Dearest Demon

by Violet Winspear

In a while she and Madrigal had adapted to each other, so that she began to feel more confident and gave the lively horse a little more rein.

  As they cantered higher in the hills, the valley below took on a shimmering green and gold look in the sunlight. Des­tine could feel her eyes shining, for there was no denying that back in England, tied always to the wards of various hos­pitals, she had had little chance to see anything as lovely, and exciting, as this. Here one could breathe and feel the pulse of rampant life, enclosed from the rest of the world by a crest of distant violet-tinged mountains. They had the sheer beauty and terror of a stronghold that could not be invaded by the modern world of fast cars and faster lives.

  Here some of the barbaric splendour of the past still lingered, where white-walled villages lay for this golden hour in a slumbrous quiet on the hillsides, their streets arcaded, with narrow windows encased in iron grilles in which the thick stems of geraniums had long since become as tough as the iron, producing long trails of scarlet flowers that threw their shadows on to the crusted white walls. Hammered lanterns clung in ancient brackets beside the arched alleyways, and here the sun-glare was muted as Destine rode through them, feeling as if she had cantered through a time-curtain into another era, another century.

  'Time is the servant, not the master, in Spain,' she thought, and her eyes dwelt in the various sized pots that were drying in the sun outside an old pottery works on the edge of the village. There was no sign of the potters, for siesta held sway over the place, creating a magical hush that would only be broken when the sun began to decline. Then, like busy ants, the people would reappear from behind their shutters and they would work, bargain and gossip until well after nine in the evening, by which time the air of the village would be rich with the aroma of spicy Spanish food. Paella, hot churros, and meat and onion tortilla.

  Spaniards loved the night time. They ate late and talked far into the midnight hours. The afternoon siesta was their solace from their glorious but terrible sun and Destine smiled slightly as she and her mount broke the silence that prevailed, the well-shod hooves clopping on the flat-worn cobbles of the village street.

  It was probably true, she thought idly, that the English were a little eccentric, for here she was, out in the sun while sensible Spaniards lolled beneath their bed-nets… or kissed in the lush and drowsy warmth.

  Her fingers tightened unaware on the reins and Madrigal took this as a hint to break into a gallop through the twisting, narrow streets until they came out once again upon the hill­side. Destine held hard with her knees, for Madrigal was not to be stopped now she had started to gallop, and there was fear mingled with exhilaration as Destine was carried higher and higher into the hills, the slouch hat blowing back on the cord that tied it and her hair romping loose about her flushed face. It was only when she saw a sheer plateau above them that she began to tug on the reins in an effort to slow down her mount. But the devil had got into the filly and she refused to obey the English girl who had replaced the young stablehands in her saddle.

  When Destine realised that she was no longer the mistress of the ride, her heart thumped and she had a wild vision of being flung from the saddle, down over the side of the plateau they were rapidly approaching.

  She was indeed almost flung, for suddenly a piercing whistle cut the air, a zephyr of sound winging to the ears of the filly and causing her to stop almost dead in her tracks, so that Destine was jerked forward, her booted feet slipping free of the stirrups, her hands clutching wildly at Madrigal's mane in an effort to save herself.

  As she lay in that undignified position she heard the sound of hooves behind her, pounding like her heart as they came closer, and a swift look around showed her who the rider was. It shot through her mind that he looked amused a moment before a frown drew his black brows together.

  'Why did you whistle like that?' she gasped. 'You almost had me over Madrigal's head!'

  'Your mount was out of control,' he thundered, riding up beside her and looming dark against the sunlit sky, and so arrogantly in control of his own horse, whose coat had the sheen of mahogany, the silvery bridle rattling to the toss of its handsome head. The Don's hands were firm on the reins and his breeched knees were close in against the muscular sides of the animal.

  Destine struggled into a sitting position, while Madrigal stood there so sedately, pretending she had not taken ad­vantage of the female stranger.

