'You'll probably try - as I'm not overburdened with muscle and young enough to be thought fairly innocent.
Ricki, not really acquainted as yet with the temperament of the Andalusian male, aroused a sudden sharp interest in those brown eyes. 'Life at the Granja looks like becoming more interesting,' he smiled. 'I had heard that British girls were spirited yet cool, a combination that intrigues me. Fire under ice is very likely to cause a sudden warm melting.'
'For a man who has only heard about the British, you speak very fluent English,' Ricki said in a cool tone of voice.
'That is easily explained.' He strolled to a small table and flipped open the lid of a cigarette box, extracting one with his rather blunt fingers and holding it to the flame of a lighter shaped like a swan. He studied the swan before replacing it on the table, his eyes narrowing through the smoke of his cigarette as they came to Ricki's face. 'I have known the Cazalets since I was a child - my father was a tenant farmer of one of their ranches - and they were brought up bilingual because of their grandmother, who was from England.'
'Yes, I've been told that Don Arturo had an English-grandmother.' Ricki sat down in one of the S-shaped chairs. Its upholstery of amber velvet made quite a setting for her youthfulness, and she was unaware that it was a dos-a-dos a loveseat.
Alvedo Andres came over with a casual air and sat in the other rounded seat, so they were facing each other. 'She was teaching music in Madrid when the grandfather of Don Arturo met her. He was there on business and when he returned to the Granja one week later, she came also as his wife.' A hint of devilry gleamed in the tutor's eyes as they studied Ricki's face. 'Much is said about the deliberateness of Spanish courtship, but let a man of Andalusia fall madly in love and he will waste scant time taking legal possession of the girl.'
'It hardly shows that Don Arturo has English blood in his veins,' Ricki said thoughtfully.
'Who can tell anything about such a man?' The tutor flicked ash carelessly to the polished floor. 'His mother was a Castilian and they carry their pride like a banner and are cold in comparison to us gay-hearted Andalusians.'
Yet, Ricki reflected, the Don had once loved very deeply still loved, from all the signs, the memory of Conquesta!
'You can respect him,' Alvedo went on 'but can you love him? Leandro, his brother, was the son of the father's right eye. He was the golden boy, the charmer. One of those who would have stayed carefree and youthful all his days - had his days not been numbered,' Alvedo added darkly.
'It was indeed a tragedy the way he and his wife died. Ricki agreed, something in the tutor's manner making her think of what she had read in a book about the Spaniards of the south, that they were more vivacious than those of other regions - and also more vindictive.
'How much have you been told about Leandro and his wife?' Alvedo regarded her through narrowed lids. 'The Don would not be very communicative on the subject, but Sophina likes to gossip and with her gypsy blood she makes a drama out of most things.'
'I know that Conquesta was to have married Don Arturo,' Ricki replied, feeling the race of her heart, aware in this moment that she might be close to a man who was hiding hate behind a facade of respect for his employer. 'You and Jaime's father were friends, I've been told, senor'
'That is so! Our ages were the same, you see. Our interests and diversions the same the tutor was gazing beyond Ricki, and there was a hot, dark look in his eyes. 'There were few to match Leandro. He had the bizarro en el talle, the gallant shape as we say. Few women could resist him.'
'But don't you think it was wrong,' Ricki heard herself asking, 'the way he took his brother's bride away from him?'
The Spanish tutor sucked in his breath, then he thrust an elbow upon the back of the loveseat and said, deliberately: 'One does not take anything from a Cazalet without paying for it - Leandro paid, did he not?'
'But the crash was an accident,' Ricki exclaimed. 'An accident pure and simple, n - not some sort of fateful retribution for what he had done.'
