by Iris Danbury
Nicola’s cabin was romantically elegant in turquoise and cream, while the adjoining bathroom which she shared with Adrienne was panelled in a blurred pattern of sea-green tiles, giving the impression that one was in an ocean-cave.
After a short walk around the deck after dinner to watch moonlight creaming the yacht’s wake, to gaze at the stars in the vast arch of inky sky, Nicola was glad to retire to her cabin. Lulled by the murmuring hum of the yacht’s engines, she fell asleep almost instantly and it seemed only a couple of minutes before Inez, Adrienne’s maid, brought in a breakfast tray of coffee and rolls and fruit.
When she bathed and dressed and went up on deck, she was amazed to see that the Clorinda was about to enter San Fernando harbour, a vast sheet of water backed by blue sky, the spires and towers of the ancient cathedral dominating the hill. A crescent of dazzling hotels, white or golden coloured, swept along the harbour edge to the distant point
“We shall stay a day here,” Ramon told her. “Then you can see some of the fine buildings, visit the shops, the markets, just as you choose.”
Nicola smiled at him. “You think of everything for the passengers’ comfort and enjoyment.”
He returned her smile, put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a friendly shake. “That is my pleasure, as well as my duty.”
“But he does not tell you why he must first come to San Fernando town,” Adrienne’s voice broke in behind them. “He has to report to the authorities that he has arrived.”
Ramon’s face drooped scornfully. “Oh, Adrienne, querida, you must learn not to spoil my fine speeches.” He put an arm around each of the girls. “Come, you must prepare for going ashore, and get out of my way or the skipper will grumble at me.”
Nicola thought, as she had on previous occasions, that there was something about Ramon so engaging, so lighthearted and amiable, that it was a pity that Adrienne could regard him only as her future betrothed and not as a man to be adored and loved for his charming qualities.
The day was exciting enough with Adrienne to show Nicola some of the attractions of San Fernando.
“You must see the cathedral another time,” Adrienne advised. “It is very beautiful and deserves a leisurely stroll through it. Also, we will take you one day to the glassworks near the harbour where you can see men making very lovely pieces.”
She conducted Nicola through some of the old streets where the Arab quarter had once been and where it was easy to imagine dark-eyed girls peering from barred windows. A long, winding flight of steps was edged with small shops selling leather articles, souvenirs, baskets and shoes. Suddenly at the top of the steps a large, arcaded square opened out, with cafes at almost every point.
Nicola was glad of a long, cool drink of brandy and soda with ice.
“After lunch,” said Adrienne, “we will look at the paintings in the open air down near the harbour. Painters arrange them under the palm trees.”
Nicola smiled. “How fortunate the climate is so reliable! In England the artist would probably have to cover them three times a day because of the rain.”
Adrienne laughed. “Also because of the fog?”
Lunch at one of the fashionable hotels along the Paseo Maritimo was a lengthy affair, especially when Adrienne insisted on a siesta in the hotel garden, but at four o’clock Nicola suggested, “Why don’t we drive along the promenade in one of those basket-work carriages? They look as though they would be fun, and you can still finish your nap riding along.”
Adrienne agreed, and the two girls found a sleepy driver with an equally sleepy horse which consented to plod sedately along the Paseo with the two girls in the woven cane carriage.
“I feel a mad desire to wave to the passers-by,” said Nicola. “You know, royal salute and all that.”
“Then please choose only the very old men and the women,” advised Adrienne, taking Nicola’s remark seriously, “or else the young men will walk alongside and make piropos.”
Nicola laughed. “Oh, I know what they are. Extravagant compliments that mean exactly nothing. ‘A man might die happy kissing your dear little elbow—that sort of thing.’ All right, I won’t wave to anyone.”
The carriage took the girls to the far end of the promenade and had returned nearly to the starting point when Nicola, idly glancing along the Paseo, suddenly saw a girl staring at her.
Her heart leapt with excitement. “Lisa! Lisa!” she cried out. Then without thinking she jumped out of the slow moving carriage on to the roadway, ran back to the spot where she had seen her sister, but the girl had vanished.
Nicola stood bewildered, then dashed to the entrance of a small garden adjacent to one of the hotels. Two waiters, their feet resting on a table, regarded her with surprise.
“Senorita?” one asked.
Hurriedly in stammering Spanish she asked if they had seen a young girl in a red and white dress, dark hair, slim.
“No aqui,” the other waiter answered. Not here.
Nicola could see that for herself for there was no one else in the garden. She thanked them and went across the road slowly to where the carriage had stopped. Adrienne had alighted and now looked concerned as Nicola approached.
“What is the matter, Nicola?” she asked. “I was half asleep and suddenly you had jumped out of the carriage.”
“I saw my sister. I’m sure it was Lisa. Then she disappeared.”
“Come and sit in the carriage,” urged Adrienne. “You look most white.”
“The girl was exactly like Lisa,” reiterated Nicola in a dull toneless voice.
“But your sister would not run away when she saw you. You must have been mistaken.”
“She had Lisa’s face, her hair, her height, everything.”
