Pilgrim's Castle

by Violet Winspear

  He had mocked her for asking why he invited her to stay here ... but what sort of feeling had she aroused in this man who lived alone in a castle by the sea?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Yvain awoke to sunshine, so beckoning that in a moment she was out of bed and running to the casement window to take a look at her new surroundings. The nightdress fell half off her shoulders, being a couple of sizes too large, and she hung from the window with the awe of a child in her eyes.

  Jade-blue sea, and distant mountains, those of Spain to which this island belonged. An island was like a world of its own, and now that a long sleep had rested her and beclouded some of the nightmare of the shipwreck, she felt an urge to explore her new domain.

  She glanced about her turret bedroom and remembered what the housekeeper had said the day before, that clothes had been ordered for her from a store in the town that lay six miles away. The jersey and jeans of yesterday had disappeared, and on impulse Yvain ran to the big wardrobe and opened the doors. It was cavernous, and there inside hung a few dresses which she eagerly examined. An orange cotton, a striped linen, a flowered silky affair, and best of all a sea-green skirt and a starched frilled blouse with enormous puffed sleeves, a sort of peasant outfit to which she took a fancy. In a box with lilac flowers on it lay some under-garments, and Yvain lost no time having a wash and dressing herself in the skirt and blouse, after which she braided her hair and was about to pin it up in the old sedate way when she remembered that this was not Sandell Hall, nor the Marques de Leon her former employer.

  She allowed the braid to fall down in a soft rope over her left shoulder, and her reflection in the mirror showed her a stranger to herself.

  Without the disfiguring glasses her eyes were wide and inquiring. Clad in the short sea-green skirt and frilly blouse, with a wide belt to cinch her waist, she looked rather jolly. She grinned, and then remembered that Ida Sandell might not have survived the shipwreck.

  She turned away from the mirror and decided to go downstairs in search of some breakfast. She felt famished, and put it down to the sea air which had drifted into her bedroom all through the night.

  With a flounce of her skirt she ran down the twisting staircase set inside the turret, down and down until she reached a corridor that led right into the hall, and left beneath an arcade of a patio. The sunshine streamed through and she was caught and held by its gold as she stood in the archway, looking out at the scene.

  There beneath a tree cloudy with mauve blossom was set a wicker table, and there at the table sat a figure with dark hair crisp with silver, absorbed in the peeling of a tangerine. Yvain was about to retreat when he glanced up, as if he sensed a presence, and slowly turned his head to look at her.

  'Muy buenas,' he said. 'Please to join me, Senorita Pilgrim.'

  She swallowed nervously, for though clad with some informality in a gold cashmere sweater over brown trousers, he still possessed a cool hauteur as he stood, one hand gripping the edge of the table, until she seated herself in the spare wicker chair. Again he sat down and she noticed how he stretched out his left leg, as if unable to bend it at the knee.

  'You slept well?' He rang a silver bell and went on peeling the tangerine whose tang mingled with that of the flowers and plants festooning the walls of the patio.

  'Yes, thank you.' Yvain felt shy and uncertain of him. 'I ... I wondered if you had heard anything yet about the other people on the ship, senor?'

  'Emerito has gone across to the mainland to make inquiries for me and, incidentally, to tell the authorities that you are staying here as my guest.'

  It felt so strange to hear herself referred to as a guest when for the past few years she had had little leisure to relax and be treated as halfway human. She had waited on other people, not been waited on like this, for a manservant had appeared and Don Juan was asking her what she fancied for breakfast. 'Eggs flamenco?' He quirked a black eyebrow. 'Warm new rolls, honey or marmalade?'

  'Yes, please.' Colour stole under her cheekbones. 'It sounds delicious — and I would prefer honey.'

  He turned to the manservant - who stood looking very polite and attentive in an immaculate white jacket over dark trousers — and spoke in crisp, rapid Spanish that added to the exotic surroundings in which Yvain found herself.

  'I have had my breakfast.' Don Juan flicked a look over her frilled blouse and sea-green skirt. 'Coffee, rolls and fruit. I see that my wishes with regard to the clothes were carried out. This morning you look less like a wistful waif.'

