A Cottage in Spain

by Rosalind Brett

  “He’s a darling. He’s fifty-three and hasn’t much grey in his hair, but he has a sort of venerable face that goes beautifully with books. John has the same look about him.”

  “Who is John—your brother?”

  It didn’t seem possible that she hadn’t yet told him all about her father and brother. She felt so vividly that Philip was right inside her, that he belonged—treacherous thought—more permanently than her father and John had ever belonged. She looked very young and appealing as she answered him.

  “He’s several years older than I and in character we’re rather alike, though he’s the more serious.”

  “Good lord. Poor chap.” He looked up into a loquat tree and felt the ripening fruit. “Spain is good for people like you. You should have brought your brother with you and settled for a few months. The Sebastian business was too bad.” He gave her a quick, keen glance. “Are you homesick at all?”

  The question was unexpected and she pondered it. “Not homesick, but horribly uncertain. Sometimes I feel it was a dreadful mistake to come to Spain at all.”

  “Why should you feel that?” he queried abruptly, as they went on down the path to the back of the garden.

  “Well,” she had to admit it, “I know I shall never be quite normal again.”

  “I warned you. It’ll get worse if you don’t go soon.”

  The deliberate casualness of this comment stripped her for a moment of armor. She knew a sudden chill of despair, an ache that was hollow and shivery about her heart. He was advising her to go home. He stopped, took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. It would have been a moment of emotional intensity had not a harsh little smile played about his lips.

  “I wish I knew what has happened to you since that first day, when I found you in my workroom,” he said. “I’d have said then that you were a girl without a single inhibition, yet now you’re as touchy as a raw nerve. I don’t believe you enjoy living at the cottage at all.”

  Which was true, but she would have enjoyed it, had there been no Maxine. She longed to be able to lean her cheek to his jacket, to feel him, if only companionably, take her into his arms. And it would have been heaven to spill out the truth about everything, even if she did have to omit her own feelings where he was concerned. She looked away and moved, so that his hand had to drop.

  “There’s not enough to do,” she said offhandedly. “I’d be better off without Anna.”

  He did not challenge this. They arrived at a stone seat under the trees, and from it, with sere red pine needles about their feet, they could gaze right down past the rose garden to the front gate. Just in front of them a young cotton palm blew in the wind, trailing brown threads from bright green branches, and overhead the pines sighed a gentle accompaniment to the cooing of the doves.

  “I didn’t call to see you only about those two amorous you rig Spaniards,” he said. “I’ve been fairly hard at it and got through most of the preliminary work. Now, I’m ready to line up my stuff with that of my colleague. He has a bungalow at Majorca.”

  “Does that mean you’re going there?” she asked, quite steadily.

  “Only for a night or two. We keep apart as far as possible when we’re away from the camp; it helps during the period when we can’t avoid being in each other’s pocket. He’s married.”

  “Oh.” She put a careful enquiry. “Isn’t that a handicap to an archaeologist—being married?”

  “Chris doesn’t find it so. His wife lives the whole time in Majorca and it doesn’t seem to bother either of them.” There was a hint of cynicism in his voice as he added, “Maybe he’s on to a good thing. They’ve just about had enough of each other when it’s time for him to get back to the grind.”

  “It doesn’t sound very satisfactory to me.”

  “It wouldn’t, but then a chap who digs up lost cities would hardly make the cosy sort of husband you’d need,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “Chris Raebrook isn’t a particularly good husband, but Veronica isn’t a particularly good wife, either. Possibly that’s the reason they get along so well when they do come together. There’s no heavy domesticity to live up to.”

  The subject had unsuspected jagged edges. Linda fought away from them by asking, “How do you go to Majorca?”

  “By the steamer from Barcelona. It isn’t far.” Carelessly he said, “I thought you and Maxine might like to go over with me. The Raebrooks love company, and they have several spare beds they put up all over the place. I wrote them saying I might bring friends.”

  “Did you?” Her pulses hummed. “But won’t they think it odd—your taking two women?”

  “Not so odd as if I took only one. Veronica prides herself on being bohemian and unshockable. She’ll quite believe the fact that you two are my neighbors and anxious to see Majorca.” He flicked negligently at a falling leaf. “Game?” She wanted it so much that she could have wept with eagerness. Maxine was the fly in the amber, but if Philip was to be so close, perhaps for two whole days, even that might be bearable.

  She said foolishly, “I look so horrid in flat shoes all the time.”

  He laughed. “I’ll never know how a woman’s mind works. You’ll get by, my sweet.”

  “When do we go?” she asked, her voice as nonchalant as she could make it.

  “A private boat leaves early on Sunday morning. We might get that.”

  “Not Sunday,” she said quickly.

  “No?” He cast her an oblique glance. “Got a date?”

  Linda pushed at the pine needles with the toe of her sandal. “I ... I’m seeing Dr. Reeves. You rushed me out of the nursing home so swiftly last week that he’s invited me to atone by having lunch with him this Sunday.”

