The House of Adriano

by Nerina Hilliard

  Betty still did not look very convinced. “Not if it was somebody horrible you were being forced to marry,” she more or less agreed, but spoilt it by heaving another rapturous sigh. “It would be so easy for any woman to fall in love with him, though. I could do it quite easily.”

  “No doubt you could,” Pat retorted dryly. “You’re just at the age to love from a distance.”

  Shortly after that Betty departed to do some shopping, but the other two sat talking a while longer over an additional cup of tea.

  “What it is to be young,” Pat grinned, looking at the teenager’s departing back.

  “Young!” Aileen gave her an amused glance. “You make it sound as if you’re ninety.”

  “Sometimes she makes me feel that way,” Pat retorted laconically. “Anything over the age of twenty is positively antiquated to her - unless they look anything like Duarte Adriano, of course.”

  Aileen smiled, refusing to comment on Duarte Adriano. “I’m the one she makes feel really antiquated. Because I’m taking care of Peter I sometimes get the impression that I’m regarded as a staid old widow.”

  “A widow before you’ve even had a husband.” She grinned again, with the irrepressible, rather impish amusement that was never far away. “That sounds as if you’ve been living in sin, pet. Good job we know Peter isn’t really your own son. By the way - how is he?” she added more seriously. “It’s almost two months since I’ve seen him.”

  Aileen smiled involuntarily as a vision of a small, sturdy body, laughing dark eyes and a cheeky smile that had wound its way around her heart long ago flashed across her vision.

  “He’s as fit as they come - and getting more of a bundle of mischief every day.”

  “You never heard anything from his relatives?”

  Aileen’s expression hardened slightly. “Eric didn’t want to contact them while he was alive ... so when he and Mandy died I thought they would prefer it if I didn’t try to contact them either.”

  Pat nodded. “That’s right. I remember you saying once that they were some aristocratic family who had cut him off without even the proverbial penny.”

  “Something like that,” Aileen confirmed evenly. She did not tell Pat that Eric had considered he had cut them off. The only regret he had had was leaving his mother, but she was more used to all the restrictions.

  What would that dark, self-assured man have said had he known about the equally dark but laughing-eyed little boy who lived with her?

  She did not know that Pat was watching her closely, and started when the elder girl’s voice suddenly intruded into her thoughts.

  “Aileen - what does Duarte Adriano mean to you?”

  Aileen tensed slightly. “I don’t quite understand.” She had more control of herself by then and smiled slightly, showing a tinge of puzzled curiosity. “Why should he mean anything to me?”

  Pat shook her head with a quick little gesture. “I didn’t mean anything like Betty’s romantic nonsense - and it’s obvious you had never met him before. You didn’t even know who he was until I told you his name.” She paused and then added quietly, “But his name meant something to you, didn’t it?”

  “Peter’s father was his cousin,” Aileen said quietly.

  Pat whistled softly. “So that’s it.” She slanted the younger girl an enquiring glance. “Are you going to tell him about Peter?”

  “Certainly not!” Aileen almost snapped the words, but she quickly calmed down again. “Eric and Mandy wanted to have nothing more to do with the Adriano family, so I’ll certainly respect their wishes and not get in contact with them.”

  “It might make it easier for you. Peter must be quite a strain on your resources.”

  The younger girl’s head went up proudly. “I’ll be damned if I’ll ask for any sort of charity from them. In any case, I wouldn’t humiliate myself by asking. They probably wouldn’t even acknowledge Peter, because his father married a typist.” She gave a twisted little smile. “Eric said they made enough of a fuss when his mother eloped with an Irishman, and Patrick Balgare was distantly related to the Earl of Glyndale. I’m quite capable of bringing Peter up, and I wouldn’t approach the Adriano family if my life depended on it.”

  “Or perhaps if Peter’s life depended on it?” Pat asked softly.

  Aileen smiled twistedly again and nodded. “Perhaps if Peter’s life depended on it - and heaven forbid that it ever does,” she added fervently.

  If it had been absolutely necessary to do so, she could have approached the aristocratic Adriano family, but she knew she would have hated to have to plead with somebody like that cold-eyed Conde de Marindos to acknowledge Peter as part of the Adriano family in spite of his more humble blood. She hoped she would never have to. Luckily Peter was a thoroughly sturdy little bundle of mischievous childhood. It was their loss that their stiff-necked pride would never let them know little Peter Balgare, and her gain, because she loved him now as if he had been her own son.

  As she worked, she let her thoughts go back to when she had first met Amanda and Eric Balgare.

  Her own father, John Lawrence, had once been a fairly wealthy grazier in the outback of New South Wales, but in his middle years he seemed to have become suddenly and unexpectedly addicted to gambling. Things had gone from bad to worse, but they had never known just how deeply indebted he had become until he had died in a riding accident and investigation of his estate had disclosed that the station would have to be sold and that there would hardly be anything left when all the debts were settled. Mrs. Lawrence, an eminently sensible woman, had not bemoaned what had happened, but pulled herself together, salvaged what she could from the wreck and departed to Sydney with her teenage daughter, whose expensive education would now have to be channelled into training for making her own living.

