Summing it up, Zoe thought, all is fairly well—except, and a big except, where is my money to go back to England? I have spent comparatively little, but I never had much, and what I still have is not enough. Perhaps David ... Perhaps Di ...
There was someone coming through the garden. She could not see the figure, but she knew that purposeful tread. She had to meet Ramon Raphaelina some time, but suddenly, in a panic, she knew it mustn’t be this time. Blindly she turned and simply fled.
In her previous stay at Rosina’s and Antonio’s hotel, Zoe had never found time to explore further than the garden. The grape-picking at the vineyard had been at its peak. No time to see what lay beyond the hostel’s tamarisks and oleanders.
But now, though not seeing, simply running as silently and as quickly as she could, Zoe tried to put as much distance as she was able between herself and Ramon.
At first Antonio’s paths were river stones, neatly fitted one into the other, then the stones petered out and there was sand, then the sand stopped and she was hurrying over a field ... definitely hurrying somewhere, she could see that by the foot-wide track of worn grass. Fortunately, though evidently much in use, it was still a rather concealed track, ilex trees met overhead, she could only see the sky through their leaves.
Then all at once she was coming to an abrupt halt and staring at something carved out of the side of the hill that looked down on Rosina’s and Antonio’s hostel ... their tarde hill, they always fondly called it, their afternoon hill, for the westering sun seemed to have a soft spot for it ... and wondering at the strong door guarding whatever it was that was stored behind.
The only way to find out was to look. Also with a quick glance over her shoulder ... it should be a successful hiding place.
The door was not locked, but it was heavy to push open. She was quite exhausted by the time she had shoved it sufficiently to squeeze in. The darkness that met her might have made her change her mind about hiding there, but curiosity overcame her. Just what was Antonio concealing here? Stores of food in case of civil war? Bravely ... though the cold breath of the cellar (for a cellar indeed it was) considerably cooling off her courage ... she stepped inside. The daylight from outside dimly lit several steps down, and just as well they did, otherwise she would have fallen, for the next moment she was closing the door hastily and resigning herself to absolute blackness. Better that than Ramon Raphaelina, for definitely she caught the echo of steps again.
For a moment she believed they were coming no nearer. She could hear the usual sounds of someone walking through brush ... soft footfalls, stirrings of roused leaves, of boughs bent back.
And then ... horrors! ... the door was opening, opening with much more ease than she had achieved, being held open by means of a big figure simply propping himself against it.
‘Come out, pequena!’ Ramon Raphaelina called.
Zoe did not answer.
‘Come out or I’ll shut you in, put two big stones to keep you like that.’
Still no answer.
A low laugh, then: ‘Is it that you are no longer capable? Have you discovered the delights of Antonio’s best vintages? I warn you, child, this is not our bottled table wine, it is very potent.’
Wine! Wine? But of course, this was Antonio’s bodega. A bodega was strictly a wine shop, and in a way this was, too—a wine shop for Antonio and his wife. She recalled Antonio explaining once how all growers in Spain, big growers or small, reserved for themselves a barrel of what they considered the best of their vintage. Her eyes were more accustomed to the dark now, and she could decipher the rows of barrels. She put her hands out and felt them. She took a deep breath and inhaled the earthy but sweetly fruity air.
‘Well,’ said the voice, ‘if the mountain won’t come, then I suppose I must.’ He was stepping in, closing the door of the bodega behind him.
‘I’m coming,’ Zoe said with agitation, and took a step forward that took her right into his arms.
In those arms she heard him say, and it must have been the thick atmosphere of the cellar that roughed his voice: ‘Too late.’
‘Senor—’ she began.
‘Senorita?’
‘I—Can we go outside? It’s hot here. I mean it’s cold. I mean—’
‘What is it you do mean, querida?’—Querida? She knew pequena as little one, but—querida?
‘I mean—can we go out?’
‘Impossible. One must never leave a bodega without first judging the vintage that has been set down. Antonio would be most hurt. Hold the torch, senorita, while I find a ladle to fill this mug that Antonio kindly has left.’
‘You’re making all this up.’
‘Making what up?’
‘This story of judging the vintage, you’re just—just—’
‘Si?’
‘Just victimizing me,’ she finished.
‘Victimizing you? Explain yourself.’
‘You’re putting me on a spot. Making me wriggle.’
‘Senorita, you seem very still to me. And yet I do feel something. A thump. Could it be a heart?’
She made an effort and pulled herself away from him. ‘No,’ she said a little breathlessly, ‘you couldn’t hear a heart.’
‘Odd, but it sounded like it. The torch a little higher, please, so I can find the surface of the vino. The barrel is not full, Rosina and Antonio have been sampling it.’
‘I don’t want any!’ she snapped.
‘Your good health, senorita.’ He passed the earthenware mug filled with amber liquid to her. More than that, he cupped it in her hands. What else could she do, bar spilling it, but hold it? He poured a mug for himself.
‘To both of us.’ His eyes, in the semi-light, challenged hers.
‘Come as she stood and did not raise the mug—’drink.’ He drank himself. ‘Not bad.’ He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. ‘Not at all bad. Yet not as good, I believe you will agree, as ours.’
