Doctor at Villa Ronda

by Iris Danbury

  With the bills in her hand, Nicola rushed out to the patio where she had left Lisa, but her sister had disappeared. Lisa was not in her room and Nicola snatched open the wardrobe door. Half a dozen new dresses, two coats hung there. A pile of cardboard boxes and tissue paper had been tidied into one corner by the maid who attended to Lisa’s room.

  “Did the young Senorita Brettell say where she was going?” Nicola asked several of the staff. No one had seen her.

  Nicola spent a little time searching the gardens, but there was no sign of Lisa. Adrienne was on the ‘Mediterranean balcony’ with the binoculars glued to her eyes.

  “I suppose you haven’t seen my sister Lisa?” Nicola enquired as calmly as she could.

  “I’m looking for her!” snapped Adrienne wrathfully. “If I see her step on the Clorinda, I shall go down and wait for her and then I shall throw her into the harbour. I hope she cannot swim!”

  Nicola controlled her smiles. “Luckily—or unluckily —she’s a very good swimmer.”

  By lunchtime, Adrienne, too, had disappeared. Whether she was bent on throwing Lisa into the harbour Nicola did not know, but Nicola was relieved to lunch alone and be spared the necessity of making normal conversation. She could only pick over the food, anyway, for anger and worry robbed her of appetite. She was too keyed up to bother about a siesta and worked on Sebastian’s book all afternoon.

  Lisa did not put in an appearance until almost dinnertime and then Nicola had no opportunity of a private talk. Lisa was wearing a gold lame dress, her hair was newly set and long pendant earrings added a sparkle.

  As soon as the meal was over, Lisa excused herself. Nicola rose, too, determined not to let Lisa escape so easily. She murmured her excuses to Sebastian and caught Adrienne’s enquiring gaze. But there was more to discuss with Lisa than snooping in private rooms or trying to flirt with Ramon.

  Nicola hurried after her sister. “Lisa! I want to talk to you for a few moments.”

  “Not now, please. I have an appointment.” Lisa gave her sister a disarming smile.

  “Your appointment can wait! I expect he will,” Nicola added. “We’ll go to your room.”

  “As bad as that? You’re going to shout at me and you don’t want half the servants to hear you. They might be surprised.”

  At the foot of the staircase Lisa turned, for once irresolute and half inclined to make a dash for it and get away from Nicola’s scoldings, but Nicola’s determined face decided against that.

  “I can give you only two or three minutes, Nicky,” she said, mounting the stairs. “I have to get a stole and then I’m off.”

  In Lisa’s bedroom, Nicola shut the door and stood with her back against it. Lisa began to dab her nose with powder, touch up her lipstick.

  “Today I had a new batch of bills sent to me,” Nicola announced.

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Bills for the dresses and coats in that wardrobe. Your bills, Lisa. I hope you’re going to pay them.”

  “Give me a chance! I haven’t said I’m not going to pay them.”

  “I haven’t finished paying off the other lot,” Nicola said harshly. “D’you think you’re going to saddle me with this new collection?”

  Lisa turned from the dressing-table mirror. “What are you making a fuss about? Nobody’s asked you to pay them yet.”

  “Then why didn’t you have the bills addressed to yourself? You were careful not to give your own name or initial, so that you knew I’d open them.”

  “Well, I must have clothes. It may not be as important for you. After all, you don’t have much chance to wear them here in this quiet little place. Besides, you’re only a secretary-companion, if that’s the correct style, and it would be out of place for you to wear fashionable or impressive models.”

  Nicola stared disbelievingly at her sister. “And you? What are you in this house?”

  “A guest, of course. I have far more freedom of action than you, my dear Nicola.”

  “Including freedom to spend my money? D’you realise that all the time I’ve been working for Dr. Montal a large part of my salary has had to be set aside to clear your debts?”

  “I didn’t ask you to pay them, and I told you before, you were a fool. Anyway, you really enjoy being a martyr, don’t you?”

  “Not enough to go on propping you up, Lisa, all your life. Some of these clothes you haven’t worn. You can have them packed up and sent back to the shops.”

  “I’ll do no such thing. D’you mean to tell me that you can’t get plenty of money out of your dear doctor?”

  “I haven’t tried,” retorted Nicola. “There are other matters, too.”

  “Oh, spare me the reproaches!” cried Lisa. “I’m late already.”

  “If you consider yourself a guest in this house, then try to remember that you shouldn’t intrude into rooms where you’re not invited. Adrienne was most upset at the idea of your prying into her father’s study.”

  “How was I to know? The door was open.”

  Nicola was about to mention Ramon, but reflected that Lisa would deliberately tease and taunt Adrienne if given the slightest chance. She would take every opportunity to flirt with him, even though it was all part of a game to Lisa.

  Lisa now draped a chiffon stole around her shoulders and approached the door.

  “Nicky, will you please move out of the way? My date may already have decided that I’m not coming.”

  “That would be a pity.” Nicola could not keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Don’t let yourself become bitter because a man let you down once and now you’re getting older all the time and have to watch younger girls attracting the men.”

