Spanish Lace

by Joyce Dingwell

  ‘You are peeled sticks.’

  From the door of the room Ramon said it almost idly. He and Francisco were looking at Vittoria, Francisco with adoration, but Ramon with admiration ... a brief admiration.

  Then looking instead at Zoe.

  From the bottom of the drive came the sound of a car, and Francisco said, ‘It will be the doctor and the nurse, so now, my love, you really can go with a light heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ Vittoria agreed.

  The two parties passed each other in the hall ... Zoe could hear but not understand the Spanish exchanges.

  Then the Morales’ car was leaving the Casa Rosada. The doctor and the nurse entering the sickroom. Zoe was stepping forward, explaining, forgetting that neither understood each other. Then Ramon was interpreting, nodding, conveying back again. Smiling acknowledgment obviously of praise, conveying that to Zoe. Conveying her thanks.

  Temperatures were being re-checked, pulses verified. Then finally, kindly but very definitely ... and why not, she was qualified and Zoe was not ... Zoe was being edged out by the nurse. Dismissed.

  ‘But do not feel resentful,’ a laughing voice said at her side. ‘I am dismissed, too.’

  ‘Of course I don’t feel resentful. Ordinarily I would never have been there at all. Why, if we hurry we might even join in the festivities ... that is, if you really ... that is...’

  ‘If I really intended to attend? At no time did I not intend to attend.’

  ‘Yet you said—’

  ‘Yes, senorita, I said it. I also said once that a Spaniard keeps his word. But occasionally he does not keep it. And this was to be one of those times.

  ‘Also, do not worry over the festivities being over. Spanish weddings last quite often for days.’ A little low laugh. ‘Si, Senorita Zoe, we have plenty of time.’

  ‘But I must shower. I must change my dress.’

  ‘And put on your bridesmaid’s dress? Pin in your lace?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But there is still time, senorita.’

  ‘Time for what?’

  She was thinking of explanations, of perhaps a quiet rest on the patio while he smoked a cheroot and relaxed, another cup of coffee while they talked over the events of the day, a glass or two of vino tinto.

  But she had not thought of steps to her side, a face only a breath away, arms suddenly tight around her. Of a firm mouth on hers. Of Senor Raphaelina saying, ‘Querida ... my darling ... querida...’ So that was what it meant.

  She had not thought of spring in high summer. Of morning at nightfall. Of rainbows without rain. Of everything that was dreamed of but never seriously anticipated. Of rapture. Of bliss.

  Or of Ramon.

  How long was it before they stepped apart again? Zoe could not have said, but she saw that it was much darker outside, that the pearl grey of first nightfall had deepened to almost the same luminous blue as the gown that Vittoria wore and the one that she intended to slip into when they went down to the vineyard casa.

  That reminded her of the wedding, Di’s and Miguel’s wedding. It would be over now, of course. She murmured this.

  ‘Si, querida,’ Ramon nodded.

  Querida. She wanted to clasp that in her hand, imprison it. She still could not believe he had said it. Said it to her.

  ‘But the festivities, as I told you,’ he went on, ‘will proceed for many hours. We will leave here presently to join our happy pair, but before we go, there are a few things yet to be said.’

  ‘By you as well as by me, senor?’ broke in Zoe resolutely, but the firmness she tried to imbue, for after all he had more to explain than she had, was lost in the pressure once more of his arms around her.

  ‘Ramon, pequena,’ he instructed with mock sternness.

  ‘Ramon,’ she complied. ‘Ramon, why did you suddenly change?’

  ‘I never changed.’

  ‘But you were angry when you left me. You said goodbye.’

  ‘I was angry ... yes. You had led me a dance with your pretences.’

  ‘They were not really pretences, I mean I didn’t intend them to be. I simply didn’t say all that I should have said, what I intended to say.’ She looked piteously at him. ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘I did not say what I should have, either,’ he offered gravely. ‘I did not say that it never mattered, anyway, that the only thing that mattered concerned only you. Right or wrong, only you. Now I suppose’—ruefully—‘you will put my change of heart and mind down to meeting David Glenner and hearing from him that what you told me was the entire truth. What else when they were ... and now you will undoubtedly think uncharitably of me ... when Celestina and David were—But, Zoe, you pull away.’

