'Please,' Ricki was blushing, 'I don't doubt your identity or your sincerity '
'Then what do you doubt, senarita? That you would not find me amiable to work for? But is it not a fact that people in authority in hospitals are martinets of discipline? I should not be that bad. Jaime would be entirely in your charge and I would not interfere with whatever regime yep set up for him. It seems to me, in fact, that you would have much more freedom at the Granja de la Valle than you can ever have had tied to the routine of hospital work.'
A shrewd thrust and it got to Ricki, but this man -well, he looked one of those in whose blood ran the forces which said 'take what you want, and pay for it!' His courtesy was unassailable, and there was even a lurking magic in that dark smile of his, but Ricki couldn't quite believe that he would leave the entire management of his nephew to a woman. And what of his wife? Were not the women of important Spanish households on the domineering side ?
'Still the green eyes are hazed by questions,' the Don leant forward and filled the liqueur glass which now stood alone in front of her, the other things having been quietly whipped away by the quick-moving waiters who had obviously enjoyed, waiting on a man so distinguido. 'Please to drink this,' he said, 'but carefully. It is a brandy of my country, distilled not for its bouquet or its flavour, but to put fire in the blood.' His smile was faintly mocking. 'What question would you like to ask me - but first drink your conac?
She sipped at it, and then found herself saying: 'You must be very devoted to your nephew, senor. I gather you have no children of your own ?'
'It would be a trifle inconvenient for a man to go in for children before he has acquired a wife,' the Don said dryly. 'You were wondering, eh, what my wife might be like and whether you would get along with her?'
Ricki blushed vividly and half blamed it on the fiery brandy. He chuckled as he took note of her scarlet cheeks. 'It is strange,' he drawled, 'that the British woman who is self-confident enough to travel alone to a foreign country is yet able to blush. Spanish women have an interior self-assurance which makes blushing a near impossibility for them, but I doubt their ability to cope with customs officials, foreign currency, booking in at hotels and sightseeing without someone to chatter and cling to. I admire your initiative, Miss O'Neill, but do you really enjoy being all alone and dependent upon no one but yourself?' 'A working girl has to be independent,' she replied. 'It wouldn't do to be a clinging vine in a hospital - good lord, you wouldn't last a week, let alone a year.'
'And is it your intention to continue to work in a hospital?'
'Well,' she hesitated, 'you do acquire a lot of valuable experience, but I must admit that I do intend to branch out. I - I suppose as a Spaniard it strikes you as a bit unnatural that girls should have careers? But it's handy to have a career. It's something you can always fall back on - I mean, marriage doesn't always give you everything you want.'
'You speak of material things?' He tossed back his brandy.
She shook her head and stared into the tawny pool at the bottom of her glass. 'I meant that marriage ought to be all-satisfying, but it seems to fall short of that these days. In my country, at least. I don't know about Spain.'
'Here in Spain also,' his tone was edged with irony, 'if marriage is not established on a sound basis of mutual understanding and tolerance the edifice is tottery. Spanish people, however, rarely hasten into marriage, which is probably the main cause of swift erosion. They find time to get to know each other, without doubt the best way to start any association - including the one we were discussing. Miss O'Neill, would you consider coming to Andalusia for a month, to establish whether our ways and our climate will suit you? If you found the lack of city distractions too much to bear '
'Those would be the last things I'd miss,' she laughed at the idea. 'Living in the country wouldn't worry me -why, I used to love tramping the Irish heaths with my father when I was a child. We used to fly a big box kite and gather armfuls of russet and lilac heather to take home to my mother.' A sigh escaped her. 'I lost the wilds when my mother died and my father took me to live with my aunt and uncle in England.'
'It is a heritage beyond price to carry always the memory of talking and playing with someone young at heart,' murmured Don Arturo. 'You can understand why I wish the same for Jaime.'
Ricki nodded and felt moved by his words, for it was as important to a child to have companionship as it was to have adult care, and Don Arturo was probably too busy about the estancia to be able to give his nephew more than an hour or two of his company. Poor little boy! The emotional stress of his loneliness could be hindering his progress towards complete recovery, and there must be a chance of that if the doctors had said so.