  'I am very grateful for the dresses, Don Juan. I ... I can't think how I'm going to repay you.'

  'I am sure we will find a way,' he said enigmatically, and she saw the hard glint of his teeth as he ate the tangerine. The sun slipped through the boughs of the mauve-flowering tree and warmed everything but the dark eyes that dwelt upon her. 'Life

  has changed for you in a very sudden and dramatic way, Senorita Pilgrim.

  Does it not excite you that you stand on the threshold of new discoveries?'

  'At the moment I feel rather bewildered.' She glanced about her at the Moresque tiling and arcades, old-gold walls and fluttering petals. There was a fountain, a hidden piping of birds in the pepper and oleander trees, a garden of beauty that yet could be hiding a serpent. It was all too dreamlike not to hold a dash of cold water, and Yvain was on the defensive. She had learned to be so, for even as music had played on the holiday ship, something had torn out its heart and pitched its defenceless passengers into deep water.

  'You must learn not to dwell on what is past.' Don Juan spoke sternly. 'Believe me, senorita, memory can be too vivid an artist, but you are young enough to erase the dark colours for lighter ones.'

  'At the moment it's all too vivid to be forgotten.' She touched a petal that had fallen to the table. 'I shall feel better when I hear that Mrs. Sandell is all right.'

  'Yet you were not happy in this woman's employ?'

  Yvain shook her head. 'She was a bit of a bully, but all the same-to drown!'

  'We Spanish believe that every man or woman must fulfil what is destined for them. Ah, here comes Luis with your breakfast.' Don Juan rose to his feet and took hold of the silver-topped stick by his hand. 'I have affairs of business to see to, so I will leave you to amuse yourself. Explore, make friends with the animals, and if you wish for a book to read my housekeeper will show you the way to the library, which is situated in the sea-tower. Remember, you are not to paint your mind with dark pictures. Be young and carefree, for the day will come soon enough when you will no longer be free of care.'

  He gave her a brief Latin bow, and she watched, her fingers crushing the mauve petal, as he limped away and disappeared

  tall and dark into the cloistered hall of the castle. What had hurt him to make him a man who rarely smiled? Like his sea-tower he seemed aloof and wrapped in mystery.

  Luis arranged dishes on the table in front of her; buttered eggs and warm crisp rolls, honey that glinted in a jar, and a silver pot of tea.

  'Gracias.' She smiled at the manservant, but like Alma he was reserved, aware that she was unused to being treated like a lady. He flicked petals from the table and carried away the peel of the senor's tangerine. Yvain felt quietly snubbed. Don Juan had said: 'Mi casa es tu casa.' But to his servants she was an intruder. They saw that she lacked the confidence of those born to giving orders and receiving service. They knew her for a lady's maid.

  She was eating her breakfast when a large wolfish head came poking through a nearby curtain of flowers. The animal stared at her, then with a rattle of a medallion on his collar he came to investigate the stranger. She was quite unafraid of him, for there had been dogs galore at Sandell Hall. 'Hullo,' she said, 'I hope you're more friendly than the rest of your household.'

  The Alsatian wolfhound sat down on his haunches and sniffed at her torero slippers with scarlet bows on them. He cocked his head consideringly, a cheeky-faced rogue with a ruff she could have buried her hands in. 'What's your name, eh?' She leane
d forward and took a fearless look at his medallion. 'Carlos, shall we take a walk together?'

  The dog gravely considered this, and then he shook the table as with a bound he took a look at what was left on the plates.

  'Got to be bribed, eh?'

  He gave her a yearning look and wasn't at all averse to roll and honey, after which he led her through an archway into the main part of the castle grounds. A flight of stone steps swooped downwards, with statues and pots ornamenting them at either side. Willow trees drooped over the statues and dappled them with green shadows, and at the foot of them stretched a water-walk, with sun-shot arcs of water glittering against the green of the trees and the dazzle of many kinds of flowers.

  Such a vast and wonderful garden for the pleasure of one man alone ... a place in which children might scamper and hide, climbing like squirrels up the many limbs of the magnolia trees.

