‘You are going to an island that is still part of my country,’ he pointed out. ‘I do not expect you to fall in love with Tenerife straight away—Teresa will colour your opinion too darkly for that—but it is a beautiful island, one of the loveliest in the world, in fact.’
‘The “Lost Atlantis”!’ Catherine murmured. ‘Or is that too fanciful a thought, senor? I’ve read about your island, but I’ve never been there. This will be something new for me, although it was unexpected.’
‘I hope that Soria will not disappoint you,’ he said to her further surprise. ‘My sister-in-law has lived there since my brother’s death and, of course, it is also Teresa’s home. I see no reason to alter these arrangements at the moment. We are a family of which I am now the head. When my brother was alive I also lived on the hacienda, but in a smaller house by myself, but that is changed. Teresa will tell you that Soria is a prison, but I try to make life as pleasant as possible for her. She has everything she needs, within reason, but unfortunately she has a chip on her shoulder—a stepmother chip!’
He smiled, and she was amazed at the difference it made to his dark countenance, erasing the lines which she had believed to be permanently etched between his brows.
‘We might be able to help her over that particular hurdle,’ she suggested. ‘Teresa is very young for her age in some respects.’
‘I thought you young for your age when we first met.’ The disconcerting confession was so unlike him as to seem completely out of character. ‘But perhaps I am a bad judge of women.’
‘I’ve done nothing to convince you otherwise since I came,’ Catherine admitted, ‘but I really didn’t see anything wrong about going to Botin’s without permission the other night. It wasn’t exactly polite to leave the Vegas’ so early. I realise that now and I’m very sorry.’
‘You have already apologised,’ he told her in the autocratic tone which she found so disconcerting. ‘We will say no more about it. You must see that I have to keep Teresa on a fairly tight rein because she is so impetuous and often foolish, but I really do understand how she feels.’
It was an admission which she had not expected him to make and it melted the ice a little. In some ways he was quite human.
‘Perhaps we can work something out once we get to Soria,’ she suggested.
He looked doubtful.
‘Perhaps we can try,’ he said.
The following morning they took their leave of the Marquesa, although she did not wish them goodbye. ‘Hasta la vista!’ she said. ‘We will meet again.’
They drove to the airport in plenty of time for their flight, their luggage piled in the capacious boot of the car while Catherine sat beside a pouting Teresa in the back seat.
‘We could have stayed for one week more,’ she complained. ‘This has been Lucia’s doing. She cannot bear Jaime to be away from Soria for too long.’
Catherine thought that it had much more to do with their own disobedience, but refrained from saying so because Teresa was in no mood for a reasonable argument. If Lucia had indeed sent for Jaime the fact that he had come running seemed also out of character, although it was difficult to judge if love had a hand in it.
She had become increasingly curious about Lucia, the woman who had married one Berceo Madroza for the power it would give her and who now wanted to marry his brother for a reason best known to herself. Love? Of course, it could be love. Lucia might be madly in love with Don Jaime and she already had one claim on his allegiance. She was his brother’s widow and in the Spanish household she was, therefore, his responsibility. When he had spoken about her he had accepted the fact.
The flight was shorter than she expected. They went out over the sea, low enough to watch the Iberian coastline fading away behind them, and by the time a meal had been served they were well above the Atlantic. Seated beside Teresa, Catherine felt a new excitement stirring in her veins, the lure of far-away places which her father had known for so long. She wondered if she was a wanderer at heart or did she really believe that there must be a place somewhere for her to put down roots?
She read a little, glancing at Don Jaime in the seat on the far side of the aisle from time to time, but he was busy with a thick sheaf of correspondence which he had taken out of his briefcase at the beginning of the flight, suggesting that he had no need for conversation to while away the time. Teresa gazed moodily out of her porthole between bouts of thumbing through the magazines she had bought at Barajas, but presently she sat bolt upright in her seat to stare out towards the horizon.
