'I quite understand that you were anxious to get home to your nephew, senor, and supper in bed sounds super.' she added smilingly,
'Super?' He raised an inquiring eyebrow.
'Inviting - just the thing,' she explained. 'Haven't you a word like that in Spanish?'
'I suppose we might say muy bien, which means very nice.' He spoke with a seriousness that faintly amused her, then as they crossed to the stairs she glanced down and saw beneath their feet, picked out in the cobbles, the same escudo which was carved on his signet ring. 'Oh, look!' she exclaimed, as though the pair of them were touristy and she was pointing out something he had never seen.;
'You are interested in such ancient things?' he asked 'That has been in my family for many years. You see, it is a hawk on a field of iris, and the small cygne represents the women who have married the Cazalet hawks. This family stems way back to a Marius Cazalet, a sea rover from the shores of England who finally grew tired of roving and settled here in Andalusia to be an olive grower - much in the same way as other Colonials settled here to found large sherry bodegas.'
'How fascinating,' Ricki breathed. She gazed up at him in awe, startled deep inside herself to learn that an Englishman had founded this house of hawks. She saw something flicker in the Don's eyes, a smile perhaps, and she said shyly: 'It must be an immense responsibility, Doxi Arturo, to be the head of a family which has gone on and on for hundreds of years. Why, you're a living link with! the past!'
'And very often I feel the weight of it all.' He spoke in a dry tone of voice. 'Now I will wish you buena noche, Miss O'Neill. I hope you sleep well and find yourself undisiturbed by the countryside quiet. The other physio attendants were city dwellers who found our quiet and the low hooting of the owls very hard to get used to.]
'The other physios were men, weren't they?' she said
'That is so? The Don's eyes grew thoughtful as he regarded her upraised face with its elfin contours. 'This is the first time I have put Jaime in the care of a female physiotherapist and no doubt he will be most surprised at the innovation.'
'I hope his surprise will be a pleasant one.' Ricki crossed her fingers, then with a murmur of good night she went upstairs with Sophina. The guardesa was never lost for conversation and she was full of the time she and her husband had spent in England with the Don. 'The English so amused me at times, she chuckled. 'They are so shy. Not at all like us Spanish.'
'I think some of you are very reserved,' Ricki remarked, thinking of her employer.
'Ah, but we do not hide behind newspapers when we travel on a bus or a train - we talk together, sehorita. We are interested in what goes on in each others' lives.'
Sophina cast a side look over Ricki's slim figure. 'You will be able to manage the nino?' she asked, dubiously. There is not much of you.'
'I am trained to handle the handicapped,' Ricki said stiffly, not quite sure that she liked this woman with her gypsy looks.
Her name alone painted a picture of caravans and brown feet stamping out a pagan rhythm. The rooms of the estancia were all on different levels, steps going up and then down, so that Ricki felt hopelessly lost when Sophina at last opened a door and told her that here she would sleep.
'A servant will fetch you up a brasero,' she said. 'It grows cold in the night – the Sierras are crowned with ice, you know - and now I will show you the salon de aguas and perhaps you would like to take a peep at the nino ?'
'May I?' Ricki was full of curiosity about the boy she was to take care of. 'I don't want to wake him up.'
'He sleeps deeply, for he has been given a sedative - the poor little one became restless when he learned that the patrono was returning.' Sophina led Ricki further along the corridor.
'Excited, I expect,' Ricki smiled. 'Don Arturo must be like a father to the boy.'
'Senorita,' Sophina looked at her with eyes which seemed to visualize grave things in a witch-ball, 'I wish I could tell you this was so, but Jaimito does not like his uncle. They are not simpatico, which is much of a pity.' She threw open a door as she spoke and Ricki took in vaguely an old-fashioned bathroom whose tub had a surround of mulberry and blue tiles
The Don and his young nephew were not in sympathy - the boy disliked the man who blamed himself in part for that tragic crash. He should have remembered, he had said, that Leandro had never been able to resist his possessions - whether they were cars or girls, Ricki added to herself.
