Red Lotus

by Catherine Airlie

The voice of the waves had risen to a crescendo of angry sound as the wind rose and freshened, and somewhere nearer at hand a neglected shutter slapped endlessly against the stable wall. A horse whinnied twice, a dismayed, anxious protest rising above the others, and she heard the sound of feet walking away towards the stables across the patio tiles.

  Someone—either Philip or Julio—had been sitting down there in the darkness for a very long time contemplating the storm-racked sky, feeling the impact of what was to come with a sense of the inevitable, perhaps.

  She felt the unseen presence of the man as if he had suddenly stepped close on to the balcony by her side, and instinctively she drew back, half afraid, half guilty about being caught out there when she had promised Philip to rest.

  The first flash of lightning lit up the sky, showing her the rugged outline of El Teide. The great mountain stood revealed for a moment in all his awful majesty, only to be hidden again more completely as the thunder of his wrath rolled among the lesser peaks and out to sea.

  Again and again the shattering peals shook the night, vibrating against space only to return with demoniacal fury in the wake of another piercing shaft of light which seemed to reveal every contour of the dark hillsides and each detail of the garden at her feet.

  The paths and the flower-crowded poyos were starkly white under the fierce light and there were no shadows. The recurring flashes illuminated everything, so that she was instantly aware of the returning figure of the man who came up from the stables.

  He walked straight towards the house, standing in the shelter of the patio as the rain broke, and the gleam of his white shirt told her that it was Philip.

  There was release in that first surging downpour of rain. It was as if the heavens had opened and let out all their wrath. The pent-up emotion in her own heart surged to meet it, loosening tension, and it was only after a minute or two that she became aware of another, more sinister sound.

  At first she thought that it must be the wind, and then she was aware of rushing water, of a cascading avalanche

  hurtling over the parched earth, leaping exultantly towards the sea. It filled the arid barrancos and terrified the night. The palms which had quivered in the wind now trembled and lay down before it, their feathery heads bent almost to the earth, and the chestnuts and the ancient dragon trees sighed in their troubled sleep.

  It seemed to Felicity that the whole island would soon be swamped by that relentless, rushing tide, and then, suddenly, the rain ceased. It was like the swift turning off of a tap, and a little rush of cool air came up to find her where she stood.

  She seemed to be arrested there. She could not move, and somehow she knew that she was waiting for the man in the patio to come to her.

  He came slowly, as if he had known for some time that she was standing there.

  "You could not sleep?" he guessed. "Was it your foot?"

  "No." She held on to the balcony rail, her knuckles showing up white against her flesh. "No, it wasn't that."

  "You must not mind the storm," he said, coming to stand beneath her on the wet tiles of the path. "The rain is necessary to us here. It clears the atmosphere and gives us the moisture we, need for growth. We gather the rain in reservoirs on the hillsides. What you can hear is the gulleypipes running down the sides of the barrancos to irrigate the valley below."

  "I confess to being frightened at first," she said, "but once you know about the water it doesn't seem so bad. If I had been wakened up by the storm I expect I would have been more afraid."

  She could just distinguish his dark profile, upturned towards her, and she thought that he smiled.

  "I wondered," he said, "when I saw you out here."

  How long had he been sitting in the patio, then? He had sensed her presence as she had sensed his, because he could not have seen her except in the illuminating flashes of the lightning. She had stood on the balcony long before the storm had broken. Had he been down there as long?

  "Go to bed," he said at last, softly, almost tenderly. "There will be no more thunder. Only perhaps a little rain."

  The kindness—the pity—in his voice all but unnerved

  her. The new-found love in her heart was a stark and lonely thing, stretching out eager hands towards him, but how could he see? How could he ever see when his eyes were fixed so firmly on a distant star?

  CHAPTER VI

  THE SHADOW OF THE PALM

  LAUGHTER rang up through the narrow streets of Zamora to meet the sunshine. It was very warm, and the windows and shaded courtyards and the tiny plaza beneath its tall canopy of palms were alive with people in festive mood.

