Red Lotus

by Catherine Airlie

  "Which is largely sentiment," he assured her dryly. "Lozaro Alto no longer 'belongs' to me. My mother sold it before she died. Six months before. It was only by your

  uncle's continuing kindness that we remained there. In other words, we were his tenants, responsible to him for the cultivation of the land." –

  There had not been any bitterness in his voice. Not even the lethargic calm of a stoical acceptance. He was stating a sequence of facts, and he did not expect her to attempt to refute them, even for his comfort or to show her sympathy.

  She did not think that he wanted sympathy. This man was a law unto himself. He would not allow the past to interfere with the present or the future.

  "I had come to ask you if you think Sisa should be present tomorrow morning," he said briefly. "There may be a considerable amount of argument, and, in spite of her precocity in some things, I consider her still a child."

  She was surprised that he should have asked her advice in this way, but she did not say so.

  "You know the Spanish custom better than I do, Mr. Arnold," she said.

  "I should still like to hear your opinion, all the same," he persisted.

  "Would it be—kinder to spare Sisa any unpleasantness?" she suggested.

  "Undoubtedly," he agreed. "But she is, of course, one of the family."

  "I could take her out all morning," she offered tentatively. "Perhaps we could even go somewhere in the car, since you won't be using it?"

  "I'm afraid Señor Perez wants you to be here," he said. "Carlota can look after Sisa. She has a music lesson due, I believe, at Orotava. It is practically a whole morning's drive."

  The note of finality in his voice was not to be ignored. Her presence was necessary at tomorrow's meeting with the solicitor. If she had wanted to protest she could not, because already the atmosphere was full of dissension and she could not add to it.

  "Very well," she agreed, "I shall stay."

  He stood aside to let her pass. The decision had been made as he had wanted it. He was, as Conchita had said, quite ruthless in some things.

  Julio's impassioned revelation about Philip and Maria

  haunted her far into the night, and even when she did sleep, her restless dreams were disturbed by it.

  In the morning Sisa was frankly torn between her wish to go to Orotava for the music lesson which she apparently enjoyed and the desire to be at the hacienda when Señor Perez arrived.

  "I wish you could come to La Orotava with me," she said to Felicity when Sabino had brought the car round to the terrace steps. "You would love it, and we could pay a visit to Zamora on the way home. Andrea also goes for her music lessons to Señora Herrandez, and sometimes we are there together, because Andrea stays to talk with the old señor. He is quite bedridden," she added seriously, "and he therefore likes people to go to see him." She looked up at her cousin with a sudden smile. "Andrea de Barrios is my friend," she added proudly.

  The name seemed to hit Felicity between the eyes, and there was a strange constriction in her throat as she asked: "Is—your friend, Andrea, as old as you are?"

  "She is older," Sisa said. "But that makes little difference."

  Surely, Felicity thought, this could not be Rafael de Barrios' daughter. A child—a girl older than Sisa—sixteen or seventeen, perhaps.

  "She is Rafael's sister," Sisa informed her, as if she had sensed her curiosity about the de Barrios. "He has four sisters altogether, but they do not all live at Zamora. One of them lives at Las Palmas, on Gran Canaria, and another one is married and lives in Barcelona."

  the waiting car. It was evident that she enjoyed the dignity

  Sabino blew the horn and Sisa turned eagerly towards of going alone to Orotava, even with Carlota and Sabino in attendance. She sat demurely in the back seat, pulling on her cotton gloves and waving to Felicity as she drove away.

  There was no sign of Julio nor Conchita anywhere in or around the hacienda, and Felicity wondered nervously if they intended to defy Philip and stay away from the meeting with the family lawyer.

  Defiance, however, would gain them nothing. She felt quite sure of that. It would only postpone the knowledge of their father's provision for them in the future and cause unnecessary delay in the settling of their affairs.

  She stood uncertainly on the terrace, wondering if she

  should wait out there or in the patio, deciding eventually on the patio because it might seem too much as if she were waiting to receive the lawyer when he came if she remained where she was.