-'This is where the nino sleeps.' Sophina beckoned Ricki into a room that was lit softly by a small pewter lamp on the bedside table. 'He has dreams, bad ones, and it would not be good for him to awake in the dark ness.' Sophina's shadow was huge on the white wall as she stood at the bedside of the sleeping child. 'He has a fine young face, eh? From his parents he gets those good looks.'
Jaime de Cazalet .was certainly a good-looking child, with fine-boned features and brows that were like dark wings above his closed eyes. His dark hair was tousled from his restless tossing about and showed a small edition of the peak that saved his uncle's hairline from severity. But the face was not that of a fit child. Shadows; lurked at the corners of the pale little mouth and his fingers were clenched upon the sheet as though in sleep he clung to a hand. His mother's? As he lived again the moment when the brakes of his uncle's car failed to function and the vehicle hurtled to disaster down that ravine road!
'Hasn't he a soft toy of some sort which he could have in bed with him?' Ricki whispered.
'He is too old for such toys, senorita.' Sophina looked scornful. 'This is a child with already the mind of an adult.'
'But look how he clenches the bedcovers.' Ricki was distressed by this sign of mental tension in the child. 'A cuddly toy might help him to sleep with more relaxation.'
'I noticed when in, England that the children had these toys of wool which they took into their beds of a night,' Sophina shrugged, tolerantly, but without real understanding. 'It is a custom of you people, but Spanish children do not care for such things.'
Ricki opened her mouth to retort that they might if they were given them, then she swallowed her words. She didn't wish to antagonize Sophina, and once she had sole charge of Jaime she could provide him with a cuddly toy and leave him to accept or reject the comfort of it at night. As they left his room, she thought it a pity that Don Arturo had failed to win his nephew's trust and affection. 'Were Jaime's parents happy together?' She just had to ask.
'Ay Dios mio, happiness is a big word with many shades of meaning,' Sophina peered hard at her. 'You have not yet loved a man, eh?' Ricki shook her head and felt herself flushing. 'Into the love pot goes as much bitter as sweet, this you will learn when you take a man.' Sophina paused midway between a flickering wall lamp and a niche in which hung a portrait of a man in a sombre purple doublet and starched ruff. The eyes were almost alive - dark Cazalet eyes, unrelieved by a ray of light.
'Dona Conquesta and her husband took their happiness and it stopped the heart of the old patrono and turned to stone the heart of his older son - there was a curse on such happiness from the very beginning!' With her second and small finger Sophina made the sign of the devil's horns, then she touched wood and muttered something in Spanish. 'Dofia Conquesta was- to have married Don Arturo. It was arranged when she was sixteen and he twenty-one. The old patrono and the father of Dona Conquesta wished very much for an all ance between their two houses and it was, of course, for the eldest son to provide this. The courtship lasted five years. We call it eating the iron, which means on the one hand that a young man is barred from his girl by the grilleI of her window, and that he must content himself in patience which often takes a will of iron - until the time comes for their marriage.' Sophina paused, her voice sinking down.
'Only a few weeks before the wedding was to take place, Dona Conquesta ran off with Don Arturo's own brother, leaving a note to say they were going to be married.Leandro was very handsome, with honey on his tongue, and the shock of the elopement struck down the old patrono. The honour of Spa
nish houses is not lightlyused and though Don Arturo could have been harsh towards that reckless pair, he forgave them when it became known that Conquesta was to have a child. Madre mia, that was much for him to bear! But she was one of those who could not help the devils she roused in the hearts of men. So it is in Spain sometimes, senorita.' Sophina spread her hands. 'Here the emotions are closer to the surface. 'It's a tragic story all round,' Ricki murmured. 'I feel sorry for Don Arturo, but surely he will marry some day? He's still a young man '
'Many men lose their trust in women, but among them there are those who lose all desire to love again. Don Arturo does not have to marry in order to provide an heir for the property. There is Jaime. It is true the boy
cannot walk, but you have come to help remedy that, eh? Sophina beamed and left Ricki at the door of her bedroom. 'Supper will be sent up to you, Miss Oneeill. Buena noche.'
'Good night, Sophina. Thank you for taking me to see the boy.'