She gazed across at the boy's uncle, half fascinated by the idea of working for him, half fearful of it. He was a masterful man. He challenged what was boyishly independent in her, and she knew they would have clashes if she agreed to work for him.
'But how would I manage, senor ?' she asked. 'My Spanish is not a quarter as good as your English.'
'Do you find it puzzling that a Spaniard should speak your language with fluency?' he asked, a faint smile in his eyes.
She nodded, and thought him a man who would intrigue anyone.
'It has long been a custom in my family that its members be brought up bilingual,' he explained. For years we have conducted business with those of English-speaking countries, and then again there is English blood in myself and in Jaime. My grandmother came from your country, Miss O'Neill, and when the child was born he had an English nanny.
'The child speaks English also?' Ricki exclaimed.
'But of course.' The Don quirked a night-black eyebrow. 'When he grows up he will be in business with me and it will be necessary now and again for him to travel abroad
'Ah,' the Don threw out an expressive hand, 'see how I speak of him as being able to take an active part in the business when he is older? I forget that at present there is small indication that he will be able to do this. The ability to walk again is there, but the will lies dormant - the right person, Miss O'Neill, could arouse it.'
'You think I might be that person, senor ?' Ricki spoke very seriously, her gaze intent upon his proud, stern-featured face.
'I hope you might be that person,' he conceded. Ricki held her breath a moment she could try the job. This man wasn't likely to keep her a prisoner in his valley if she found the place and the people uncongenial. 'Very well, senor, ' she plunged. 'I'll try out the job for a month just to see how we get along.'
He studied her for a long moment, then inclined his dark head in a slightly ironic way. 'We will agree to part without regrets if you cannot settle down at the Granja de la Valle,' he said, 'and now I see the Inspector of Police approaching our table to talk about the theft of your handbag. Be lavish with your Irish smile, senorita, for the good Inspector can be of much help with the formalities pertaining to your employment here in Spain.'
Her employment here in Spain! Fingers of excitement and apprehension clutched at Ricki's heart, and were still clinging when she at last retired to her room, the Don's strangely formal, 'Goodnight and good repose,' echoing in her ears. What was she letting herself in for? The child sounded a most unhappy little scrap, and she couldn't help thinking that the shadows that hung about Jaime were also clouding the heart of his uncle.
Was she doing a wise thing in agreeing to go to this farm in an Andalusian valley, with a man who carried lines of bitterness beside his night-dark eyes, and his mouth that smiled so gravely?
CHAPTER TWO
It seemed that when you dealt with someone of the Cazalet standing, formalities were overcome with the minimum of time and trouble. Ricki's permit to reside and work in Spain was hurried through by the obliging Inspector of Police, and soon the morning had come when she was to set out with her new employer to his home in Andalusia.
She had enjoyed these extra days in Toledo, during which she had written a long letter to her f
ather, and met the friends of Don Arturo who lived in the city. They had asked him to bring her to merienda in the large walled patio of their house, and though the beautiful Castilian they spoke was beyond her, she had liked their dignity and hospitality. They were of the old aristocracy of Spain and their close friendship .with Don Arturo was further proof that she was employed by a man of important standing.
Ricki was excited, apprehensive, and yet determined to make a go of the job. In a way it was what she had been longing for, the chance to take care of someone who really needed her, in surroundings that were new to her. 'The Granja is quite large,' Don Arturo had told her, 'and I have several other farms that are run by tenant farmers. From son to son, these people have always worked the Cazalet land - no doubt in England you have similar systems?'
She had nodded, recalling her father's tales of the ancient untitled families of Kerry? and Mayo, whose roots were buried deep in the turbulent history of Ireland. So here in Spain the old cultures lingered on, and Arturo de Cazalet was without a doubt the patrono of the isolated community to which he was taking her.
The night before they left Toledo, Ricki had a strange dream. She was at the wheel of a car and she was driving very fast - suddenly the brakes seemed not to be working properly and she awoke in a sweat as the car was hurtling down a hill to unavoidable destruction.