  It was Philip who finally brought him into the house. He was an old man, yet his bearing was upright and proud, like so many of the Spaniards she had seen even on her short journey from Las Palmas to the airport at La Laguna. Like Rafael de Barrios, for instance. . . .

  But she did not want to think about the Marques de Barrios, not with Philip Arnold's far-seeing blue eyes upon her and the memory of his angry contempt in her heart.

  "This is Señor Perez, your uncle's lawyer," he introduced them. "Miss Stanmore still has a little difficulty with her Spanish," he explained, "so perhaps we could conduct our business in English?"

  "Certainly. Most certainly!" Señor Perez agreed as they shook hands. "It is a great delight to me to be able to speak your language, Miss Stanmore," he added. "I studied in England for some years when I was a young man and I find it renews my youth to converse in a tongue I grew to understand almost as well as my own."

  "I am hoping to be able to speak Spanish fluently before I return to England," Felicity told him "It will help me in my search for work there."

  Señor Perez gave her a short, quizzical look before he glanced across the room at Philip, and when Felicity turned in the younger man's direction he was frowning. He pulled the ancient bell-rope hanging on the wall and presently the fat, elderly Marta waddled in with a tray of glasses and a flagon of the fine local wine. She returned in a minute or two with a platter of little sweet cakes and some of the coarse biscuits which Felicity had seen her baking the day before. Marta did everything with the unhurried movements of the person to whom time means nothing at all, and indeed time was often discounted altogether in this enchanted valley. Felicity could not believe, for instance, that she had only been here a week. It seemed already that most of her life had run its course at San Lozaro; that this was where she might belong.

  Less than twenty-four hours ago Philip Arnold had discounted such a thought as foolish sentiment. He did not agree with belonging. Only with conquest.

  Twice he glanced at his watch, comparing it impatiently with the clock in the corner.

  "I have to apologize for Conchita and Julio," he said, turning to the lawyer. "Perhaps Miss Stanmore would pour you out some wine and I shall go and see if they are anywhere to be found."

  His courtesy left nothing to be desired,' Felicity realized, but his anger with her cousins was obvious. He had been forced to act host in Julio's absence, but she knew that he was not trying to impress the lawyer in any way. She could not imagine him acting a part, she mused as she poured the old man a glass of wine, and when he came back to the patio with Conchita and Julio at his heels she saw that he was far from being satisfied with the excuses they had offered for their childish behaviour. It had been a definite slight to the old man, and he would have none of it. Señor Perez was a family friend as well as being the family lawyer.

  When they had drunk their wine he led the way into Robert Hallam's study, offering the lawyer the chair behind the desk so that he could spread out his papers on it in comfort. His brief-case was not bulky. It seemed that he had little to tell them.

  He read the will in detail, in Spanish, and then he turned to Felicity to explain:

  "Your uncle suggests that you should stay here, Miss Stanmore, at least until Sisa is eighteen. Then, if she wishes it, she could return to England with you, to finish her education there. Your uncle has left you a small bequest, and you will be kept here as one of the family. It was his earnest hope that you will stay and he
lp to further the English way of life at San Lozaro. He was very anxious about that," he added simply.

  Felicity did not know what to say. The atmosphere was already electric. Julio sat frowning in his chair, his hands clenched on the carved arm-rests, his brows drawn blackly above protesting eyes, and Conchita's red mouth was frankly rebellious.

  With her limited knowledge of Spanish, Felicity had only been able to follow the official wording of the will at intervals, but she had heard Philip's name repeated, again and again, throughout the long text and had been aware of Julio scowling at him with increasing hatred in his eyes.

  "So now," Señor Perez concluded, "we have the full knowledge of what Señor Hallam wanted at San Lozaro. `Stability' is the word he uses most often," he pointed out to his silent audience. "A solid background and a guiding hand in the affairs of the estate."

