Spanish Lace

by Joyce Dingwell

  ‘No.’ Once more in one night tears stung her lids.

  He leaned across the table and caught her hand in his. Again the touch was gentle and quite impersonal.

  ‘It is the way of life, little one,’ he soothed. He waited a moment for her to control herself, then asked, ‘You wish to know that other iron, child?’

  ‘The romantic one?’ She blinked the tears away and decided not to be piqued at the immaturity he seemed compelled to force on her. ‘What is it, senor?’

  ‘Castles,’ he smiled. ‘There, I knew that would intrigue you.’

  ‘How couldn’t it?’ she thrilled back, remembering how she and Di had cried out aloud in pleasure in the little train at the old mouldering edifices set in the Iberian countryside. ‘Castles,’ she delighted, ‘in Spain!’

  Impulsively she raised her glass, and quite obviously pleased with the spontaneous gesture he raised his own in acknowledgment.

  ‘May I tell you about this venture, senorita?’

  ‘Please, please,’ she enthused.

  ‘Spain, like all the other old European countries, is beginning to change face.’ For a few moments he looked broodingly at the glowing tip of the aromatic cheroot.

  Because she sensed a certain nostalgia in him for the old and established, and why not? she said gently, ‘Like all countries, senor, European or otherwise.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he appreciated. ‘While still clinging to the past,’ he resumed, ‘we realized we must embrace the new. Especially in Spain’s instance is this very essential, for though mainly agricultural, most of our land is arid and of small value. So we expand in another channel, a channel in which we do feel we have no rival in natural potential—tourism, senorita. Tourists for Spain. Pilgrims for sun, for atmosphere, for the sheer joy of golden living, Iberian living, for rich or poor the climate smiles just the same on Spain’s sons and daughters.’

  ‘So?’ encouraged Zoe.

  ‘So we must improve the conditions for our tourists. At first we did this with slick modern hotels. Then someone approached the Ministry of Information and Tourism with the idea of restoring some of the old feudal mansions of old Spain to become paradores or luxury hotels, their prices to be pegged at a reasonable level to attract people who, like you, senorita, smile eagerly at the thought of a castle in Spain.’

  ‘I think,’ deduced Zoe shrewdly, ‘that that suggesting person was you. I also think it was a splendid idea.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He drew on his cheroot.

  ‘How far has the plan gone?’ Zoe took a sip of the sweet red wine.

  ‘We are lately restoring our fifth castel.’ He smiled at her and amended, ‘Castle. An architect from the Madrid University is performing the miracle of keeping the character of the old castel and at the same time providing modern comfort and decor that will not offend its weathered walls.’ A pleased pause. ‘We are most satisfied with Castel Geraldo.’

  ‘Where is it situated?’ asked Zoe.

  Senor Raphaelina mentioned a city that meant nothing to Zoe. Her previous visit to Spain had availed her little in geography if a great deal in pleasure, pleasure in her immediate surroundings, pleasure in Di’s joy.

  ‘I see,’ she nodded politely of the castle’s location, not at all sure where the city was.

  ‘Originally this castel was built on a craggy mount.’—Zoe nodded, remembering almost nostalgically that other castle on the high grounds of Lamona.—’It shares the rise with a score of small, whitewashed stone cottages where families of farmers and castle retainers have lived for centuries.’

  Again Zoe nodded eagerly; she felt she could see it all quite clearly.

  ‘Castel Geraldo is particularly fortunate inasmuch as it has a look-out tower some hundred yards away.’—So had hers and Di’s dream castle, probably most castles in Spain.—’It is easy to imagine why it was placed on a crag in the beginning by the look-out tower, but now it makes for charm and novelty, and tourists approve.’

  ‘Tell me more, senor.’ Zoe’s eyes were sparkling. She was on the little prodigious train again and exclaiming to Di at the castles, some mouldering, some still proud in spite of their years.

  ‘The Madrid architect is following faithfully the original lines, the thick stone walls, the tall tower, the walled courtyards and small slit windows. Timber beams against the ceilings have been featured, fireplaces restored but never altered. In fact, only the kitchens and bathrooms have received the modern touch; no alteration of the solid panelled entrance, no removal of benches or stone troughs.’