  She followed the dog's plume of a tail, along a path of strangely trimmed trees of a velvety foliage, meandering sunlit and shadowed to a domed glass-house. From the arched entrance hung a decorative lamp on a chain. She took a step inside and saw the down-curving fronds of palms and a shady interior set with wickerwork furniture and a pound in which goldfish gleamed in the undersea light. The fragrance of the orchids and the lotus-trees, from which tiny fruits hung, was heady. The sun filtered into the flower-house through the green glass of the dome.

  Carlos poked his nose into the fish pond, and then flopped down on the cool border of gold-coloured tiles. Yvain glanced about her with delight, reaching for the cream cups of tropical blooms, and bending to open the bills of the colourful bird-of-paradise flowers.

  Did Don Juan come here to smoke a nocturnal cigar, with the dog at his feet? Yvain could imagine him, lost in his smoke and the sea-green mystery of the place. A shadowy sculpture, the glow of his cigar illuminating his lean and brooding face.

  She sat in a wicker chair and Carlos turned his head to look at her. 'You're a bit of a lamb in wolf's fur, aren't you, Carlos?' She stroked him and looked thoughtful. How long did Don Juan expect her to stay at the castle? What would happen if Ida Sandell was safe and well and wanted her maid-companion?

  Yvain breathed the exotic scents of the flowers that clustered and bloomed all around her, and she felt the peace and relaxation of not being at the beck and call of a woman as demanding as Mrs. Sandell. She could be carefree ... but she couldn't stop wondering what lay behind the Marques' invitation. He was too cold and practical to be sentimental about a stray English girl.

  'Did you think,' he had asked mockingly, 'that you had aroused my passions? '

  Yvain bit her lip, and as if sensing her disquiet the wolfhound came and rested his head on her lap. 'Carlos,' she buried her fingers in his ruff, 'if only you could speak and tell me what your master is like behind his mask. He frightens me a little. He's like no one I've ever met before. The Sandells thought of themselves as gentry, but the Marques de Leon is the real nobleza, and I can't imagine what he wants of me, a servant girl.'

  The morning passed and she returned for a solitary lunch on the patio, after which everything fell quiet and she understood from Alma that her host would be absent for the remainder of the day.

  'I would advise the senorita to take a siesta, otherwise the day will seem long. Don Juan will no doubt dine with his friend Senor Fonesca and his daughter the Dona Raquel at their residence in town, then they will proceed to the theatre. It will be late before he returns home.'

  'The Dona Raquel has a lovely name,' Yvain said half curiously.

  'I can assure the senorita,' the housekeeper's eye swept over Yvain's girlish figure, 'that the Dona Raquel is a true Spanish beauty. When Don Juan marries, he could not choose a more suitable bride. A Spaniard of the nobility should love and marry a girl of birth and breeding, and he has the lesson of his own father's disastrous marriage to guard him from the danger of marrying beneath him.' Yvain caught her breath. She wanted to ask questions, but with a rustle of black silk Alma swept on her way and left Yvain to ponder her mysterious, almost malicious words.

  Late that night Yvain heard the return of his car as she lay in bed, sounding its horn for the gates of the courtyard to be opened by the keeper. She pictured the limousine as it purred through, its occupant in the back seat sitting dark and perhaps with half a smile on his lips as he thought of Dona Raquel.

  There was a lot to be learned about the master of the castillo and Yvain hoped her stay would last long enough for her to discover what he was like behind his mask of cool, impenetrable reserve.

  As it turned out it was several days before she saw him again. The castle was a rambling place and during the day she roamed about the grounds and explored its echoing rooms. When evening fell Don Juan either drove off in his car to dine with friends, or he took his evening meal alone, without inviting his young guest to join him. Yvain had the wolfhound to keep her company so she didn't mind being ignored. It made a change after Ida Sandell's persistent, 'Pilgrim, where are you? Don't go mooning off just as I need you.'

  Then she learned from the housekeeper that Emerito had returned from the mainland, and all that day she felt keyed-up and it was no surprise when she received a message from the Marques. She was to dine with him that evening at nine o'clock!

  Her wardrobe did not include a dinner dress, so she had to wear the flowered silk. It was a size too large for her, but being well trained with the needle she was able to make it fairly presentable. The flowers were scarlet zinnias and they clashed vividly with her auburn hair, but she told herself Don Juan wasn't likely to notice what she looked like.