  "Not only in the affairs of the estate," Julio burst out, "but in our personal affairs as well! In our lives! My father has made Philip our guardian—the real ruler of San Lozaro! He has taken away my birthright and given it to—a murderer!"

  The dreadful word rang through the silent room, followed almost immediately by Conchita's swiftly indrawn cry.

  "No, Julio! No!"

  Felicity could not believe for a moment that Julio had really uttered the ugly accusation in Philip's presence, and the old lawyer looked dazed and unhappy as he stood fumbling with the document he had just read.

  Only Philip remained calm and appeared to be unconcerned. He gave Julio a coldly calculating look before he said, with a brief shrug of dismissal which might have appeared callous in another man

  "Your father did not hold that view, Julio, and now we have to carry out your father's will. You are not disinherited, nor are you deprived of your birthright in any way. San Lozaro is yours. The only condition that your father has imposed is that you are not to come into your full inheritance till you are twenty-one."

  "Yes, that is so." Señor Perez was still a trifle flurried, although evidently relieved that the situation had not taken a more violent turn. He was taking his cue from Philip and ignoring Julio's impassioned outburst. "All that has been done is that your father has appointed a guardian for you till you come of age, and until Sisa is eighteen. Señor Arnold benefits only to the extent that your father has left Lozaro Alto to him as an outright gift."

  Felicity drew in a deep breath. How could Julio object to that? How could he grudge Philip the return of his own land after ten years of faithful service to San Lozaro?

  Yet she knew that Julio did object. His sullen face and restless eyes suggested that he would never allow himself to be reconciled to his father's will, but the most hurtful thorn in his flesh was not Lozaro Alto so much as the fact

  that he was to remain answerable to Philip for the next three years.

  Was it too harsh a decision? Looking at Philip and then back to Julio, she found herself unable to answer, but she did know that any peace there might have been in this lovely, hidden, sub-tropical valley had been irrevocably shattered by an old man's hope for the future.

  Julio sat gnawing at his lower lip for a moment longer, and then he got to his feet and rushed from the room without saying goodbye to the lawyer. Conchita hesitated, her dark eyes full of tears.

  "I must go after him," she said. "He may do something of folly—"

  Philip let her go. Underlying the anger in his eyes, there was sympathy—for Conchita, no doubt.

  "You will wait and take some food with us?" he asked the lawyer, but Señor Perez shook his head.

  "I am to be at Santa Cruz before three o'clock," he informed them as he gathered his papers together and put them carefully into the black brief-case. "I have urgent business there, and so I must just snatch a meal on the way. At San Juan, perhaps, or with my sister at Tacoronte. Although we do not live far apart," he added with a smile, "we see increasingly less of each other as the years go by."

  Philip went out to the terrace with him when he had wished Felicity goodbye, and she stood in the dimness of her uncle's study wondering if it were really fair that a dead man should direct other people's lives for them in such a way as this.

  "Your uncle knew what was best for San Lozaro."

  Philip had come back into the room. He was standing between her and the door, but even when she turned to look at him she could not guess what he was thinking. His face was a mask, made even more obscure by the dimmed light which filtered greenly into the room through the slatted blinds.

  "Yes, I suppose so," she conceded uncertainly. "But was he also sure what was best for his children?"

  "Julio is San Lozaro," he answered without hesitation. "That has not been changed by your uncle's will."

  "No, I suppose not. Julio will come to his inheritance—in time."

  She did not know why she had said that. It had been almost a question.

  "Yes," he said, "in time."

  "And what of Conchita?" she heard herself asking.

  "Conchita will stay here, of course," he said. "She is under my guardianship. She will not question her father's wisdom in that respect. Certainly not openly. Conchita is Spanish at heart."

  How sure he was! Felicity suddenly felt her cheeks burning. Was he sure of her, also?

  "I had no idea that I should be mentioned in my uncle's will," she said. "I find it most generous of him "

  "He was, on the whole, a generous man, although not an over-indulgent one. He has asked you to stay here. What are you going to do?"

  He shot the question at her without any change of expression, and she found herself saying rather nervously:

  "I suppose I shall stay. I had meant to stay for at least a year when I first came."

