'And to kiss,' he nodded wisely. 'People always kiss when they love each other. And they quarrel.'
She glanced at him sharply, and wondered if his parents had quarrelled in front of him. Then, with a sigh, he said: 'Rickee, I wish I could run after that butterfly - that one there!'
She saw it, just like a piece of gold brocade blowing about among the flowers of the patio, and though the woman in her longed to take the child against her heart, the nurse in her had to say, bracingly: 'Mere wishes are silly fishes, Jaime. The exercises we're doing together are strengthening your back and leg muscles, and when your mind accepts the fact that you can walk, then you will do so.'
'Will I really, Rickee?' He clutched at her hand. 'I hate being a baby who has to be pushed around in a chair. I want to be like Paco, who rides the ponies and climbs the hills.'
'If you want those things with all your -heart and mind, then there isn't anything to stop you from having them,' she assured him.
'Truly?' His great dark eyes dwelt on hers, and this time she drew him against her and hugged his thin young body. 'It's about time for us to go in and have lunch,' she said. 'There's blackbird pudding for dessert.'
This was her name for rice pudding stuffed with prunes, and as she felt the boy laughing against her, she thanked heaven for the Gaelic gift of nonsense which had always enabled her to make contact with children. Jaime needed that contact more than any other child she had known.
After lunch, with the boy settled down for his siesta, Ricki went to her room to change into a cotton shift of striped cinnamon and cedar against white. She stepped into hemp-soled strollers and took a shady hat out of the wardrobe, for she had decided to take a leisurely walk into the village. The shops opened again around four o'clock and she had a few things to buy and a letter to her father to post.
A wanderer himself, he had not been too surprised by her decision to work in Spain. 'But watch out for those romantic-looking Dons,' he had written back. 'One of them might want to make you his senorita, and I don't think my Gael of a girl would care to be locked up in oriental seclusion!'
Ricki had gaily assured him in her answering letter that she had no intention of getting involved with a romantic-looking Don. She knew only a couple, anyway. One was her employer, who was decidedly not interested in making her his senorita, and the other was her patient's grandfather - a local breeder of fighting bulls whom she; had not yet had the pleasure of meeting.
That letter was tucked in Ricki's shoulder-bag as she; ran downstairs and made her way out of the house, which was wrapped in the lazy, sun-hot meshes of siesta. All the olive workers went home to rest for a couple of hours, but Ricki was never entirely sure what her employer did with himself in the afternoons. She suspected that he pored over the estate accounts in his study, but the door was always firmly closed and she never glimpsed him at his big desk. In fact it was enormous and of dark carved wood that matched the wall panelling of the dragon's lair, as Ricki thought of the room. The chairs were of leather, the hard sort that didn't look very comfortable. There were hundreds of books behind glass, and on the desk a lifelike bronze hand that he used as a letter-weight, an inkstand of hammered silver, and always a white rose in a small vase.
The room was very austere apart from that single rose, and it seemed to Ricki of special significance that Don Arturo should have one placed in front of him each day as if to remind him of a certain woman's loveliness, and the stab of the thorn that had left a wound that would not heal.
Ricki crossed the main patio, where a couple of dogs slumbered in the shade of carts, and earthy smells from the cowsheds and stables hung on the hot air. She passed by the guard's house and out under the bold archway where several lizards clung motionless, jade green against the lichened stone. She saw to her left the cluster of sheds where the olives for eating were sorted and bottled, and the pressing mills where the bulk of the fruit was crushed and the golden oil drawn off into immense butts. Beyond in the many acres of grooves the olive trees grew thick as black bees against the brick-red soil, but even more fascinating to Ricki was the mulberry tree plantation, where silk was produced, and she passed through its cool gloom and out on the dusty road that wound in a corniche round the wide, dramatic bowl that was the valley.
Her head and eyes well shaded by the hat she was wearing, Ricki wasn't unbearably conscious of the heat of the full sun. Her eyes feasted on the valley, which seemed to belong entirely to her on this golden afternoon, and she recognized some of the flowers that dappled its slopes with colour. Flax, pennyroyal and salvias, the flower-of-our-lady which often decorated the wayside shrines. Wild irises were drained of their blue by the fiery fingers of the sun, and cacti, the cruel flower, grew in isolation in its strangeness.
