Pilgrim's Castle

by Violet Winspear

  'Each time I see you,' he smiled, 'you seem a little more grown up. You are rather like a flower which was all closed up in the shade, now our sunshine is revealing an unexpected beauty.'

  'Don't be silly,' she gasped. 'I'm not even pretty!'

  'What has being pretty to do with beauty?' He handed

  her into his car, a sleek cream roadster with caramel-coloured upholstery. All the fittings gleamed in the sunlight, so Yvain guessed it was a brand new car. The top was open, but linen covers prevented the leather from getting too warm.

  'All Latin men are flatterers,' she scoffed.

  'Even Don Juan?' Rique gave her a rakish look as he took the driving-seat beside her.

  'My guardian is a man of responsibility — '

  'He's a Spaniard and he has a quick pair of eyes.' Rique started the car and they moved towards the open gates and the sun-hot road. The sea far below was a dazzling silver-blue, and the air held a magic quality. 'He's still quite a young man ... to have you for a ward.'

  'I hope you don't think — '

  'Of course I don't.' He gave a laugh. 'It is perfectly obvious to me that no man has yet made love to you.'

  'Can't you talk about anything but love?'

  'There is no other subject quite so fascinating. It is part of the mystery of life, the most exciting part of being alive.'

  'You must often have been in love, Rique, to speak with such

  authority.'

  'What Latin is not a lover, with words and music if not with deeds? Can it be, chica, that you quail at the thought of love?'

  'I think you confuse love with flirtation.'

  'I hope I am allowed to flirt with you?'

  'It hardly comes under the heading of friendship.'

  'If your guardian expects me to treat you as if you are a schoolgirl, then he might as well lock you in his tower. Shall I turn the car around and take you home to him?'

  'No - he's going out.'

  'With the exotic Raquel?'

  'I expect so.'

  'The island abounds with the rumour that he intends to marry her. Do you think he will?'

  'He would hardly confide in me.'

  'I don't think you will like it much if he marries her.'

  'Why should I mind?' She gave Rique a startled look.

  'If Raquel should become mistress of the castle, she might resent the presence there of her husband s attractive young ward.'

  'Don Juan has not become my guardian for always. He is kind enough to want to help me and I am staying at the castle while Senor Fonesca teaches me some of the things that will help me to start a career.'

  'Are you serious?' Rique slowed the car a little as they rounded a-curve of the road and this enabled him to take a look at her. Her hair was whipped by the wind and she looked young and appealing, and unaware of the fact.

  'It will be more enjoyable than being a maid,' she said.

  'I can think of something even more enjoyable ... you could get married yourself.'

  'I should want to fall in love before I took that step.'

  'But you are afraid of love,' he teased her.

  'I'm no more afraid than any other girl, but I am cautious. Oh, Rique, look at the sea! It looks so beautiful that I can hardly

  believe it terrified me.'

  They sped along through the sunshine, and Yvain drank in everything with eager eyes, storing up the things of today so that she might have them to remember when the time came for her to leave the island. They passed almond orchards and olive terraces, and upon a hill stood a windmill straight out of the pages of Don Quixote, and the mountains of Spain appeared violet in the distance. 'Is the island like Spain?' she asked.

  'Very much so. It's as if someone long ago stole a piece of Andalusia and set it down in the ocean. I am from the south and I could grow very fond of living here.'

  'You are much too cosmopolitan,' she smiled. 'Your music and your singing will take you all over the world, and you know it.'

  'Perhaps I do,' he admitted.

  'I wonder,' she said, 'if we shall both remember this drive in the sunshine? This moment as we pass a white-walled house smothered in purple flowers? This next moment when we see a lone figure on the beach collecting seaweed and piling it into a donkey-cart? I can smell the seaweed and the flowers, and maybe there will come a time when I shall smell them again and just by. closing my eyes I shall remember.' She looked at Rique, studying his Latin profile. 'Will you remember?'

  'Memories are too nebulous,' he said. 'I want to hold what lives and breathes.'