  When they had reached Sydney they had taken a flat in a house rented by a young married couple - Mandy and Eric Balgare - who had just had a baby and were finding it hard to make ends meet. Apparently they had hesitated to let part of their house, but the newcomers had fitted in so well that there had not been the slightest friction, and the Lawrences had found the Balgares two of the most endearing people they had ever met - and they fell instantly in love with baby Peter.

  Mandy was snub-nosed and red-haired, with an infectious grin, Australian to the very backbone. Eric was half Irish, half Spanish, with a mixture of Irish audacity and Spanish charm. Apparently his mother had married an Irishman against the wishes of her family and gone to live in his own country, then when her husband had died her family had found her and brought her and her son back to Spain - something that young Eric Balgare had not liked. As he grew up he began to notice the difference between the carefree home in Ireland and the rigid convention of the life followed by most of the high-class families of Spain.

  When they had insisted that he marry a girl of their own choice, that had finished him, but instead of going back to Ireland he had teamed up with an Australian and gone to that country instead. Later the partnership had broken up, and when he had met Mandy he had been working in an engineering firm, studying in the evening to get a better job. He was fully intent on standing on his own feet and wanted nothing more to do with the aristocratic Adriano family. When teenage Aileen had remarked, rather tentatively, that Spain had always sounded a rather romantic country, he had asserted - almost violently - that Spain was not in the least romantic. He had insisted that, on the contrary, they were quite cold-bloodedly logical and unromantic where marriage was concerned and that he had been far more happy - far more free - since he had left Spain and settled in Australia.

  The only point he would concede was that the music from that country could be both romantic and passionate, and he had remarked rather cynically - admittedly when Aileen was somewhat older - that one must not confuse passion with marriage. The Spanish temperament certainly was inflammable, but it did not always flame within the bonds of marriage.

  Mrs. Lawrence, who had heard those particular remarks, h
ad commented, rather shocked, that she thought he might be exaggerating somewhat, whereupon he had waxed even more cynical, asserting - with a touch of Irish brogue that he had picked up in his early years in Ireland and not entirely lost, and which must surely have annoyed his aristocratic Spanish relations - that there was no exaggeration about it. Even in the lower strata of society, marriages were mainly arranged by the parents, but in the aristocracy the name and the family were the whole thing. His cousin Duarte would never dream of marrying for love, unless of course chance arranged it that he should love somebody who was suitable.

  Fate having at last allowed her to meet Duarte Adriano, Conde de Marindos, personally, Aileen could thoroughly agree with Eric - although she was also of the opinion that Duarte Adriano did not look as if he could fall in love at all, in spite of being Spanish. He was far too restrained and remote. He was decidedly most conscious of name and family.

  “He’ll probably marry a docile little thing who wouldn’t say boo to a goose,” Eric had once remarked. “It would do him good if he married a spitfire like my little Mandy,” he had added with a grin. “That might prick that self-assurance of his.”

  Eric had said that Duarte would most certainly marry in due time, since there must be a heir for Marindos. He might be already married, of course, but if he wasn’t then it was probably because he had not yet found anyone he considered good enough to carry on the exalted Adriano name, she decided a little acidly, but followed it up with a rather amused mental smile.

  Really she was getting quite vinegary about somebody she had seen for only a few moments, but secretly had always known she would dislike any member of the Adriano family chance ever caused her to meet, because Mandy and Eric were such thoroughly nice people who had grown to mean as much to her as the brother and sister she had never had - and it had happened just as she had expected. The moment that dark glance clashed with hers there had been instant enmity on her part. She did not delude herself that it would mean anything to Duarte Adriano, even if he had noticed it. He had probably completely forgotten her by now. Men in his position did not remember little nonentities like Aileen Lawrence.

  She had a swift little hope just then that fate would take a hand in it, and when he married make the girl have enough spirit not to let him have everything entirely his own way. It would serve him right!

  That brought Eric to mind again, because he had originally made the remark, and her thoughts, which had been a mixture of amusement and asperity, became tinged with a little curiosity. She had never been able to make up her mind whether or not Eric had disliked his Spanish cousin. Sometimes she had thought he had not known himself. Possibly that wild Irish spirit in him had not been able to understand his cousin’s Spanish correctness in everything he did. They came from such very different backgrounds. Now there could never be any hope of further attempt at understanding, because both Mandy and Eric were dead.

  Their deaths had occurred during the year when everything seemed to happen one on top of another. First Aileen’s mother had died after a heart attack - she had hidden from everyone the fact that she had heart trouble - and then, only a few months later, while Aileen was still recovering from the death of her mother, both Mandy and Eric had been killed in a train smash.