She still had the dream in mind while she washed and dressed. It could be associated with the fact that her patient-to-be had received his injury in a car crash. On the other hand, Ricki wondered if the dream was some kind of warning. She stood in front of the cheval glass with her comb poised in the air - a warning that she put a brake on an action that could be leading her into some sort of danger?
Then catching her wide-eyed reflection in the glass, she pulled .a mocking face at herself. The strange, rather mysterious atmosphere of Toledo was working on her imagination, but once out of its environs she would no longer imagine Arturo de Cazalet in the dark raiment of medieval days, steel at his hip, his lean figure wrapped in the folds of a cloak. A devil or a saint! His face still as forbidding to her as on the night he had swung her to face him and she had looked into eyes so dark that many secrets could be hiding in them.
She finished combing her hair and firmly told herself that he was just a man, the anxious uncle of a small sick boy, and after locking her pyjamas and toilet-bag in her suitcase, she went and looked out of the small-paned window. Women were on their way to morning Mass with their heads mantled in black shawls. A milkman stood ladling milk into a customer's jug from one of his Ali Baba cans, and the air was rich with the smell of warm bread from a baker's shop and musical with the tolling of Toledo's many deep-toned bells.
Ricki took a deep breath of the morning air and felt anticipation quiver along her spine. Arturo de Cazalet did unnerve her a little, but if they had not met she would by now have been back in England. Instead she was going deeper into the heart of Spain, across the plains of Andalusia to the Granja de la Valle - the farm of the valley. 'Spanish hospitality is next to none,' someone had said when she had talked about taking a holiday in Spain, 'providing you tread to the tune they play.'
Words which could prove to be significant when applied to the household of a man like Arturo de Cazalet, but there was comfort in the thought that she was free to leave if her trial month didn't work out. At that point the brass chamber clock gave a whirr and began to sound the hour. Lord, she had better be getting downstairs -she was having breakfast with her employer before they set out on their long drive. She buttoned the jacket of her olive-green suit, worn with a white blouse in waffle pique, took a final peep at her reflection to ensure that all was neat, then carrying her suitcase she went downstairs to the dining-room of the inn.
'Buen' dia, Miss O'Neill.' The Don, lean and aloof in conservative pinstripe with a charcoal-grey tie knotted to perfection at the crisp collar of a light-grey shirt, escorted her to their table. 'I regret that the police have not yet recovered your handbag and its contents,' he said as he liberally sugared a half of pink melon. 'My good friend the Condesa informed me at dinner last night that aj woman is lost without a capacious handbag in which to carry her odds and ends and, there beside you on your i seat, you will find a gift from her. You can write to thank her from the Granja, for we have no time to call in upon her this morning.'
Ricki, melon-filled spoon half-way to her mouth, lowered it again and turned to look at the fairly large package that lay beside her on the banquette. She unwrapped the brown paper and gave a gasp of delight and surprise. The Condesa Quintalar, whom she had met the other afternoon, had given her a handsome bag of Moroccan leather; it hung on a shoulder strap and was firmly latched at the front. 'But I couldn't possibly accept anything like this!' she gasped.
'I think you had better.' The Don gave her his brief, grave-eyed smile. 'The Condesa would be most offended if you refuse to accept her gift. As she remarked, she is no longer young and active and it would please her to know that the bag was being used by a useful young woman.'
'How kind of her to say that!' Ricki flushed and ran her slim fingers over the intriguing raised figures on the bag. 'I - I shouldn't want her to think me ungrateful, and 'I'll look after the bag for all I'm worth.'
'From the sturdy look of it, you have a most effective weapon if you find yourself at the mercy of another desperado.' The quirk to Don Arturo's left brow gave him a look of saturnine humour. 'Whenever you get the urge to explore, it might be wise to carry it with you. Much of Andalusia is still untamed, you know. There are caves in the hills where gitanos live, and the tough uaqueros who tend the bull herds might not understand that perfectly respectable British girls wander about on their own. The girls of Andalusia do not - unless they are of a certain class. We of the south, you see, cling to many of the old traditions.'
