Spanish Lace

by Joyce Dingwell

  Words, once more, into the phone.

  What else? What else? Zoe simply did not know. As a medical report it indicated precious little. A slight malady, perhaps. Little else. And yet she remained gravely concerned. It was a sort of sixth sense worrying her, urging her, that things were far from right.

  ‘Yes, Zoe?’ It was Vittoria, anxious-eyed, anxious for her baby.

  ‘That’s all. Just tell him—tell him they’re very ill.’

  She heard Vittoria’s staccato words, saw her quivering lips as she listened in her turn.

  Then, finally, she let the phone down.

  ‘He thinks’ ... Vittoria’s voice was tight ... ‘it could be some virus disease, some new or unaccustomed virus, but without seeing he cannot tell, and Zoe ... Zoe, he cannot come and see.’ All at once Vittoria was no longer the brave mother, she was crying with fear, and Francisco was hurrying across to her.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ insisted Zoe: she simply could not afford a third patient on her hands. ‘Tell her it’s nothing, Francisco. I mean—well, just a pulse. Why, there’s no temperature, and that’s wonderful. If there was a temperature...’ Then Zoe’s voice trailed away. She had been watching Juan as she assured them, and even as she watched she could see the dreaded red rising in his pale cheeks. Her eyes flew to Fleurette. Quite obviously the little girl was undergoing the same change.

  A virus. What sort of virus? Where had they contracted it? How long between the incubation and the—

  ‘Francisco,’ Zoe’s voice came clearly over Vittoria’s sobbing, ‘I want you to ring San Sebastian.’

  ‘Yes, senorita?’

  ‘There is an inn there ... the Court of the Myrtles. I don’t know the number, but contact the proprietor, please.’

  ‘But, senorita...’

  ‘And hurry!’

  He must have caught the note in her voice, for he began dialling at once.

  It took a long time. Probably not nearly as long as Zoe in her desperate impatience thought, but after Trunks was obtained, San Sebastian reached, there was the delay of discovering the telephone number of the Court of the Myrtles, which was after all only a small hotel, and out of the city.

  Meanwhile Zoe was getting prepared for what she knew she probably faced—the bringing down of two temperatures without medical aid, by herself. For one look at the trembling Vittoria, at the distraught Francisco, barely coping now with the Trunks call, told her that.

  Perhaps someone else in the house, she thought briefly. There would be no time, she knew, to instruct Vittoria or Francisco to instruct the others in Spanish, for the staff had no English. What had to be done had to be done at once. For that same reason there was no time to send down to the vineyard for Diana or Miguel.

  Francisco had at last got on to the Court of the Myrtles. Recalling that the proprietor spoke English, Zoe ran across.

  ‘It will be quicker in Spanish,’ Francisco suggested wisely, and Zoe had to agree with that.

  She, stood clasping her hands very tight as he asked for the hotelier.

  ‘What do I inquire, Zoe?’ he begged.

  ‘If there has been a virus ... an epidemic ... an infection ... among any of the children this last week.’

  Francisco obeyed, listened, then looked up.

  ‘None.’

  ‘Is he certain?’

  Francisco repeated the question, then looked up again. ‘He is very certain.’

  ‘Oh—!’ Zoe sighed.

  ‘Is that all?’

  About to nod wretchedly, instead Zoe fairly pulled the .phone from the startled man.

  Of course Bernardo would say that, it only made sense ... for him. The season was at its height. No proprietor of a holiday inn would admit to anything of the description of a virus, or an epidemic, or an infection, or any sort of illness within miles of his establishment.

  ‘Bernardo!’ she almost screamed. ‘Bernardo, this is Senorita Breen. I had those children, Henri and Fleurette. It was with Senor Raphaelina. Bernardo, listen to me!’

  At the other end, no doubt terribly wretched, no doubt aware of what lay ahead of him, Bernardo sighed, ‘I listen, senorita.’

  ‘The little ones ... the pequenos ... are very ill. Very, very ill. Bernardo, I don’t understand this illness. Without your help, without your information, I don’t know what to do. Bernardo, you can’t deny any longer that there’s illness there, because I know there is.’—It was a long shot, but she had to break down that reluctance to speak.

