by Jane Arbor
‘With us it’s not unusual—a throwback to when estates and fortunes had to be kept within families.’ Gil rolled over to rest on his elbow. Fran felt his gaze narrowly on her as he added,
‘Why the keen interest in young Pilar and Pedro?’ And when she did not reply, ‘All right, you don’t have to tell me. Someone has been drawing parallels and sounding you out? Who? If it was Grandfather—!’
‘Oh, it wasn’t Grandfather.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Only someone gossiping, not sounding me.’
‘And at a safe bet, it was old woman busybody Jervis!’ Gil concluded sourly and wrongly.
Fran shook her head. ‘I’d rather not say who. It was confidential. But when I didn’t believe it, they quoted Pilar. It is true, then? Grandfather has this idea about—us? He has broached it to you?’
Gil laughed sharply. ‘“Broached” is good! I’ve breathed it and slept it and eaten it ever since he hatched it. You could say the only actual broaching came from me, when I told him one night just what I thought of it as a witches’ brew.’
Remembering a slammed door—And I can guess which night that was, Fran thought. Aloud she said, ‘I’d never guessed, though I suppose it was what all this insistence on my taking a hand in the house was in aid of. And once when I asked you why they weren’t strict about chaperoning me with you, you said you wouldn’t put ideas into my head. But you knew then it was because they thought of us as virtually engaged, though you weren’t telling me?’
‘Yes, I daresay.’
‘There was another time too, when you warned me Grandfather would expect to dictate how long Mother and I stayed here. That time you promised to weigh in on my side if I needed help.’
‘And do you need help?’
(If only he knew just how badly and why!) Fran said, ‘Not now I know you feel as you do about it all.’
‘And how do you know how I feel about it?’
‘Well, surely, from what you say you told Grandfather?’
Gil grinned engagingly. ‘I don’t know that I reported in detail what I said to him! However, as I take it you are wholly opposed to the idea, you’ve nothing to fear, you know. Even Grandfather can’t drag you to the altar against your will.’
‘I know,’ agreed Fran. She added wretchedly,
‘Though I do wish he had never thought it up. I don’t want to take Mother back to England just yet, for I know she doesn’t want to go. But with this hanging in the air, I feel we oughtn’t to stay.’
Gil said nothing for a moment. Then, ‘So why let it remain in the air?’ he suggested. ‘Why don’t we pay them in their own coin by claiming publicly to be enchanted with each other?’
Fran stared, every quivering nerve in revolt.
‘Gil, no! No, please! We couldn’t—’ she protested, and watched his face darken in a way she dreaded.
‘Why not? It would only be a joke they deserve for doing our thinking for us. And when we tired of playing it, we could say we had changed our minds, why not?’
‘Because we aren’t playing it at all. It would be horrible and false and—beneath us both.’
‘Ho! Speak for yourself,’ he retorted. ‘I’ve told you, I’ll go to any lengths when it suits me.’
Fran stood and sent her cairn flying with a kick that hurt through the toe of her sandal. She told him furiously, ‘You ought to be ashamed to say so. And you’re going to be above this, for I’ll see that you are. If you dare to hint to anyone, anywhere, that you and I—That we’re—!’
Gil was standing too now, within a hand’s touch.
‘ “Courting’ is the word you want, dear,’ he taunted her. ‘All right, spitfire, it was only a suggestion. It wouldn’t mean a thing. How could it? You and I know each other too well. Who’s going all lyrical over a girl they’ve seen scuttling to the bathroom in a woollen dressing-gown and being sick on a coach trip to Brighton and doing a belly-flop every third dive?’
‘Not you, evidently! Though I wasn’t sick, going to Brighton. I only felt queasy, and I never pancaked once I’d learned to dive.’
‘And who taught you to dive properly, madam?’