  ‘The furnishings?’

  ‘You will approve.’—Will I? wondered Zoe, then decided Don Ramon Raphaelina was carried away with his thoughts.

  ‘Tall-backed chairs, very straight. Simple carved bedheads. Mainly earth colours to suit a castle, but in the big entrance hall wall tapestries and bold flamenco touches in the scattered rugs.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all Zoe said. A dreamy, ‘Oh!’

  He smoked a moment, then told her it was the Government of Spain’s wish to open these renewed castles to as many tourists as they could entice.

  ‘That is why I am taking this journey, to sense what people look for, what they anticipate.’

  ‘Mrs. Fenton,’ smiled Zoe a little wanly, ‘wants a single room.’

  ‘Si.’ He did not comment for a moment. Then he said in a puzzled voice, ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Why Mrs. Fenton demands a single room?’

  ‘How in your England ... I am sorry, your Australia...’

  ‘Britain,’ she suggested.

  ‘How the duenna, as we call her, can be so young.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You are accompanying this Senora Fenton, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But in Spain it would be the reverse. The older woman would chaperone the young girl.’

  ‘I am not chaperoning Mrs. Fenton, Senor Raphaelina, I am travelling with her.’

  ‘She is your aunt? Some similar relation?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Then—?’

  ‘She advertised for a companion. I desperately wanted to come to Spain.’

  His face had lit up at her words. How he loved his Iberia, thought Zoe. So affected by her declaration was he that when he acclaimed proudly, ‘You were so eager to see my country that you agreed to accompany this quite unpleasant woman?’ she found she could not deflate him by adding that there was another story to her journey.

  She said simply, ‘Yes,’ and, being human, warmed herself in the applause shining in his lustrous dark eyes.

  ‘You are a very real person,’ he said. ‘For you, a castle restored at the highest price would be worth every peseta. You inspire me, senorita ... Senorita Breen, I believe my courier told me.’

  ‘Yes, senor? As he still seemed to wait, ‘Zoe Breen.’

  ‘Zoe? It is a little name.’ He smiled across at her. ‘It suits you in size. I am Ramon—Ramon Raphaelina.’ He made a formal inclination of his dark head.

  The waiter brought coffee and small pastries’ and they talked for a while on the country through which they had passed since their gathering together out of Calais.

  ‘I enjoyed myself,’ admitted the Spaniard. ‘Behind a wheel one sees very little. Also I would have covered much more ground than Calais to Rouen. Tomorrow is equally unhurried—a stop at Chartres long enough to see the Gothic cathedral, and then to Vendome. You must pardon my smile, Senorita Breen, but I think back to when I sped across this road unaware to my shame of the smiling fields of France.’

  ‘You sound as though you are actually having fun,’ proffered Zoe.

  ‘Indeed, I am. And it rather surprises me. It is not, as I said, my chosen method of travel. Also, there are annoyances...’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘That person,’ he said quite frankly. ‘John, our courier, is an excellent man and does not deserve such an imposition. I still cannot understand, senorita, how you come to conduct this woman. In my
country the duenna is the older person, as I said, and she safeguards, never the other way round.’

  ‘I told you,’ Zoe reminded him rather desperately. She was sorry now she had not spoken the truth in the beginning. A tangled web, she thought ruefully, was beginning to weave around her, and it was all entirely her own foolish fault.

  ‘Yes, you told me.’ Once again the glow came to his lustrous dark eyes.

  All at once she could not face the undeserved applause, and pleading weariness, and reminding him that another day lay .ahead of them even though by his standards it was a very small hop indeed, she made to rise, and, impeccably gallant, he rose at once and came round to help her.

  ‘Thank you for a delightful evening Senorita Zoe. May I use that name?’

  The Senorita in front of her Christian name made her smile slightly. How different from the Australian, she thought. And yet, she realized, to use Zoe instead of Breen must be very forthright of such a formal Spaniard.

