by Iris Danbury
She sighed. “In a way the whole affair does concern Lisa as well as me.” She looked away to the wide plaza with the traffic swirling round it. “You’d better know the truth.”
He listened to her explanation and then burst out angrily, “But you can’t take on these responsibilities for your sister! It’s not the first time the shops have met a few bad debts. As for the lawyers, they know perfectly well that they couldn’t possibly enforce payment from you.”
“They’re not enforcing. I’m doing it voluntarily. I have a moral obligation, especially as we’re foreigners in this country.”
“You should have let them whistle for their money if the shops were all daft enough to let Lisa run up accounts. And she’ll never learn to stand on her own feet if you’re going to bolster her up like this every time she gets herself into a mess,” he protested.
“But d’you really think I could calmly go back to England knowing that she had cheated shops and stores out of their money? Actually, I don’t even know that she intended to vanish without paying. I still think she may be lying ill somewhere in hospital.”
“Doubtful!” was Patrick’s terse comment. “And in your heart you know that, too, Nicola. From what I know of Lisa and her ideas about money—” he broke off and picked up his coffee cup.
“What else were you going to say?” she queried. “Lisa borrowed money from her friends? From you? Or others in your office?”
He refused to meet her glance. “Oh, she paid it back sometimes. I shouldn’t have told you that. Forget it. Let’s hear more about your new prospects. Isn’t it rather odd that this Dr. Montal insists on your staying a year?”
“That’s because of Adrienne,” she replied. “He seems to think that when she’s eighteen, she’ll probably marry—or at least be engaged.”
“And then you’ll be given the push, I suppose?”
Nicola laughed. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I might acquire such a taste for living in a luxury villa in a sensible climate that if he doesn’t want my services, I’ll find someone else who does.”
Patrick gave an amused grunt. "How your sister would envy you! This is just the sort of life that Lisa was looking for—oh, never mind the odd bit of typing now and again. Comfort, security and the chance to find plenty of amusement. If I were you, Nicola, I’d keep out of her way.”
“Oh, Patrick! How unkind! I shall go on looking for her whenever I can. In fact, it’s one of the advantages of my new post—although the doctor hasn’t heard anything of her at any of the hospitals.”
“And be sure he never will,” Patrick observed crisply. “Wherever she is, Lisa certainly isn’t languishing in a hospital all this time.”
After a pause, Nicola said, “There was another reason for wanting a job here.” She related how one of Lisa’s friends had called at the flat one night and then she had seen him again in the offices of Patrick s firm.
“Could he work there?” she queried.
Patrick was thoughtful for a few moments. “Lisa had quite a few men friends.”
“Of course! She’s very attractive,” put in Nicola.
“Several of the men at our place took her out sometimes,” he said. “Once or twice I did myself. It’s also possible that she struck up friendships with some of the men who call on the firm. There are plenty of those coming in and out.”
“I could have been mistaken,” Nicola admitted, and perhaps he only resembled the man who called at the flat, but I was sure he recognised me the second time, although he pretended not to. What was so odd was the way he rushed off when I said I was Lisa’s sister.”
Patrick laughed. “Probably doesn’t want contact with any of Lisa’s family. I’ve no doubt that Lisa herself was enough.”
“Maybe. But I keep wondering if there isn’t something really mysterious about Lisa’s disappearance. Apart from the debts, I don’t think I could have gone home at the end of a holiday without knowing what had become of her.”
“I think she’ll turn up at the exact moment when it suits her.” Patrick prophesied. “She may quite possibly know every move you’ve made so far. Even sent you the bills.”
Nicola did not reply, and after a long pause, Patrick said moodily, “I suppose I shan’t be seeing you when you’re installed at Orsola.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “I’ve been very grateful for all your help. I shall expect to have free time now and again and come to Barcelona. I don’t drop my friends as easily as that.”
His pleasant face cleared in a smile. “You certainly are the opposite of your sister!”
For the first time it occurred to Nicola that perhaps Patrick had become fond of Lisa, who had merely flirted with him. Was that why he sounded so bitter about her?
“Well, I wish you luck,” he said. “Let’s keep in touch. I can always take you sightseeing when you’ve time. You haven’t really seen much of Barcelona, have you?” Nicola admitted that although she had come for a holiday intending to explore the place fairly thoroughly, she hadn’t even seen the main buildings.
“We’ll remedy that,” Patrick promised. “We mustn’t let the good doctor believe that he can have all your time just because you’ll be under his roof. You’ll have to stipulate that you want days off.”
“I’ll tell him,” laughed Nicola. “I’ll have it all written down in the contract.”
“Well, if you don’t like the job there, leave it, contract or no contract. There’s no sense in working in bad conditions.”
On the day when Nicola was due to leave Barcelona for Orsola, Adrienne accompanied Ignacio, a courteous gesture which Nicola appreciated.
“It was very kind of you to come,” she said to Adrienne.
The younger girl laughed. “Oh, I came to make sure that you are really coming to us. Ignacio will carry all your luggage down for you to the car.”
“Thank you. There isn’t much,” Nicola confessed. “Only what I brought on the plane and a few more things I’ve bought here.”