Above the land the Sierras etched a craggy fringe against the sky, their peaks mantled even in summer by layers of icy snow that blew its breath down upon the valley when the sun had burned itself out for the day. The extremes of the Andalusian climate made its people gay and harsh by turns, Ricki reflected, as she wandered on, her objective a ledge of rock that beetled above the valley and was crowned dramatically by the ruins of a Moorish castle. Somewhere hidden in the tall, seedy grass of the slopes she could hear the tinkle of goat and sheep bells, a rustic music that had no doubt lulled off to sleep the shepherd who tended the flock. The seesaw of grasshoppers was tireless, and water rushed from a mountain stream past the rocks where Ricki climbed, her shoulder-bag swinging against her lightly clad body and a prickle of sweat breaking out on her skin. She paused to gaze out over the valley, and her eyes dwelt for a long moment on the rambling shape of the house where she worked. All looked very still there; a transient peace seemed to enfold the place, while turned to golden limpets were the lime^ washed houses that clung to the craggy hillsides.
The valley seemed held in a spell, and Ricki had a feeling she was at one of those crossroads her father had once spoken about. Perhaps the letter she carried in her bag, which would be in his hands several days from now, sent her thoughts winging to the day when her roots had been torn out of Irish soil and replanted in England's. She had been but a child, yet old enough to feel with pain her transition from the known and loved, to the unknown. She had settled down as time went by, but always there had been that inner restlessness, that longing for the scents and sounds of the land of her heart.
Here in Spain she felt she had come home again, and with a slightly perplexed smile she finished her climb and entered what had been the courtyard of the castle. The remains of a stairway led to the battlements, and she made for an embrasure where juniper bushes grew up the stone and offered cool green shelter from the sun.
This was a quiet spot she had discovered on a previous walk, and she sat watching the swoop of dark hawks through the sky, not questioning any longer her wisdom in choosing to work in this valley in the wilds. It held affection in the form of Jaime, challenge in her duels with his guardian, and an untamed beauty for which her spirit had clamoured through the years. Right this moment she wouldn't have changed places with anyone she was comfortably perched above the world, held in the sun-woven meshes of a transient peace herself.
She heard no footfall, but a piece of stone shifted, broke loose and went clattering down the side of the ruined ramparts. Ricki turned startled green eyes in that direction. 'Oh!' she exclaimed. 'It's you!'
Alvedo Andres lifted his arms, and then let them fall despairingly. 'What a way for a romantic Andalusian to be greeted by a pretty woman,' he said.
'I'm sorry, Alvedo.' She grinned impishly. 'My thoughts were on the wing with those hawks, and you startled me. Do you come here often, caballero?'
This was a tilt at the Gordoban hat he wore tilted over a gay, dark eye. He swept it off and gave her a faintly mocking bow. 'I suspected that you came here, and somehow we find little time to speak together at the Granja. Always there is my pupil upstairs, and when I come downstairs there is Don Arturo standing like a dark shadow between
us. He chills my ardour, chiquita, but since that first day I have been wanting to say that I find you charming.' 'You call it the piropo, don't you?' she chaffed. 'The Andalusian compliment which women collect like beads, but which they don't take too seriously.'
He came and leant against the wall where she sat, a lean bandit in tight dark trousers, a white shirt open at his throat, his Gordoban hat held in fingers on which a couple of gold rings glinted, his narrow feet encased in highly polished shoes. His bold Andalusian eyes took Ricki in from her slender ankles to her shaded green eyes, but Ricki's clear skin didn't go pink under his scrutiny as it was inclined to when a pair of darker, much cooler eyes appraised her.
'But most Spanish women, would inform you, little English Miss, that the piropo adds to life the dash of spice that the peppercorn, the sesame seeds and the chillies add to a dish. But then,' his mouth curled in a rather unkind smile, 'I am forgetting how prosaic is English cooking.
'Andalusians aren't the only men around who can coin a compliment,' Ricki said, a glint in her eye. 'I've known several British medical students and I speak from experience.'
A gleam of speculation came into his eyes at that last word she used, then she felt his hand move along the wall embrasure until his fingers brushed her arm. She at once withdrew her arm from his touch, and heard him laugh below his breath.