  ‘If you don’t admit to some sort of epidemic, then—’ What would she threaten? A report to the Government? Probable closing down of his inn?

  Then her voice was taking over from her, speaking instinctively, speaking heartbrokenly, ‘If you don’t tell me, these children will die.’

  She heard Vittoria’s little cry, but was glad of it ... she only hoped Bernardo heard it.

  If he did, he did not betray it. Not for a long, long moment.

  Then: ‘It is ruination,’ he wept. ‘So short a season. People get such ideas and won’t come again.’

  ‘Bernardo, these children are going to—’

  She did not need to finish. A voice ... a woman’s voice that she supposed was Elena’s ... called shrilly, ‘It is a germ that has attacked this part of the coast, senorita. One minute, apart from increased heartbeat, a child is quite normal, though some of the parents have suspected something amiss prior to that through moods and tantrums...’

  ‘Go on, Elena, go on, and—and God bless you.’

  ‘Then finally there is a high temperature, which must be brought down. That is very important, senorita, very important indeed. This malady, which our doctors now have named the—’

  ‘Yes, I understand. It doesn’t matter about the name, Elena. Just thank you. Just—just muchas gracias.’

  Zoe put the phone down.

  She had never felt so inadequate in all her life. Her head was aching, it seemed enclosed in a tight band. Her legs were ready to buckle under her.

  I can’t do it, she knew. I simply can’t attend these two near-desperately ill children alone. And it’s no use asking that poor pair. They’re too close to one of the patients, their love would be a hindrance. Then it’s no use recruiting some of the servants. Even if I could get them to understand I simply haven’t the time to waste trying.

  She had crossed to Juan, and taken up Vittoria’s new clinical thermometer of which Vittoria had been so proud. The boy’s showed one hundred and three. Could he have risen so quickly?

  She crossed to Fleurette and was aghast to see she was slightly more.

  ‘I want,’ she said almost dully, and she knew she must bestir herself, speak louder, with more authority, to obtain instant obedience, ‘open windows. A single sheet instead of all these blankets.’

  She saw by their startled faces that it was going to be even harder than she had thought. To take clothes away from these two children, especially, although it was summer, on a far from hot day!

  ‘Both babies,’ stated Zoe, ‘have to be sponged. Sponged and sponged again.’

  ‘I will bring the hot water,’ clamoured Vittoria.

  ‘Not hot.’

  ‘Not hot? But no, surely no!’

  ‘Surely yes. Lukewarm to begin with, then cold.’

  ‘Cold?’ wailed Vittoria.

  ‘They have fever. The temperature must be reduced without delay.’ As their disbelieving faces registered even more disbelief: ‘Often fever is a defensive action against infection, and not an unwelcome sign, but not on this occasion. Not on this occasion. Oh, can’t you understand?’

  She stood there reaching out to them with everything that was in her ... her sympathy, her understanding, her desire to help, but most of all her desperation. But she could see she was losing ground.

  And then, just as she was about to turn and decide who to attend ... if it was Juan they could object at what seemed to them the wrong treatment and if it was Fleurette they also could object because their son had
been passed over ... there were those long, well-remembered footsteps in the hall.

  She knew it was him before he came to the door, and instinctively she ran to meet him.

  ‘Ramon ... oh, Ramon!’ she gasped.

  ‘There, querida, there.’—Vaguely she remembered that she still had not discovered exactly what querida meant.

  ‘It’s the children,’ she babbled. ‘Francisco and Vittoria, they—they—’

  The parents had followed her to the hall. Francisco did the explaining. ‘We appreciate the concern of the senorita, but what she says should be done does not help us, we feel—’

  ‘What does she say?’ Ramon’s voice boomed across to them.

  ‘Cool air. Just warm, then later cold sponges. Cold!’

  ‘It is essential.’ Zoe was not aware that she was pulling on Ramon’s sleeve. ‘The temperatures must come down. I’ve been in touch with the Court of the Myrtles and there has been a sickness in the children there, and the only treatment that the San Sebastian doctors advise is—’

  ‘Never mind what they or others advise, it is what you order.’