  "The very word fiesta spells laughter and gaiety and a sort of careless abandonment to happiness!" Felicity smiled as she stood beside Philip watching the milling crowd. "There could be nothing quite like this in England."

  "We are a different race," he said. "Zamora is a happy continuation of Andalusia without the hardness that war and religious fanaticism and passionate violence have left in the Andalusian cities. In Zamora the windows are left unbarred and the doors are open. There is no reminder of the cloister here."

  "Yet you would not let Conchita come yesterday to stay overnight. I think that was—ungenerous, Philip."

  His mouth hardened at her protest, but his decision had seemed harsh to her and she would not relent. Conchita's wiles and Conchita's tears had availed her nothing.

  "I can't permit Conchita to make a fool of herself," he said coldly.

  "But surely—an evening in the company of friends of her own age?" She was beginning to feel that he had been obstinate. "It was a well organized affair, I understand. A tennis dance at the Country Club. What could have been more English—or more American, if you like!"

  "It was not Conchita's intention to go to the Club." There was an angry light in his eyes now and his mouth was grim.

  "But—" Her voice wavered. "But surely that was impossible, Philip?"

  He laughed.

  "Nothing is entirely impossible to the Conchitas of this world," he said. "They are wilful and perverse and when they believe themselves in love no power of reasoning or anything else will convince them that love alone is not enough."

  She looked up at him, frowning in the bright sunshine. "It's—almost as if you didn't believe in love, Philip," she said.

  He did not turn to look at her.

  "I don't believe in Conchita's kind of love," he acknowledged decisively.

  "Are there several kinds?" Her voice was not quite steady. "I always thought there was one supreme passion—and nothing more."

  "For some people." He was looking down at her, at last, his eyes fiercely blue in the bright sunlight, penetratingly blue. "You are an idealist, Felicity. Unfortunately, I have to think in terms of Conchita."

  "Because of the promise you made to her father?" she asked with fuller understanding. "Promises are often difficult things to keep, I agree."

  "I mean to keep this one." His jaw was set, making his face in profile look autocratic and hard, the face of a man to whom a woman might appeal in vain. "Conchita is something of an exhibitionist. With a little encouragement she could set Zamora and the entire island by the ears."

  She thought that he did not care for gossip, that he had braved what must have been one of the most outstanding topics for surmise the island had ever known, and then she realized that this was different. This was Conchita. This was something which might injure a young girl's reputation for the rest of her life, and he was Conchita's appointed guardian. A stern gaoler he might be, but it was strength that Conchita needed.

  "You would have handled the situation differently?" he suggested.

  "I don't know, Philip." She turned to face him more fully. "When I—questioned your decision just now I thought you were being hard and adamant for hardness' sake."

  "The man of granite, in fact, without a finer feeling to redeem him?" He smiled dryly. "If that were so I should

  have let Conchita do as she pleased. But neith
er am I a sentimental fool, Felicity, and I must see that Conchita does as I say."

  "Do you feel that I can help you?" she asked.

  "Not in this," he returned bluntly. "Conchita, as I have said, needs firm handling. You could not even begin to understand her in her present frame of mind. She is no longer a child. She is a woman—a tigress with newly-grown claws—a creature of impulse driven by her emotions towards an end she cannot really see."

  "You said she was in love." Her voice all but faltered. "Is it—so very wrong to be in love, Philip—sincerely and whole-heartedly?"

  "No." He looked beyond her, away from her questioning gaze. "If I thought that Conchita was really in love 'sincerely and whole-heartedly,' as you put it, I would excuse her, I think."

  "How can you know?" she asked automatically. "How can you really be sure?"

  "I know Conchita," he answered briefly. "The finest fruit is always just beyond her reach; the most desirable always at the top of the tree."