“While we are in San Fernando we could make enquiries,” suggested Adrienne. “We could try the Guardia Civil."
Nicola shivered, then tried to recover her poise. “Oh, it was probably just a girl who resembled my sister. Think no more about it.”
She had the best of reasons for not contacting the police if that could be avoided, reasons unknown to either Adrienne or Sebastian.
Adrienne instructed the driver to stop at the harbour end of the promenade and paid him off.
“Now,” she said to Nicola, “we will inspect the pictures.”
Under a double row of huge palm trees several artists had their open-air galleries, hanging their pictures on thin lines of stretched rope. Nicola strolled with Adrienne, who stopped now and again to study the pictures in detail, but Nicola’s mind was far from appreciation of art at this moment. If that girl had really been Lisa why had she disappeared when there was everything to gain by being reunited with Nicola? Or had Lisa other reasons for avoiding any contact at all?
Adrienne’s attention was caught by a glowing scene of one of San Fernando’s old streets, a painting that held all the pulsating colour and mystery of what might lie within the walls. She nodded. “That is very good indeed.”
The artist was at her elbow, unobtrusive but attentive. They began to talk in Spanish, discussing the points of first one picture then another.
Nicola moved away and sat on a bench by the edge of a flower-bed where closely-packed succulent plants substituted for grass turf which would already have been scorched and withered by the hot sun. Was she beginning to see Lisa’s face in other girls, as she fancied she had seen the young Spaniard who had once called at Lisa’s flat?
Adrienne concluded her deal with the artist and returned with the painting she had purchased wrapped in polythene.
“One artist must help another,” she said. “Perhaps he does not really need the money, but it is pleasant to sell your work sometimes.”
Nicola roused herself to make some vague remark in agreement.
“When we arrive at Ramon’s house,” continued Adrienne, “you should try your hand at painting. Perhaps you will be so good that I shall be madly jealous of your talent.”
Nicola managed a smile. “No fear of that! I’ve
done very little since I left school except paint a couple of backcloths for a dramatic society.”
“But that is very good for you. To paint something large makes you use broad strokes so that you do not—er fidget—is that the right word?”
“I think you mean ‘niggle’,” supplied Nicola, aware that Adrienne was making conversation to help her over the shock of even imagining that she had seen Lisa. Yet long after she and Adrienne had returned to the yacht for dinner the girl’s face haunted Nicola. If only the Clorinda could have stayed in San Fernando harbour for a few more days instead of leaving tomorrow for Cala Castell at the other end of the island! Ashore in the town of San Fernando there was a possibility that Nicola might see the girl again, but at Cala Castell that would be out of the question.
After dinner when the huge harbour was pricked with lights and shimmering reflections, Dona Elena announced, “I am going tomorrow by car to our house at Cala Castell. Perhaps, Adrienne, you would like to accompany me with the Senorita Brettell? It is tedious to remain on the yacht. Ramon will bring that to Cala Castell.”
Ramon smiled gently. “A ship is a lady. I will take her to Cala Castell.”
Adrienne remained thoughtful for a moment. “As you wish,” she said at last to Elena. “It will give Nicola a chance of seeing the interior of the island.”
Nicola knew that she had no choice in the matter. If she could not stay indefinitely in San Fernando town and search for Lisa, then it hardly mattered whether she went to Cala Castell by sea or land. Yet her commonsense reminded her that searching for Lisa in San Fernando would be just as fruitless as in Barcelona. The towns were too big and a tiny village might have yielded results, but then Lisa would probably never be found in a small place. She liked life and gaiety, lights and dancing.
In spite of her depression Nicola found the drive to Cala Castell full of interest. Ramon’s car with a driver was waiting at the harbour when she accompanied Dona Elena and Adrienne ashore.
There were districts of San Fernando that Nicola had not had time to see, the melon market, newly constructed streets to replace old congested alleys and buildings, but designed with care and artistry to blend with ancient surroundings. Out in the country they drove through small villages of golden stone where the houses were shuttered and few people appeared. Sometimes doors hung with chain curtains stood open and black-clad women sat outside on the pavement or dusty doorstep preparing vegetables or busy with some other household task.
After a time the road climbed away from the modest hills with small towns perched defensively on their summits and a range of mountains loomed in folds of mauve and slate blue. Pine woods stretched ahead in an apparently solid mass, but eventually on nearer approach disclosed scattered white villas with splashes of yellow and crimson flower gardens.
When the road wound through the pines the smell of resin perfumed the air. Farther on was a small town with a few shops, a wine bar or two, and a square where the buildings on one side struck the eye with dazzling whiteness, but opposite merged into deep slate blue shadows. Then the car was running down a steep hill towards the sea until a sharp turn to the left brought it between pillared gates to Ramon’s house. Here again were the brilliant contrasts of Moorish arches, cool and shadowed, and the pale pink walls covered with bougainvillea.
Dona Elena was greeted by half a dozen servants of whom she asked a few questions and apparently received reassuring answers that everything was ready for the family and their guests.