Ricki entered her room and quietly closed the door behind her. The brasero had been brought and placed on the hearth, and she stood with the warmth of it at her feet as she took stock of her surroundings. There was a big mahogany bedstead with gilded inlay and carving of imps, satyrs and fauns running up its posts, a cavernous wardrobe with fretwork around the top of it, several chairs cushioned with old-gold brocade to match the curtains, and a dressing-table with a nest of drawers, a mirror shaped like a shield, and a cheval set of old cream lace on which stood a pair of china bowls painted with flamenco dancers, matching candlesticks, and a round brass box on little feet which could be used for trinkets or hairpins.
It was a large room, lamplit, "with pools of shadow between the dark-as-beer furniture. The curtains moved and though she guessed a window was open behind them, that slight movement held her gaze and quickened her heart. This farm in the valley was a house of memories. Here a boy and a man were caught in a dark web which ghosts had spun.
'One broken dream is not the end of dreaming,' stole into her mind. 'Still build your castles though your castles fall.'
A brass jug of hot water had been placed on the wash-stand, and in a china dish there was a fresh bar of olive-oil soap. Ricki had a wash, then she unlocked her suit-case, took out her pyjamas and slipped into them. She put her underthings in a drawer and hung her few dresses and skirts in the cavernous wardrobe - where they looked as forlorn as she in this immense bedroom.
She was in bed when there was a tap on the door and a slim, middle-aged man carried in a tray on which stood her supper. He approached the bed, his eyes dark and inscrutable, and arranged the legged tray over her lap.
'Gracias,' she said shyly.
He inclined his head, said good night in Spanish and doubtless took away with him the impression that the patrono was loco to bring such a child of a woman here to take care of the nino, Ricki gave a wry grin as she tucked into a tasty rabbit stew redolent of herbs. She was fully aware that she looked about sixteen in her pierrot pyjamas, but her look of youth might prove an advantage in dealing with Jaime. He would not look upon her as an adult and that might give him the confidence to make of her a friend.
Ricki ate her supper slowly, enjoying every mouthful of the stew, then she wiped her lips on the napkin and placed the tray on the bed-table. That had been good, like the country food she had liked as a child, when she and her parents had lived in Ireland.
She turned out the lamp and slid down under crisp sheets that smelled of rosemary. Rosemary for remembrance. She remembered how in Don Arturo's car she had flared into dislike of the man, now compassion for his nephew Jaime had taken the place of resentment in her heart.
She was longing to begin her new job, and was resolving as her eyes drooped and closed to do all she could to take away the shadows from that small face. Owls hooted down in the valley as Ricki drifted off to sleep.
It must have been about an hour later when she suddenly awoke, feeling a strange coldness feathering her cheek and her left arm that was out of her bedcovers. She sat up, staring into the darkness that was loud with the ticking of the clock and the beating of her heart. She fumbled with the matches in a box on the bed-table and lit the lamp, the dark surfaces of the furniture picking up glimmers, though the shadows lurking in the dim recesses of the room were not driven away.
What was it that had touched her subconscious and roused her? Her glance stole round the room, and fixed on the long folds of brocade that concealed the windows. The folds billowed, then flattened, and she told herself bracingly that it was only the night air moving the curtains into that long body-shape
All the same, someone could have come up from the patio! There was a stairway and the gallery out there it was no good, she wouldn't rest until she had satisfied herself there was no one out there. She slid out of bed and forced herself to go across and look behind those folds of old-gold brocade - there was a pair of long carved shutters behind them, reaching to the floor and opening on to the gallery and one of them was standing ajar!
Ricki stood there, a hand clenching the curtain, her skin goosey from the ice-tinged air that stole through the opening. Then telling herself not to be an over-imaginative idiot, she quickly closed the shutters and dived back into bed. But now she was reluctant to put out the lamp, though she knew full well that the house was guarded against intruders and there was no such thing as ghosts. Oh!' She shied back as a grey cat leapt on her bed, its fur bristling and its emerald eyes fixed on her startled face. 'Oh, you grey devil!' she gasped. 'It was you all the time!'
