Astonished and bewildered, Caroline realized that it was true. The last thing she wanted to do was go home to England. ‘No,’ she confessed, as if under hypnosis. ‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘Then we must find you something to do with yourself here in Mexico, must we not?’
‘But that’s impossible. I know I’ve got to go home, some time. And now I expect my brother will want to go too.’
‘Let us forget your brother for a moment. You are young, and—’ She broke off, for there had been a light tap on the door. ‘Come in.’
Manuela appeared, still looking more than a little disapproving, and moving close to the old lady’s side, spoke rapidly in Spanish. Something a little curious flashed across the Senora’s face, and she glanced up at Caroline.
‘My grandson is here.’
‘Oh!’ The girl jumped to her feet, her face flooding with colour.
‘He wishes, apparently, to see me.’ The Spanish woman’s face was quite inscrutable. After a short pause, she went on: ‘But I think … yes, I really think I am not well enough. You will see him instead.’
‘I will?’ Caroline stared at her incredulously. ‘Oh, but I couldn’t! Really, senora, I’m very sorry, but I—I…’
‘It would be only for a moment,’ persuasively. ‘Just to ask him what he wants!’
‘No … no, please!’ She sounded desperate, almost terrified, like a child who has been told to go alone into a pitch-black room. Because she was so upset she didn’t even notice that the door had opened again, and when, after a few seconds, she did notice, she actually jumped. She also turned as white as a sheet, and the slim dark-haired man who had been watching her from the doorway took a step forward.
‘Let me suggest that you sit down, senorita. It would be unfortunate if you were to faint again!’
CHAPTER VIII
Before she had had time to think of anything to say, he had moved swiftly over to the bed, and possessed himself of his grandmother’s hand.
‘Madame…’ He murmured something in Spanish, apparently an enquiry after the old lady’s health, and received a short reply and a rather quizzical look, after which he turned to Caroline.
‘I would like to speak with you senorita.’
‘With me?’ she repeated faintly.
‘If you please. It is urgent.’
‘I thought,’ said his grandmother without rancour, ‘that you had come to see me, Diego.’
He smiled down at her with the extraordinary softness which he seemed to reserve exclusively for her and Isabel Dominguez, and squeezed her thin white fingers.
‘I did. I came to ask your help. But now it occurs to me that perhaps Miss Ashley will be able to help me too.’
Caroline could only stare at him, far too staggered to give voice to her indignation. After what had happened this afternoon, did he really expect her to give him any sort of assistance? The same point seemed to have occurred to the Senora, for she glanced at the English girl a little wryly, and ventured to suggest to her grandson that it might be a good idea if he found out whether Miss Ashley would be prepared to help him.
‘Of course,’ she added in the same tranquil tones, I imagine it will depend a great deal on what kind of help you require.’
‘No doubt.’ He turned to look at Caroline, and as he did so she saw every trace of warmth desert his face, leaving it as bleak and hard as chiselled marble. ‘I will make it clear, therefore, that it is not precisely for myself that I require the help. It is for Senorita Dominguez.’
Caroline’s eyes grew wider. Her attention had been caught.
‘After the unfortunate incident of this afternoon’—he spoke as if the words hurt him—‘your brother, I believe, took her home. She was, understandably, upset. Later she became hysterical, and when her mother summoned her doctor she refused to see him. The Senora thought it best to telephone me.’ He paused, as if he found it necessary to muster all his strength before proceeding with such a painful series of revelations. ‘I went to the house,’ he continued with evident difficulty, ‘but she refused to see me.’ His grandmother gave vent to a small sound which bore a curious resemblance to a smothered chuckle. Her face, however, was as grave and thoughtful as the face of a statue.
‘The Senora Dominguez,’ continued Diego stiffly, ‘is very much distressed. It is several years since Isabel last had such an attack. Her health has greatly improved. But for this unfortunate encounter …’ He broke off, belatedly remembering to whom he was speaking.
Caroline’s neck and cheeks turned pink. She decided she had never felt quite so angry in the entire course of her life.
