by Flora Kidd
She dressed hurriedly, slipping into one of the simple cotton dresses which she found were the most suitable clothing to wear about the house, and went out on to the patio. It was already warm there. The white walls of the house reflected yellow sunlight. The pink of orchids, the red of hibiscus and the purple of bougainvillea added brilliant patches of colour to the massed greenery of the shrubs, and the small fountain tinkled merrily, a cool sound which seemed to emphasize the peacefulness of that oasis of quiet in the busy city.
Owen and Megan were already seated at the round wrought iron table which had been set with a red and white checked tablecloth and brown locally made crockery. Owen’s dour mood seemed to have gone and as he stood up to place a chair at the table for her he remarked cheerfully,
“I can’t get over it.”
“Can’t get over what?” asked Brooke, mystified by his laconic utterance.
“The difference in Megan. She’s a walking miracle, thanks to you.”
“Call me Saint Brooke, in future,” she retorted lightly, trying to cover the surprising feeling of pleasure which his pleasure gave her.
“Seriously, I’ll never be able to thank you adequately for what you’ve done for her,” he insisted.
“Oh, yes, you will,” she replied with a touch of mockery. “You can keep me in comfort for the rest of my life.”
His quick grin showed he appreciated her mockery and her heart gave a funny little flip as their minds met and were briefly united. Living with him, sharing life with him might have compensations which would not be all materialistic.
“Actually I’ve done very little,” she added. “I’ve just guided and encouraged her. Once she knew she was coming out here to live with you she was determined to walk. But she still has a long way to go.”
Owen nodded, and gave her a long considering glance which brought the colour creeping willy-nilly into her cheeks.
“Then perhaps for once in my life I’ve done the right thing by marrying you,” he murmured enigmatically. He glanced at Megan, who was scooping up cereal and milk, oblivious to the conversation. “How do you like having Brooke to live with you?” he asked.
“I like it. She’s teaching me to swim. Are you going to watch me in the pool to-day, Daddy?”
“Yes, and afterwards would you like to go and see some horses?” “Which horses?” Megan’s eyes were round with wonder.
“My horses.”
“Ooh! Really? When I’m properly better can I learn to ride one of them?”
“You can learn to ride, but not the horses I’m talking about. They’re racehorses.”
“I didn’t know there was any horse-racing in Caracas,” said Brooke, as she peeled a fresh orange.
“Do you mean to tell me that none of your new admirers have thought to show you round and tell you about Rinconada Racecourse, one of the showpieces of Caracas?” he mocked in his turn. “Then we shall go there on our way to see my brother-in-law, Diego Francisco. He owns a hacienda in the hills south of the city and he grows coffee and breeds racehorses. He and I own a string of racers between us.”
Surprised by this piece of news which revealed yet another extension to Owen’s way of life, Brooke exclaimed,
“You never told me you had a sister.”
“You never asked me, did you?” he taunted lightly. “Eva is my half-sister, a few years younger than I and a few years older than you.” He turned again to Megan. “Do you remember Aunty Eva and Uncle Diego?” he asked, watching her curiously.
Megan’s low forehead puckered in a frown of effort as she tried to remember. Amnesia had been one of her problems ever since the accident.
“No, I don’t remember,” and her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t remember Pilar, or this house or anything,” she wailed.
“Perhaps it’s just as well you can’t,” murmured Owen. He was watching his daughter wipe her eyes on her table napkin. His eyes were half shut and his face was rock-hard as if his own memories of the time when Megan had lived in Caracas were most unpleasant.
“Never mind, Chiquita,” he comforted gently. “There isn’t much for you to remember. We didn’t live in this house then. We only visited here to see your grandfather and grandmother.”
“Where did we live?” asked Megan, her eyes brightening.
“In an apartment in the city.”
“Where are my grandmother and grandfather now?”