  And with that, Ramon Raphaelina pushed her back into the room, spoke rapidly over his shoulder to Juan’s parents, spoke with kindness but definite authority, then turned to Zoe.

  ‘Tell me.’ He said it simply, humbly and very attentively, and she knew without any emphasis, any undue direction from her, he would obey her every word.

  ‘Wrung-out sheets,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘Copious drinks. Tell Vittoria that.’

  ‘A pyrexia?’ He evidently understood at once that they faced a stage of fever.

  ‘Si,’ she said unawarely, and crossed again to check Fleurette, slightly worse than Juan, but probably she had had it longer, probably had carried it here. Those moods of hers, because she was a moody little girl, had roused no undue concern. Those tantrums had been passed over.

  The little child was red-hot. She was near exhaustion. It was a frightening thing just to look at her.

  And after all, said a voice in Zoe, why should I look at her? Why should I try to tend her? I am not qualified, nor anything like qualified, I just had a doctor for a father, a doctor who told me about things, let me help him sometimes, hold basins, mop up. But—but good heavens, that doesn’t fit me for a situation like this.

  No, I can’t. I can’t!

  She heard Ramon moving around Juan’s small cot. She saw his big, brown, infinitely gentle yet infinitely firm hands beginning to tend the child. For a moment he stopped to look up. For a moment he looked across at her.

  I can, Zoe knew.

  It had been an hour from the noon wedding of Miguel and Diana when Francisco had come racing down the hill to the vineyard.

  When Zoe looked up again from Juan ... Ramon had taken over Fleurette ... the first pale grey of evening was blotting out the day. She supposed she must have looked up before that. Exchanged words with Ramon. Even drunk a cup of coffee, for the emptied tray was by the door. But she could remember nothing, nothing beyond starting off with sponges at eighty degrees ... she had done that automatically from her father’s tuition ... then the sponging becoming cooler, and finally cold.

  She could only remember finishing a fevered little body then beginning all over again. And again. And again. And again.

  In between the sponging, if you could call the few snatched moments an in-between, wrapping Juan in wrung-out sheets, plying copious drinks, for pyrexia was fire and fever, and if it was not put out there could be a serious consequence. Remembering writing for Father on other temperature-lowering ordeals an incomprehensible ... for Zoe ... “Quotidian, Tertian, Quartan, Remittent”, not understanding but obeying, only knowing it recorded a course. Trying at all costs to maintain a patient’s resistance by the free eliminatory action of the skin.

  But oh, what a time these children took! Hour after hour after hour. The sudden sharp rise in temperature they had suffered stopped there, stopped far too long, far too high, far too dangerous.

  Fortunately Vittoria and Francisco were busy on the wrung-out sheets, the citronade, the fresh basins of cold water. They could not see the desperation that every now and then Zoe was wretchedly aware she could not conceal.

  She remembered a term of her father’s ... the efflorescence, the time of flowering, of peak. Surely the fever must reach it soon. But after that, after the efflorescence, what then?

  Her lip quivered, and to hide her uncertainty from Vittoria who had come to stand miserably at the door, she began sponging Juan again, some of her desperate tears splashing on to the damp cooled cloth.

  Then Ramon was by her side, quiet, quick, only leaving Fleurette for the fraction of a moment, touching Zoe so briefly that it was barely a touch at all, and saying, ‘I think it is a little better. I think he is a little better, don’t you?’

  She didn’t ... or she hadn’t ... but now she did at once. And then, almost miraculously, if you could call hours and hours of barely moving from a bedside a miracle, as rapidly as the temperatures had soared, they dropped again.

  That last fevered rush must have been the peak, the efflorescence; the fever had run its gamut. It was over.

  Zoe said in an expressionless voice she would not have believed could be her own: ‘He looks recovered.’

  Ramon said: ‘He is recovered.’

  The parents said nothing, but their eyes, brimming with tears, knew it, too. Without doubt Juan was through the ordeal. As with most children he came right through, came pink and fresh, a little exhausted but undoubtedly as sound as a bell. No half measures with the young, Zoe recalled from her father, they are ill or they are not ill.