‘If Miss Dominguez is upset,’ she said, ‘it isn’t Peter’s fault. That scene at the race-track was—was terrible. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been there, but you had no right to humiliate her like that.’ Catching the look in Diego’s eyes, she knew that she had hurt him, and although she felt extraordinarily miserable herself she wanted quite passionately to plunge the knife in further. ‘It was cruel,’ she told him. ‘It was brutal. I’ve never seen anything quite so brutal. You might have driven her to do anything … She might—she might have gone home and killed herself!’
There was silence. Now, the look in his eyes made her lower her own in a kind of horror. At last he spoke.
‘You are a strangely ungentle young woman. Miss Ashley.’
Caroline clasped her hands in front of her in a nervous gesture. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She looked at the elderly woman in the bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
The Senora smiled slightly, and shrugged her shoulders. ‘My dear, don’t apologize to me! After all, you were there!’
Her grandson looked down at her without the smallest hint of resentment. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘forgive me. We will talk somewhere else.’
‘No, my child, you will not. I find this most amusing. Besides, we have to decide what is to be done with this foolish Isabel. You have a favour to ask of Miss Ashley, yes?’
His face plainly revealed the repugnance with which such a state of affairs filled him, but he agreed that his grandmother was right. Once again his hard black eyes stared straight at Caroline.
‘Isabel likes you, senorita.’ The words still seemed to be dragged out of him. ‘And you are the sister of Peter Ashley. It may be that because of that she will listen to you.’ It was clear that this last remark cost him something, and Caroline looked at him in astonishment. Was he really conceding that her brother had acquired such importance for the woman he was planning to marry?
‘You mean that you want me to go and see her?’ she asked, her amazement sounding in her voice.
‘Yes. I realize, of course,’ rather drily, ‘that you are at the moment filled with the most violent resentment where I am concerned, but I do not make the request for myself. The child, you understand, has few women friends, and her mother…’ He shrugged. ‘Her mother has little influence.’
Oddly enough, most of the resentment seemed to have gone out of Caroline. She simply felt rather flat.
‘Won’t Senora Dominguez think it rather strange?’ she suggested evenly.
It was Diego’s turn to look surprised. ‘Not,’ he assured her with subtle arrogance, ‘if you go with me.’
‘Very well,’ she said quietly, ‘I’ll go. If you really think I can do any good.’
She saw the look in his eyes change, but she couldn’t place any interpretation on it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
From the bed, the Senora Rivel smiled at her warmly. ‘How kind you are, my dear.’
Caroline felt suddenly embarrassed. ‘When do you want me to go?’ she asked.
‘We will go now, if you please. My car is outside.’ He turned to his grandmother, and once more his dark head was bent over her hand. ‘I will see you tomorrow, madame. You are sure that you are better?’
‘Much better, my child.’ She smiled up at him from her pillows. ‘Vaya con Dios.’
Once they were outside in the corridor his man
ner became a good deal more brisk, and largely, apparently, with the object of hurrying her along he placed a hand beneath Caroline’s elbow. He didn’t seem inclined to speak, and they hardly exchanged a word until, down in the courtyard, he was helping her into his car. Then he hesitated for a second.
‘You do not feel that you are being forced to do this?’
She looked up, surprised that he should allow such a trifle to worry him.
‘No,’ she said, her voice still as flat and weary as she felt. ‘I’m glad to be able to help.’
It didn’t take them very long to reach the tall, Colonial-style house which was the home of Isabel and her mother, and when Diego rang the bell the door was opened to them almost immediately. A uniformed maid admitted them, and they had barely crossed the threshold when Senora Dominguez advanced out of the shadows to meet them. She looked harassed and agitated, and she literally clutched at Diego like a drowning woman at a lifeline. He listened gravely while she poured forth a torrent of excited Spanish, and when she had finished he translated some of it for the benefit of Caroline.
‘It appears that Isabel is a little calmer, but she has locked herself into her room. The Senora fears that she will make herself ill.’ He turned to their hostess again, and Caroline guessed that he was explaining the reason for her own presence on the scene.