When she handed the key of the flat to the woman who seemed to act as caretaker, she impressed on her to be sure to send on any letters that might arrive. “Please do not forget,” she said in Spanish. “Here is my new address.”
The woman took the half sheet of paper without glancing at it, but gave Nicola a slightly contemptuous look and muttered that the English girls always found rich friends.
Nicola’s Spanish was now equal at least to that remark, but she made no answer.
At the Villa Ronda she was given an exquisite room with furniture in warm chestnut brown banded with intricate carvings. A pale water-green carpet made a cool contrast and curtains patterned in green and white with a hint of flame matched the bed covers. Gilded mirrors on the walls gave unexpected reflections of the room. The double windows opened on to a balcony overlooking a flower-decked patio that Nicola did not remember having seen before, but perhaps she was only viewing it from a different angle. The Villa was set in extensive grounds which had been cunningly landscaped to provide surprises.
“I must take you on a tour of the house,” Adrienne offered, “so that you do not lose your way.”
Nicola was shown Adrienne’s own suite, with her studio attached. “Here I can make an untidy mess and no one will dare to clean it up!” There was a vast salon with arched windows, a grand piano, an ornate fireplace and a tiled fountain at one end of the room.
“Next door is Sebastian’s study,” Adrienne pointed out, “but we must not go in uninvited. He will show you that himself.”
Out of doors, Nicola found she had much to learn about the layout of the garden. Paths and steps led up or down everywhere, it seemed, and Adrienne conducted her down a long winding path that led to the sea.
“We have our beach house here,” she said, indicating a handsome cottage-like structure set between the sea and a group of rocks enclosing a small cove.
Inside was a comfortably furnished sitting room and beyond that two small rooms for changing.
“
Sometimes we have parties down here,” Adrienne added. “We put tables on those rocks up there and lots of lanterns and the effect is quite charming.”
Nicola laughed. “Not so charming, perhaps, for your staff who have to bring all the food down here.”
“Oh, they don’t mind,” said the girl airily.
“I’d like to explore Orsola when we have time,” said Nicola. “All I’ve seen of it so far is the part between the railway station and your Villa.”
“This afternoon we will go together,” said Adrienne after a thoughtful pause. “Also we will go down to the harbour when the fishing boats come in. That is quite interesting to watch.”
The doctor was evidently not at the Villa today, and Adrienne and Nicola ate their lunch on the rounded terrace overlooking the sea. After the meal Adrienne focused binoculars on the scene in the harbour.
After a moment she murmured, “Yes, he has come. His yacht is there.”
She handed the binoculars to Nicola. “You can see among the other boats a white yacht, very smart. Its name is Clorinda.”
Nicola swung the binoculars in the direction Adrienne indicated, looking first for the name Clorinda, but she could not see which boat was so called. In the harbour several smart yachts rode at anchor.
“Tonight Elena will come ashore,” Adrienne said, “and I think we shall have a surprise for her.”
“Friends of yours?” queried Nicola.
“Senora Elena is a neighbour of ours. She has a villa not far away.” Adrienne had taken the binoculars again. “That’s her brother Ramon on board. It’s his yacht.” She put down the binoculars on the table and tilted her chair back at an alarming angle. “Sooner or later I am expected to marry Ramon.”
“Oh?” Nicola’s eyebrows rose. “Your uncle has already chosen your husband, then?”
“So he imagines. We shall see.” Adrienne’s tone was a mixture of smugness and a subtle hint of duplicity.
“But you’re not in love with him?”
Adrienne’s light laugh rippled among the surrounding trees and bushes. “It is intended to be a good match. One does not ask whether love comes into the arrangement.”
“But surely you won’t be content with an arranged marriage like that, will you?” pursued Nicola.
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. If the arrangement suited me, then perhaps I might agree. If not—” she left the sentence unfinished.
“D’you like Senor Ramon?”
Adrienne raised her eyes in mock adoration. “He’s charming! Handsome, accomplished, rich—”
“But elderly?”
“Not at all. Twenty-eight. Elena is rather older. She is thirty and the same age as Sebastian.” Adrienne’s fair face broke into a wicked grin. She leaned across the table towards Nicola. “D’you know, if it so happened that I married Ramon and Elena could have her dearest wish granted to marry Sebastian, do you understand how I would be related to her? She would be my—what do you say?”
“Sister-in-law,” supplied Nicola. “But also your aunt by marriage.” She joined Adrienne in a fresh burst of laughter.
“A droll position!” Adrienne exclaimed.
“Droll indeed,” agreed Nicola, but she was intrigued by the possibility of Sebastian’s marriage.
“They will both come to dinner tonight or tomorrow, so you will see them,” Adrienne said. “Elena is a widow. She lost her husband two years ago. He was ill for a long time.”
Later in the afternoon the two girls went down to explore Orsola. Adrienne parked her car near a square at the top of the main street, a wide, tree-lined rambla.
Small shops and houses were mixed indiscriminately along the sides of the street, cafes set out their clusters of chairs and tables. Outside what was evidently a tiny school, a group of small girls seated on kitchen chairs were busy learning the art of lace-making under their instructress, a gentle-faced nun. They sang local songs in high, childish trebles as they twisted and twirled the bobbins on the lace-pillows.