“You will find this house different from our own,” Adrienne murmured to Nicola, who had already noticed that the Casa Margarita was built on less formal lines than the Montals’ Villa Ronda. Stone floors with rugs, much simple wooden furniture, flowers in rough pottery bowls, all indicated the refreshing ease of a country villa.
Her room looked out over the trees to a part of the bay sheltered by a curving arm of the mountains.
“When will Ramon arrive with the yacht?” she asked Adrienne.
“Perhaps tomorrow. Maybe today,” answered Adrienne with an indifferent shrug.
Nicola’s query was an idle one for it made little difference to her whether he arrived one day or another, but she wished she could be as casual about Sebastian’s visit for which she tried to quell her impatience.
She spent the next few days lazing, often with Adrienne and Ramon, either in the Casa Margarita garden or down on the beach where straw umbrellas like wigwams mounted on poles provided shade and were furnished with a handy little shelf fixed at a convenient height off the sand for drinks and other odds and ends. Pines protected by stone walls came right down to the edge of the sandy shore and added further welcome patches of shade.
“A few days of this,” murmured Nicola one morning, “and I shall never want to do any work again.”
“Perhaps you will not have to,” retorted Ramon. “Stay in Spain, marry a man who will give you a maid or two and your life can be pleasant and leisurely.”
“Sound advice,” agreed Nicola. “I’ll think about it.”
“You have your Englishman, Patrick,” put in Adrienne. “He is one possibility.”
“No!” Nicola spoke more sharply than she had intended. “Anyway he is soon going back to England and may not return.”
“Undoubtedly he will return,” protested Ramon. “Once a man has lived here he cannot help himself. Either he will stay or he is drawn back. You know that San Fernando is really the Land of the Lotus-eaters?”
“I can well believe it,” said Nicola, her blue eyes twinkling. “It’s as good an excuse as any.”
“Ah, but no, it really is a fact. Odysseus came here and was so enchanted with the people because they were happy that he stayed and stayed.”
“But eventually he tore himself away?” Nicola mocked. “At least, so I’ve read.”
“With sadness and sorrow,” agreed Ramon.
During this time Dona Elena was not only the thoughtful hostess but treated Nicola with more friendliness than she had hitherto shown. She made no further references to Nicola’s missing sister, and Nicola had asked Adrienne not to mention the incident in the town of San Fernando.
But Elena’s attitude changed sharply on the arrival of Sebastian. In the most subtle ways Nicola was made to feel that she was the odd one out of a quartet made by Elena and Sebastian, Ramon and Adrienne. She found small tasks to occupy Nicola and prevent her from joining the others at beach parties or on drives to other parts of the island. Nicola accepted this role, part companion/governess to Adrienne, part unoccupied secretary to Sebastian, and remained in the background when the others went off somewhere.
Then one morning Sebastian asked her bluntly what was the matter.
“Matter?” she queried.
“Dona Elena says you have constant headaches. Have you been lying in the sun too long?”
“No. I’ve been careful not to overdo the sunbathing.”
So that was the scheme, she thought. Poor Nicola has another of her headaches...
“Then you’d better let me examine you and find the cause,” he continued.
In his casual yellow shirt and beige trousers it was easy to forget that he was a doctor. She wanted to tell him that her headaches were non-existent and a fiction on the part of Elena. Her only anxiety had been that he might not arrive.
“Truly I haven’t a headache now,” she protested.
“Then in that case you’ll be able to come with us to the Dragon caves. Bring sensible shoes and a warm jacket with you. It can be cold down there.”
Nicola, dressed as she had been instructed, came through the arched entrance of the Casa to join the others.
Elena asked in her most sympathetic tone, “How is your headache this morning?”
“I haven’t one,” replied Nicola, feeling more confident than usual. She was about to add that she rarely suffered from this complaint, but it was enough to see the chagrin on Elena’s face, for Sebastian had come out at that moment.
Elena recovered and
smiled. “I’m very glad.” She did not add any invitation to join the party, evidently assuming either that Nicola would have the tact to stay at home or that she would efface herself in a corner of the car. But Sebastian put a restraining hand on Nicola’s arm as she moved towards Ramon’s car. “We’ll take your smaller car, Ramon,” he said. “You three go ahead. We’ll soon catch you up.”
Ramon smiled and nodded and immediately drove off before Elena could decide on any action. Nicola, watching the disappearing car, knew that Elena was too well bred to turn round and peer out of the back window but her disapproval could easily be imagined.
After that first moment of surprise Nicola had no room for any thought but that Sebastian had definitely indicated a preference for her company. Such a day might never come again and Nicola was determined to enjoy every moment of it, but in the small car with Sebastian driving she found herself tongue-tied or clumsy when she spoke at all. His very presence next to her robbed her of self-confidence, and mentally she kicked herself for behaving like a stupid schoolgirl.
She was undecided whether to tell him of that chance encounter with a girl who resembled Lisa, but then the words spilled out of their own accord.
“She made no attempt to recognise you or be recognised herself?” he asked, when she told him what had happened.
“None at all. She disappeared before I could catch her up.”