Dearest Demon

by Violet Winspear

  A faint smile stole back into the Marquesa's fine eyes. 'All of this must seem strange to you, Destine, coming from a world where everything is so up-to-date, and where all things are explained in specific terms by the psychologists. Here in Xanas the dark beliefs of the past have not yet been unveiled by the intellectuals and we have our brujas who practise their skills on the young and the old. They will provide a young girl with a love potion, or an old man with a remedy for his aches and pains, and the strange part is that very often these potions distilled from witchcraft are effective. I was even persuaded myself to let one of these old women see Cosima. I hoped, just a little. Artez, of course, was sceptical and the old woman went away in a huff, but you won't do that, will you, Destine? You will stay?'

  'Yes, I'll stay.' Destine felt shocked by the desperation which had made this graceful and intelligent woman resort to the magic of a witch in order to try and cure Cosima. It was poliomyelitis which had attacked her nervous system, therefore she could never recover the full use of her lower body, which had been effected at the time of the attack. The invocation of spells would have no effect at all, and Destine bit back a smile as she visualised the scorn of Don Cicatrice. Having hounded the old bruja out of the house it wouldn't worry him that she might cast one of her more vindictive spells over him. He might feel himself sufficiently damned, for there were people everywhere who turned quick eyes from a scar or a physical deformity.

  'You will not depart in a huff if my nephew should ruffle your feathers?' The Marquesa smiled. 'I suspect that a few feathers have already flown, but he is like that. He courts no favour but speaks his mind, and it can be disconcerting to some people.'

  'I'm sure it can,' said Destine, a trifle tartly, having already lost feathers in her struggle with him—not that she intended to describe that incident to his aunt. 'I think I can take his scoffs and his digs, but I wouldn't be happy if he interfered in any routine I set up for my patient. I'm a nurse, so I hope he won't treat me like a witch.'

  'If you are good for Cosima, then he'll be as grateful as I shall.' The Marquesa rose to her feet. 'You have a nice voice, Destine, with a huskiness to it which is attractive. You also have a pleasing appearance. You will look more like a friend to Cosima than a nurse, for the last one was always bustling and rustling about in a starched uniform with an air of great importance. She exuded an air of the medicine cabinet and the temperature chart. I believe she unnerved Cosima, but you are different—I can but hope that one of our handsome young Spaniards does not whisk you from under our eyes.'

  'There is no fear of that.' Destine spoke firmly as she rose to her feet. 'My work is my life, Señora Marquesa, and I shan't fall in love again. Love of that kind was killed for me when my husband died.'

  'You say that, child, but destiny may have other ideas about your future. None of us, you know, can truly be sure of what even the next hour may bring. We hang suspended in a web of chance. We are creatures very much at the mercy of the unknown. Our plans, our hopes, are toys that the gods play with.'

  These words, spoken from the heart of a woman reared to Spanish fatalism, made Destine shiver a little. She felt suddenly very insecure, as if she felt herself actually sus­pended in mid-air like a moth on the globe of a lamp… a vulnerable moth whose wings could be scorched, or pulled from her slim body. She had to believe that she was in con­trol of her own future, but the Marquesa had shaken that belief. She looked about her, half afraid, and her eyes met those of the matadors in the Goya painting.

  Dark, intent, with a gleam of the devil at their depths. Something seemed to prod her heart… they were like the eyes of Don Cicatrice, and therefore like the eyes of Manolito.

  'No,' she said huskily. 'I mean not to love again, and I have not been out with a man for two years. I shan't break that rule here at Xanas. Your handsome Spaniards won't be encouraged by the coldness of my emotions where men are concerned. Latin men like women who have hearts to take and break. My heart was buried with Matthew—'

  'Matthew?' The Marquesa took her up. 'That was your husband's name?'

  'Yes.' Destine's nerves seemed to jangle with alarm. Had she given herself away by letting out Matt's name?