  'You are miles from the casa' The Don swept a critical look over her tossed hair and the hat that lay against her nape, the cord across her throat. 'I suppose you realise that had you been thrown, and hurt, it might have taken hours for me or my men to find you. Until you become more used to handling a high-spirited horse you should have kept within a mile or so of the casa, for Madrigal knows she has lighter hands upon her reins and she was bound to misbe­have. Nothing Spanish is easily tamed, señora'

  'So it would seem.' Destine now held her mount's reins more firmly, and felt as if his riding-whip had curled across her skin. 'I saw the houses of a village and I just had to explore, and then Madrigal got a whiff of the hilly air and she was away. I suppose everything of yours is trained to obey your whistle?'

  'You will admit that it sometimes has its advantages.' He pointed with his whip to the plateau that ended in a sheer drop to the rocks. 'It's better to be alive than to lie a bundle of bones down there, would you not say?'

  Destine gave a shudder and thought how graphic was his language at times. He rarely minced his words into small, easily swallowed morsels, and obviously had no time for the complimentary language of the Latins she had met in Madrid, mainly at the house of her godmother. Was it the Australian blood in him that made him less smooth, or was it the jagged scar that made him… different?

  'Tell me, señor, do you admire the paintings of El Greco?' She asked the question impulsively, and felt the raking of his narrowed eyes as he considered it.

  'By that, señora, do you mean do I prefer what is stark and real to what is veiled and romantic?'

  'I—suppose I do mean that.' And yet even as she spoke Destine wasn't sure what she really meant… unless she felt that the scarring of his face had somehow scarred his true self.

  'Then you must have forgotten that I have a dash of the desert in me,' he said, 'as we all have, here in the south where the Moorish overlords had their courts and their favourites of the veil. It would go a little against the grain if I didn't have an eye for beauty, even as the beast had, eh?'

  'Don't—talk like that—' Yet involuntarily her eyes were upon his scar and instinct told her that there might have been a girl who had shrunk from him because of it, someone other than Cosima, for Destine could never believe that he felt a passionate response towards his cousin. Protective, yes, but there were fires in this man which Cosima had never aroused, even when she had been fit and lively, and able to ride and dance.

  'This is very stark and real, isn't it?' He placed the shaft of his whip against his face. 'The woman who lives with me will have this to look at night and day, but Cosima is accustomed lo it. She was a small girl when it happened and she accepts it—enough to be my wife.'

  'Is that why you're marrying her?' The words had a will of their own and Destine heard herself speak them, horrified. She stared at the whip in his hand and felt that he might strike her with it, for she had no right to pry, and hated people who did so.

  'I don't need to tell you my reason for marrying any woman,' he said cuttingly. 'You are the English nurse at the casa, nothing more, with no lasting place in our lives. You have come, and you will go, and together Cosima and I might find that serenity you spoke about. But I am not marrying her because my face is acceptable to her, and that is all you need to know. What is close to my skin, and be­neath it, is not for you to get at, and if you have some idea that Cosima is turning to me for consolation rather than romance, then let it be admitted. Let her turn to me rather than turn her face to the wall and be locked away in her memories. "One broken dream is not the end of dre
aming", so they say. "Still build your castles, though your castles fall".'

  'Of course.' Destine had a strange sense of bleakness as she looked past him to where the mountains had their keeps and their turrets high in the sky, and she could almost wish that he had lashed at her with his whip rather than his words. They left their sting across her mind, so that on the ride back to the casa she kept remembering them.

  The dazzling sunlight was on the wane as they came in sight of the valley, above which the sky was now like a painted ceiling, glowing with heavenly colours. A richly fragrant stillness overhung the plantations as the heat of the day began to die, bringing out the mingling scents of cane and tobacco; coffee and fruit.

  The Don slowed his horse and Destine followed suit, her eyes shielded by the brim of her hat as she took a quick look at him. He was gazing downwards, and his nostrils were tensed to that bouquet, as if for him it was more exciting, more poignant, than any perfume worn by a woman against her warm skin.

  'Land is to a Spaniard what sal is to a woman,' he said, and his voice had deepened with the day so that his words seemed to be a purring sound in his brown throat. 'Good yielding land has almost the same quality as a woman's charm—or would you, with your clinical training, accept that as an unflattering description?'

