‘Well…’ She hesitated. ‘Well, yes, I suppose—’
‘It was a shock, perhaps?’
She looked up at him, and then away again. ‘Yes … yes, it was a shock.’
‘It must have been. Especially as his experience of horses was hardly adequate, and his knowledge of my country …’ An expressive shrug. ‘Tell me, did you expect him to be successful?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Her eyes were defiant. ‘Peter knows a great deal about horses. He has always loved riding.’
‘Unfortunately, however, a fondness for riding is not in itself a sufficient basis for the sort of project upon which he was embarking here.’ The Mexican’s voice was subtly contemptuous. ‘He deserved to fail, and … he failed.’
Some of the colour left Caroline’s face. ‘What—what happened?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t he let me know?’
‘Undoubtedly because he did not wish you to know, senorita. His venture, you understand, did not last long—six months, I believe. He sold the horses first, and then the ranch.’
Caroline stood up. ‘And you bought everything!’
‘No, not everything. The ranch, yes. I had been anxious to obtain land in this area for some time, and the house too I thought could be useful to me. I shall place a manager here. But the horses …’ Another shrug. ‘I never buy bad horses. They are a poor investment.’
Caroline felt slightly sick. ‘Where is he now?’ she demanded.
‘Your brother?’ There was a tiny pause, while Diego studied her thoughtfully. ‘About twenty kilometres away,’ he told her. ‘On one of my ranches.’
‘One of your ranches?’
‘Yes. He is working for me. As a—groom, I think you would say.’
‘As a groom?’ Her eyes sparkled furiously. ‘Oh, how could you? How could anyone?’
‘How could I do what, senorita!’
‘You ruined him! You must have done. Somehow or other, you must have made it impossible for him to make a success of the ranch. It wasn’t like Peter to fail. You admit that you wanted the land, and now you’ve got it. And—and my brother is working for you … as a groom!’
The black eyes narrowed, and became absolutely inscrutable. ‘You have a sharp tongue, Miss Ashley,’ he observed quietly. ‘And you are impertinent.’
She coloured and bit her lip—partly because it had begun to tremble slightly. ‘If you will tell me where Peter is—’
‘Certainly, senorita.’ Coldly courteous again, he glanced at his watch. ‘I will drive you there. There is a small hotel near my ranch which you will probably find suitable.’
‘Thank you, senor, but you need not drive me. I can call a taxi.’
A fleeting glimmer of amusement appeared in his eyes. ‘I am sorry, senorita, but I am afraid you cannot call a taxi. For one thing, this house does not possess a telephone, and for another I doubt whether any taxi driver could be persuaded to come here. So, unpleasant though it may be for you, I think you will have to accept my assistance.’
His car, a sleek white sports model which he evidently ran in addition to the Mercedes, was parked around the side of the house in the shadow of a line of trees, and as Caroline silently and reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat she noticed that the various outbuildings clustered behind the house were even more dilapidated in appearance than those in the front. It seemed obvious that the whole place had been in desperate need of expensive repairs for some considerable time. Poor Peter!
Dusk was beginning to fall as they left the dusty yard behind them, and glancing back over her shoulder at the desolate bulk of the Casa la Golondrina Caroline saw a solitary light come on in the isolated house. She shivered a little at the sheer loneliness and bleakness of the place, and then, as she watched, the whole jumbled cluster of buildings disappeared behind the pine trees, and the white car lurched rather wildly as they sped around a bend in the track.
It seemed to her that her companion was driving a good deal too fast, considering the condition of the road, but glancing from time to time at his remarkably handsome profile she found it quite impossible to detect any sign whatsoever of annoyance or tension. On the contrary, he seemed extremely relaxed, and as time passed and he made no attempt to speak a word to her she even began to wonder whether he had practically forgotten her presence in the car. And then they came out on to the main road, and in the gathering darkness he switched on the sports car’s headlamps and turned to look at her.
‘I shall take you to the Hotel Vista de Oro,’ he told her. ‘It is respectable, but not expensive.’
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. Moistening her lips, she added: ‘I don’t expect Peter lives in a house of his own.’
‘No.’ Once again the Mexican looked at her, and then he increased speed in order to overtake and pass a large and ponderous lorry. ‘No, he lives in a kind of hostel—that is the English word, I believe—with all the other ranch workers.’
‘But that’s dreadful!’ Her voice quivered with indignation. ‘He’s not an ordinary ranch worker!’
‘No? Well, you know very little about his present position, senorita. I know everything about it, and I consider him an ordinary ranch worker. My hostel is clean and well organized, and the men are well looked after. They have nothing to complain of.’
Caroline’s head began to ache, and she looked away from him, staring through the window at the scattered lights of a shabby, straggling village. The car had slowed to a crawl to negotiate the narrow, uneven streets, and it was just as well, for several times small children darted without any warning whatsoever into the glare of the headlamps, and once an old man who seemed to be walking with the aid of a stick stumbled almost under the wheels. From what Caroline could see of the children they seemed to be strangely fragile and insubstantial, and very far from clean, and the old man’s clothes were definitely ragged. Amid all the exhilarating brilliance of the afternoon she had completely failed to notice the dirt and the squalor amongst which these people lived, but now she could sense it all around her. There was dreadful poverty in Mexico—that much she had known long before she had even thought of visiting the country. And there were also rich men like Diego Rivel, whose duty it must surely be to act as benefactors to their less fortunate fellow-countrymen.