  'That's because you are a man. I think men remember only the things that hurt them.' She thought of Don Juan, who would never have returned to take his title, or to live in the castle of his grandparents, if he had not suffered that fearful accident. Even yet, her tutor had said, there were times when he was in pain.

  'Of what are you thinking?' Rique had brought the car to a standstill and the sound of the sea filled the air, and the hot sun drew the tang of it. She took deep breaths of the sea air and felt safe sitting here; she could not feel the powerful embrace that in the dark had sought to overwhelm her.

  Rique took hold of her hand, his thumb against the fragile bones of her wrist. 'For a moment just then, Yvain, you had the

  unseeing look of someone in a dream. Who wanders in and out of your daydreams?'

  'Oh - all sorts of people.' She gave a laugh, but her pulse jerked and she; wondered if he felt it.

  'You are a disturbing little thing, Yvain. Lots of girls are conscious flirts. They enjoy making eyes at a man, but you don't even know how to. Your life until now must have been a very sheltered one.'

  'It was restricted, which is a different thing. A girl without parents can't be sheltered, Rique, so don't treat me as if I were an infant.'

  'I should like to treat you like a sweetheart.' His good-looking face came close to hers, forcing her to retreat along the cushioned seat.

  'Rique — '

  'Taboos have been imposed, and they tempt a man.'

  'Please don't spoil our day together.'

  'I am doing my best to improve it. Take a look around you, we are quite alone but for the seaweed-gatherer. Your guardian is nowhere in sight, and is probably courting Dona Raquel with all the aloof gallantry of a true hidalgo.'

  'Can't you be more aloof?' she begged, for now his left hand had closed upon her waist, and his right hand was touching her auburn hair. She didn't fight with him, for curiously enough his touch did not arouse that tense, crackly feeling, as if his fingertips held an electrical current. It was only when her guardian touched her that she felt this ... his fingers against her nape as he fastened the necklace; his fingers upon her hair as she leaned from the window of his tower and he called her Rapunzel.

  'I thought we were going to have lunch at a finca ' she said to Rique.

  'In a while.' He drew her suddenly close to him and pressed his lips against the side of her neck. 'You have the untouched skin of a chica. Soft, like a petal, with such a clean smell. I must kiss you!'

  He did so, but found her lips unresponsive. He studied her face, and she saw a look of perplexity in his eyes.

  'Are English girls as cold as snow?' he asked.

  'Yes, when they're kissed against their will,' she replied.

  'I see.' He withdrew his arms from around her. 'I take it that you find me unattractive?'

  'No, Rique. I just want to get to know you better. I want to be friends — '

  'Friends - a man and a girl?' He laughed scornfully. 'You would not be here in my car if you were a girl I did not wish to kiss.'

  'Is that all you care about, the wrapping and not the contents?' She fumbled with the door of the car, found the release handle and scrambled out with a flash of slim young legs and bronze-coloured shoes. 'Thank you for the drive — '

  'Yvain, don't be a little idiot!'

  'Little idiots don't mind necking in cars!' she flung at him, and seeing that the shore sloped to the beach she tugged o
ff her shoes and ran down the slope to the sands. She heard Rique give chase and saw with dismay that the seaweed gatherer and the donkey-cart had left and she was alone on the beach with an angry young man in pursuit of her.

  'Yvain ... you are behaving like a child!'

  Perhaps she was, but all at once she disliked Rique and wanted him not to touch her any more. She quickened her pace, speeding lightly along the sands and unhampered by the drag of her shoes. She saw a wooden breakwater and scrambled over it, and at once she came in sight of a small pier with a pathway cut into the rocky shore and leading to the steps of the pier. A few moments more and she was mounting the steps, out of breath and relieved to see quite a few people on the pier taking the sun.

  She put on her shoes and joined the strollers. She saw Rique gazing up at her from the beach, and then he turned his back on her and strode off to where he had left his car. She wasn't sorry to see him go, and with a smile she joined a young boy who had a rod and a line and was fishing with great seriousness.

  'Have you caught anything?' she asked in her faltering Spanish.