'Who implies that fate took a hand?' Alvedo spoke in a lowered voice now, and what he said seemed even more effective. 'A man of intense pride had been robbed of a very lovely bride. So lovely, in fact, that until she moved or spoke and otherwise betrayed herself as a human being, she might have been a creation of Goya, or Renoir. She was a picture and the Granja was to be her frame the darkly panelled hall, this cuarto de estar with its velvet loveseats and Moorish archways, the caseta of shells where she would sit among the wild roses and laugh when we tried to beguile her into the pool. Like a beautiful cat she hated the water but adored the sun, and I can see her still, a golden-skinned creature with dark hair that had streaks of gold in it'
He rose abruptly to his feet and went to toss the stub of his cigarette into the fireplace behind the Cordoban screen; when he turned around the royal blue leather framed him. He was a good-looking man, but not in a way that would make him outstanding in a crowd. He had none of the high pride of a Cazalet, nor that air of physical and mental power which made Don Arturo a man out of the ordinary a man to fear, perhaps, if you crossed him!
'It was whispered around at the time, and still the whispers linger among the people of these parts, that it was very strange Arturo's brother and sister-in-law should have crashed and died in a car owned by him. Almost too much of a coincidence to be believable as an accident - pure and simple.'
The young Spaniard's gaze locked with Ricki's, and her eyes that in gaiety were green as the Irish hills, were now grey and troubled. She could feel her inward rebellion against the thing Senor Andres was implying, yet hadn't she seen for herself that first night in Toledo that Arturo de Cazalet was either a devil or a saint?
'You shouldn't be sayin' such things,' she said, and the brogue of her childhood was back in her voice, as it always was in moments of stress. 'Don Arturo never stopped loving Conquesta and he forgave her and his brother for the way they treated him '
'Poor little English Miss,' Alvedo took in with taunting eyes the distress of Ricki's face, 'you will learn before long that we of Spain are still medieval in our hearts. The feuds and vendettas have not been completely subdued ' then he swung away from her as a lean shadow fell through one of the archways.
'Buenas tardes, senor? he said smoothly.' I go now to give Jaimito his lessons.'
The young tutor departed and Ricki was left gazing at her employer with eyes that held small clouds of doubt. 'Grind your hatred sharp on his offspring and all his race to come!' That line from Virgil flashed through her mind as Don Arturo confronted her in his dark detachment. Then because to look into those dense, handsome eyes was too disquieting, Ricki got nervously to her feet.
'What have you and that young man been discussing -the arts?' he queried, in a faintly caustic tone of voice.
'Yes, senor ,' she said, because how could she admit the truth?
'How interesting.' His mouth curled into a smile, the sort that told Ricki he had guessed she and the Spanish tutor had been discussing him and the things that were still whispered about him.
CHAPTER FOUR
'I've told you before, Sophina,' Ricki spoke with patience much tried, 'fried, spicy foods are not good for Jaime. Yes, I know your own children thrive on them, but they are able to take active exercises while my patient, as yet, is still confined to his wheelchair.'
'It seems to me a shame to deprive the chico of my crisp churros, which he likes to eat so much. Being a cripple he is denied so many other enjoyments,' Sophina returned, looking most affronted by the way the English Miss had near enough ordered her, and her golden, delicious churros, out of the boy's room.
Ricki couldn't abide the word which Sophina had just applied to Jaime, and she caught angrily at her arm and forcibly pulled her away from the boy's half-open door. 'I won't have you saying such things within earshot of Jaime,' she said, her eyes tiger-green. 'I'm absolutely confident that he's going to walk again, but he needs to be sure in mind as well as strong in body befor
e he'll make the effort, and hearing himself called a cripple - and being hung round with magic charms isn't going to help one scrap. He is not a cripple, do you hear? And it isn't going to take the blessed charms of a cave-dwelling witch to get him up on his feet and walking.'
Ricki took a deep breath and felt better at having got all that off her mind. Sophina stood clutching her dish of batters to her, an angry flush mounting under the swarthy skin of her face. 'You are not averse to using your green-eyed charms on the patrono,' she hit back. 'It is all around the valley that only a witch could have talked him into having the pool and the caseta put back into repair.'
'Swimming exercises will help Jaime,' Ricki said, a sudden heat in her cheeks, 'and that is the only reason Don Arturo has capitulated over the matter. I might also add that it's silly of you and the other people working here to refer to the caseta as a place of gremlins. You'll only frighten the boy with such talk.'