‘You’ll get your first view of the island in a moment or two,’ she announced. ‘I suppose it’s something you shouldn’t miss, although Jaime thinks it’s more dramatic to see from a ship. I’ll tell you when to look.’ She remained poised on the edge of her seat, peering through the porthole at the cloudless blue sky beyond the wing-tip and the blue sea beneath. ‘El Teide is our resident mountain and you can see him a long way off, like a lost pyramid sitting on the horizon. Look, there he is now, taking shape! Today he has his little cap on his head, but most of the time he is quite clear!’
Catherine could just make out a vague, conical shape, the ghost of a mountain peak riding the waves like a distant ship. It was so far away as to be scarcely discernible at first, but she watched in silence as it came nearer, slowly emerging from the mists of distance with a white cloud-cap on its head. Teresa had sounded excited when she had spoken about El Teide, yet only a few hours ago she had called Soria a prison. Was it only the hacienda she disliked so much?
‘He governs all our lives, that great mountain,’ Teresa was saying. ‘He is always there, so close sometimes that you believe he has come stealthily in the night to hear what you say. But he can also be a distant giant, wrapped in his mantle of cloud till he is almost hidden away. The labourers at Soria are afraid of El Teide; they are superstitious of his power.’
Catherine’s gaze still lingered on the distant peak, but suddenly she looked up to find Don Jaime standing beside her.
‘What do you think of our resident giant?’ he asked. ‘The first time you see him will remain for a long time in your memory. When you live in his shadow you will come to know him better.’
His dark eyes were fixed on the approaching mountain and she knew instinctively that this was his land, the place where he had put down roots which went deep beneath the surface, the place where he wanted to be. If he had only come to Soria because of his brother’s untimely death that did not matter. He was Soria now and that was enough. She could not believe that the mark of Cain was on his brow, as Teresa had hinted, although she had quickly denied the gossip to affirm her belief in him.
‘The Fortunate Isles!’ she mused, looking down on the smudge of sun-kissed islands lying just ahead of them. ‘I’ve always thought it a lovely description.’
‘It is a name you have to discover for yourself,’ he said. ‘Tourists come here and go away, but they rarely know the islands as they really are. Of course they are fortunate when the sun shines most of the time and the temperature rarely falls below sixty degrees along the coast, but they have a hidden face which you have to come to terms with, sooner or later. Once you have done that you can find happiness.’
‘Have you always lived here?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘We are a fourth generation at Soria. The estate was granted to one of my ancestors for services to Spain when your Admiral Nelson was defeated at Santa Cruz. That was a long time ago,’ he smiled, ‘but you will see that my roots go very deep.’
Catherine gazed down at the islands lying beneath them now in a sea of incredible blue. There were seven of them in all, a little world on their own washed by the vast Atlantic swell but so near to the coast of North Africa as almost to be lying in its mysterious shadow. For a moment, as she looked, a little chill wind seemed to blow across her heart, yet they were compounded of sunshine and light, each with a character of its own.
‘Gran Canaria is the loveliest of them
all,’ Teresa declared as they fastened their seatbelts, ‘but we seldom go there. Jaime’s world is on Tenerife, at Soria, and that will be your world, too, while you remain with us.’
They began to lose height on their approach to Tenerife, with the giant, El Teide, watching from the mountain fastness of Las Canadas, which was his home, but as they circled the white port lying at the edge of the sea Catherine realised that they would touch down farther inland on a high plateau on the northern end of the island.
‘La Laguna was a natural landing strip,’ Jaime told her. ‘It serves both sides of the island equally well.’
What she could see of their landfall was curiously disappointing at first. Tenerife, even when it was bathed in dazzling sunshine, looked dark and forbidding, with deep black valleys piercing the landscape and harsh gullies biting deep into the mountainsides. Then, as they drew nearer, she could see the lush green of trees and crops ripening in the sun and clusters of little white houses clinging to the mountainsides, and the face of the island was suddenly fair.