“They’re having a holiday going round the world. Your grandfather was very ill last year, that’s why they’ve been away such a long time, but I expect they’ll be coming back in a few weeks and I know they’re looking forward to seeing you again, especially your grandmother. She loves little girls. They’re looking forward to meeting Brooke too. But before they return we’ll have to do something about lessons for you.”
“So soon?” queried Brooke, watching Megan’s face crumple and quiver again.
“Yes. I think she should have a tutor to coach her in all subjects that she’s missed here and to teach her Spanish. She’s forgotten the little she knew.” His face darkened dourly as some memory which he didn’t like touched him. He flung down his table napkin and stood up. “I’ll see you down at the pool later.”
“Will you come and swim with me, Daddy?” asked Megan.
“If you’d like me to, I will. What do you think of that idea, Saint Brooke?”
“I think it’s a very good one,” she said, smiling at him.
He was sensible enough to stay on the apron of the pool while Megan went through her routine exercises, but once they were over he dived in and spent the next fifteen minutes teasing not only his daughter but also Brooke, who eventually escaped from him up the steps, protesting breathlessly and secretly alarmed at the excited turmoil such teasing caused within her. She knew that the romping and horseplay in the water had all been in fun, to make Megan laugh, but the touch of Owen’s hands as he had caught her and ducked her had had an electrifying effect on her.
After changing, they drove out of the city in the sleek red car which Owen owned to the racecourse. Her knowledge of such places being confined to the course near her home town, Brooke was amazed at the beauty and setting of the course. No expense had been spared in building it. From a courtyard where masses of flowering shrubs and cactus plants grew and tall tulip trees flaunted their amazing scarlet bell flowers to attract birds and insects, they entered a vide hallway where the stone floor was highly polished and where mere cacti and subtropical plants grew in oblong beds of soil. Up a wide shallow staircase they walked and out on to the extensive galleries where spectators could sit comfortably to watch the racing.
Beyond the padded horse stalls, on the pale sandy track several horses were being exercised by training jockeys, small crouched figures clinging to the backs of the animals. Beyond the track the sunlit towers of the distant city, elegant and perfect fairy-tale towers, gleamed against the farrowed folds and curves of the mountains rose and purple where the sun shone upon them, deeply black in their shadowed ravines and crannies. Gazing in awe at the view, Brooke found herself amazed once again by the ability of Venezuelans to create beauty. The shining city was a complement to magnificent natural surroundings rather than a blot upon the landscape.
“Now I know why you call it a showpiece,” she said to Owen. “It must have the most beautiful setting of any racecourse.”
“Venezuelans will assure you that it has,” he replied, with a twinkle in his eyes, and she guessed that he found the local people’s naive and childish boasting about anything produced by Venezuela as amusing and as endearing as she did.
“But I can’t help feeling worried about those padded stalls for the horses and the rubber carpeting in the paddock,” she said. “It seems to me that the horses are better treated than some of the human beings.”
“They are,” he agreed. “It worries me too. That’s why...” He broke off and looked past her, his eyes widening in surprise. Unable to contain her curiosity, Brooke turned and looked in the
same direction.
A woman was coming down the steps towards them. She was small and slender and she moved with a strange stiff grace. Her hair was smoothly black, parted in the middle and pulled back tightly into a big chignon, a style which drew attention to her hollowcheeked, fine-boned face and deep dark eyes, which were set under thin arching eyebrows. She was dressed all in black as if in mourning.
“Owen,” she said in English, flinging out both hands towards him in a rather dramatic gesture. “It has been a long time. Too long. How are you, amigo?”
Owen took one of the slim graceful hands in his and shook it formally.
“I am well, senora. And you?”
“Better, oh, much better, for seeing you,” replied the woman, smiling up at him.
She seemed to become aware that there were other people present and she glanced curiously at Brooke and then at Megan. Her eyebrows arched even more as she looked enquiringly at Owen. “May I introduce my wife, Brooke, and my daughter Megan,” said Owen blandly. “Brooke, this is Senora Stella Cordoba, the principal ballerina in one of our more successful ballet companies.”