T knew I was right about you,' he chuckled. 'It is the bold ones who are cold, and the sensitive who have to protect their warm hearts under a prickly shell.'
'It's evident, Senor Andres, that you consider yourself quite an authority on women,' she rejoined, rather more shaken by that perceptive remark of his than she cared to admit.
'Please continue to call me Alvedo.' His eyes were laughing at her. 'I like very much the way you say it - every woman should have a voice that caresses the ear, and even great beauty is spoiled if that quality is missing.'
'Bead number two,' Ricki said, miming the act of stringing them. 'At this rate I shan't leave Andalusia without taking some booty home with me.'
'You are leaving Andalusia?' Alvedo went taut as a blade beside her.
'Not immediately,' she shrugged. 'But once Jaime starts to get around I shall be redundant.'
'You feel confident, then, that the child will walk again ?'
'Extremely confident, senor.' Ricki turned her head in order to meet his eyes and the look in them. They were frank and interested, certainly not the eyes of a man who encouraged the boy to hate his uncle. 'His spine wasn't permanently damaged and there is no physical reason why he shouldn't walk again. His trouble is mainly centred in his mind. He suffers from a feeling of insecurity which stems from the twofold loss of his parents, and which, if he could truly believe that he is loved by his uncle, he would lose.
'Someone,' she added meaningly, 'is encouraging him to believe that his uncle was responsible for the accident which killed his parents and injured him.'
'The child was bound to hear rumours,' Alvedo said, deliberately. 'And let us not blind our eyes to fact, chiquita. The car was Arturo's; the brakes were faulty, and Leandro had been in the habit for years of making use of his brother's possessions. How was he to resist that shiny, sporty model Arturo had unexpectedly bought himself which Arturo rarely used himself, being always a man who prefers the horse for locomotion rather than the modern convenience of the car?'
'A chain of coincidences can't be linked to - to hang a man,' Ricki said, with force. 'Don Arturo is only human and as likely to be attracted by a shiny, sporty car as the next man. Maybe he meant to use it more often, and then his interest in his new toy fizzed out.'
'You leap swiftly to defend the man,' Alvedo's eyes were raking her face in sudden curiosity. 'Is it possible that you find him attractive?'
'Yes, I'm head over heels in love with him,' Ricki returned, with irony. 'Be sensible, Alvedo! I'm merely pointing out that there is no conclusive evidence that Don Arturo meant to harm his brother, his sister-in-law and his small, defenceless nephew!'
'A clever man would ensure that the evidence would not be conclusive,' Alvedo drawled. 'The presence in the car of Conquesta and the child was probably unforeseen by him it was Leandro he wanted out of the way' Because in Spain a marriage was dissolved only by death! The words echoed through Ricki's mind like a knell, then she jumped to her feet and said she had errands to shop for in the village.
'We will go together in my car,' Alvedo said. 'It is Saturday and I am not due at the Granja.'
Ricki did not protest, for all at once her earlier burst of energy seemed switched off and the thought of walking to the village in this heat was unbearable. 'Thank you for the offer, she said, and they went down the rather precarious stairway and crossed the masonry-strewn courtyard to the broken arch that framed the roadway. Alvedo stepped out first, then extended a hand to help Ricki over a sill of broken rock. She stumbled, and at once he caught her to him and their eyes locked as her head tilted back and her lips parted in alarm.
'You have a mouth of innocence and the eyes of eternal woman,' Alvedo murmured. 'What would you do if I kissed you?'
'I might slap your face,' she said coldly.
'But this is not the Victorian age,' he mocked. 'What is a kiss between a man and a woman ?'
'What indeed - when they mean nothing to each other?' She shook free of him and adjusted her hat, then she walked over to his parked car, which was low-slung, not very up-to-date in style, but powerful looking under a layer of road dust. He had parked under some overhanging trees, but their shade had not prevented the leather from getting hot, and Ricki sat stiffly beside Alvedo as they drove into the village.
'The silence of resentment is worse than an outburst of temper. Alvedo exclaimed. 'Come, is it so terrible that I wanted to kiss you? Must I pretend that I do not find you attractive?'