'I'll try to behave as much like a senorita as possible.' Ricki's eyes were dancing as she bent over her melon. Please tell me some more about Andalusia, senor. It's a fascinating place.'
'It is as barbaric in many ways, and as exciting as in the days when the Moors ruled it and built alcazars as full of colour and intrigue as, the courts of Baghdad. It was then called Betica, and it is still the seat of superstition, where everything has a meaning, an omen and a portent.' The Don glanced up from his plate of ham and eggs flamenco , his face as dark and fine-boned as a Saracen's. 'We growers of the olive and the morales - mulberries, you say - have many beliefs which would no doubt seem pagan to the outside world.'
'You're forgetting that my paternal roots are Irish,' Ricki said, breaking a twist of crisp bread and buttering it. 'In remote parts of Ireland there are superstitions galore, and beliefs run rife that the spirits of the old chiefs haunt the moorlands. Any country which is really old , must have the past clinging to it - whispers in the wind, you know, and shapes in the early morning mists.'
Her words were followed by a small silence and when she glanced up, a piece of ham speared on her fork, she found Don Arturo looking at her very intently. The disturbing quality about his eyes wasn't due entirely to the fact that they were so striking; he seemed to pull down a shutter on his own private thoughts while having the ability to read other people's. He knows he frightens me . a little, Ricki thought, and he thinks me a bit of a child. Funny for two people like us to have come together like this we're so different, yet in a way we think alike.
'There are very few visitors to my country, Miss O'Neill, of whom it can be said that they have that certain something that makes for affinity with the Spain of the Spanish, but,' his lean fingers turned the lid of the honey jar, 'I think you may have it.'
'Why - thank you, senor ? She gave him a smile, but he
didn't return it.
'I am not paying you a compliment,' the honey gleamed as he spread a piece of bread with it. 'The piropo, as we call it, is coined lightly and not meant to be taken seriously, something it might be wise to remember when you meet the young and volatile men of the south.
They invented the piropo, the flirtatious compliment, and are masters of the game.'
'You are a man of the south, senor, ' she dared to say. 'My mother was of Castile and I take after her. My brother was more the son of my father, and yet Jaime shows the reserve of our Castilian blood and in several ways he could be a son of mine.'
Don Arturo spoke with his usual coolness, but Ricki wondered how deep went his shaft of pain that the boy wasn't really his. Somehow she knew that this could have been so if Conquesta had not become beguiled by the brother who had been gayer, more a part of the warm languorous south than the rocks and shadows and fierce pride of Castile.
'Who is taking care of Jaime while you are away, seno? she asked, curious about his household, which seemed to be an all-male one with none of the usual female cousins and aunts bustling about and bossing the men in the matriarchal way which seemed necessary to the Spaniard's temperament.
'The boy is in the care of my head guard and his wife. Sophina is a good sort, with a large family of picaros who are to her, she asserts, even as she boxes their ears, as precious as the oil of the olive.' He dabbed honey from his lips and Ricki glimpsed the fleeting smile that lit up the jet of his eyes. 'The peasant without olive oil is poor indeed and in Andalusia we place more value on the olive tree than on the grape vine.'
'You cultivate mainly the olive, senor? She accepted a tangerine from the dish he held out and began to peel it, the scent of it wafting her to Hendon at Christmas-tide, the only time when they had tangerines. How far away Hendon seemed right now; the red brick school, being a physio student in London and living in lodgings, working at the hospital and suddenly facing up to the fact that she was restless, chained, longing for wider horizons in which to try her wings.
'The Cazalet olive is quite famous, not for eating, you understand, but for the oil,' the Don told her. 'Something in our soil seems to enrich the trees and make them dark, and the darker the tree the more fruitfully it yields. I will tell you of one of our superstitions which I think you will find rather charming.' He smiled that brief, rather haunting smile of his. 'Over the door of the big warehouse in which the barrels of oil are stored, and I have no objection to the practice, my workers always nail a juniper bush in order to keep evil spirits from entering the oil and turning it rancid.'
The Cazalet Bride Page 3