Set high on a small amphitheatre among the mountains, La Laguna was a gem. Catherine had never seen so many flowers blooming so lavishly all at once and she could well believe that their perfume could be wafted across the water to passing ships in the more leisurely days of sail to gain the Canaries the romantic title of the Fortunate Isles. She thought about the ancient Guanche who had inhabited these lands for a thousand years, living as though their little islands were the whole world and nothing beyond the sea mattered to them.
‘Well, we’re here!’ Teresa said in a flat tone.
Almost imperceptibly they had touched down on the wide apron in front of the main reception area, and Catherine gathered her hand-luggage together while Don Jaime took down her white woollen coat from the overhead rack.
‘You’re not going to need this,’ he said, ‘once we get away from the mountains.’
When they reached the reception lounge he appeared to be searching for a familiar face among the many Spaniards waiting for friends and relations as they came off the Madrid plane.
‘There’s Ramon!’ Teresa cried, dashing forward to embrace a tall young Spaniard who had just come in through the revolving doors.
‘My younger brother,’ Don Jaime explained. ‘I did not think he would come, but it is certainly pleasant to be met by one of the family.’
Teresa was approaching with Ramon in tow and Catherine found herself looking into a pair of dark eyes which were frankly appraising. Ramon de Berceo Madroza, unlike his older brother, was prepared to accept her on sight, possibly because they were of an age and because he had always had an eye for a pretty girl. He, too, had obviously expected her to be much older, and his frank acceptance of her was a sure sign of his surprise and delight.
‘Bienvenida, senorita!’ He bowed over her hand, a gesture Don Jaime had never permitted himself. ‘You are happy to be in Tenerife?’
Catherine hesitated, but only for the split second it took to glance in his brother’s direction. Don Jaime was frowning.
‘Very happy, senor,’ she answered firmly, ‘although it doesn’t really matter where I work.’
‘You will enjoy the hacienda once you have got used to us,’ Ramon assured her, ‘and soon all our errors with your difficult English language will be swept away!’
His tone had been gently teasing, his dark eyes still admiring.
‘If you are ready, Ramon, we will make a move,’ his brother said drily. ‘We have a long journey before us.’
A fleeting spark of resentment kindled in the younger man’s eyes, but it died almost immediately as Ramon helped load their accumulated luggage on to a trolley which a porter trundled out to the large black car waiting for them in the car-park.
Catherine drew in a deep breath of the keen mountain air as she followed Teresa, looking around her at the massed blooms in the immaculate flowerbeds and beyond them to the dark green of a pine forest which clothed the nearer hills. The island rose steeply from the sea and up here on the plateau it was more like Scotland than the subtropical island she had expected, but soon they were in the car and driving Westward towards the coast. The road which had climbed two thousand feet up to the plateau from Santa Cruz de Tenerife now twisted downwards in a series of hairpin bends which afforded them breathtaking views of the other side of the island, of an ochre-coloured coastline fringed by a line of white breakers and backed by a second sea of green banana fronds swaying gently in the cool breeze which had followed them down from the mountains.
‘It’s beautiful—really beautiful!’ she exclaimed involuntarily. ‘I had no idea it would be like this.’
‘Wait till you see Soria,’ Ramon promised, sitting beside her in the back seat. ‘You will fall in love with that, too.’
Don Jaime was driving, with a silent Teresa sitting beside him, but he drew the car up at a suitable passing-bay to let her admire the glorious panorama beneath them. Tropical vegetation had now taken over from the darker line of the forest, and red and violet bougainvillea grew everywhere, cascading over ochre walls and the little houses clustered by the wayside, drooping flamboyantly from a balcony on a lonely farm and sometimes trespassing on to the road itself. Palms had replaced the sombre firs of the mountainsides and an avenue of tall eucalyptus stretched for miles, the tiny leaves, like silver coins, spinning in the wind. Far away and always present, the giant conical peak of El Teide rose against the sky, his white cloud-cap doffed in salute.
‘Thank you,’ said Catherine when Don Jaime started the car again. ‘It was good of you to stop.’