‘Ours?’
‘Then mine. But’—a pause—‘I did include Miguel.’
‘You mean by that that you don’t include him now?’
‘Your words, senorita.’ The answer was careless, almost as though he was not very interested.
‘You mean’—the wine she had sampled at last had lent her courage—’you would victimize Miguel because of Di?’
‘Perhaps. Why not?’
‘Why not? Because—because—’
‘Another ladle, senorita, it will soothe you.’ Banteringly he refilled the earthen mug.
‘No!’ She pushed his hand away. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from you,’
Lazily he reminded her, ‘This is from Antonio’s crush, I think you will like mine better. Fruitier. More bouquet.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘No,’ he said, and suddenly he was serious. ‘I knew that, of course. But shouldn’t it be the other way about?’
‘The other way about?’
‘Shouldn’t it be that I want nothing from you? You who have cheated me from the moment I first met you? You, with your big blue eyes and your lying lips, your “I have never been to Spain, senor” ... “Always I have yearned to visit Spain, senor” ... “That is why I am putting up with Mrs. Fenton, senor”...’
He took out his cheroots, remembered where he was, remembered the delicate, vulnerable vintage, and put them back.
‘Lies, lies, lies,’ he said.
‘Not exactly, Don Ramon.’
‘Then what instead? Subtleties, evasions, half truths? The English language is a very convenient one, it can find a dozen names to call a spade, but here in Spain a lie is a lie and the man who tells it is a liar.’
‘I’m a woman.’ As she reminded him mechanically those words of his came rushing back to her.—‘All woman ... as a Spaniard believes in woman.’
She became deeply, vividly conscious that he was looking at her, looking at her as though the darkness of the bodega was as brilliant as Christmas night in Oxford Street. �
��Yes, senorita, I know you are a woman.’
All at once she seemed no longer herself, not anyway that defensive girl, sullenly aware that she had hurt this man but unwilling to concede it, but instead forgetting all her rebellion in a sudden sweet deep knowledge of the real design for living. Man’s design. Woman’s. This man’s. Hers.—Hers?
It was too sweet and too bitter to think about, and in a rush she said, ‘I’ll leave, of course.’
‘You will what?’ The brief spell had broken. The deep look had departed from him. He was simply plainly angry again.
‘I will leave Lamona,’ she explained.
‘Just like that?’ He spread his big dark hands.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? You dare to ask that of me, you who have done all this mischief?’
‘Senor, I have done nothing. It may look like it, and you may’—a pause—‘have had reports of it, but my only part in this “mischief”, as you call it, has been to reunite with my friend.’ As he did not speak she said urgently, ‘I give you my word, senor, I have done nothing more than that.’
Still he did not comment. His face was thoughtful. Then he shrugged, ‘Well, no matter. Manana, as we Spanish say. Tomorrow. It will pass.’
‘Manana,’ she echoed him. Then ... and tentatively: ‘But they will not pass. Diana and Miguel will not pass in the morning.’
‘Ah, so you have not been as cut off from it as you would have me believe.’
‘Certainly I’ve been concerned,’ she answered stiffly. ‘Diana is my friend.’
‘And Miguel is my dead sister’s child, my only relative.’
‘And you don’t wish him to marry outside Spain.’
‘I have no intention of his marrying outside Spain.’ The voice was cool.
‘So.’ Zoe borrowed his contemplative way of speaking, and had she glanced at him she would have surprised an amused quirk on his lips.
‘You interpret me wrongly, senorita,’ he informed her. ‘You also do not hear me out. Any marriage of my nephew’s would have to be solemnized in this country.’
‘You mean—’ She looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes.
‘Yes, senorita?’
‘That it doesn’t matter if she’s not Spanish?’
‘I mean that it must not be out of Spain, as I just said, and by out of Spain I meant, too, out of the church, for I have no time for—’
‘You really mean,’ Zoe’s voice was rejoicing, ‘two rings on a cushion blessed by a priest.’
Sharply he inserted, ‘You object to that?’
‘Oh no, senor, oh no. But’—thoughtfully—‘the fine wool dress would be all wrong. She would need to go back to that boutique.’
A little silence, then: ‘I do not follow you, but that does not matter. The important thing is that you follow me. I have spent some time with Diana. I find her an exceptionally charming and presentable girl. I consider my nephew a fortunate man indeed. In short I am pleased to give my blessing.’
‘So Celestina needn’t have tried to hurry things. Oh, I’m sorry, senor, I should not have said that.’ Zoe was ashamed of herself.
He made a dismissive gesture. ‘You tell me nothing I do not know, but let us not discuss it, it is not worth words that could speak other things.’ His eyes in the semi-gloom held hers.
‘Perhaps I would have sooner the meeting of the pair in some different manner,’ he stated formally. ‘In Spain girls do not travel the countryside.’
‘And fall in love?’
A pause. Another secret quirk to the lips.
‘Well,’ he said experimentally, ‘perhaps it may be done if you say so.’
‘Have I said so?’