“Your wife?” The shrill exclamation echoed round the gallery, attracting the attention of a group of sightseers. A stricken expression flashed briefly in Stella’s eyes before she veiled them with long black eyelashes.
“Yes, Brooke and I were married in England just over a month ago,” Owen explained easily, not a flicker of emotion showing on his face or in his voice.
“You did not waste much time, amigo.” There was the faintest of rebukes in the voice and the dark eyes were raised again to glance almost hungrily at Owen’s face.
“I usually act fast in a crisis,” Owen said with a touch of humour, his hands on Megan’s shoulders, as she leaned against him looking with awe at the dark, elegant woman.
“You knew that I was returning to Caracas. You received my letter?” demanded Stella urgently.
Owen looked slightly perplexed and his hand went to his creased forehead in that familiar gesture of puzzlement.
“I don’t believe I did,” he replied. “When did you write?”
“February. I sent all my news. Oh, Owen, do you mean to say you did not know that Julius died...”
Owen’s face was as still as stone. New lines appeared at the corners of his mouth as he exercised control.
“I’m sorry, Stella,” he murmured. “Then you are free?”
“Yes. I am as free as a bird.” Bitterness crisped the soft voice. “And as soon as I could I came flying to Caracas to find that you had gone to England. I left a message with your secretary to call me as soon as you returned. I have been waiting many days. Now I know why you have not called.” She flashed a strangely vindictive glance at Brooke, then without any warning began to speak in Spanish. For a few minutes Owen’s face lost its hardness as expressions chased across it, starting with one of compassion and ending with impatience as he glanced at his watch.
“There’s no time, Stella, and this is not the place. Please speak English when Brooke is present She doesn’t understand Spanish,” he said, abruptly interrupting the flow of words.
Stella stopped speaking, made an effort to control her emotion and turned to Brooke with a contrite expression on her face.
“Forgive me, senora. I did not realize. You see, Owen and I ... are old friends. I have much to ask him and to tell him.”
“I understand,” began Brooke, only to be cut off by an impatient Owen.
“We have no more time. We’re going to see my sister. She’s expecting us to lunch,” he said.
“But, Owen, I need your advice. I must see you. It’s important,” pleaded Stella.
He hesitated, his mouth tightening. Impulse urged Brooke forward to his assistance.
“Senora Cordoba, you must come to dinner soon to the Casa Estaban,” she said.
The woman turned. For a moment she eyed Brooke warily, taking in breeze-ruffled hair, earnest blue eyes, plain pale face, casual cotton shirt and pants, open-toed sandals. Then she smiled, a radiant, almost triumphant expression.
“I should like that very much. The Casa is my second home. When shall I come?”
“Brooke will telephone you, Stella,” broke in Owen curtly.
“Si. For that I am grateful to you both. Adios.”
No use expecting Owen to elaborate on his friendship with Stella, thought Brooke ruefully. If she asked him he would snub her briefly and effectively. Yet there was no doubt that the meeting had distressed him, for his mouth was set in a hard line and a deep frown pulled his slanting eyebrows together as he drove fast along a straight new road which took them towards the purple hills lying to the west of the city.
Then there had been that hurt, stricken look she had surprised in the dark eyes of the beautiful dancer when Owen had introduced his second wife to her. She had been utterly dismayed. And who was Julius, whose death had made Stella free as a bird?
Brooke sighed with frustration. How could she find out without asking Owen? And what was the use of asking him, since he would reply that it was none of her business?
Putting the question from her mind, she looked out at the scenery. This was her first time beyond the bounds of Caracas, and the difference between the quite rural scene around them and the restless sophistication of the capital city was striking. Under the blazing noonday sun the lower slopes of the mountains slumbered in a haze of purple and green. The flat floor of the valley between the slopes was scattered with cultivated fields. In the fields short shrubs, rather like rhododendron bushes, grew in rows, coffee plants shaded from the great heat by the graceful overhanging branches of banana palms.