  Felicity did not answer him. She felt anxious and deeply disturbed, and she did not want to ask about the object of Conchita's latest passion. Rafael de Barrios and her cousin had been together almost constantly the day before, the preparations for the fiesta at Zamora seized upon as a reasonable excuse for jaunts in the fast-moving Mercedes which had taken them all over the little town nestling above the sea and into the surrounding valleys to gather flowers of the special colouring demanded by the carpet makers.

  These lovely, living carpets of blossoms with their exquisite design had taken hours to prepare and men had worked on them all during the night so that they might be ready for the procession of the saint in the early morning, with the dew still wet on them and their radiant colours fresh in the sun.

  The procession was over. They had watched it winding its way through the network of narrow streets and out across the shaded plaza to climb to the pink stucco chapel on the hill. The priests had walked in front, black-robed and sombre against the brilliant natural background and the carpet of flowers beneath their feet, and the banners had

  been borne reverently to be replaced beside the saint. The tiny cracked bell on the chapel tower had chimed discordantly and the people had returned to fiesta and the ending of their day.

  Laughter and gaiety were the predominating notes everywhere. This was a joyous people, Felicity thought as she looked about her, a race attuned to happiness and full of life and movement and blissful with content. She tried to meet their mood, tried to forget her heartache for a day, and because Philip had set out to please her it was proving an easy task.

  They had come from San Lozaro early in the morning and had watched the procession before going to the de Barrios's villa for their mid-day meal. Isabella had gone with her family to mass, but Philip and Felicity had stood on the hillside after the procession had passed, listening to the bell in the stillness. They had not spoken much. Felicity had been content just to sit beside Philip on a cool stone seat shaded by a spreading dragon tree, watching the sea breaking gently on the distant shore, as if even the mighty Atlantic must approach this magic island of the ancients with respect and gentleness on such a day.

  She had looked up at the dragon tree, at its gnarled branches which plunged dramatically back into the earth from which they had sprung to form new roots, and suddenly she was thinking of the ancient Guanche kings who had ruled and dispensed justice beneath its shade hundreds of years ago. She thought, too, of the loves and the hates and the little passions that had been played out there where she and Philip sat.

  There had been scarcely any time for the habitual siesta, although Isabella had insisted that they sit for an hour in the patio where the air was cool and moist round the fountain.

  Rafael, who was the perfect host, had amused them with a long description of a fiesta in Seville where he had danced far into the night with a charming señorita who had turned out to be no other than his mother's personal maid, whom he knew very well but whom he had failed to recognize in the mask and the fancy costume she had borrowed for the day.

  "It was the mask," he shrugged. "The truth is not always to be seen in a woman's eyes."

  Isabella had risen from her chair and gone abruptly into the house, as if she were afraid of the truth in her own eyes in that moment, and Philip had pushed back his chair with a sharp, angry movement which had been like a protest in the sudden silence.

  He had taken Andrea and Sisa and Felicity to the plaza, where they had eaten strawberries and thick, rich cream, and Rafael had followed lazily in their wake with Conchita between him and Julio.

  Julio looked the romantic troubadour he really was. His dark hair had been ruffled by the wind and curled thickly about his brow and his eyes shone and sparkled with the light of adventure. Fiesta was no new thing to him, but each fiesta brought its own delight, its own spice of the unknown, the unexpected. He had slung his guitar across his shoulders and its broad ribbon seared the front of his white silk shirt with a gallant splash of scarlet. The flash of his smile was as gay and as carefree, it would seem, as any there.

  Yet, once or twice, when she looked at him, Felicity was aware of a growing watchfulness, of the dark eyes narrowed a fraction so that the sparkle of abandonment was all but lost. It was the mood of an instant, however, the fleeting glimpse of something only half seen and best forgotten.

  When the dancers came, weaving their garland of flowers about the watchers in the plaza, he took up the refrains of the island songs on his guitar, looking at Felicity as if he would will her to understand the impassioned words he sang. With a little inward tremor she remembered the scene on the way to El Teide. She had tried to forget about Julio's light love-making in the interval, but now it seemed that he did not want her to forget.