The roadway was so wide that it seemed not all of it was necessary for traffic and part was covered in thick reddish brown dust; at one point a dark-skinned man and several women had apparently set up a small camp and they sat outside plating straw baskets.
“You realise,” Adrienne explained, “that all these ramblas were at one time river beds. They have dried up. It’s the same in Barcelona.”
“I see. That’s why it’s such a vast width. Not like some of our little streets in England where they’re continually knocking down one side to make room for traffic.” Nicola, not really paying attention to her feet, stumbled against a disconcertingly high kerb.
The two girls arrived at the fish quay on the farther side of the harbour soon after the fishing fleet had arrived.
“You must watch the auction,” Adrienne told her. “You will not understand what he says, but the fish are pretty.”
A cryptic remark, thought Nicola, but she understood when she went into the covered market shed where large shallow baskets of fish were placed in the centre of an enclosure. An assortment of tourists, fish-buyers and idle spectators leaned over the iron-railing of the ring while the auctioneer gabbled his patter in Dutch bids downwards.
“Too fast for me,” muttered Nicola.
“Me, too,” confessed Adrienne with a grin. “He speaks in Catalan.”
Occasionally above the din the auctioneer bawled “Silencio!” and cleared the ring of small, boisterous boys.
But it was the arrangement of fish in the trays that fascinated Nicola. Every tray was a work of art, fish arranged in patterns, star-shaped or criss-crossed, dark or light iridescences placed as though they were rug designs. Frivolous borders of pink scampi or centre-pieces of pale blue or silver fish of some strange Mediterranean species delighted the eye.
“If you could climb up to the roof and look down on each tray,” said Nicola, “they’d look like medallions worked in petit-point. How on earth do they have time to do all this?”
There was no reply from Adrienne and when Nicola shifted her position and looked around, her companion had disappeared.
She strolled across to the second ring where the same process was going on with another auctioneer, but it was almost distressing to see the exquisite symmetry of the fish tray ruined when the buyers tipped the contents into their boxes or buckets.
Nicola suddenly caught sight of Adrienne talking to a young, dark-haired boy wearing a faded blue shirt and denim trousers rolled up above his ankles. His bare feet were tanned to coffee colour, matching his slim arms.
Adrienne’s face was animated as she talked to the boy. Then she put her hand on his shoulder in an apparent gesture of farewell and came back towards Nicola. She did not enlighten Nicola as to who the boy was and Nicola judged it no business of hers to ask. For all she knew, Adrienne might be passing on the housekeeper’s instructions as to the fish required at the Villa Ronda.
On arrival back at the Villa, Adrienne said, “Evidently Elena and Ramon are coming tonight to dinner. Wear your nicest dress and together we will impress them both.”
In any case, Nicola would have taken extra trouble with her appearance tonight, for this was the first time she had dined at the Villa as a member of the household instead of a guest. She chose a new dress she had bought in Barcelona, a turquoise blue crimplene which deepened the colour of her eyes and accorded well with the gentle tan she had already acquired. She made up her face carefully, brushed her hair into its own loose waves and fervently hoped that she would not make some ghastly mistake during the evening.
Ramon Ventallo was introduced to her by Adrienne on the balustraded terrace which had the nickname of the “Mediterranean balcony”. He was broad-shouldered and muscular-looking, with almost black eyes and a thatch of crisply curling hair. He bowed to Nicola and raised her hand to his lips.
“You are on holiday?” he queried.
“Oh, no,” Adrienne intervened before Nicola could reply. “Nicola is here to stay. She is to ke
ep a watchful eye on me.” She gave Ramon a provocative glance. “Any spare time she has left over from that task will be used by Sebastian. She is to help him with his book.”
Ramon regarded Nicola with rather more interest. Then he smiled. “You will have a full life here at the Villa, I assure you. To look after Adrienne is more than enough. To cope with Sebastian also—” he broke off and shook his head in mock sympathy, his eyes twinkling.
In a few moments the trio were joined by Sebastian, accompanied by a fairly tall young woman wearing dark glasses. She wore a full-length dress of kingfisher blue and her jewels sparkled and flashed in the evening sun.
“Dona Elena, may I present Miss Nicola Brettell from England?” Sebastian made the introductions, and Elena inclined her head graciously in acknowledgment.
During the round of pre-dinner drinks, Nicola had the opportunity to study the two newcomers. Ramon did most of the talking with Adrienne chaffing and contradicting him. Sometimes he reverted to Spanish, then made a swift apology to Nicola.
Elena, whose face was effectively masked by the dark glasses, spoke quietly to Sebastian, who seemed much more genial than usual.
Ramon spoke of his trip to Tangier and Nicola gathered that Elena had accompanied him.
“I have been away too long from Orsola—and all its attractions,” Ramon declared with a frank look at Adrienne and a sidelong covert glance at Nicola. “We must remedy matters. With your English friend staying here, we all have fine excuses for a season of gaiety and sightseeing. What does it matter if we have seen the places already?”