‘I am waiting, senorita.’
But she did not speak. Her head was down.
‘It is early.’ He said it regretfully, but for all the regret there was still a pleased note in his voice that she could not understand, indeed, she could not understand him at all. But—manana. Tomorrow. She liked that Spanish putting off till later.
‘Too early yet to pursue it,’ he went on, still, to Zoe, incomprehensible, ‘sufficient, pequena, to inform you that of course you do not leave Lamona.’
‘You mean till after the marriage?’
‘Until you have paid your debt. Think it over, Senorita Zoe, you are considerably indebted to me—one transit from France to Spain, one week at an inn, not a paradorey admittedly, but expensive enough.’
‘One evening at the Spanish dancing,’ she inserted tartly. ‘One bathing suit.’
‘One cap,’ he inserted in his turn, ‘to protect a handful of peeled sticks. But in here, senorita, in Antonio’s bodega, they are not peeled sticks, but a shining halo.’ He lifted his hand up and touched her hair. She stood quite still under the touch, made no movement at all.
He sighed ... it sounded like a sigh ... but when he spoke it was brightly. ‘So until you are—what is it you English say?’
‘I think you might mean “square”.’
‘Square with me, then you cannot go away.’
She couldn’t go even then, she thought, not without a peseta, not without a loan. Aloud she asked, ‘But how do I begin to repay?’
‘There are many ways,’ he said carefully. ‘I hoped you might have begun to guess.’
‘The children?’
Another pause, then a little resigned laugh this time instead of the sigh.
‘It will do, pequena. For now.’
‘Now?’
But he was moving up the cellar steps, opening the big door of the bodega, beckoning her into the light again. Out there it was indeed manana ... tomorrow. A lovely bright golden morning.
Also Diana was accepted. She and Miguel were going to be married. All was well with the world.
Why, then, with the senor singing airily under his breath as he led the way down to the hostel, was Zoe aware of a disappointment, of an ending to something she felt had not really begun?
She shook it off fairly successfully. One hour ago, she reminded herself, she had run and hidden from this man, and now he was smiling at her, his only call on her a promise to exact payment for what she had cost him. And that was only natural, he was a business man, he had said he had many irons in the fire.
Almost as though he read her thoughts, he pointed to the castel on the hill ... one of those irons? ... and reminded her, ‘You were interested when I told you of the restored castels of Spain. While you are repaying me you must surely see one. You will like that?’
About to answer that she already had seen one, even stopped in one, Zoe paused. The senor had not known that she, too, had been in that paradore outside of Madrid that night.
‘It would please you, Senorita Zoe?’ he repeated.
‘Indeed,’ she replied.
The tangled web, she thought wretchedly, is again beginning to weave. But she said nothing as they walked down the hill.
Ramon suggested that he drive Zoe up to the Casa Rosada for lunch.
‘I had just come from Vittoria’s to extend the invitation when you evidently interpreted my advancing steps for trouble looming,’ he remarked, ‘and ran away.’
‘Yes, I was foolish,’ Zoe admitted.
‘To think it was trouble?’
‘To think I could escape the eventual reckoning in a little village like this.’
‘And yet it was not as terrible as you feared?’
She evaded, ‘The wine was good.’
He laughed and let that pass.
‘I was up at the Casa Rosada soon after Diana telephoned you, otherwise her conversation would have been much happier, I think.’
‘Yes, she was not in the best of spirits when she rang off.’
‘Now it is otherwise.’
‘What did you say to her, senor?’ Zoe asked.
‘I have no doubt she would sooner tell you herself.’
‘Then I could telephone—’
‘You could, but Vittoria has a further child problem she wishes to discu
ss with you. More than one child, in fact.’
‘I’m not an expert.’
‘But you have observed your father, Diana affirms. Lamona has no resident doctor. Our nearest town of doctor size has a worthy one, but not one versed in child study.’
‘I still couldn’t advise,’ she said hesitantly.
‘But you could discuss. We will tell Rosina you will not be present for lunch.’ In that assured manner of his he brushed aside Zoe’s protests and went out to the big kitchen from which Rosina seldom stirred.
While he was there, Zoe brushed her hair, applied a quick line of lipstick and took up a jacket.
‘Good,’ he said, when he found her waiting, and he opened the door of his car.
It was a different car, but then of course the other had been hired.
‘Yes,’ he said, reading her thoughts, ‘I am now using my own transport.’
As they neared the Casa Rosada, Zoe asked, ‘Will you be remaining for luncheon too, senor?’
‘No. I have much vineyard business to catch up on. But Diana no doubt will drive you down again.’
‘I wasn’t worrying about that. I quite enjoy the walk. But—Diana? Diana has no car.’
‘Had no car. She has now. It is very necessary, I think. She will find much to do in the coming weeks, and Miguel or I might not always be around. As you must have perceived, Senorita Zoe, the few shops in our little Lamona scarcely come under the category of exclusive boutiques.’
‘Is it Miguel’s car?’
‘No. It is one of mine. A little extra car for local journeys.’
‘Then, senor, you are depriving yourself.’
Spanish Lace Page 14