by Amanda Doyle
Cecily selected a cane day-bed with a reclining back, and swung her plastered limb carefully on to the cushions, after which she lit a cigarette. .
After a puff or two, she stubbed it out irritably.
“That was a mistake, at any rate,” she admitted. “Tastes ghastly. I suppose I should have had some breakfast first. Tell me, how did you get on last night? You certainly made a night of it, anyway. I looked in on my way to bed, and you weren’t even home then.”
“No, we were later than you, it seems. The whole place was quiet when I came in. It must have been about three o’clock or more, I should think. I didn’t look at the time.”
Anna’s tone was cool. Cecily glanced at her sharply. “You certainly aren’t in an informative mood this morning, are you, Anna darling? Didn’t you enjoy yourself after all?”
“Yes, of course.” Anna tried hard to sound normal. “We went up to Tibidabo and saw the city by night—that was after Guy had done whatever it was he had to do for old Doctor Lamas. I just looked around while he was doing that. After that, we ate, and you know how long that can take. And then there were the usual things—coffee—talk—oh, and a very exciting cabaret, with flamenco dancers who were rather good.”
“Flamenco dancers? What a coincidence! Nicolas was talking about them last night too! He says the ones you see in the nightclubs are a tourist attraction, although naturally they’re very good. But he’s promised to take us up to some caves in the hills one night, to see some people he knows who will give a natural performance in the authentic atmosphere. Apparently this chap is absolutely superb, but he won’t perform in front of just anyone.”
Cecily turned to thank Mercedes charmingly for her drink.
She took a sip and remarked thoughtfully,
“Of course, if you’ve already seen it with Guy, you may not want to see it again.”
“No, I don’t think I would, actually,” Anna agreed, with a tremor in her voice. She knew she couldn’t bear to watch that passionate performance again, with Nicolas at her elbow. “Even though the stage setting was perhaps what the tourists expect, it was unbelievably good, but it would probably bore one a second time.”
“Oh, well then, in that case, Nicolas can always take me alone,” stated Cecily happily.
“How did your own evening go?” Anna felt impelled to ask.
“Marvellously, thanks. The meal itself was superlative, and as it turned out, quite a number of Nicolas’s friends speak very good English. In any case, he hovered around me most of the evening to extract me from any lingual difficulties, and I really did enjoy myself enormously. I couldn’t dance, but in the end I didn’t mind. I wasn’t left alone for a second. The men just couldn’t take their eyes off my dress—and neither could the women,” she added maliciously. “As I predicted, they were all in black.”
Anna thought of those beautiful, oval-faced, fineboned Spanish women in their exquisitely-cut black dresses, and reflected that no one but Cecily could hope to get away with such an innuendo.
“What time did it end?”
“Oh, about two o’clock, I think. I had a nightcap with Nicolas and Senora de Ceverio before I came upstairs. The old girl sat there like a Buddha the whole evening, right till the bitter end when Nicolas saw us upstairs.”
“She must have great staying-power for her age,” observed Anna with a touch of humour.
“By the way,” she added, as casually as she possibly could, “did you give the Conde my apologies and tell him I wouldn’t be coming? I’m sure he didn’t mind?”
The other girl had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable.
“No. No, he didn’t mind at all.”
“What did he say? Do you think he understood?”
Anna was enjoying herself, but it was a bitter sort of enjoyment.
Cecily’s cheeks were now quite pink.
“Actually, I should have told him earlier than I did, Anna. I really meant to, but it slipped my mind, and then I kept looking for him beforehand, but he didn’t appear till the last moment, and of course I couldn’t go into details in front of everyone. He didn’t comment at all, though, so it passed off all right. It would be silly to raise the subject again, if you ask me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing that,” Anna was able to assure her.
That was true enough! She’d hate to go through a scene like last night’s again. Even to think of it turned her bones to pulp!
“Here he comes now,” she added inconsequently, hoping her bones would stiffen up again before Nicolas reached them. Especially her backbone. She really needed that.
“Muy buenas, senoritas! You appear comfortable this morning,” was his first urbane observation. “I see you have wisely procured a cooling drink, Cecily, while you, Miss Trent, appear to have none. What would you like, and I will join you? It is unbelievably warm out here.”
So it was Miss Trent again today, and spoken with a cool reserve.
“I don’t mind, Senor Conde—whatever is at hand, so long as it’s long and cold.”
If he could be formal, so could she. Nicolas indeed!
They were back on the old footing, and it was better this way.
“Lemon, or fresh lime perhaps? Not grenadine, I think. You did not appear to relish that particular drink last night, so I will not be so foolish as to suggest it again,” he said slyly, taking her by surprise.
How dared he mention last night, so baldly, without a qualm of guilt! She blushed fierily.
“I’ll take anything,” she told him, a little desperately. “Lemon—no, lime, I think, senor, if it’s no trouble.”
“It is no trouble,” he stated agreeably, “and it is moreover very refreshing.”
That could almost have been another dig, cunningly served up.
Did she really look as washed-out as all that?