  Daringly, she answered, ‘Gracias, Senor Ramon. Is that right?’

  ‘My name indeed is Ramon.’

  ‘And the gracias? Was that correct?’

  ‘It was, child. And now hasta manana.’

  ‘That is?’

  ‘Until tomorrow.’

  ‘Then hasta manana. Though—’

  ‘Yes, senorita?’

  Suddenly it had come to her that Mrs. Fenton had asked for hairpins. Small. Rubber-tipped.

  ‘I’ve left it too late,’ she sighed.

  ‘What, senorita?’ he asked patiently again.

  ‘For the hair. Oh, dear!’ She bit her lip in annoyance. Mrs. Fenton, she knew, would be displeased.

  ‘Not to worry.’ He used the English phrase with ease, and, at a curious look from her, explained, ‘I go often to London to attend to some of my irons in the fire. Not to worry about it being late for your hair,’ he added in explanation.

  They walked back through the gentle air, much gentler than Zoe had anticipated, to the hotel.

  But once in the lobby he put a restraining hand on her shoulder and asked her to wait.

  He was not gone very long, and when he returned he put a small parcel in her hand.

  ‘It is never too late,’ he smiled.

  A little bemused Zoe murmured, ‘Gracias. Buenas no ekes.’

  ‘Good night,’ he said back in clear correct English, but there was a smile in his eyes as he bowed.

  With a smile in her own eyes, and on her lips, Zoe went up to the room to which she had been assigned, a very charming boudoir to be shared with another young tourist, a Felicity Stanton, she had found out when she had met her previously tonight.

  Felicity was sitting at the window and staring romantically out. It was her first trip abroad.

  ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Did you see the Cathedral all floodlit?’

  ‘Yes.’ Zoe was opening the parcel. She gave a little gasp of frustration. Instead of the small, nibber-tipped pins Mrs. Fenton had requested ... in her annoyance she forgot she had not mentioned this, had only murmured ‘... for the hair’ ... there was a comb. It looked like a Spanish comb, if one could be bought in France, and at any other time Zoe would have thought it beautiful. But now all she could do was look aghast.

  ‘It wasn’t what I wanted,’ she said aloud.

  Felicity was standing beside her, looking eagerly at the studded ornament.

  ‘Of course not,’ she agreed, ‘your hair is too short.’

  It was. Zoe’s ‘peeled sticks’ was worn soft, straight and blunt, rather like a Dutch boy’s crop.

  ‘I doubt,’ said Felicity, ‘if you could wear it even if your hair were long, you have that very fine texture that finds ornaments too heavy. You need springy hair like mine.’ She looked at the ornament enviously.

  ‘Rubber-tipped small pins,’ grieved Zoe.

  Felicity did not ask how she had come by the comb. Instead she simply took out her vanity purse and threw down some cards of pins.

  ‘Yours,’ she smiled ... but her eyes were on the comb.

  In thankfulness Zoe accepted them ... then did impulsively what she would never have done had she given it a second thought. She pushed the comb on to Felicity.

  ‘But I couldn’t!’ protested Felicity.

  ‘You said yourself it wouldn’t stay any time in my type of hair.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’m very thankful for these.’

  ‘Then if you say so.’ Felicity was not going to waste any more time protesting. She took the comb and put it in her bag.

  Still unaware of what she had done, only aware that at least Mrs. Fenton would not have her dismal failure to remember even a simple request to throw at her tomorrow, Zoe followed the English girl to bed.

  A soft breeze blew through the white muslin curtains of the wide-flung windows ... the little winds, Zoe thought drowsily, of Rouen.

  She wondered fleetingly how Mrs. Fenton was faring in her solo apartment. She wondered what the position was now with Di.

  Then she drifted off warm in the remembered approval of two dark, lustrous Spanish eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  But the next morning the lustre turned to smoulder, and for quite a while Zoe did not understand.