  'Is it an uncommon name in England?' The Marquesa was staring at Destine. 'Not often heard there?'

  'Oh—not uncommon at all,' Destine said quickly. 'As it is a Biblical name, many people give it to their sons. It's a nice name, but certainly not rare in England.'

  'Then your husband was named Matthew Chard?'

  'Yes.' The lie slipped from Destine's lips involuntarily, for the real truth couldn't be told to this woman who had al­ready suffered so much. 'May I now see the Señora Aran­das? Is she expecting me?'

  'Yes, she is probably all keyed up for the meeting. Her maid helps her to bathe, and she will have had some coffee and pecked at the good breakfast which Victoria provides. If only she would eat more! Do come this way, Destine. Her suite is on the ground floor, of course. They are connecting rooms devised from an indoor chapel, which we rarely use as I prefer to attend Mass at the church in the village. It provides an outing for me, and I fear that neither Cosima nor Artez are particularly devout. My daughter lost much of her faith when her illness cost her that man whom she still believes she loves, and my nephew is a man who believes only in what he can see and touch.'

  They crossed the hall, which beneath the thick white arch­ways was floored with arabesque tiles that provided deep rich colour in contrast to the walls. Here and there were iron­work screens, a tracery of patterns that were intricate until one looked closely and saw leopard heads and eagle claws and the running shape of a gazelle.

  'Much of the casa is Moresque,' said the Marquesa. 'Those tiles and screens, and the way the cedarwood doors are fitted and carved. The Moors had great artistry, and they built these walls of thick solid stone in order to keep out the heat of the full southern sun, but you will notice that they softened the cloistered effect by adding the delicate tracery of iron and the oriental tiles. Would it surprise you, Destine, to learn that the Obregons trace their ancestry back to the days of the Moors? The family records include the name of Tarik, the one-eyed hawk, who was a kind of conquistador for the Sultan of Morocco. Very colourful days, with courts here in the south that rivalled those in Baghdad and Babylon.'

  Destine thought of the nephew of this house, the hawk-­like pride of the profile, the deep arch to the brows, the flare to the nostrils, the glint to his teeth against the sun-bitten skin that made his jagged scar stand out bone-white. He had all the lean ferocity of an Arab; totally dedicated to his family, and ruthless towards those whom he considered out­siders.

  She was such, and more so. She had reason to hate the Obregons, and he would watch her every move as a hawk might watch a hare.

  'No, what you tell me doesn't surprise me in the least,' she said. 'That hint of the Moorish hawk is in your nephew, in his look and in his ways, I think.'

  'A throwback, eh?' His aunt smiled as she paused in front of carved double doors. 'I don't think you miss much, Destine.'

  'It's part of my profession, Señora Marquesa. We are taught to be observant.'

  'Good. I like a young woman who has her wits about her, but who, at the same time, is not a busybody. And now meet my daughter!'

  The Marquesa swung open the carved doors and they entered what had once been the main chancel of the chapel. Destine caught her breath at the subdued beauty of the place, the mudejar ceiling of interlacing pieces of cedarwood, richly painted and carved. The oriel windows through which the sun slanted in a myriad colours on to the floor tiled in black and white. There was a sense of coolness and peace, to which homely touches had been added by placing long seats under the windows cushioned in ruby velvet, and there were bookcases and Murillo paintings of waifs and angels upon the walls.

  'It's very lovely,' Destine breathed. 'So very different from working in a hospital.'

  'Yes, when the renovations were done, we left the general impression of a ch
ancel and added the comforts of a living-­room. Cosima rarely leaves her apartment, and as you can see there is an archway that leads out to her own private patio. She will be there now. Her maid Anaya would have settled her there. Come, let us go out to her. I am sure she has heard our voices.'

  Yes, thought Destine. It was rather like a room of secrets with a whispering gallery, and again she felt a sense of the past as they stepped out from the archway on to the patio, where old stone walls were hung with bright shawls of flowers; a place of nooks and niches and scented myrtle. Of silvery olive leaves rustling like tiny castanets, and a brilliant fuchsia with its tiny fire dancers.