The Conde disappeared indoors, and Anna dared to look after his retreating form. He was wearing pale trousers and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a small square of fine red silk knotted at his bare throat. He looked more piratical than ever, and disgustingly self-assured.
“Were you speaking to Nicolas last night, after all, Anna? What was all that about?” Cecily’s eyes were half-closed, but Anna knew she was watchful, all the same.
“I did, just for a moment, when I came in. He—he was still up, and he offered me a drink, as you’ve probably gathered.”
Cecily’s eyes were still half-closed, and her expression remained unchanged. But her fingers curled tightly on the stem of her glass so that the knuckles showed up whitely.
“How very, very odd that you didn’t mention it, Anna.”
“I suppose, like you, I forgot—until the very last moment,” Anna replied evenly, with unaccustomed courage.
Even allowing for the satisfaction it gave her, she wished that she had left the remark unsaid.
A spasm of something akin to hate passed over Cecily’s face.
Anna had done the unforgivable.
It had been a mistake to answer back at all.
CHAPTER VIII
Anna was glad when Senora de Ceverio came to join them before lunch. It eased the tension in the air, and she purposely gave the old lady all her attention. It wasn’t difficult to be nice to someone for whom she had developed a genuine affection. In spite of the vast difference in their ages, they had many interests in common, and often sat together in the comfortable library browsing through some of the many books that stood along the shelves in catalogued order from ceiling to floor.
There was a truly catholic collection—literature from many nations. Many were first editions, some bound in heavy tooled leather. There were centuries-old manuscripts with rough, faded pages, and modern volumes with bright gilt-edged leaves.
The windows of the room were small and narrow, with arched tops after the Moorish style, and admitted very little light, so that one always needed to make use of the two tall, wrought-iron lamps if one chose to read in there. The floor was covered by a fad
ed gold rug of incredibly fine texture, and the chairs were big and masculine and welcoming, all in solid brown leather. At one end was a wide marble fireplace, and the wall surrounding it was the only one not filled in with bookshelves. Instead, there were a number of paintings, hung singly or in groups to complement each other.
Anna had taken to escaping there sometimes when she felt the need for solitude. It was a room that was used and shabby compared with the overpowering grandeur of most of the other rooms in the Castillo, and she always felt curiously in harmony with it and its contents.
She supposed it was understandable that she should wish to escape there after luncheon was finished today, and she managed it skilfully, slipping in without being seen by anybody after Mercedes had removed the coffee trays from the terrace to which they had all adjourned.
Nicolas and Cecily were engaged in light conversation, and Senora de Ceverio intended to have a rest in her own apartments. Anna took her arm, and helped her climb slowly upstairs.
The two on the terrace need not know that she didn’t intend to put in an appearance there again.
She closed the door softly after her, and turned the switch at the neck of one of the standard lamps. Immediately the gloom was relieved, and the glow that she loved enriched the gold of the rug and caught and held the gilt lettering on the spines of some of the books.
It was pleasantly cool in here.
Anna sank down into the depths of a cushioned chair facing the mantelpiece, and regarded the paintings idly.
Some she didn’t like at all, although she was quick to recognise their artistic merit. Others she found both moving and awe-inspiring, while again some possessed a gaiety and happiness that were infectious. There was no doubt that many were collectors’ treasures of considerable value. Senora de Ceverio had one day pointed out an El Greco, a couple by Zurbaran, and a Coello, which had belonged to the Valdarez family for several hundred years. They were all religious in flavour, and quite different from the paintings which next took her eye.
There were two of these, placed together at eye level to the right of the fireplace. They were not a pair, but had obviously been executed in the same style and probably by the same hand, and they did match in the sense that they both portrayed the head and shoulders of a little Spanish boy. One particularly spoke to Anna just at this moment.
She got up and went over to study it more closely.
Yes, how extraordinary! It might have been a portrait of Juanito himself, the likeness was so apparent. There was the same gamin, urchin grin; the same liquid brown eyes too knowledgeable, somehow, for the childish face and unruly thatch of hair; thin shoulders half-concealed by ragged clothing; and quick, brown, restless hands whose slender wrists protruded from tattered and inadequate sleeves.
The other picture was more detailed, yet to Anna, not quite so appealing, or perhaps it was this odd likeness to Juanito that caught at her heart somehow.
She wondered how he was faring at this moment, and whether his mother had improved at all. It wasn’t very likely, not in the course of one day. Guy had stressed that her recovery would be a lengthy business, even given far more ideal conditions than the existing ones. He had promised to procure an initial course of the necessary tablets from Doctor Lamas today, and tomorrow they had agreed to go together to her house and give them to her. Juanito would probably be somewhere about the cafe where she had first seen him. She could picture him now, squatting at someone’s feet, polishing fervently, his vivid face momentarily earnest, perhaps permitting himself an occasional pawky comment accompanied by the flashing smile—so like that little boy there.
“You find these faces of some appeal, Miss Trent?” A quiet voice spoke at her shoulder.
She hadn’t heard Nicolas come in. Yet there he was as she swung round, tall and stern and unreadable as ever.