The road, which was now a winding twisting affair meandering across the valley like a great old river, passed through a small village of simple white-walled red-roofed houses. Some men already taking an hour off in the heat of the day to relax, their heads shaded by the inevitable straw hats, were leaning over a table outside the door of a house playing dominoes. Women dressed in wide cotton skirts and loosely-fitting embroidered blouses and straw hats lingered here and there to gossip.
With the sun at its zenith shadows were strong and black against stark white walls and the red pantiles of the roofs glowed in sharp contrast to the foliage of the few trees which gave the village square its shade. Brooke was glad of the sunglasses which protected her eyes from glare and also of the air-conditioning in the car which
made travel at that time of the day more comfortable.
“What’s a crisis, Daddy?” lisped Megan suddenly.
“Mm? What? What did you say?” muttered Owen, jolted out of the thoughts which had kept him silent and dour ever since they had left the racecourse.
“What’s a crisis? You told that pretty lady that you always act fast in a crisis, and I don’t know what that is or why you were in one.” “Listening, were you?” accused Owen with mock fierceness.
“I couldn’t help it. She spoke loudly and so did you,” retorted Megan.
Owen laughed.
“It did get a bit noisy, didn’t it? So you want to know what a crisis is. It’s a turning point, often a moment of danger which calls for quick action. Sometimes it can change the course of a whole life,” he replied thoughtfully.
What crisis had caused him to act quickly and marry her? wondered Brooke. Surely he hadn’t regarded his daughter’s need for a mother as a crisis. Yet his action was changing the course of her life and his as well.
“Were you in danger, Daddy?”
“In a way.” His answer was evasive and wary.
“Ooh! Was someone trying to kill you?” persisted Megan, her imagination running away with her.
“Good heavens, no!”
“Then what sort of danger?” continued the childish voice.
Brooke glanced at Owen. He looked so flummoxed that she wanted to laugh. Then she saw a way in which she might find out about Stella.
“I think your daddy was being chased,” she murmured. “Or perhaps hunt
ed is a better word than chased.”
“Were you, Daddy?” demanded Megan excitedly.
“I ... er ... I suppose I was,” he replied guardedly, and sent a puzzled glance in Brooke’s direction.
“Who was chasing you? The police?” cried Megan. She was a child of the television age whose mind was filled with images of police cars chasing criminals and others through city streets.
“No, of course not,” snapped Owen, suddenly irritable. “But I
will be if you don’t shut up and let me concentrate on driving along this road.”
His sharpness had no effect on the irrepressible Megan.
“Has what you did fast stopped you from being chased?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
This time his glance in Brooke’s direction was distinctly threatening as if he was saying, “You got me into this, now you can get me out or I'll make you sorry you ever opened your mouth.”
So, slightly amused at his irritation yet also disturbed by it because it could have only been caused by her suggestion being very near the truth, she took pity on him and said,
“Oh, look Megan, over there. Horses! They must belong to your Uncle Diego.”
The sight of the lovely long-legged graceful thoroughbreds standing beneath the shade of trees diverted Megan and she began to ask questions about them which Owen seemed more disposed to answer. At least, thought Brooke, he had been roused out of his dour mood, and as he swung the car off the road on to another narrower road towards a distant white-walled red-roofed house crouched amongst a clump of shady trees, he told them about the hacienda which had been producing coffee for export from Venezuela ever since the land had been granted to the first member of the Francisco family to settle in the country in the sixteenth century.
The narrow road ended in front of the house. As they got out of the car a woman came down the wide shallow steps which led up to the verandah supported by wooden pillars which went right round the house. The woman was tall and athletic-looking. She had a mane of dark curling hair which was caught back at the nape of her neck and hung down in a long ponytail almost to her waist. Her eyes showed her relationship to Owen, because although they were the tawny-gold colour of old brandy they were heavy-lidded and set under thick slanting eyebrows. She was wearing fawn riding breeches and a white silk shirt which was open at the neck to show her firm brown throat.