  There beneath the shade of Monk's Pepper rested Señora Arandas on a long cane chair, her legs covered by a shawl of Iberian lacework. She gazed straight at Destine with large, incredibly dark eyes that made the golden pallor of her skin all the more transparent, and her features all the more fragile and defined. She wore pale chiffon for coolness, and her silky dark hair was drawn back from her face. She might once have been very pretty, but now her eyes and her features lacked life and any real interest in other people.

  'You are my new nurse?' she said, and she spoke in English, in an accent that would have been attractive had there been any life in her voice. 'I suppose Madre has been telling you all about my triste disposition, and warning you that I weep at the drop of a lace handkerchief? Are you going to be severe with me, like the last ama? I will call you ama or tata as the mood takes me. The other one she didn't like this at all and wished me to be always correct. Are you a correct person, Nurse Inglesa?'

  'I don't think so, señora.' Destine smiled, and looking at this Latin girl she knew why Don Cicatrice might be in love with her. She was the total opposite to all that he was; fragile, dependent on others for her content, and almost as lacking in vitality as a pale and lovely doll. He was so abundantly vital that he would feel a strong sense of protectiveness towards Cosima. Every facet of life would have some meaning for him, but this girl no longer cared whether she lived or died.

  It was a sad situation and Destine was surprised that she was moved by it, for this was Manolito's sister, and she should be feeling nothing at all for any of these people. She was, however, conscious of a wish to take the girl's thin hands in her own, imparting sympathy rather than anti­pathy.

  'I don't mind what you call me, señora' she said, 'so long as we get along and can establish a good working relation­ship. I want very much to help you get well.'

  'Why should you want that?' Cosima looked sceptical. 'You are a stranger to me and can have no feeling for what I feel. You will be well paid for what you do and that is all that really matters to you. In fact, you won't stay very long—none of them do. They find Xanas too far from amusements—and they soon learn that Don Cicatrice is not to be flirted with. One nurse, poor fool, was actually afraid of him!'

  'I can assure you that I'm not afraid of your cousin.' Destine said it with assurance, but only in her own heart could she know that a strange fear of the man did lurk in her veins. It wasn't a physical fear, for it had nothing to do with his face that had been so cruelly marred while he was still only a boy. But it was there, and it made her set her chin more firmly and to look her patient proudly in the eyes. 'As I told your mother, señora, I am only concerned to do my duty to the best of my ability, and I do assure you that I'm quite a good nurse, and though I shan't bustle around you with medicine bottles and charts, I shall expect you to abide by what I feel is good for you, and what I feel is bad.'

  'My dear Madre,' Cosima glanced at her mother with a faint arousal of humour in her eyes under-circled by shadows that revealed that she slept with the aid of drugs. 'I do believe that we have another martinet on our hands. Oh, what a bore! And just as I was hoping to be left alone—after all, Don Cicatrice did assure me that English women were more bent on pleasure than anything else. Aren't you here, Nurse, to flirt with our handsome men?'

  'My flirting days are over, and we must understand each other, señora. If I am to be your nurse, then you must accept that my orders take precedence over your cousin's. I am sure that he has your welfare close to his heart, but he isn't a doctor, nor is he an absolute authority on the many women of my country who work fearfully hard and aren't forever chasing after handsome Latins. It isn't fair to judge me in advance, is it?'

  Cosima looked unmoved by this and gave a delicate yawn. 'I feel as if I have slept with a weight on my face.'

  'Aren't you feeling very well this morning, carina?' The Marquesa bent over her daughter and gently cradled her colourless face. 'Those great shadows beneath your eyes do worry me—once upon a time you had such sparkling eyes, and now they are so listless.'

  'How many pills do you take in order to sleep, señora?' Destine walked round to the other side of the cane lounger and took hold of her patient's wrist. The pulse was nervously erratic, and that too was an indication of too much intake of a sleeping drug.