  There was the suggestion of calculation in his blue eyes as he continued to look at her.

  "Yet if it hadn't been for this dying request of Robert Hallam's you might quite conceivably have changed your mind?" he suggested.

  "I don't know. I—if I had felt that I was really needed, I would have stayed in any case."

  He accepted her decision with a brief nod.

  "I'm sure your uncle expected it," he said. "He had judged you largely by the letters you wrote to him after his sister's death. He told me that your mother and he were very fond of each other as children, and that made him feel that you were very close to him. He believed, too, that you might be the right sort of person to bring up Sisa and have a restraining influence on Conchita."

  "I feel that I have come to know Sisa very well, even after one short week," Felicity said.

  "But not Conchita?"

  He regarded her quizzically for a moment and then he smiled.

  "That is not surprising," he said. "I don't think you will ever really understand Conchita."

  "I can try," she said with spirit. "I have no intention of

  turning Conchita into a prim English miss, if that is what you fear!"

  "It would be impossible," he said with a deepening smile. "Conchita was born a tigress."

  She met his eyes uncertainly, not able to believe that this was the sort of woman he would want. A girl with spirit, perhaps, but not a teenage spitfire who didn't know her own mind and only wanted to play at being in love.

  "I shall appeal to you for help," she found herself saying, "if Conchita gets out of hand."

  He shrugged almost indifferently.

  "I am more concerned with Julio," he confessed unexpectedly. "No one walking about with an outsize chip on his shoulder as Julio does can be really happy."

  "He's too young to have such deeply-rooted prejudices," she agreed. "Perhaps he will forget his—resentment in time."

  "About San Lozaro? I hope so." He seemed to be thinking about something quite different, and Maria's name sprang instantly to Felicity's mind. "Julio is too intense," was all he said, however, as Sisa came rushing in through the sun-warmed patio to greet them.

  "Philip! Philip!" she cried, "I can play right through Poet and Peasant without one single mistake! You must h
ear me," she declared, "because it is your favourite piece!"

  Oddly surprised by the revelation, Felicity looked at Philip, but he did not seem to be at all embarrassed by Sisa's enthusiasm.

  "We must play it together, then," he suggested, "when I can find the time. You must remind me, querida!"

  "When you have made a promise you will keep it," Sisa acknowledged briefly. "Now, tell me what is to become of us, Philip. Are we to stay at San Lozaro?"

  "Indeed you are!" He smiled down into her small, flushed face with genuine affection in his eyes. "And I am to stay and look after you."

  "I am so happy!" Sisa said, swinging on his arm. "Are you to look after Julio and Conchita, too?"

  "To the best of my ability," he told her gravely.

  "And Felicity?" Sisa swung round to regard her cousin with wide, contemplative eyes. "Are you to be her guardian, Philip?"

  Philip's mouth twisted in a wry smile.

  "I think not. You see," he explained when Sisa would have protested in disappointment, "Felicity is of age. She is already her own mistress."

  Felicity could feel the colour rising in her cheeks as he continued to look at her.

  "But she will stay here?" Sisa probed.

  "Yes," Philip said, "she has promised to stay."

  "That makes everything wonderfully simple!" Sisa declared, clasping her hands ecstatically. "It means that none of us need leave San Lozaro, nor the valley, nor Zamora, nor the de Barrios, nor anything!"

  Mention of the de Barrios swept all the indulgence from Philip's eyes.

  "Did you call at Zamora on your way back?" he asked almost peremptorily.

  "Of course! Andrea and I came back together. Don Rafael picked up their car at La Orotava to drive to Santa Cruz for the afternoon and I gave Andrea a lift home. But I generally do stop at Zamora, Philip."

  "Yes," he agreed distantly, "so you do."

  His thoughts were obviously elsewhere, but Sisa ran on without seeming to notice his preoccupation.

  "We are invited to the fiesta," she announced. "We must go, Philip. Promise that we may go!"