  Came the moment to go down to him and after a final rueful glance in the mirror she slipped out of her room and descended slowly the stairs of the turret, a spiral about her slender figure, a background that intensified her youth and her uncertainty. She reached the hall, with its wells of shadow, its gleam of a panel, a picture, a suit of black and gold armour. In her torero slippers she crossed to Don Juan's private sanctum and her fingers trembled as she tapped upon one of the doors.

  The hall clock chimed as she knocked. She braced herself and entered the room, and there he stood in front of a cabinet of beautiful curios, clad in a black velvet dinner-jacket over impeccable trousers, leaning on his stick and looking so distinguished that Yvain was stricken with shyness.

  'Good evening, Senorita Pilgrim.' He spoke formally and looked her over without a change of expression in his dark eyes. 'We will go into dinner. The dining-room adjoins this one.'

  With the assistance of his stick he walked to yet another set of panelled doors and opened them. Yvain preceded him into the dining-room, and its grandeur did nothing to dispel her shyness. The long table was set with candelabra and crystal, and the chairs, one at either end of the table, had a gilt coronet set in the head-rest. The manservant stepped forward and drew out the chair at the foot of the table and Yvain slipped into it, her wide eyes collecting the candlelight as she looked along the table at her host. The coronet was above her auburn head and she looked as she felt, lost and insecure and rather afraid of the man who stared at her.

  'We must see about getting you some well-fitting clothes.' His firm lips gave a twitch. 'And we will make sure none of them are scarlet.'

  'But — ' She took a deep breath. 'I shan't be staying here very long.'

  'You think not?' He inclined his head as Luis hovered with a wine bottle. 'I have had some news today that may prolong your stay as my guest.'

  'News about Mrs. Sandell?' She half-noticed his pause before that last word, but was concerned about the woman who on more than one occasion had been unkind to her. 'Good news, senor?'

  His lean fingers played with the stem of his wineglass as Luis came to her side with the wine. 'From the comisaria on the mainland I have had word that a Senora Sandell was among a group of passengers picked up and taken by ship to Tangiers. From there, I understand, she flew home to England by aeroplane, assuming no doubt that her maid-companion had perished. She c
ould easily have found out otherwise if she had contacted the Spanish authorities, but it would seem that she could not be bothered. Having survived, she was concerned only with herself.'

  Each word was as explicit and cold as a frost-etching on glass.

  The details were all too plain ... she had been abandoned to this man alone.

  As she looked at him the candle flames bowed and were reflected in the polished surfaces of rosewood and silver. She tried to read his eyes beneath their heavy lids and black brows, and knew that she must bow to whatever he decided for her.

  'Salud.' He raised his wine glass as if it were a ritual. 'You are no longer the maid-companion of a spoiled and selfish woman.'

  The wine was chill and delicious, and though she was isolated from Don Juan by the glowing candelabra it was as if he reached out and took possession of her.

  After dinner they did not return to the adjoining room. 'There is a small sala which is not used often these days, but I wish you to see it.' Don Juan's tall figure cast a long shadow and his ebony stick sounded on the tiles as he limped across the hall to a door guarded by a suit of Saracen armour; an oval door set deep like that of a sanctuary. He took a key-chain from his pocket and bent to unlock the door.

  'This we call the cuarto dorado, the golden room,' he said, and as he switched on the light it was as if a jewel-box opened to reveal its hidden splendours.

  'Please enter.' He waved her inside, and in a kind of dream she obeyed him and took in with wondering eyes the old-gold window drapes that swept from gilt crowns to the glow of antique rugs. She saw gracious furniture, golden bowls of roses, wonderful old frescoes, and panelling that held glimmers of gold.

  It was a beautiful room, and forgetful of the dark man who struck a sombre note, Yvain wandered about touching lovely objects, such as a Moorish casket and an embroidered shawl thrown across a silent, unused piano of cream and gilt. A crimson rose lay on the shuttered lid; a haunted, romantic air of sadness hung about this room that must have been used often by a woman. Who had played the piano? Who had loved red roses and music?