“Yes, I do, senor. This one especially.” She pointed to her favourite. “I think he’s charming, like a little boy in real life. He almost breathes, doesn’t he?”
The Conde shrugged characteristically.
“This resemblance to life is not surprising. The child did at one time live and breathe, as do you and I at this moment. Murillo took his characters from the streets of Spain, and through him they live for all time. Children do not alter, basically, even with the passage of generations.”
“No, I suppose not,” agreed Anna thoughtfully.
“This one is a fine study, also. Note the expression in the eyes, and the movement of the hair upon the brow.”
Anna gave her head a little shake.
“I like that one best,” she affirmed stoutly.
“You do?” Nicolas peered more closely at her choice. “Yes, I can see that you would, Miss Trent,” he observed suavely. “The subject would appear to be a more needy child, and this touches you, does it not? Perhaps, even, he reminds you of similar small boys in those parts of London where you conduct your campaign of succour, no?”
“Yes, there and elsewhere,” Anna admitted. “One can see him almost anywhere in the world, senor, if one bothers to look for him.”
He impaled her with a blazoning stare.
“So,” he said haughtily. “What is this that you imply with the grey eyes accusing so reproachfully? You think perhaps that because I am Nicolas de Lorenzo y Valdarez, I do not see him, while you do? The Conde de Barientos does not see him, although he may be seen here as elsewhere in the world. Is this not what you are thinking?”
“Of—of course not,” denied Anna, stammering in her embarrassment.
It was exactly what she had been thinking, as it happened. She had been asking herself how this aristocratic and formidable man, who was revered—practically worshipped—and obeyed by all who came under his command, could possibly know the least little thing about those less exalted ones so far removed from his own way of life.
“Miss Trent, you do not deceive me. I can read your mind with the same facility with which I read a book from my shelves.”
He jerked his head towards the tomes that surrounded them, in comprehensive illustration of his simile.
Anna longed to escape.
He was now more amused than indignant, it seemed, and she was beginning to feel a little foolish, quite apart from finding his nearness both exquisite and unbearable. She didn’t care to be read as easily as a book, and he had demonstrated his unnerving ability to do just that.
What if he discovered thoughts even deeper down? Heavens, it couldn’t happen! But the man was uncanny, just the same.
“I have come in search of you in order that you and Cecily may accompany me on a small tour of some parts of the estate. You disappeared after the meal, where we knew not. Cecily thought you might have gone to your apartment, but doubtless by now she has confirmed your absence there. It was my own idea that I might find you here.”
He took her elbow, and she went with him to the door obediently. One simply didn’t argue, it seemed. Nicolas didn’t ask. He commanded.
“You frequent my little library often, senorita. You have a preference for this room, perhaps?”
“It’s a charming room, warm and welcoming, and—yes, I think it does attract me more than some of the more beautiful and formal ones,” she replied. Cecily joined them at the foot of the stairs.
“There you are, Anna—I’ve been hunting everywhere for you. Shall we go now, Nicolas? Do I need a hat?”
“I think not, Cecily. We shall be in the car at all times, and I do not think your complexion will be endangered therefore. Your fairness was the envy of all last night, I assure you. You had the appearance of a beautiful pale lily.”
“Oh, Nicolas, how extravagant you are,” Cecily told him archly, shooting a triumphant glance at Anna before ensconcing herself comfortably in the passenger seat beside the driver’s place. Anna climbed in behind, and the long cream car crawled smoothly away.
The tour was an education to Anna, and something of a surprise as well. The estate entailed some thousands of acres, and the
y saw only a small and representative part, but wherever they went, ordered management and careful husbandry were obvious, even to inexperienced eyes. Wherever they saw them, the people appeared prosperous and content.
When the powerful car eased its way through several of the scattered villages, the inhabitants came out on to the dusty road to see what was going on. They probably wouldn’t have bothered for anyone else, but word had flashed from one place to another that the Senor Conde was at this moment conducting his two young English visitors over his domain. The women were plump and smiling. Some gave a little bob when the car passed by, and the children waved thin, wiry arms and laughed and shouted when Nicolas waved back.
“Aren’t they adorable!” cooed Cecily, quite maternally, for her.
“They certainly look healthy and happy and well fed,” said Anna, with unthinking admiration. “And the little houses are neat, too.”
The sleek dark head in front turned for a moment. One jet eyebrow had risen unmistakably.
“But naturally, senorita. They are my own people, and they must be cared for properly in all ways. This is not what you expect? But of course, I am forgetting! The Conde de Barientos has stepped out of his role, no? He does not see, or hear, or even think of the existence of others, does he?” he queried with dangerous calm.
“I didn’t really say that, you know. You simply attributed those thoughts to me, remember?” Anna retorted, stung.
Why must she always be at odds with this man? Why had they always to be sparring with one another? One would have almost said he was being purposely brutal.
I suppose he just doesn’t like me, and he can’t help showing it, she told herself forlornly. “In any case,” she admitted generously, “I can see that you do care, very much indeed. Have these people all lived here for a very long time?”