‘You did—But come to that, you’re no figure of romance either. Don’t forget you scuttled to the bathroom too. And hogged the hot water. And what about the time you told Mother she had forgotten how to make a paella, and made one yourself and thickened the stock with soda bicarbonate instead of cornflour? Some paella that was! And—and whenever you caught a cold in the head the tip of your nose used to turn crimson.’ But there the urge to return gibe for silly gibe died on Fran. ‘Oh, let’s go,’ she said wearily. ‘We’re quarrelling again, as we usually seem to, sooner or later.’
‘I’m not quarrelling, and it takes two,’ said Gil equably. But as he began to collect their things his attention was no longer with Fran nor wholly with his task. He was staring out to sea.
Their beach faced east, squarely to the Saharan mainland which an hour earlier had been just discernible on the horizon but was now obscured by a long cloud too low to be in the sky and seeming to be on the move.
‘What’s that?’ Fran asked.
‘Fog. Sand fog off the desert, blown on the levante, the east wind. Not pleasant.’
‘Does it reach as far as this?’
‘It can. There’s an island joke that it brings camel-tracks in with it, though no one has gone so far as to claim it has brought any actual camels.’
‘Is it a sort of sandstorm?’
‘Not nearly so violent. It rolls and seeps and leaves filthy deposits. It’s a fog, in short, the kind you could get lost in. That is, you could; I couldn’t. But come on if you’re ready, and we’ll beat it.’
For as far as their way ran parallel with the coast they could watch the long pall creep nearer. But when they turned inland to cross the island they left it behind them and forgot it.
Out of a silence Gil asked, ‘Supposing Grandfather does try out his matchmaking on you, what are you going to say?’
‘Why, the same as I’ve told you—that it’s unthinkable, crazy. Though I shouldn’t say “crazy” to him,’ added Fran.
‘And where would you propose to go from there?’
‘Well, home to England, I suppose, as he couldn’t want us to stay any longer.’
‘I don’t know. You shouldn’t underrate his tenacity.’ Gil chuckled suddenly. ‘What a pity for him that he doesn’t seem to have heard they manage these things better in Sicily!’
‘In Sicily?’
‘Yes. A Sicilian family thinks up a suitable match; they arrange for boy to kidnap girl for twenty-four hours and after that, on her side as well as his, the thing is regarded as settled.’
‘Even if the girl is unwilling?’
‘I gather they risk that, counting on her being flattered that she is so desirable. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed, young Francisca. As a means of persuasion it’s got something even over catching the flower thrown from a reja, so when I conceive an overweening passion for you, I might turn Sicilian bandit without any manipulation by Grandfather!’
‘ “When”! That’ll be the day!’ echoed Fran, meeting the raillery out of a bleak courage she wouldn’t have said she possessed.
They were nearing the Quinta now and when they arrived Gil said, ‘Changing the subject, if I were you I’d take my driving test.’
Pleased, Fran queried, ‘Why, do you think I’m ready?’
‘You’re good,’ he said. ‘I’d trust myself anywhere with you—almost.’ Laughing, he left her standing and went off to garage the car.
A few days later Fran took his advice. On El Naranjal there was no waiting list for the police-sponsored test and she found it well within her powers.
Passing it gave her a new freedom. Lucia was generous in lending her car and on their drives together Raquel delighted in rediscovering the island byways she had travelled on ponyback when she was a child, and there were people who remembered her in every hamlet.
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nbsp; She must know this halcyon spring had to have an end, that England lay in wait. But she gave no sign of it, and though Fran knew every day of delay held a threat from Elena, for sheer pity she continued to shelve the task of discussing plans and dates with Raquel.
And then chance took over in a way neither of them had foreseen, through a casual argument at the dinner-table which brought nearer their day of reckoning without any intervention by Elena Merced.
The occasion was a difference between Lucia and her father as to the respective ages of two children of a distant branch of the family. Don Diego thought the boy was the older by a year; Lucia thought the girl. The discussion went amiably back and forth for some time. Then Don Diego said,
‘We’re wasting our breath, my dear. After dinner we can settle the point beyond argument with the help of the tree.’ He turned to Fran. ‘That’s something I ought to have shown you before now, Francisca—our complete family tree for generations back which my father began to compile and which I have continued and keep up to date as the new youngsters come along. Gil will tell you I’ve made the research on it a labour of love for years. It hasn’t always been easy, but there are very few gaps in it and it’s an heirloom I shall be proud to pass on. You must come to my study when we have finished dinner, and I’ll show it to you—or at least the main line of it. There is so much of the rest that it has to be stored in sections. As a de Matteor record it is quite exhaustive and you’ll find it interesting, I think.’