'You were hot here when the old patrono died,' Sophina gave Ricki a baleful look. 'It was in that casa del duende where he found the elopement note from Dona Conquesta, and the shock of it so hurt him in the heart that he suffered a stroke. Don Arturo had a lot of feeling for his father, though Leandro was known to be the favoured son. But that is the way of people, to misplace their love more often than not, and it was plain afterwards that Dona Conguesta regretted what she had done. There is no divorce in Spain,' Sophina added with finality. 'Marriage here is dissolved only by death.'
'You are saying that Dona Conquesta regretted her runaway marriage?' Ricki exclaimed.
'The regret showed in her eyes whenever she came to the Granja,' Sophina said emphatically. 'Leandro was a handsome one, but good looks are not the whole story of a man, are they?'
'And that poor girl was so young, Ricki murmured. 'She felt herself to be a sacrifice to a dynastic marriage, then realized too late that it was the idea she had fled away from and not the man involved '
But Ricki was speaking to herself, for Sophina, still ruffled, had turned and marched off with her cloth-covered churros. Ricki gave a sigh. She hadn't meant to have a tiff with Sophina, but fried foods weren't good for Jaime, and the very atmosphere of this house seemed to involve her in a dramatic situation over the simplest matter. Then she gave a shrug. She had enough on her plate already without adding Sophina's churros to the mixture, and wearing a faintly wry grin she returned to Jaimie's room, where he was copying the bulls out of a book she had recently bought him.
So absorbed was he in his sketching that he hadn't heard her come in, but suddenly he sensed her presence and glanced up with a grave, dark-eyed smile that caught quite painfully at her heart. Each day with this child increased her longing to see him straight, sturdy and fearless as the young peons about the estancia, and so far her care and her skill had made him a lot more limber than he had been and far less inclined to be moody.
Mi tata, he would often call her, and when she fan her slim, trained hands over his back and his legs and then gave his toes a tickle, he would sometimes kick out his feet as he giggled and hardly realize that she was proving to him that he could move his limbs.
A parcel was brought up to the nursery-suite that morning. It was quite large and when unwrapped proved to be two separate boxes from a large department store in Seville, one containing half a dozen tailored overalls for Ricki, the other a selection of assembly toys for Jaime -aeroplanes, boats, rocket-ships and a submarine.
'We'll have a lot of fun putting these together, my lamb,' Ricki smiled.
'Yes,' Jaime said, and when she looked at him she saw that his lower lip was jutting. His resemblance to his uncle when he did that was rather disconcerting, she thought. 'You'll have to thank your uncle for his present,' she added.
'It is a pity these are not tubes of paint and brushes,' the child responded off-handedly. 'I need some of those.'
'That's a very ungrateful remark, Jamie!' Ricki rarely spoke so severely to him. 'It's kind of your uncle to give you the toys, and you'll thank him for them.'
'It would be cortesia to do so. The senor tio will expect that,' he agreed coolly, pushing aside the box of toys and giving her overalls his attention. They were not white as she had expected them to be, but a cool green in crisp nylon. Her measurements had been sent with the order and the one she tried on fitted perfectly and looked less severe than medical white.
'Well, do you like your tata, you naughty boy?' Ricki strolled up and down in imitation of a mannequin.
He watched her with a smile, and looked quite unrepentant about his remark concerning his uncle's gift. 'You are like a fotografia en colores,' he informed her. 'I like very much my green tat a.'
Rickie had to smile, and at the same time she wondered if the Don's choice of green for her overalls had been motivated by irony. Did he think the colour expressed her, the green kid he had found in Toledo and brought to his house this mysterious Granja with its stalking sense of a drama not yet fully played out!
Work on the swimming pool was almost completed and now and again Ricki persuaded her patient to go with her for a look at the transformation that was taking place around the pool and inside the caseta. Don Arturo had ordered teak furniture for the little house of shells, and it had been made by one of the estate carpenters, a brown, bow-legged Andalusian with a real gift for carving in his hands. Ricki had taken cuttings from various plants, including the exquisite maranta, the prayer plant, and a fresh collection of pots stood along the shelf where Conquesta's plants had withered and died. Bright, new matting had been laid over the floor, and she had cleaned and polished the shells all round the doorway. She didn't know whether Don Arturo ever visited the place, and she tried not to remember that it was here his dreams had died.
