fran shook her head. ‘That wasn’t jealousy. That was Gil choosing to play duenna. You warned me yourself how they police their womenfolk, and he’s called me over the coals before now for something we’d think nothing of at home.’
‘He has? About what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Not, by any chance,’ Rendle pressed shrewdly, ‘about your having come to my apartment that afternoon he went by in his car?’
‘In fact, yes.’ Fran thought it best to laugh it off. ‘He claimed to think we’d staged an orgy over the crumpets—or was it only toasted scones?’
‘Well, I’ll be—’ Rendle left the expletive in the air. ‘You know, that tempts me to give him a run for his money.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, make a real night of it. After we’ve had the floor-show, we might run out, say, to Las Rocas—’
But Fran did not agree. ‘No, I told Gil I’d be home by one at the latest, and I must be.’
‘And you really suppose’—Rendle put the question by stages as he manoeuvred his car into a parking space—‘unless Gil has signally changed his night-life habits, that if you are back at the Quinta by one or even two o’clock, he’s likely to be there to see?’