  Nicola stood away from the door. “I’m not bitter, Lisa, but if I have different ideas I’m entitled to them. Go out and enjoy yourself. Is it Patrick? Or Ruben?”

  “You mustn’t be inquisitive. It might be someone you don’t know. It could even be Ramon.”

  With a triumphant smile Lisa fled through the door, leaving Nicola churned up, her emotions so disturbed that she flung herself on Lisa’s bed and wept for sheer relief from the unbearable tension of the last few minutes. After a while she became calmer, but still determined to teach Lisa a sharp lesson. She went to her own room, brought back bills that had come this morning and compared the items with the clothes in the wardrobe, the drawers and shoe-racks. Fortunately some had not yet been worn.

  She called Inez, Adrienne’s personal maid, and instructed her to pack some of the garments very carefully into their respective boxes. She would have preferred to do the task herself, but Inez had the professional touch. Nicola took the boxes to her room and next morning despatched them to the shops from which the articles had come.

  When Nicola entered Sebastian’s study after breakfast, Lisa was there, apparently ransacking the doctor’s desk. Papers and notebooks were strewn everywhere.

  “What d’you think you’re doing?” demanded Nicola.

  “Looking for those bills,” snapped Lisa. “How dare you send back clothes I’ve bought!”

  “Not bought yet!” Nicola reminded her. “And how dare you ransack among the doctor’s papers!”

  Lisa whirled round on her sister. “You’re a fine one to talk of ransacking and snooping! I wonder you left me anything to stand up in.”

  “I couldn’t return clothes that had been worn. The others you can do without until you’re in a position to pay for what you want.”

  “Or find someone else to pay the bills for me!” retorted Lisa.

  “If you want the rest of the bills, here they are!” Nicola tossed them across to Lisa. “Now perhaps you will kindly replace everything in the doctor’s desk.” Nicola’s gaze was riveted on the framed photograph that Lisa held in her hand. Nicola had seen it once before when Sebastian lay sprawled across his desk, clutching this photograph of a woman.

  “Give me that portrait,” she said.

  Lisa glanced down at the photograph. Then she laughed. “Oh, so he k
eeps secret portraits in his desk! Is this the love of his life?”

  Nicola snatched the frame from Lisa’s hands. Then she became aware that Sebastian was in the room.

  “Were you looking for something?” he asked in icy tones.

  Nicola realised that she was still holding the photograph. In silence she replaced it in the drawer and began to gather the scattered papers from the top of the desk.

  “I can explain,” she began hesitantly.

  “I am waiting,” was his grim answer.

  She noticed that Lisa was no longer in the room.

  “My sister—” she stopped, knowing that every word of plausible explanation would implicate Lisa. “Lisa,” she began again, “mistakenly thought some papers were in your desk instead of mine. She was looking for them.

  “And her habit is to toss everything out, including personal articles?” he queried.

  “I apologise sincerely—for both of us. It was unforgivable.”

  “I would prefer the whole truth, Nicola. Tell me what your sister was looking for.”

  “These.” Nicola pointed to the bills that Lisa had left on the desk.

  He turned them over casually. “Yours?”

  Nicola did not know what to answer. If they were for goods she had purchased, why the uproar? If they were on Lisa’s behalf, why had Nicola taken them?

  He construed her silence in a way she had not imagined. “I’m beginning to see,” he said at last. When I gave you this post—if you could call it that—I believed you were genuinely distressed by the disappearance of your sister and by the fact that you needed to support yourself while you could continue to look for her. I made the condition that you should stay here a year, thinking that it provided you with a certain security.”

  “And I was very grateful to you,” she said quickly.

  “I can appreciate that,” he snapped. “What I did not realise was that while you pretended that Lisa was missing you knew perfectly well where she was and what had happened.”

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, aghast at this accusation.

  “Financially I tried to treat you generously. I had no idea that I was also helping to support your sister. Oh, I know what you can say,” he waved away her intended interruption. “You were at liberty to spend your salary exactly as you pleased. It isn’t money, Nicola. It’s the false pretences, the gross deception that I find so distasteful.”

  “Sebastian, I assure you that—” she stopped, horrified because she had unwittingly addressed him by his Christian name. He appeared not to have noticed and she found the courage to continue. “When Lisa was found it was a complete surprise to me.”

  “You expect me to believe that? Every time it was suggested that you should contact the police or the Consul, you refused.”

  Nicola saw now that her diffidence in trying to protect Lisa had only blackened her own case.

  “You allowed me to waste my time looking in hospitals and elsewhere when you knew positively that I should never find her,” he stormed.

  “I can only repeat that I’m sorry.”

  “Your sister boasted that she knew all your movements both here and in San Fernando. How can I believe that you were so much in the dark?”

  Further explanations were useless, she thought. The ray out of her present dilemma was clear. “Dr. Montal, the best thing is for me to leave your employ as soon as possible. Naturally, I shall take my sister with me, so you’ll be rid of us both.”