‘It is a view to remember,’ he said. ‘Down there is Puerta de la Cruz, which was once the fruit port for the valley, but now it is mainly a tourist centre. Soria is more remote,’ he added on what was surely a note of warning.
‘Will we stop at Orotava?’ Teresa asked hopefully. ‘You could give us tea at the English Club, Jaime.’
‘Why not?’ her uncle agreed. ‘It is not far out of our way.’ Orotava was a sub-tropical paradise, with masses of bougainvillea everywhere and little pink and white geraniums growing wild in the ditches beside the road. They approached it along an avenue of eucalyptus trees which seemed to shimmer in the afternoon heat, but presently they entered the shaded grounds of the Club and were immediately found a table under an arcade of vines where tea was brought to them on a silver tray, with scones and cakes and plenty of guava jelly.
The unexpected break in their journey gave Catherine more time to think about their destination. It was obvious that Soria was well off the beaten track, a small kingdom on its own where Don Jaime de Berceo Madroza ruled supreme. In thinking of the hacienda she automatically wondered about Dona Lucia, who was Teresa’s stepmother and temporary mistress of Soria. What would she be like? Kind or condescending or even frankly hostile? It was impossible to say.
‘Don Jaime, of all people!’
The cool, English voice broke in on her reflections and she looked up to find a tall, fair-haired girl of about her own age standing by Don Jaime’s side. He rose immediately to offer her a seat.
‘I’m playing croquet,’ she announced, laying her mallet aside, ‘but I have just time to be introduced.’ She was looking at Catherine. ‘You’re from England,’ she suggested. ‘Are you on your way to the hacienda?’ An underlying doubt had tinged her voice for a moment and then she laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you’re Teresa’s tutoress!’
‘Miss Royce—Miss Alexandra Bonnington,’ Don Jaime introduced them formally. ‘Alex is quite a character around Orotava,’ he added. ‘She paints!’
‘Which sounds as if I commit all the deadly sins at one go!’ Alex Bonnington laughed. ‘But I can assure you that I do it for a living. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford to stay here. Jaime only sees me on the rare occasions when we’re both able to relax.’ She looked at Catherine with a deepening interest. ‘I hope you’ll be able to come to Orotava now and then, Miss Royce,’ she said. ‘We have an excellent library at the Club and there
are plenty of English people around if you feel in need of a chinwag in your own language. Hullo, Teresa!’ She turned to the younger girl with a faint smile. ‘Are you still the little rebel without a cause?’
‘Not without a cause,’ Teresa answered with more dignity than Catherine would have suspected. ‘I know what I want to do in the end.’
Alex had practically ignored Ramon, giving him no more than the briefest of nods.
‘Will you take some tea with us?’ Don Jaime asked. ‘We were just about to begin.’
‘I’d love to, but I was on my way to make up a foursome,’ said Alex, picking up her mallet. ‘Why not drop in and see me one day?’ she invited as she shook hands with them for the second time. ‘Do you paint. Miss Royce?’
‘I’m afraid not, though I’ve often longed to try,’ Catherine confessed.
Alex Bonnington considered her for a moment in silence. ‘You may need something to do in your spare time,’ she suggested. ‘Teresa will bring you to see if you can.’
Again there was the underlying doubt in her voice which Catherine was quick to detect.
‘ ’Bye!’ said Alex. ‘Till we meet again.’
They met swiftly and unexpectedly half an hour later in the ladies’ cloakroom.
‘I’ve cut my hand,’ Alex explained, holding her wrist under the cold water tap in one of the basins. ‘Terribly silly of me, really. I just don’t know how I did it. I broke a tumbler while we were having some squash to drink and groped under a bench for the pieces. I bleed like a pig,’ she ran on, ‘so don’t get alarmed. It’s not at all serious, I assure you.’
‘Please let me help, all the same,’ Catherine offered. ‘If
we had a bandage—’
Meeting in Madrid Page 5