  'Coming from a Spaniard it seems appropriate, for I expect he believes that only plenty of tilling and drilling will produce a willing woman.'

  'Willing?' He gave a rough sort of laugh. 'The best of earth is never willing, but has to be coaxed and fondled and treated to the best of food and dressing. Here in Spain that is particularly so, for our sun is an enemy as well as a friend, and we have to be constantly attentive to the land if it is to give of its heart and not merely its topsoil. It has taken years for this valley to be as it is right now, but that perfect abun­dance would soon wither away if for one single day any part of it was neglected. It is a full-time occupation, apart from this siesta hour, when like you, señora, I go madly out in the sun. This is my world and I rarely, these days, go beyond those mountains. I have here all that I ask, and that must seem very insular to a modern young woman.'

  'No,' she said, surprising herself, she so rarely agreed with this man. 'If a person has found the right job, in the right place, then it seems only restless if he should wish to be in other places all the time. I really don't believe that modern life is perfect—I've never said that.'

  'It is only modern marriage that is perfect, eh?' He glanc­ed down at her, and his eyes glimmered mockingly in the dark angles of his face.

  'At least preferable to the Latin arrangement,' she argued. 'But as you say, the Spaniard does seem to place his land and his horse ahead of his woman.'

  'Is that how it seems to you?' he asked drily. 'I thought we Latins had a romantic reputation abroad, and that every­one believed us to be veritable Don Juans, with nothing else to do but dally beneath a balcony with a guitar and a rose in the teeth. But now you inform me that we Spaniards are not the great lovers; that the loco amor takes third place with us.'

  'With you, I think, señor.; Destine gestured at the valley, which in the deepening dusk had almost a violet tinge to it. 'Would you exchange all that for a woman? I doubt it!'

  She spoke so definitely that a deep, short laugh broke from him. 'She would have to be some woman,' he drawled. 'I have put most of my adult life into that valley; skill, sweat and pain, and I should, indeed, have to be mad with love if I turned my back on the plantations in order to follow a fickle beckoning finger. I agree with you! No woman is worth all that!'

  With this he swung his horse away from the valley in the direction of the casa, and as they cantered along the track that led to the stables, night dropped its cloak and a sudden feeling of coldness made Destine shiver.

  'Go along indoors,' he said, when they had dismounted. 'I will see to the horses—and, señora, next time you ride, don't go so far from the casa. Not until you are more accustomed to Madrigal, who has a strain of Arab in her.'

  'Like her master?' Destine quipped, and she hastened away before he could make a retort, entering the hall just as the Marquesa came out of her daughter's apartment.

  'Nurse—just the person I wished to see!' Cosima's mother was smiling as she approached Destine. 'I have just had a little talk with Cosima and she has given me some wonderful news. She and Artez have decided to marry when that Arandas man releases her from what was never a true marriage. I am so very happy! I have wanted this for so long and now my daughter at last has the good sense to want it also. After dinner tonight we must open a bottle of cham­pagne to celebrate!'

  As she said this, so joyfully, the Marquesa caught at Destine's hands. 'I do believe, my dear, that you have brought good luck into our house, for it is only since you came that Cosima has brightened up, and now she tells me this most happy news, that she has accepted a proposal of marriage from Artez. Did you know of this?'

  'Yes—I knew.' Destine smiled, but she was thinking to herself that it had been Cosima who had proposed the marriage. They had been speaking of compensations, and she had challenged him to be hers… in the form of a husband.

  'It will be good for Cosima, eh?' The Marquesa pressed her rings into Destine's fingers, and now her fine eyes held a suggestion of tears. 'It will make up for what she has suf­fered, don't you agree?'

  'Of course,' said Destine, while vividly across her mind rode a tall vital figure on a horse whose coat seemed darkly aflame beneath the setting sun.

  No one asked… no one thought to ask if such a marriage would be good for Don Cicatrice. It seemed to be accepted that a man so scarred couldn't be expected to want a radi­antly eager bride… a girl who could look at him and not flinch from that cruel disfigurement.