  Aileen had felt too shocked and sick even to cry when she first heard about it, and she did not know how she was going to break the news to Peter. He had been left at home while Mandy and Eric had gone into town to see a show, and Aileen had been minding Peter for them. She had been faced then with telling him that his mummy and daddy had gone away and would not be coming back. He had been only five years old at the time and, although he had cried a lot, he had not really understood, and ultimately he had come to accept it as natural that it was Aileen who should be looking after him now. He never remembered a time when she had not been there and she had always been a great favourite of his. His mother and father had gone away, but Auntie Aileen was still there, and slowly his tears had dried and he had smiled again.

  As for Aileen, it had seemed quite natural that she should take on the responsibility of caring for him. After all, there was nobody else, and they had all been so close, besides which she had lost everyone herself except Peter.

  There had to be change, though, and perhaps it was just as well, because there were reminders of the three people who had died so soon after each other all over the house. She had found a small flat more suited to her means, and Peter and herself had moved in and settled down quite happily after a while. That was two years ago now.

  Sometimes it had been suggested to her that she was spoiling her chances of marrying, as it would be hard to expect any man to take on a ready-made family - and a child who was not even related to his wife at that - but Aileen had never even considered any other way out than that she should take Peter. Mandy had no living relatives and Eric had always claimed that he was quite alone in the world - or at least that he was quite cut off from the Adrianos - so it had seemed quite natural to Aileen that she should care for Peter. She did not want it any other way.

  In any case, she had already proved people wrong when they said that Peter would prove an encumbrance if she wanted to get married herself. Paul had asked her time and again to marry him - he and Peter got on very well together, in fact he jokingly said their very names went together - but she had not been able to accept him. It was not that she disliked him, in fact very much to the contrary, but her feelings went no further than liking.

  It would work out, she always said when anyone mentioned the matter. She did not know in what way, but it would work out. And if she was one of those girls destined by fate never to marry, then she would still have Peter. Quite naturally, since she was as normal as any other girl, she had hoped that she would marry some day, and there had always been the thought at the back of her mind that the man she loved and who loved her - when and if such an unknown arrived on the scene - would not be able to help loving Peter as well.

  Sharp at five o’clock Aileen hurried out to catch .the tram that would take her to Bronte, the suburb on the sea where she had her little flat. It was right up high and overlooked, far down below, the crescent-shaped little beach with its golden sand, the green of the park and the tall pines in it. Further away, near the beach roadway, palm trees waved feathery fronds in the breeze.

  Actually she was very lucky in that near to her flat there was a special school for working mothers. Attached to it was a nursery that was open from eight in the morning to six at night. Children could be left there before school started, when at the correct time they would all be shepherded into the big grey stone school next door. When school finished the two maiden ladies who ran the nursery would collect their charges and keep them there until their mothers could come and take charge.

  It could not have worked out better for Aileen. She was able to leave Peter there on her way to work, knowing that he was in good, safe hands. Since they were both happy and comfortable in their little flat and could go down to the beach over the week-ends there should have been no reason for anything ever to change it, unless of course she got married. The charges at the nursery were reasonable and she was well able to support Peter and herself. She was good at her work and Jenton paid her a correspondingly good salary.

  When she reached the nursery, Peter was at the gate waiting for her and, as always, started dancing with excitement. He did not rush out to meet her because the catch was placed too high for the younger children to reach, so that they could never run out into the road, and in any case was of a type that was rather complicated even if some of the older ones did manage to reach it.

  Today something was different. As she looked at him she could not help noticing that fleeting resemblance. The resemblance to Duarte Adriano, Conde de Marindos. Peter was an Adriano, however much Eric might have renounced his family. She remembered Mandy once looking at Eric with a whimsical smile and remarking that genetics was a funny thing when two redheads like Eric and herself should have pr
oduced a black-haired little Adriano - and Eric’s immediate retort that Peter was no Adriano, he was a Balgare. But even Eric had not been able to deny that, even though he had the Balgare red hair, his features had been the aquiline ones of the Adriano family, and blue Irish eyes in that dark face had somehow heightened rather than detracted from the family resemblance he wished to deny.

  Peter was wholly Adriano in looks and, even though he was only seven years old and his little body had all the chubby sturdiness of young boyhood, it was already beginning to take on some hint of an inherited, natural pride. It would become more developed as he grew older, and she realised now that Eric had possessed it too. They were both members of the house of Adriano, however much that aristocratic family might have renounced them. Even Duarte Adriano would have had to recognise the beginning of that proud heritage in Peter as a reflection of his own natural, proud poise.

  She went into the house, thanked the Misses Carstairs, collected Peter and went home, stopping only at the small corner newsagent to pick up a paper. While she went into the little kitchenette to prepare their dinner, Peter settled down on the floor with his toys.

  About ten minutes later: “Auntie Aileen, the wheel’s stuck.” Aileen came in, looked down at him quizzically. “You’re supposed to be the engineer of this family.”