  She had hurried as soon as she dressed to Mrs. Fenton’s suite, triumphantly carrying the required pins. It was rather a let-down after all the trouble the pins had caused when Mrs. Fenton did not even comment on them. Mrs. Fenton, it appeared, had had a shocking night. The noise in her particular part of the hotel had been atrocious. Also she felt sure someone had tried to come into her room. From now on, Zoe learned with a sinking heart, Miss Breen must either share with her, or sleep in an attached room.

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Fenton. No, Mrs. Fenton. Your pins, Mrs. Fenton.’

  But still Mrs. Fenton ignored them.

  Bags had to be in the passage by eight-thirty. Zoe attended to Mrs. Fenton’s, then went back to attend to her own.

  She noticed something different about Felicity, so gave the girl another look. The long hair Felicity wore past her shoulders had been drawn up and affixed with a comb. It was the comb that Senor Raphaelina had given Zoe last night, the one she had eagerly exchanged for some pins from Felicity. How blind she must have been! How desperate! The comb was a lovely thing, whereas the pins...

  Felicity noticed her glance and whirled around. ‘It’s lovely,’ she applauded of herself. ‘How did the pins go?’

  ‘She never even noticed them.’

  Felicity was all sympathy, but she obviously had no intention of handing back her trinket, and Zoe had no intention of asking her. She had done this herself, she could not blame the younger girl for being an eager part in the exchange.

  But as she went down for breakfast she almost changed her tune. She would simply have to ask Felicity, she decided, either that or she would have to buy the comb back. For the piece was similarly though not identically featured in the hotel boutique window and it was worth more than a gross of cards of pins.

  ‘You are not hungry, senorita.’ Ramon Raphaelina had drawn up a chair in the breakfast alcove reserved for the tourists so as to be beside her. ‘And yet there is English fare. That was one of the things I insisted upon on this tour. These people, I said, are accustomed to substantial breakfasts, not Continental coffee and rolls. But perhaps the Australian is not so addicted to bacon and egg.’

  ‘Yes, we like it.’ Zoe wished she could keep her eyes off Felicity’s copper curls piled up high and thrust into them the handsome comb.

  But she was unsuccessful. The senor followed her gaze, and made a little sound of dismay.

  ‘So that is it!’ The dismay when he turned to Zoe was tempered to rueful amusement. ‘You are the same, then, as most women are, little one, you like to be the sole performer. You are unhappy because that girl, too, has a comb like yours. But I will change it, of course. I only took it last night since the keeper of the boutique had closed up the bus
iness and was noticeably eager to conclude the sale as soon as possible. I thought as I purchased it that it was much too burdensome for—’ He paused, then smiled. ‘Peeled sticks,’ he said.

  Zoe forced a smile back.

  ‘But I on my part could not be a burden at so late an hour,’ resumed Senor Raphaelina, ‘so I accepted her recommendation instead of delving for something of my own preference. If you will return it to me I will—’

  ‘Oh, no, senor, no!’

  ‘No?’ The dark brows had risen.

  ‘A gift is a gift,’ Zoe said wretchedly, knowing how he must take her words.

  He did.

  ‘You mean it is the thought?’ he asked eagerly. ‘That is an English saying, I believe, the thought and not the gift. But that is very kind of you, senorita. I find it quite delightful. First you come to my Spain because something draws you to it, and even your unpleasant conditions still do not discourage you. Then next you retain a present that has been spoiled for you simply because it is just that, a present. Which’ ... he was pushing his plate aside; evidently he, too, did not eat a large breakfast ... ‘makes me think that here indeed is not just a peeled stick but a cork from Catalonia.’

  ‘What do you mean, senor?’

  ‘Cork oaks,’ said Ramon Raphaelina, ‘will grow in almost any part of the world, but there is more to it than that. The cork of Catalonia ... Catalonia, as of course you know, is the old north-east Spanish province ... is stronger, more resistant, the annular growth lines are closer together, it is in short the best cork in the world. So you must forgive me my unromantic tribute, senorita, but your “peeled sticks” set the pattern of my words when I say of you that you are indeed to my mind the cork of Catalonia.’ He inclined his head, the lustrous dark eyes meeting hers.