Unguardedly Fran said, ‘I’m sure I shall.’
Gil put in drily, ‘ “Exhaustive” is right. Not one of us lives or dies or marries or is born without our vital statistics going into the tree. We’re all there—’ Lucia said, ‘And Father keeps copies of everyone’s birth and marriage and death certificates.’ And then Fran caught sight of Raquel’s white stricken face.
Without saying a word Raquel was signalling her panic, sharing it with Fran. If Fran’s name, ‘Francisca Page’, was there, stemming from Raquel’s and Tom’s, the record wasn’t complete without her birth certificate, and with it, must be seen to be false. The thought flashed between them as if it really had been spoken.
Then Raquel was pushing back her chair, asking to be excused as she felt suddenly faint.
There was general concern and Fran went to her. Lucia offered to go with them to her room, but Raquel said, ‘No, just Francisca—’ and Gil hurried to open the door for them. Don Diego said, ‘Later perhaps, Francisca? If your mother is able to spare you, I’ll have the tree ready for you to see.’ Fran said, ‘Do that, please, Grandfather,’ and gently took Raquel’s arm.
In her room Raquel said wretchedly, ‘I’m all right, really. But I had to talk to you—you saw that, Fran? Because if you appear in the family tree, Father will want details for you—the date you were born and where, and he’ll want your birth certificate to keep with all the rest. And so it will all come out!’
Fran thought, If it has to, better this way than to five in daily dread of Elena’s telling it. But it was only she, not Raquel, who knew what it was to fear Elena Merced, and even before she queried, ‘Does it matter so very much now if it does?’ she didn’t expect Raquel to agree.
‘Matter? To Father? You shouldn’t need to ask!’ declared Raquel wildly. ‘Our deception of him, for one thing. And Lucia says my bringing him a granddaughter of his own has pleased him more than he will admit. He has quite forgiven me for defying him to marry Tom and I can not bear to face him when he finds out about you. I’d forgotten about the tree. Oh, Fran, what are we to do?’
Fran advised, ‘Nothing for the moment, if you feel you can’t tell him. If he insists on having my birth certificate, we must get a copy for him. But he’ll know we must send to England for it, and that will give us a little time at least.’
‘Time! How much? It can only be a matter of days!’
‘Yes, but—’ Fran saw the opening she needed. ‘Listen, dear,’ she went on. ‘As you say, it will only be days—a fortnight at most, I should think, and I don’t see any hope that Grandfather won’t have to learn the truth in the end. But if you really can’t face him when he does, there is a way round that.’
‘There is? What?’
‘We could bring forward our return to England. We could leave, say, this week or next and promise, if Grandfather still pressed for my birth certificate, to send it back after we got home. Yes, I know—’ Fran checked Raquel’s gesture of rejection by reaching to take both her hands in her own. ‘You hate the thought of leaving El Naranjal and so do I. But we must go some time, and wouldn’t it be easier, even if not so honest, to write Grandfather the truth by letter?’
‘But then he would know I had run away from telling him. And it’s not only me he’ll blame. He’ll blame Tom too, for letting me deceive him all these years.’
‘Then let me tell him when he shows me the tree,’ urged Fran.
‘No, not tonight. I must think first. Besides, there’s something I haven’t told you. Lucia doesn’t want me to go back at all. She is seven years older than I am, you know, and running this big house may soon be too much for her. She wants me to stay and help her. You too, Fran, for as long as you like. You see, when Father dies the estate and the house are sure to go to Gil. But while Father lives and until Gil marries, they need Lucia to run things smoothly for them.’
‘And you would like to stay on?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you?’ countered Raquel.