  Cosima stared up at her as she counted the pulsebeats.

  'Well, señora,' she said again, 'is it two pills, or three?'

  'It's as many as will bring sleep,' Cosima rejoined. 'Deep, dark sleep, where I forget everything—like going down under the sea. No dreams, Nurse. No yesterday and no tomorrow.'

  When Cosima said this, in almost a yearning voice, her mother glanced at Destine with a touch of desperation. Neither of them could mistake what lay in Cosima's words… the longing to drop forever into sleep so that she need never awake to face what each day held, the fact that she was an invalid who could no longer ride her horses, dance, or be held in the arms of the man who had deserted her.

  A fierce clutch of pity caught at Destine's heart, but she kept her expression composed, as she had been taught. The very last thing that she must reveal was the sympathy of someone who had felt a similar despair; who had wanted not to wake in the mornings to face life bereft of what had made it pleasing and secure.

  First and foremost Destine had to be a nurse when Cosima spoke in this fashion, and taking a look at the breakfast tray that was mostly untouched on the nearby cane table, she said briskly: 'It seems such a pity not to eat that delicious-looking orange. Look how beautifully it has been peeled for you, and cut like a water-lily. It looks exactly like a flower—why don't you imagine that you're eating one, plucking the petals one by one?'

  'Why don't you, if the orange looks so inviting?' Cosima said rudely. 'I don't happen to be hungry—it's lack of exercise, so I am told by our good doctor. I am given vitamins in place of the food I just can't face in the morning. I keep telling Madre that good food is being wasted, but still they bring the tray. What is it done for? Just to pretend that I am still alive instead of half dead?'

  'Cosima, please don't speak like that.' The Marquesa looked very distressed. 'We do all we can for you, for you are very much alive to us and we love you.'

  'Am I alive to Miguel? Does he love me?' A twisted smile made it uncertain whether Cosima would cry or scream. 'I wish all of you would let me fade away naturally like a withered flower—you are driving me to do what I know would damn my soul in your eyes, Madre. One night I shall swallow all the pills.'

  'And then have to go through the torture of having your stomach pumped out, señora?' Destine asked. 'I have watch­ed this operation, and it's far from pleasant and is, in fact, an ugly procedure. It hurts and it lacks dignity. Is that what you would like to endure, for if you took the pills you don't imagine that I'd let you slip away, do you?'

  Cosima stared again at Destine, as if trying to see the real person under the facade of neat hair and dress, and a face drilled into a mask of cool composure. 'I am told that your husband died young,' she said. 'Is this so?'

  'Yes, señora. My husband died on our wedding day.'

  'And didn't you want to die? Or did it compensate that you still had the full use of your body and could find some­one else to love you?'

  'I knew great grief,' Destine said quietly. 'And I also knew that nothing could compensate me f
or the loss of M—my husband. He promised to be a brilliant doctor, and he was enormously kind. I don't expect to find his like again, señora.'

  'But you had your health—your work,' said Cosima relentlessly. 'What do you think I have? I was never trained in anything but charm and how to manage horses and young men. Now I am about as charming as a stick of wood, with legs to match, and a heart to go with them. I lie about on this patio, watching the birds as they fly and mate, and counting the hours until I can drop again into bottom­less sleep. It is truly a life to envy, is it not?'

  'I have seen polio victims so stricken, señora, that they must spend their days and nights in an iron lung. Some can move but a finger, and one such man has written a book, typing it himself with that single finger.'

  'Perhaps he has a brain to start off with,' Cosima rejoined. 'All I had to give was myself, and the man to whom I gave myself wanted an entire woman, not one with half her body a dead weight. I shall never blame Miguel for leaving me. I understand why he left. He was too full of life to be able to endure only half a wife. Why should he make a saint of him­self? If he had stayed he would only have gone behind my back for his pleasures. As it was he departed openly with­out deceit. It was brave of him to do that.'