  He had been standing at his desk, looming over her as he remained opposite. Now he strode menacingly towards her, put his hands on her shoulders and forced her into the chair behind her.

  “No, indeed, Nicola. The solution is not as easy as that. My book is not yet complete, as you know. I’ve no intention of having it left unfinished because you choose to go. I shall not hold you to your promise to stay a year, but in one month’s time we will discuss the situation together. If the book is finished and then you want to go, then we’ll see what can be arranged.”

  She nodded agreement, sick at heart with the way things had turned out. So now she was virtually on a month’s trial, in effect a month of forced labour, for at the end he would tell her that she was free to go and she would have no excuse to stay.

  He went out of the study into the garden and Nicola took the opportunity to rush away to her own room. She did not feel up to facing anyone at this moment. But even the privacy of her room was no solace, for the first thing that met her gaze was the green glass vase from San Fernando. It lay on the carpet smashed into pieces.

  How had that happened? No one came into the room except the maid, unless—But Nicola would not allow herself even to imagine that Lisa would deliberately come here and smash an ornament.

  Ironically, Nicola reflected that perhaps it was appropriate that the only article Sebastian had ever given her should now lay in fragments on the floor. His faith in her integrity had been equally shattered, even though he had chosen to believe his own logic rather than the truth.

  Later in the day Lisa apologised to Nicola.

  “That green ornament or vase in your room—it was an accident. I’m afraid I carelessly knocked it off the table.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” muttered Nicola, thankful that Lisa had not tried to put the blame on to one of the maids.

  “Was it a valuable piece?” asked Lisa.

  “No, not particularly valuable. Just treasured. It was given to me when we went to the glassworks in San Fernando.”

  “I see. Sebastian bought it for you?”

  Nicola should have known that Lisa was unusually quick-witted and always saw through with percipience the gaps in other people’s conversations. She drew more satisfying conclusions from silences or vague phrases than from what was actually said.

  “I hope you haven’t become enamoured of the good doctor, Nicky, when you’re aware of his attachment.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake be quiet, Lisa!” Nicola was at the end of her tether. “Listen, for once, to the real truth. Dr. Montal is so disgusted with the pair of us that he’s given me the sack. I have the equivalent of a month’s notice.”

  “You mean he’s given you your salary and told you to go?”

  Nicola thought wearily how often Lisa’s first reaction was concerned with money.

  “I don’t mean that. I’m working to finish the book for him. So you’d better start looking for some sort of job, Lisa.”

  “I daresay I can find something. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”

  “Then you’d better find it fast,” urged Nicola.

  “What’s the hurry?” queried Lisa.

  “Surely you don’t imagine you can stay on here at the Villa Ronda when I’ve gone?”

  Lisa stretched her pretty arms high above her head. “I suppose the kind doctor could throw me out through the Villa gates and my pitifully few belongings after me. More than that, I can’t see what he could do.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Lisa. Don’t make more difficulties than we already have to cope with. I’m already blamed for knowing that your so-called disappearance was a put-up job between us.”

  “Oh? That’s too bad of Sebastian.”

  Nicola walked away a few steps. She was tired of Lisa’s light-hearted acceptance of ease and comfort and that facile way of shouldering all the troublesome situations on to someone else.

  “When I leave here, Lisa,” Nicola said quietly, “you’ll have to fend for yourself. I’ve been too willing and ready to help you out of all the scrapes, mostly money troubles. In future you’ll have to extricate yourself.”

  “Soft living has made you hard towards others less fortunate,” grumbled Lisa.

  “You’ve benefited from my soft living,” retorted Nicola. She went to the swimming pool in the garden, changed into her white swimsuit and splashed about in the water.

  She had forgotten to bring a cap with her and her hair clung to her scalp. She floated on her back, staring up at the clear sapphire sky, the t
ips of dark cypresses and let the gently pulsing water soothe her irritations of the day.

  A loud splash behind her made her turn sharply and she saw Sebastian’s dark head emerge a few yards away. At once she flushed with embarrassment. It was a curious situation to be the target of his rebukes a few hours ago and now find herself sharing the intimacy of his swimming pool.

  He trod water, his bare tanned shoulders glistening in the sun with crystal drops.

  “Best part of the day,” he called, making casual conversation as though this morning’s outburst had never occurred. Nicola realised that only the fact that this had been the day when he stayed home had caused such an explosion. If he had gone to the hospital or been at his clinic, he would never have witnessed that scene between her and her sister. She clambered over the side of the pool and sat for a few moments to let the water drain off her.

  He passed her with strong over-arm strokes, then turned to gaze at her.

  “You look like a mermaid,” he said. Was it illusion or was there a warm, tender expression in his dark eyes? Nicola tried not to read too much into a fleeting glance, but she could not help hoping that he was trying to soften his hard attitude of this morning. At least he had known she was in the pool when he arrived. He could easily have withdrawn if he did not want to see her.

  Then Dona Elena appeared, already wearing a bathing wrap over her swimsuit. She greeted Sebastian, ignored Nicola and plunged into the water more like a mermaid than Nicola could ever hope to be.