But she couldn’t imagines Diego Rivel acting as anyone’s benefactor. He was callous, hard and unscrupulous, and she was becoming desperately worried because it seemed that Peter was in his power. The whole situation was far worse than anything she had really imagined might be happening, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she had seen Peter for herself.
When they had left the shabby village behind them they began to climb a steep hill. The road wound and twisted alarmingly, and she realized that they had entered mountain country—in fact, they were traversing a mountain road. Here and there, in the glow of the headlamps, she caught glimpses of attractive white houses by the side of the road; houses with pantiled roofs and wrought-iron gateways, vine-covered walls and balconies, and lanterns that swung gently in the night breeze. The air finding its way in through the partly opened windows of the car smelt fresh and faintly scented, as if somewhere not very far away there were a great many flowers, and overhead in the distant sky the stars that looked down on the tropics were beginning to emerge in all their fierce white brilliance. Caroline’s headache began to lift again, and she knew that in almost any other circumstances she would by now have been enjoying the drive tremendously. The only thing for which she felt she could be thankful was the fact that the man beside her rarely uttered a word.
When they had been driving for roughly forty minutes the road they were following began to run downwards again, spiralling steeply around what was undoubtedly the rocky, scrub-covered side of a mountain. Then, abruptly, it levelled out, and very shortly afterwards they came within sight of another village. It was a larger village than the one that had shocked Caroline a little while earlier, and in the uncertain light of lanterns and car headlamps its cobbled st
reets and Spanish-style architecture looked so romantically beautiful that, tired and confused as she was, she felt a little thrill of pleasure.
They finally came to rest in front of a long, low building with a light shining from nearly every window, and without saying anything Senor Rivel got out of the car and came round to open the door for his passenger.
‘This is the place, senorita … the Hotel Vista de Oro. You will be comfortable here—and also safe.’ He glanced down at her all at once as if it had just dawned on him that he was dealing with a very attractive young woman, and for several seconds his eyes remained fastened on the silky brightness of her hair as if just for a short time something about it had the power to magnetize him. But although as she got out of the car she swayed slightly, from stiffness and exhaustion, he made no attempt to steady her, and said nothing further until they were inside the tiny foyer of the hotel, and a Mexican girl with a vivid smile and a few words of English was inviting her to sign the register. Then he made her a formal little bow, and recommended her to do nothing further that night.
‘In the morning, if you go to my house, you will see your brother,’ he told her. ‘He will be there to meet you. I will arrange it.’
Feeling almost unbearably humiliated—though much more for Peter’s sake than for her own—she avoided his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
In the act of turning away from her, he hesitated. Then rather as if yielding with considerable reluctance to an impulse of which he disapproved he turned back again.
‘I will send a car for you,’ he said. ‘To find a taxi might be difficult, and you could not walk to my house. It is too far.’
‘Thank you, Senor Rivel, but I would rather walk—if I can’t find a taxi.’
He frowned. ‘That is nonsensical. The car will come for you at ten o’clock … if that is a convenient time for you?’
There was a short pause; and then she realized the utter pointlessness of arguing any further, and permitted herself a slight shrug of the shoulders. ‘Almost any time would be convenient for me.’ She was very tired, and her voice was a little husky. ‘I only came to Mexico to see Peter.’
‘And you shall see him, senorita.’ The dark eyes grew quite expressionless. ‘But only, I’m afraid, at certain times. He has work to do … and he is employed by me.’
Hovering between anger and an absurd desire to cry, Caroline’s lips felt stiff. ‘I shall not forget that, senor.’
‘I am glad. Good-night, Miss Ashley.’
A boy employed by the hotel rushed to open the door for him, and the next moment he had disappeared into the shadowy street. Caroline stood staring after him, and as she heard the engine of his car roar back into life she realized that Diego Rivel was a man she was going to hate. And never before in the whole of her life had she felt like that about anyone.
CHAPTER III
When, punctually at ten o’clock the following morning, the grey Mercedes arrived to collect Caroline she had already been ready and waiting for more than ten minutes. She was absolutely cool and unruffled, for she had been waiting in the pleasant shade afforded by the verandah at the front of the hotel, and to Carlos the chauffeur she looked one of the most refreshing sights he had seen for quite a long time. She was wearing a suit of rose-pink linen, with white accessories, and her uncovered hair was like captured sunshine. She was carrying a pair of dark glasses, but she hadn’t yet put them on, and she didn’t intend to do so if she could avoid it, for it seemed to her that to miss anything of the brilliant Mexican morning would be a crime.