The cat made a noise in its throat and began to knead her throw-over with its paws, and Ricki had to laugh, realizing he was ah intruder from the patio outbuildings who had found her shutters open arid wandered in like a veritable grey ghost. 'I'm sorry, Fluff,' Ricki got but of bed again and lifted the animal off her throw- over, 'but I'm afraid I don't fancy what might be hiding in that long fur of yours.' She carried him to the door and let him out into the corridor. He turned as if to dart back in again, but she shooed him off and watched him wander away into the shadows.
A wall lamp still burned low in the corridor opposite her room, where Jaime's nursery-suite was situated, and Ricki stood in her doorway thinking of the things Sophina had said about the child's mother. Too beautiful for her own good, the kind who had roused devils in the hearts of men now she and her husband were dead, and her young son was an invalid the threefold tragedy having occurred in the car of the man she should have married
Then, quite distinctly, Ricki heard footfalls. Her head turned quickly and when she saw who was rounding the corridor bend to the left of her, the inevitable thought flashed through her mind think of the devil and he'll appear!
She withdrew hastily into her room, hoping Don Arturo had not spotted her, but when he reached her door she heard him pause, then he deliberately pushed open the door, forcing her to retreat backwards from him. 'You are finding difficulty in getting to sleep, Miss O'Neill?' he inquired.
'A - a cat got into my room,' she faltered. 'I've just led him out.'
'A cat?' He arched a black eyebrow, his glance ran round her room and came back to her pyjama-clad figure. 'You are nervous of them?'
T don't much care for them on my bed,' she rejoined, knowing full well that if she looked scared at this moment, the grey Persian was not the culprit. It was that she hadn't known, until a couple of hours ago, that she was in the house of a man who had every cause to feel bitter to wards women.
His eyes flicked her face, then he shot his cuff and glanced at his wristwatch. 'You had better return to your bed,' he said. 'It is now past midnight.'
'The witching hour.' She gave a nervous laugh. 'Cats, witches - your house has an odd effect on the imagination, senor .'
'That may well be, but do not let your imagination run away with you.' He inclined his dark head and withdrew into the corridor. 'Once again, buena noche, senorita.'
'Buena noche, senor.' She closed her door and stood with her back to it for many seconds. Her he
art was hammering. Had that remark of his held the tinge of warning?
CHAPTER THREE
Ricki awoke to the sound of her bedroom door closing, She turned a drowsy head and saw that last night's supper tray had been replaced by a glass in an attractive container with a handle to it. She sat up and reached for the glass, which held hot chocolate flavoured with cinnamon and topped by a swirl of cream. Ricki quite liked the bitter-sweetness of Spanish chocolate, but she much pre- f erred to start her day with a cup of tea.
'You've had your morning cuppa, my girl,' she told herself, gazing round the big room from which last night's phantoms had been chased by the morning sunlight. She could hear farmyard noises down in the patio and as soon as she finished her chocolate she shrugged into her dressing-gown and stepped into the velvet torero shoes she had bought to wear as slippers. She crossed to a window and stared out at the lacy ironwork in which it was caged. Vines and tendrils clambered along the iron with creamy bells among the greenery, but still she had an odd sensation of being imprisoned - held captive by Don Arturo de Cazalet!
It was an absurdity she could smile at in the light of day, and she opened the carved shutters on to the gallery and watched the men and boys bustling about down in the patio, harnessing sturdy horses to farm carts, shooing the hens, slapping the haunches of cows wending out to pasture, and making altogether a colourful, rustic picture in their Andalusian working clothes.
Back in her room after a bath, where the water had been lovely and hot this morning, Ricki put on an apricot coloured blouse and a check skirt. She was wondering what to do about breakfast, when there was a brisk tap on the door and Sophina came in with a tray on which there was fresh hot bread from the panaderia, two boiled eggs for the senorita from the black Spanish hens, and honey from their own beehives.
'What lovely brown eggs,' Ricki smiled, sitting down at the small table by one of the windows. 'You are making a fuss of me.'
The Cazalet Bride Page 5