  Or was it just the mood of the fiesta, the quick passion inspired by the warmth of a sub-tropical sun and the gaiety of a naturally-generous people on a day of rejoicing?

  She did not know. She told herself that she must not take Julio too seriously when possibly his protestations of love meant little more than affection, and when he asked her to dance with him she got on to her feet quite eagerly.

  "Mind the ankle," Philip warned. "You're still taking a risk with it."

  Julio's arm tightened about her.

  "It will not hurt!" he said, his lips close against her hair. "To dance is as easy as to walk, and soon you will have forgotten all except the music!"

  "It isn't a dance I know," Felicity objected, wondering if she had been foolish to obey the impulse which had drawn her with him into the crowd. "I shall make mistakes, Julio. I'll keep the others back—"

  "I shall teach you!" he laughed, holding her close. "You have only to learn to listen to the rhythm and hear what the words are really saying! You have only to let yourself go!"

  Which is something the English rarely do, Felicity thought with a smile.

  "You are happy—yes?" Julio demanded immediately. "I will make you happy, Felicity!" His arms tightened as he pressed his lips against her hair. "Tell me you love me a little bit."

  "I can't tell a lie." Her heart was beating wildly, protestingly, against his.

  "It would not be a lie!" He was suddenly full of confidence. "You like me a little. It is true." He waited for a fraction of a second, gazing down at her as they danced. "Why do you not say so?" he demanded.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  "Of course, I like you, Julio," she said, "but—"

  "We will not consider 'bur anymore!" he decided with

  true Latin impetuosity. "It is agreed that we like each

  other, that you will come one day to like me very much."

  "No, Julio, I haven't said that!" she protested weakly.

  "But you will," he predicted. "When you have forgotten

  about Philip you will."

  She stiffened in his warm embrace.

  "We can't discuss Philip like this," she said.

  "No? Are you in love with him, then? So very much in love with him that you
will not ever have time for me?" His look was darkly fierce and she could no longer consider it lightly. "Because if that is so," he added before she could think of the words to placate him, "I shall kill him."

  "Julio—hush!" she whispered, aghast.

  " 'Julio, hush!' " he mocked. "But why should not the whole of Zamora hear? They know that I hate Philip Arnold. They know that already I have an unfulfilled desire to punish him."

  She felt suddenly afraid because she could not dismiss this admission of hatred as the idle chatter of a boy. Julio meant what he said. In spite of the findings of the court, in spite of the exonerating words which the presiding judge had uttered in Philip's favour, Julio believed him guilty of Maria's death. Maria had loved Philip and he, according to Julio, had grown tired of her.

  Felicity shivered at the thought. It wasn't true, of course. Philip had loved Maria right up to the time of her death. She felt certain of that. She had to be certain.

  "Don't let's speak about it, Julio," she begged. "Not here. It is too serious a thing. It is something you must not go on thinking "

  He drew her on in the stream of dancers without answering, so that she knew he was far from being convinced.

  The dance had taken on the nature of a procession winding in and out between the houses, now in full sunlight, now in shade. They had left the plaza behind and she was lost. Lost without Philip.

  Julio laughed at her distress.

  "I am here!" he reminded her. "You can be happy with me."

  It would have been difficult not to enjoy herself and be happy in that gay throng. When night fell with the tropical suddenness which she had never become quite used to, they were still apart from Philip and the others and Julio continued to laugh her protests aside.

  "You are safe," he assured her, "with me!"

  Perhaps that was so, but she was subtly aware of Philip's disapproval, even at that distance. He had been doing his best all day to keep their small party together, to avoid just such a breakaway as this, and now it must seem that she was defying him, especially after their conversation in the plaza when they had first come down from the hill. She had accused him of unnecessary harshness in his handling of Conchita. Might he not think now that she was accusing him also on Julio's behalf in this less direct way?