She was feeling better this morning—very much better, for she had had an excellent night, and with the coming of daylight life in general had somehow or other seemed very much less difficult than it had seemed the evening before. She didn’t know, of course, what Peter would be like when she eventually got to him—what state of mind or health he might be in—but now that she was here, on the spot, now that she really knew what was going on, she would be able to rescue him from the dreadful situation into which he had got himself. His pride and his obstinacy—the appalling obstinacy which he had inherited from their father—would have made it impossible, she realized now, for him to write home and tell her exactly what had happened to his magnificent plans, and the same reluctance to have his failure known at home was probably responsible for his having remained in Mexico. But now that she, Caroline, knew everything, now that she was here to discuss it all with him, she was certain that he would see reason.
Within a week, or at any rate a fortnight, he might even be travelling home with her.
She relaxed against the splendid pearly upholstery of the Mercedes, and decided that April in Mexico was on the whole a very pleasant experience. The mountains ranged along the skyline were very nearly as blue as the sky, and everywhere there was a feeling of space which excited her. It was almost a pity that she would probably be going home so soon…
They turned in through a pair of smart white gates, and with a slight return of uneasiness she realized that they were now actually approaching the house of Diego Rivel, the Casa de la Luz, as it was apparently called. The Casa was reached by means of a long, straight white avenue guarded on either side by literally dozens of dark, slender cypress trees, and the formality and beauty of this approach brought about a sudden violent resurgence of the resentment which she felt in connection with Diego Rivel. He was rich, and probably powerful. He could have helped Peter, but instead he had bought him out, and then taken him on as a ranch-hand.
The Casa de la Luz was a splendid white-walled building, with pantiled roofs, and many windows at present shuttered against the morning sun. By comparison with almost every other house Caroline had seen since leaving Mexico City it was in a state of startlingly immaculate preservation, and even the formal gardens surrounding it had the flawless neatness of public gardens in London or Paris. Somewhere among the cypress trees on one side of the house her eye caught the gleam of an ornamental pool, and here and there a vivid blaze of hibiscus brightened the shaven lawns and shadowy avenues.
She felt her resentment of Diego Rivel growing with every moment that passed.
Carlos set her down in front of the house, and drew her attention to an archway which evidently gave access to an inner patio.
‘You go in there, senorita. Then you knock at the big door. All right?’
She smiled at him. ‘Thank you very much.’
The car glided away, and for a moment she stood still, trying to steady the nervous hammering of her pulses. And then she walked through the archway … and stood still again.
The patio was a garden in itself—a flower garden, in which every imaginable colour ran riot, and the scent of many blooms hung in the warm air like incense. Caroline had never seen so many flowers in one place, and she had never, even in an English garden, seen such wonderful colours. In the centre, the graceful figure of a stone water-nymph poured a narrow cascade of sparkling water into a bowl shaped like a gigantic sea-shell, and on the edge of the shell a small bird with touches of gold about its plumage was evidently trying to decide whether or not to take a bath.
On the far side of the patio there was a doorway, a wide, imposing doorway with a lantern suspended above it, and in obedience to the instructions of Carlos Caroline walked across to it, and firmly wielded the large brass knocker—there was no sign of an electric bell. For about thirty seconds nothing happened, and then she heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and the door was swung open by a young, smartly dressed maidservant, who stared at her blankly for a moment, and then appeared to recollect something.
‘You are the Senorita Ashley?’
Caroline nodded, and the girl smiled. ‘You come in, please.’
Beyond the doorway it was cool and a little dim, but the impression that remained with Caroline afterwards was one of polished boards and bright rugs, and walls hung with fine paintings. She was not an expert on objets d’art, but as the maid led her through room after room she realized t
hat someone—or possibly a succession of people—had gone to considerable trouble to fill the echoing house with things that were both beautiful and valuable. There were ornate marquetry cabinets and gilded console tables, richly carved Spanish chairs and, in one room, a great glowing tapestry depicting the arrival in Mexico of the conquistadores.
With a curious feeling of revulsion, which steadily increased as she followed the maid through the building, Caroline wondered how many of the impoverished peasant labourers in the surrounding countryside could be given a fresh start in life by the outright sale of Senor Rivel’s priceless possessions. And then she felt shocked by her own thoughts, for in normal circumstances she would have been the first to support the right of any man to do what he liked with what was unquestionably his own. And besides, the Casa de la Luz was a thing of perfection, which it would be a crime to destroy.
At long last they reached the end of their journey, and the maid flung wide the door of a white-walled room which had been furnished as an office, and was in every way plainer and sparser in its furnishings than any other room that Caroline had seen. There was no one in the room, and she looked enquiringly at the maid, who smiled again.
‘You came to see Senor Ashley? Senor Ashley coming soon.’
And with that she was obliged to be content, for although the girl in the snowy cap and apron had a friendly enough look she evidently had more important things to do than linger for a chat. The door was firmly closed upon Caroline, and she was left in the stuffy loneliness of the office to wonder why Peter hadn’t arrived yet. Was his work detaining him—were they insisting, perhaps, that he should finish cleaning out the stables before going up to the house to meet his sister? Or could it—as the minutes passed she began to wonder more and more—could it conceivably be that he didn’t want to see her?
The Mountains of Spring Page 4