  ‘So you needed David to urge you back,’ she flashed, ‘you didn’t believe me, but you did believe David.’

  ‘I just told you,’ he reminded her patiently, ‘that even in disbelief I knew anyway it did not matter, that I would return, querida.’

  ‘But you still had to have confirmation,’ she pouted.

  ‘I didn’t. Though’—with a smile—‘if I had, it was certainly very convincing confirmation.’

  ‘Senor? Ramon?’

  ‘A ring,’ he said, ‘on Celestina’s finger.’

  ‘Celestina ... Celestina and David engaged?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ she echoed.

  ‘Married. Very quietly. In a little white church with a tall steeple. The steeple, Spanish children are told, points the way to heaven, but one look at that very happy pair and I knew it points the way to love as well.’ A pause. ‘You will see for yourself when we go down the hill.’

  ‘They will be there?’

  ‘Si. It was a mutual knowledge, they told me. David knew as soon as he saw Celestina. Celestina knew ... though womanlike she resisted for a while. You are not impeaching me for that “womanlike”, Zoe? You admit, too, to being difficult in love?’

  ‘I difficult! It’s you, senor. For all that you have defended yourself in your trust in me I still think you had little trust, also little intention ... that is until David and Celestina said what they did.’

  ‘It sounds like that,’ he admitted, ‘and how can I convince you otherwise ... except...’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘That night in the paradore.’ His voice was suddenly soft. ‘I had never known such a feeling before. You were there, near me. I felt you, Zoe. And that is why, when I wished you to experience a restored castel, I took you miles over a countryside to that certain paradore when I could have taken you to the next town. Because to me it was a magic place. Because it had to be there and nowhere else. I had felt you there, sensed your dearness, and I wanted it all again.’

  ‘I was in the room just above you.’ Now her voice was soft.

  His face deep in her fair hair, he warned: ‘But never again in another room.’

  They discussed the children. How Juan and Fleurette would never walk the same uncluttered path that Henri did. That they were more emotionally drawn.

  ‘But it was not all temper with either of them,’ defended Zoe loyally. ‘They were sickening, Ramon.’

  ‘The poor pequenos. But’—with fatherly firmness—‘with our young ones we will be kind but—’

  ‘How many?’ she interrupted, laughing happily.

  ‘You can count in Spanish?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then that is good for your peace of mind.’ Now he was laughing. ‘And on that subject, querida, I have set the Bontonnes’ minds at peace. I have promised we will return their children to them next week.’

  ‘Then they knew of Fleurette’s illness?’ grieved Zoe, ‘they’ve been worrying?’

  ‘No. The only unquiet to their minds was the possibility of their children returning before they were ready for them.’ He laughed. ‘Do not fret, not a word of the girl’s sickness has been relayed.’

  ‘Then Henri will certainly soon relay it.’

  ‘I doubt it. He has a mind only for dams and storages.
Also, the Bontonnes are modern parents and would be supremely undismayed. Especially’—a smile—‘after the small ones have been returned by a different route from the one by which they came. I intend us to take the northeast road back through Barcelona, then across through Toulouse.’

  ‘Catalonia cork?’ she said, and he answered gravely, looking her quietly up and down and his eyes glowing: ‘Si. The best cork in the world.’

  There was nothing else to be discussed. There was nothing else to explain. There was nothing to keep them from going down to the vineyard casa and to the gay throngs.

  Besides, thought Zoe, she must see Diana before she left the reception. Tell her ... oh, tell her—

  ‘Si, pequena.’ He had read her thoughts. ‘We go now. We say our good news.’

  ‘After I change,’ she stipulated, looking down at herself and her dishevelment.

  ‘But no need. You look as you always look, querida. Beautiful.’

  ‘My new dress...’ she demurred.

  ‘It can wait.’

  ‘My mantilla?’

  ‘But already you are wearing one.’

  ‘What do you mean, Ramon?’

  ‘Night shadows,’ he reminded her softly. ‘A star for a jewelled comb. On “peeled sticks”,’ and he touched her hair tenderly, ‘though my word is moonlight, that is Spanish lace.’