Alvarez would carry Jaime's wheelchair downstairs, while Ricki took the boy pick-a-back.
It wasn't often that they encountered the master of the house, his supervision of the olive groves and the pressing mills kept him busy, but one morning they met him on the stairs as they were going down them. He halted abruptly under the stained glass window at the gallery bend, the lancets of sun-shot colour playing over his dark face as he stood frowning at Ricki with the boy straddling her shoulders. He gestured at Alvarez to continue on his way with the chair, then carefully but firmly he lifted his nephew off Ricki's shoulders. In future, he told her curtly, Alvarez would first carry down the chair and then the boy.
'You over-estimate your strength, Miss O'Neill,' he added. 'These stairs are very steep, and of stone.'
Ricki could feel her emotional temperature rising, and his autocratic manner didn't make her feel like shaking down the mercury. 'Jaime's weight is extremely light compared to that of the people I used to handle at the hospital,' she pointed out.
'Let me remind you that you are no longer employed at the hospital.' His eyes and his tone of voice remained coldly detached. 'You are now in my house '
'And obliged to take your orders, of course!' she flashed. 'Very well, senor, when we return from our walk, Alvarez shall carry Jaime upstairs.'
His eyes flicked her face, took in her green overall, then he swung about and carried Jaime down the stairs to the hall. Ricki followed, her eyes meeting Jaime's over his uncle's shoulder. The boy pulled a face, but her own facial muscles remained rigid, and strangely it angered her that the child should show his dislike of his uncle in that rude way. She scolded him about it as she wheeled him round one of the side patios - somehow she had lost all desire to visit the pool and the caseta - and he at once turned his head and gave her a wondering look. 'You do not like him, so why should I?' Jaime demanded sulkily.
'Don Arturo is your uncle and your guardian,' she replied stiffly. 'You owe him respect, Jaimito. He cares for you like - well, like he would a son.'
'I am the son of Leandro de Cazalet,' Jaime said, haughtily. 'My father and mother died because of Don Arturo - and I hate him!'
'Jaime - that's a very terrible thing to say!' Distress and shock mingled in her exc
lamation. 'Whoever told you such a thing?'
'It is a secret who told me,' he muttered. 'That person was telling you a very wicked lie,' Ricki said, for though it could never be denied that Leandro and his wife had died in his brother's car, it was not to be faced that Arturo de Cazalet had resorted to the cruel vendetta in order to satisfy his honour. It was something to be pushed to the back of the mind, there to lie hidden beneath everyday thoughts and feelings.
'Jaime,' she took the boy's chin in her fingers and lifted his face to hers; his cheek was smooth against hers and she could feel the fluttering of his long lashes, 'it's wrong to hate people unless you're very sure that they deserve it. Your uncle loved your mother and I don't think he would ever have knowingly hurt her, so don't be turned against him by the whispers of a mischief-maker.'
The boy drew his cheek away from hers and looked directly into her eyes. His lips moved, then his lashes faltered and made shadows on his cheeks. 'He makes me shiver when he comes near me,' he muttered. 'Why does he do that?'
'Because he's as proud as a Saracen prince, and unbending as a piece of Toledan steel,' she laughed, straightening up and pushing the boy's wheelchair towards a bush of wild white roses. There was a tiled bench nearby and she sat down and told him one of the tales her Gaelic imagination could spin out of the air as a spider on the rose bush spun a silver web. A rose token and a dark armoured knight drifted into her tale, and Jaime listened with a finger in his mouth, solemn-eyed as a little owl. Ricki's eyes dwelt on his fine Cazalet bones, for how like his uncle he was! A likeness that must often have jabbed at his mother's heart, if it was indeed true that she regretted running off with Leandro, and realized too late that it was Arturo she loved!
'What is a trysting tree?' Jaime's voice broke in on her tale.
'Oh she gave a start, for she had continued to weave her tale even as her thoughts wandered in another direction. 'It's a special tree, guapo, where lovers meet to discuss their future together.'
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