'Your Andalusian girls are much lovelier than I,' she rejoined.
'Yes, between the ages of fifteen and twenty, then unfortunately they grow broad in the beam.'
'And in the mind, if all I hear about you Spaniards is true.'
'You think we retain the roving eye even after marriage?' He shot her an amused side-glance. 'Tell me, do you not desire to marry and have a large family to adore and dominate? Los ninos appear to mean a lot to you.
'I do love children, she admitted. 'I suppose the day will come when I shall want a few of my own, but at present I'm enjoying my career too much to want to settle down to marriage.'
'You are really enjoying your employment at the Granja?' He halted the car in the village square and turned to face her, his eyes narrowed against the sun as it struck down through the boughs of bitter-orange trees. 'The other physio-attendants grew quickly tired of its isolation, its air of feudalism, and the shadows and sounds that haunt its corridors of a night. What attraction can a place like that hold for a girl like you?
'I'm a romantic, Alvedo,' she said lightly. 'I like ancient houses steeped in history and I have grown very fond of Jaime. Now I have some shopping to do ' she reached for the door handle beside her, and at once he leaned over and his fingers rested on hers.
'Meet me afterwards at the cafe next to the post-office for a cool drink,' he murmured, his warm breath against her ear. 'I will then drive you home, for it is not wise for a woman to walk alone across fields when dusk begins to fall.'
'Do you think I'd be tempting the devil's eye?' she quipped.
'Who knows?' His voice dropped a note lower. 'People hereabouts say strange things about the valley, and few of them venture there after dark. You will meet me a little later, eh?'
'A long cool drink would be welcome.' She slanted him a smile. 'I don't happen to be scared of ghosts. Even the ghost of Conquesta de Cazalet?' he murmured.
He let Ricki out of the car and as she walked away from him, she gave a queer little shiver. Was Alvedo Andres merely an attractive young man who liked to flirt, or did he wear a smiling mask behind which he made mischief? Leandro de Cazalet had been Alvedo's frien
d from boyhood and Alvedo had said himself that the vendetta was not yet dead in Spain!
Then Ricki shook off such thoughts, reminding herself that it was something in the atmosphere of the valley that dramatized all situations; etched them in black as the shadows of trees and rocks were etched against lime-washed walls by the sun. Here the past lingered on in the twisting lanes set with rows of quaint little houses. Geraniums and creepers tumbled from the window grilles, and dark-clad women sat at their lace-making in doorways. Tiny stores were hidden away in the lanes, with windows like so many pebble-lenses behind which peered strange goods and foods.
There was one like a medieval spicery, which sold the kind of confectionery Ricki couldn't resist. Candied green-gages, honey-nut balls, cherries dipped in chocolate -Byzantine sweets that had once delighted the harem favourites of the Moorish courts.
While Ricki waited to be served, she felt herself under observation by a trio of women standing near the counter. She gave them a smile and though they smiled briefly ill return they didn't speak, and feeling somewhat out of place she half-turned from them - aware that they were whispering together - to study half-abstractedly the "quaint foodstuffs on display. The jars of spices, olives in wine, sacks of pistachio nuts, sticks of cinnamon and bundles of rosemary. There was also a garlic press, a stack of green watermelons, knobbly eggplants, and honey in ! blue china jars. And as she stood there, a stranger in a strange place, she couldn't help remembering what Alvedo had said to her when they had first met that the people of the valley still whispered about the man she worked for.
After the three women had left the shop, the proprietress gave her attention to Ricki. She was a rather sibylline old lady, but friendly enough, her jetty eyes fixed upon Ricki as she handed across the counter a net of foil-wrapped chocolate fish for Jaime. ' Mil gracias, senora.' Ricki was touched. 'May the oil in your house burn sweetly.'
'Mi agrado.' The brown old face creased in a network of pleased wrinkles that Ricki should reply to her in Spanish, and she at once voiced her regret at the chico's accidente grave. It was fatalista that he had not died. 'God's will!' she added, crossing herself. Then she suddenly leaned forward across the counter and caught at Ricki's wrist with a hand like a brown claw. 'Have you heard the Devil's Tears?' she whispered.
The Cazalet Bride Page 9