  'Soon I will catch a fish of great enormity,' he assured her.

  She didn't make the mistake of laughing, and in about half an hour, to the amazement and delight of both of them, he caught a sizeable fish and invited her to share it, grilled over a driftwood fire on the beach.

  Yvain had set out for the day and it had promised to be carefree, and despite her tiff with Rique she enjoyed every moment of the next few hours. Her young boyfriend's name was Fernando, and he had a loaf of Spanish bread in his knapsack, a bag of tomatoes, and the utensils for cleaning and eating a fish.

  They collected their driftwood and made their fire, and the fish when grilled was smoky and delicious, eaten with chunks of crusty bread and huge tomatoes. They lazed in the sun while their meal settled, and then they played volleyball.

  It was all such unexpected fun that Yvain didn't realize, until Fernando said it was time for him to go home, that she was miles from the castillo. Her young friend pointed out the direction she should take. 'It is much of a walk, senorita.'

  She bit her lip. 'The fish was splendid. Thank you for letting me share it, Fernando.'

  'It gave me pleasure, senorita.' He gave her an old-fashioned look, however, for her hair was a tangled cloud about her neck and shoulders and the hem of her dress was soaked with seawater, for several times she had run into the water after the ball. 'You live in earnest at the castillo of the Senor Marques?' he asked.

  'Very much in earnest,' she smiled, holding out a hand to him. 'Adios, Fernando. I hope we meet again some time.'

  He didn't shake her hand as she expected him to, but with Latin gallantry he bent over it and kissed it. Hasta la vista, senorita.'

  Yvain felt lonely as the sturdy young figure marched out of sight. Soon the sun would be setting and her shoes were of the flimsy type that were not meant for hiking in. However, standing here feeling sorry for herself would not get her home, and she began to hasten along in the late afternoon sunshine, following the sea road as Fernando had instructed, and noticing absently that the mountains of Spain were swathed in mist but for their peaks. Small wreaths of mist were caught in the rays of saffron sunlight that shafted over the water.

  The scene was mysteriously beautiful, a little sinister, but half an hour passed before Yvain halted for a rest and noticed that the sun was veiled by mist as it begun to set. She gazed at the sea and a shiver of coldness ran over her. Soon it would be dark and it looked as if the sea mist was creeping inland. She began to hurry ... and then all at once gave a little yelp as her foot turned and the heel of her right shoe came off. She rubbed the pain from her ankle and gazed ruefully at her heelless shoe.

  'This is not your day,' she muttered to herself, and the misty darkness crept around her as she hobbled along, and she watched hopefully for the castle turrets to loom out of the darkness.

  Beads of moisture began to form on Yvain's hair and she heard — drifting over from the Spanish coast - the eerie sound of foghorns on the ships making for harbour. She hobbled a little faster, and the mist followed. She felt apprehensive but not too scared. Once or twice she had been lost on the misty moors of Combe St. Blaize, but being a country girl she had not panicked. That was the thing to avoid, for once panic led you astray you could be lost for hours.

  She took her bearings and guessed that within a very short time she would be up to her eyes in a damp fog and she would have to rely on her instincts and her nerves to get her home. She knew there were cottages hereabouts, but they were tucked into the hillside hollows and she didn't dare to leave the side of the road in case she couldn't find it again.

  She remembered saying to Luis that morning that a brilliantly fine day in England often led to a storm. She hadn't dreamed that the sunshine of this island could turn suddenly to the menace of a thick sea fog, but here she was, caught in it and feeling almost as helpless as a fly trapped in a jar of honey. She felt lonely and cold and was wishing she had a jacket to put on when a sound behind her made her turn quickly to look.

  For the first time in over an hour the lights of a car were heading towards her, stabbing the misty darkness like a pair of beacons. Her heart bounded. At all costs she must stop the car and beg a lift ... she must!

  She ran out headlong into the road, and as her white dress was illuminated by the headlights the driver had to swerve to avoid hitting her. The car brakes were applied jarringly, but a second too late ... with a grinding of metal and a sound of breaking glass the car crashed into a tree and a dull silence followed.