  'They are meant for each other,' said the Marquesa, and the pressure of her rings had become a pain that Destine endured in silence. 'Like unto like.'

  A wild protest ran through Destine, but she kept it to her­self. What right had she to speak in defence of a man who had said that she was but the nurse here… someone who came for a while… someone who would depart, leaving these people to find what happiness they could in the House of the Grilles.

  Window grilles were ornamental iron bars, and bars a prison made.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sun was glittering across the courtyard and catching like points of diamonds in the water falling from basin to basin of the Moorish fountain, and Destine stood beside the car, watching as the Don carried his cousin from the casa and brought her to the big open-top tourer in which they were to drive to the finca of the Spanish family with whom Lugh Davidson was staying during his sojourn in the south.

  Cosima had dressed with great care, and her make-up was exquisite, but all the same she looked fragile and almost childlike in the strong arms that lowered her carefully into the car on to the embroidered linen seat-covers. 'There,' he said. 'You are comfortable, carissima?'

  'I—think so.' Cosima held on to his arm as Destine settled a cushion behind the frail spine, then she settled back and smiled at both of them, liking the attention and aware that she was looking lovely, with her dark hair smoothed into silk under the wide brim of a white hat, her dress a deep rose-pink that went so well with the Latin complexion. Her eyes flicked up and down the figure of Destine, who had chosen to wear a simple blue dress with a trimming of white around the collar and cuffs. It was cool and she had felt that such a dress would emphasise the fact that she was Cosima's nurse and not a guest in any way.

  'How very English you look against our Spanish back­ground,' said Cosima, and a polished fingernail gleamed against her dress as she adjusted one of the silky folds. 'I think if you lived in Spain a dozen years, Destine, you would still continue to look as if you had just stepped out of an English dairy.'

  'How very bovine you make me sound, señora' Destine smiled, but she was intensely aware of the dark, almost stern gaze of Don Cicatrice, and a start ran all through her as he suddenly gripped her elbow and assisted her into
the car beside Cosima, on the wide back seat. She still felt his touch as he slid into the seat in front of the wheel, and for an instant her eyes were fixed upon his iron-firm shoulders, covered by the pale fawn material of his well-cut suit, so perfectly tailored that she was aware of strength without seeing a hint of bulging muscle. Then she quickly averted her gaze to where the Marquesa stood beneath a myrtle-laden archway to watch them drive away. She looked a little sad, a little lonely, but had declined to come with them, insistent that Cosima enjoy her outing without her anxious mother in attendance. After all, Cosima had her novio in charge of her, and he would ensure that no harm came to her. Words that had seemed weighted with the implication that had he always been her chosen consort then not even polio would have dared to lay its cruel hand upon her.

  Cosima waved to her mother, and they drove off under the great archway of the casa and continued through the prop­erty for at least a couple of miles before turning on to the main highway. Cosima threw various remarks to her cousin about the countryside and how unchanging everything was, while Destine sat quietly there, with apparent composure, and let her thoughts play with that first journey she had taken along this road, not in a large, smooth-engined car, but in that old-fashioned vehicle with the sound of hoofbeats on the road, breaking into the silence of the night.

  A tiny smile of irony tugged at her lips. She had thought the Don the chauffeur, which was ridiculous in retrospect, for in his impeccable fawn suit he looked every inch the hidalgo that he was. And oh, how he had set her temper on edge—and still could, with a look or a remark that was meant to make an opponent of her.

  Yes, if she stayed here a dozen years she would still be very English, and still she would find the Latin temperament as complex as a Moorish arabesque. No matter how hard you looked at such an arabesque, it seemed forever impos­sible to see where it began and where it ended.

  'You are very quiet, Nurse Chard.' The deep masculine voice broke in abruptly upon her thoughts. 'Are you over­taken with admiration of our southern landscape? Those blue tips of the mountains, those strange rocks sculptured into shape by the sun and the wind, that shimmering sun­light, and the chalky-jade cactus? Ah, glance to your left and you will see the romantic ruin of a Moorish castle! That should appeal to your vivid imagination, and underline what you said to me about the men of the south and their attitude towards women.'