Fran did not answer. Instead she asked, ‘And when Grandfather dies and Gil marries, what then?’
Raquel frowned. ‘Well, of course there is Gil’s entanglement with Senorita Merced, and he knows very well that a marriage there wouldn’t do. But if he married with Father’s approval, naturally his wife would become mistress here, and Father and Lucia would move into one of the villas on the estate, and if I were still here I should go with them.’
‘And would Grandfather be happy to do that?’
‘Why, yes, he would expect to. He would have done it for Gil’s father and will for Gil.’
‘But he didn’t do it for your brother Juan when he married because his wife died when Gil was born and she had never taken over the reins from Aunt Lucia,’ recollected Fran.
‘Yes, that’s how it was, and Lucia feels she has run the Quinta alone for too long. Not that any of this matters much if the truth about you has to come out. There’ll be little chance of my staying now,’ Raquel added despairingly.
‘Sooner or later I’m afraid it will have to come out,’ Fran agreed, relieved that, from the way the talk had gone, Raquel knew nothing of Don Diego’s matchmaking between Gil and herself. Gil’s use of ‘they had implied that Lucia knew very well the role for which she had been told to groom Fran. Elena Merced had stated it as a certainty and Fran thought it might indeed be so. But at least Raquel was no party to it, though even as she thought that, Fran’s relief was equalled by her distaste for the intrigue involved, the things unspoken even between sisters, the strings being pulled, the lives being manoeuvred—
Suddenly feeling very English indeed and glad of it, she disengaged her clasp of Raquel’s hands and stood up. ‘Sooner or later, darling, ’ she repeated gently. ‘So will you let me tell Grandfather the truth tonight?’
But Raquel pleaded for more time. ‘Not yet, please querida. When he has to be told it must come from me, not from you. Meanwhile, if he wants your birth certificate, promise we will get him a copy. And perhaps you will tell Lucia that I am better, but that I shan’t come down again tonight?’
‘I shall also say that you aren’t to be disturbed as you have gone straight to bed, which is where I want to see you before I leave you,’ ordered Fran.
Don Diego was waiting for her in his study. A wide drawer in an antique escritoire was open and the spread of real parchment occupied the whole area of a large flat-topped desk. The light of a reading-lamp was angled above it and Don Diego used a hand magnifying-glass to signal Fran to study it with him.
; ‘As I told you, this sheet shows our own line, right through down to Gil and yourself and back to—here, which is as far as existing records have been able to take me. You would like to trace it? Here then is our first known forefather of the male line—Frederico de Matteor. As you see, he married twice, with no issue by his first wife and seven children by his second. Here they all are—Isabella, Pia, Cortez, and four other girls, two of whom died in infancy. The girls married and their lines are traced elsewhere. It is Cortez who belongs to us.
‘He had two sons, one of whom entered the Church. The elder, Gil—and this is of interest, Francisca—married his cousin, a daughter of Isabella, and their five children we find here—’
As the tale went on it caught powerfully at Fran’s imagination. This was no history of dates and facts. It was history being lived by people. Centuries back there had been a Frederico, who had lived and married and had children, some of whom may have gone far afield for their own partners, others had not. But whether or not, their children in turn had been knitted into the web of which Don Diego and his children and ultimately Gil had been made.
Lucia, Raquel, dead Juan—and Gil. Only she, Fran, was the alien, and suddenly, with as sharp a pride as she had felt glad to be English, she found herself longing passionately to belong here too. But she did not, and if anything underlined the fact, it was the pencil-faintness of the ‘Francisca’ to which Don Diego was presently pointing.
He smiled. ‘You see, nieta?—your details are something of an unknown quantity. But we must get you entered properly now, and we must have your birth record for the files. You can obtain a copy, no doubt, if your mother hasn’t one already?’
‘Yes, from Somerset House in London.’
‘Good. I remember needing to refer there myself on some enquiry or other. Let us see now. You were born—the date and place—?’
Fran told him both.
‘And now something more about your father. I have the date of his marriage to your mother. But he had family—brothers, sisters?’
‘One brother. No sisters.’