Isabel’s mother looked, she thought, a little dubious, but nevertheless she smiled quite warmly at the English girl, and held out a hand to her.
‘It is good of you to come, senorita. It is true that Isabel liked you, and perhaps…’ She shrugged helplessly, and glanced, as if for inspiration, at Diego.
‘Perhaps,’ he supplied obligingly, ‘Senorita Ashley will be able to handle Isa as we are not able to do. May she go upstairs now?’
‘Si … but certainly.’ Senora Dominguez nervously waved a beringed brown hand in the direction of the staircase. ‘You will come up, senorita?’
As they ascended the stairs together, Caroline realized that the Mexican woman was acutely embarrassed. She was clearly a timid and conservative person, and all her instincts and principles had been outraged by this involvement of a stranger in such an essentially private and rather shameful family concern. Diego’s pride, Caroline knew, had suffered in the same way at first, but he had made up his mind to overcome the obstacle, and having overcome it he had virtually dismissed it from his mind. She, Caroline, might possibly be able to render Isabel some sort of service, but from every other point of view she was completely insignificant. How could it possibly matter how much she knew?
Outside what was evidently Isabel’s door they came to a halt, and the plump little Mexican woman rapped on the panels with rather more than a hint of nervous timidity. When there was no response, she raised her voice a little and said something in Spanish, but the occupant of the room did not reply. She gave one of her helpless shrugs, and looked at Caroline.
‘I have not told her that you are here. Perhaps if you would speak to her yourself …? I am sorry, so sorry that you have been troubled, senorita, but—but Senor Rivel felt that perhaps a stranger…’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Caroline quickly. She moved closer to the door and spoke distinctly. ‘This is Caroline Ashley. Can I—can I come in?’
The words sounded extraordinarily foolish, and for a moment or two after she had uttered them she felt almost as uncomfortable as her hostess. They stood together in silence, listening for an answer from inside the room, but nothing came. And then, after what seemed like five minutes but couldn’t have been more than sixty seconds, the key was turned stealthily in the lock and the door was opened by about half an inch.
Senora Dominguez clasped her hands together.
‘Ah, my little one! She will be reasonable!’
Caroline, who thought this remark quite extraordinarily optimistic, said nothing. The door opened another half inch and Isabel made herself heard.
‘Miss Ashley? You are there?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’ She did her best to make her voice sound cool and natural. ‘I—I just wondered if I could talk to you for a few minutes.’
There was silence, and for something like another thirty seconds nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the door opened wide, and Isabel Dominguez, in her wheelchair, was in front of them. Her dark hair was dishevelled, and judging by her eyes she had been doing a good deal of crying, but it was obvious that she had been making some attempt to repair the ravages by the application of a rather generous amount of make-up, and she was now evidently doing her best to muster what was left of her dignity. She smiled shyly and a little tremulously at Caroline.
‘You will come in, please, senorita? I am sorry to have kept you waiting.’
Caroline glanced at the Senora who passed a hand across her brow as if the relief were almost too much for her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling as brightly as she could manage. ‘I—I’ll see you later, senora?’
‘Yes … oh, yes.’ Her hostess was backing away as if afraid to break the spell. ‘You will have dinner with us—of course you will. When you have had—a little talk with Isabel.’
She disappeared, and Caroline, feeling that she had bitten off a good deal more than she could chew, permitted herself to be ushered into the personal sanctum of the Mexican girl.
It was a pleasant room, old and low-ceilinged, and warm with the glow of lamplight, for by now it was getting dusk outside. Here and there were scattered marks of its occupier’s femininity … a collection of bottles and jars on the dressing-table, and a silver-backed hairbrush; a bowl of yellow flowers near the window, and an expensive-looking charm bracelet flung down on an antique table. But there was nothing at all to indicate that the bracelet’s owner had been deprived of the use of her legs; no gadgets of any kind, as far as Caroline could see, to help her when once she had left the security of her wheelchair behind.