  Anxious and alarmed, Yvain ran across to the car and started to fumble with the door. Someone thrust it open from the inside, and despite the swirling mist and the odd slanting light of the remaining headlamp she recognized the lean figure, the grim face and black hair, the dark and burning gaze that in a second swept away her chills and sent a wave of heat all over her.

  In the mist and that oddly angled light they stared at each other.

  'Are you ... all right?' Yvain gasped.

  'No thanks to you,' he replied cuttingly. 'I take it you are lost in the fog?'

  'Yes, senor.' She was half tearful with the shock and relief of seeing him, unhurt at the wheel of the car. The bonnet was badly buckled and when he tried the engine there was a knocking sound but no response. She had known that he drove alone sometimes, in a car so constructed that he had sufficient room in which to stretch his leg.

  As Yvain thought of his leg and the hurt it had already suffered she felt sick and had to catch at the door handle.

  'I hope your leg wasn't jarred?' she said faintly.

  'Everything is all right except for my car and my temper. Why could you not have stood at the roadside and waved me to a halt? My headlamps would have spotted you in that white dress.'

  'I-I didn't think of anything but getting a lift. I'm sorry about

  your car ... is there some damage to the engine?'

  He tried once again to get a response from it, but it merely knocked a hole in the silence of the mist-shrouded night. 'There would appear to be damage to the engine,' he said dryly. His glance swept over her, and then he moved along the front seat, put out a hand and pulled her inside with him. 'Close the door and shut out the fog,' he said.

  She did so, while he opened a compartment beneath the dashboard and took from it a flask that glinted dully. 'Take a drink of this brandy.' He unscrewed the top and handed her the flask. 'You are shivering, Yvain.'

  She clasped her hands about the flask and took small swigs of the warming cognac.

  His eyes glinted in the glow of the dashboard, half with concern, half with exasperation. 'You females ... because the sun shines you go out without a coat, careless of the weather and its fickleness. You have had sufficient cognac?'

  'Mmm, yes.' She returned the flask to him. 'I feel a lot less shivery.'

  'There is a lap robe on the back seat, if you will reach over for

  it.'
/>   She knelt on the front seat so she could reach for the robe. Her fingers came in contact with something soft and velvety, and she gave a little gasp of pleasure when she found that the lap robe was made of some kind of smooth fur.

  'Wrap yourself in it,' Don Juan ordered. 'Your dress has no sleeves and barely any skirt.'

  She felt her cheeks tingle at the way he looked at her, and her heart quickened when he leaned forward and drew the fur around her, his fingers warm against her throat. 'I saw Cortez at the Hidalgo this afternoon. I asked him where you were, and he said you had returned to the castillo. What happened, Yvain? Did you have a quarrel with him?'

  'We had a difference of opinion,' she admitted, held by his hands and his eyes.

  'What about?'

  'Oh, nothing very important. You know how arguments develop from pinpricks.'

  'The young man seemed to me to be in a smouldering mood. Did he try to ... make love to you?'

  'No ...'

  'The truth, Yvain, if you please.'

  'He wanted to kiss me... I wasn't in the mood.' She tried to make light of the matter by giving a laugh. 'Not before lunch.'

  'I take it you have been wandering about all day ... without any lunch!'

  'I had a delicious lunch,' she protested. 'I made friends with a boy called Fernando. He was fishing from a pier and he shared his catch with me. We cooked the fish over a driftwood fire and had bread and tomatoes with it.'

  'Fernando, eh? I hope he proved less ardent than your other caballero?'

  Now she laughed in earnest. 'He was most gallant and very charming,' she smiled. 'He kissed my hand when we parted.'

  'It would have been rather more gallant of the young man to see you arrived home safely.'

  Don Juan looked so stern that she couldn't stop laughing. He took her by the shoulders and shook her. 'Why are you laughing at me?' he demanded. 'What is so amusing?'

  'Only that my young man of the beach was eleven years old, senor. '

  'You little devil,' the grip of his hands tightened, 'so you would tease me, eh?'