  ‘And Fleurette,’ she heard Vittoria calling gladly, ‘and Fleurette, she is better, too.’

  The four adults just stood and looked at the pequenos, then stood and looked at each other.

  Into their relieved silence came the shrill of the telephone. For quite a while no one moved, no one seemed able to, then with a visible effort Francisco came out of his stillness and crossed to the hall.

  He came back soon afterwards, and he was smiling.

  ‘Our doctor is coming.’

  Zoe, with the thought of the three emergency operations he had been called upon to perform, the meticulous after-care needed in such operations, said wistfully but honestly, ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘He has been fortunate in help from Esterella. Indeed, he has received so much help he can not only come but wants to come. He has since heard of this west coast infection and is anxious to learn about it. Also’—a beam—‘there will be a nurse, and she will stay on to watch.’

  It was too much for Zoe. Actually for the first time for six hours she left a bedside and went and stood at the window.

  It was then she saw the grey instead of the blue and golden. A silver star pricking into the sky.

  ‘It’s night-time,’ she murmured. ‘Well—almost.’

  ‘Si.’ It was Ramon, and he was crossing to stand with her. ‘Buenas noches, senorita.’

  ‘Buenas no—’ But Zoe did not finish.

  ‘The wedding!’ she gasped. ‘Di’s and Miguel’s wedding. They’re married!’

  ‘Foolish pequena, as though they would! As though any of the villagers could lend themselves to gaiety when up here small ones lay in danger. Oh, no, Senorita Zoe, pequenos to Spaniards are very valuable—’ He frowned. ‘What is it? A cooking term?’

  ‘Small fry,’ she smiled. ‘But you mean—you mean the wedding would be delayed?’

  ‘Have you heard any ringing of bells?’

  ‘No, but I haven’t heard anything else, either.’

  ‘That is understandable.’ The dark eyes glowed. ‘But weddings in Spain are not quiet affairs, there is music, there is laughter, there is song. And so there will be quite soon. For our trial is over, is it not, and that young pair—’

  ‘Yes, Zoe,’ agreed Vittoria, crossing to them, ‘it is safe now, it is finished, and you must
hurry down.’

  ‘Hurry down?’

  ‘To be Diana’s attendant.’

  ‘You, too, are an attendant, Vittoria.’

  ‘But you are her friend.’

  ‘And you are Josefina’s mother. If you don’t go, Josefina will not go. You can’t disappoint the child.’

  ‘Of course I can.’ But Vittoria was a little wistful, and Zoe did not waste time.

  ‘I’ll wait until the doctor and the nurse come. I would have to, anyway, wouldn’t I? I’m unskilled, but’—apologetically—‘I do know a little more than you, and’—apologetically again—‘I have been through it all.’

  ‘You have been wonderful. We shall never forget it. Whatever you ask us to do we shall be proud to do it.’

  ‘Then dress and go down and tell Diana and Miguel to go ahead; that very soon I’—a glance at Ramon and a nod of his dark head—‘we shall follow. We shall give our report to the doctor, then come at once. Assure Diana of that. For this is her wedding day, everything is ready, and it must be as she has planned. Can’t you see that there is one day that is the day?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Vittoria.’ A warm luminous look from Francisco.

  Vittoria still stood uncertain.

  ‘But it makes sense.’ Ramon had stepped forward, and, as usual, what he said convinced.

  While the men stood by the now sweetly sleeping children, Zoe went in and helped Vittoria dress the red eyed Josefina ... after all, to come all that way to be a flower girl and then be deprived! As well as deprivation the worry of a desperately ill little brother!

  But pale blue folds, pale blue slippers, a posy of flowers and blue lace on a little dark head brought radiant smiles, and telling her to stand still, Zoe ran over to button up Vittoria.

  Vittoria and midnight blue were made for each other. When Zoe fastened the final small button she cried out in admiration.

  ‘You’re beautiful!’

  ‘And you will be, too. It is a lovely colour.’ Vittoria was almost crying again with happiness.

  ‘But it’s not my colour. I am—’ Zoe remembered Celestina once saying, ‘You are nothing,’ and started to say it of herself.