Swiftly and expertly, Isabel wheeled herself towards the dressing-table, and picked up a tortoiseshell cigarette case.
‘You will smoke, senorita?’ she asked.
Caroline shook her head smiling. ‘No, thank you. I don’t smoke. I’d probably choke on it!’
‘Then you have more sense than I,’ said Isabel frankly. ‘I smoke, but it is not because I like it.’
Caroline sat down. ‘That’s unusual,’ she ventured.
‘It is, is it not? But I will tell you why I do it.’ As she spoke she lit a cigarette, making a small grimace as she did so. ‘I do it because it makes me seem … sophisticated. Grown-up, you know? It is silly, I think, but without it I do not always feel very grown-up. To my mother, and—and other people, I am still a little girl you see. A little girl whose health is not good, and who has to be protected … always protected.’ There was a rasp of singularly unchildlike bitterness in the husky voice with the heavy Mexican accent. ‘They mean to be kind—oh, they mean to be kind. But I am twenty years old, and now I would like to be a woman.’ With a faint tinge of dryness, Caroline assured the other girl that she had never struck her as being in the slightest degree childish.
‘Ah, well, I hope not!’ She exhaled a small cloud of blue smoke, and coughed. ‘But it is the way they think of me. I am not allowed to have feelings, you understand.’
‘Feelings?’ repeated Caroline.
‘Yes. For instance they—they do not expect me to fall in love.’
This time Caroline stared in blank astonishment.
‘But surely…’ she began. ‘Senor Rivel—’
‘Senor Rivel?’ The slim dark eyebrows puckered for a moment, and then light seemed to dawn. ‘You mean that he is planning to marry me himself? Well, perhaps that is so, but it makes no difference. He would not expect me to fall in love with him. He knows that I am fond of him, and for him that would be enough. It would be what in France they call a marriage de convenance.’
‘But you mean that you’re not … actually engaged?’ For some reason, the answer to this question seemed to Caroline tremendously important.
&n
bsp; ‘Engaged to Diego?’ She spread her hands in an expressive Latin gesture. ‘It may be that he considers we are engaged. But for me … no, it is not true. It never will be true,’ she added with sudden vehemence, and her creamy skin took on a delicate flush.
‘Never?’ Whether or not her probing were justifiable, Caroline felt compelled to try and clarify the point.
‘Never. You see, I would not be content with a marriage de convenance.’ Her colour still heightened, Isabel extinguished her half-smoked cigarette in a cut-glass flower bowl. ‘Once,’ she went on in a low tone, ‘perhaps I would not have minded. But not—not now.’
Caroline felt a strange feeling of elation beginning to course through her, and she was also conscious of the fact that she felt twenty times more sympathetic towards Isabel than she had done when she entered the room. ‘Would it be,’ she asked gently, ‘that you’ve met somebody who—interests you more?’
‘You have guessed?’ Isabel smiled with an extraordinary and possibly unaccustomed sweetness. ‘It is Peter, of course. After that evening when we met—you remember?—he found out where I lived. Was it not clever of him? And after that … oh, we have seen each other every day.’
‘But your mother?’ Caroline asked. ‘Doesn’t she mind?’
‘Only a very little. Oh, she is afraid, I think, of offending Diego, and she talks to me very much about not being—what do you say?—imprudent. But she likes Peter, and also she approves of him. She feels he is respectable, and a safe kind of person, so … I am allowed to go out with him.’ A little shyly, she added: ‘He has not spoken to you about me?’
Caroline admitted that he hadn’t. ‘But I haven’t seen anything of him,’ she went on quickly. ‘He’s been so taken up with you that he’s quite forgotten about everybody else.’
Isabel laughed and blushed. Her face was transformed, her eyes glowing. ‘He is so wonderful,’ she said simply. ‘And so—so kind.’
‘And you and he are in love.’ It was far more of a statement than a question, for the facts of the situation would have been perfectly apparent to a far less perceptive observer than Caroline.
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