  “Nothing like counting a doctor among one’s friends,” he said non-committally, “and Reeves is a good doctor, at that. Let’s make it Monday for Majorca, then.”

  A coolness sharp as a knife had risen between them. Unhappily, Linda was aware of its cause, yet she could do nothing to dispel it. She hadn’t felt any kind of enmity between Dr. Reeves and Philip last weekend; not on Saturday night, anyway. They had been cordial with each other. True, the relationship between all three of them had developed a peculiar strain on Sunday morning, but in her mind she had attributed it to some private reason of Philip’s.

  “Here’s Maxine,” he said. “She’s been buying up the Rambla.”

  Automatically, they got up and walked towards the gate. Maxine saw them and waved a bird-cage. She was in white, with touches of the dusty pink which became her so well, and as soon as she was near enough, she called, “Look at the pretty bird! I bought it for your Maria Gonzalez, Philip. She’s always saying she’d love one. Oh, hallo, Linda,” as if Linda were an acquaintance making a morning call.

  Philip took the cage containing its little yellow and red bird. He eyed it distastefully. “They’re bred this way so I suppose they get some fun from life. I hope Maria will keep it well out of my sight.”

  Rather hastily, Maxine said, “Yes, I hate the idea of caging birds, too, but these Spaniards seem to love them.” Without pause, she added, “I got you some perfume, Linda. Do you like the little casket?”

  The small bottle in its chased ormolu case was exquisite and costly. It was the kind of perfume container one might carry in a jewel-set evening bag. Linda murmured astonished thanks, but Maxine was already talking of something else.

  “Philip, I collected your typed manuscript. I was passing the office and it suddenly occurred to me it might be ready, so I went in and enquired. It’s in the car.”

  “You needn’t have bothered,” he said, “but it’s kind of you, and will same me the trip. I particularly wanted it today, so that I could look it over before we go to Majorca.” Maxine’s green eyes sparkled. “Have you told Linda?”

  “Yes, a few minutes ago. We’ll go on Monday.”

  “I can hardly wait.” She was smiling up at him. “Shall we get your manuscript?”

  He murmured the usual �
��So long,” to Linda, gave an exasperated glance at the bird-cage he was holding and went with Maxine to the gate. Linda turned about and moved up the steps into the house. She felt flat and dried up, and she might as well own that the fact of his having already fixed up the Majorca jaunt with Maxine was the cause. Had she been an afterthought on his part? Was she to tag along as gooseberry in order that his colleague should not get ideas? Deflated, she placed the bottle of perfume on the table and wandered over to the window. She was still standing there, combing up her hair from her temples with slow fingertips, when Maxine drifted in like a flower.

  The round white hat with its pompom of pink feathers was dropped on to the table and Maxine paused there, a reflective and wholly pleased smile on her lips. Looking at her, Linda wondered that she had not captured a rich and exciting husband long ago. She practised all the magic of which women were capable—dress and perfume, the slight fastidious advances, the thrilling cadence. Perhaps to a woman she was a delicate and beautiful shell, but a man wouldn’t see her that way. She was so clever at twisting things to her own advantage; witness the poor bird in the cage.

  Maxine’s long white finger traced the crown of her hat. “These Spanish women miss a great deal in not wearing hats,” she observed idly.

  “Their hair is a joy to look at,” Linda said with an effort “and there’s no lovelier head-covering than a lace mantilla.”

  “You really ought to marry Sebastian,” came the answer, “and have a little Pepe and a Pablo. The role of dutiful wife would suit you.” After this piece of gratuitous advice, her expression became enigmatic. “You’re not really keen on going to Majorca, are you, Linda?”

  Linda hardened. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be, if I were you. I fished for the invitation and I certainly didn’t intend it to include you. Philip, of course, is far too polite to leave you out, but there’s nothing against your leaving yourself out. You and he aren’t the best of friends, so you should have no difficulty in calling it off.”

  “He seemed to think it much wiser to take two women than to take one.”

  Maxine glinted, almost greedily. “Did he say that? Well, doesn’t it show you the way he’s trending? He doesn’t really want you along at all.”

  “I’m quite certain,” said Linda, her voice tight, “that if Philip wanted to take any one woman anywhere he would do so. I’d like very much to visit Majorca, and I doubt whether I shall get another chance to go there with an escort who knows his way about. You’re trying your luck too far, Maxine.”

  “My dear, I never depend on luck. I know men, and I have a fairly extensive knowledge of women, too. Look here,” she broke off thoughtfully, but then went straight on: “Why don’t you pack up and go back to England? I know I was against it a while ago, but I’ve been thinking. After all, this cottage came to you out of the blue, and you don’t really want it, or Sebastian. Personally, I’d say that a girl in your position—a bookshop assistant in a smug suburban district—has had a wonderful chance of stepping out of the rut. But if you refuse it, then obviously your place is back where you came from.” She came to the point, crisply. “To be honest, Linda, I’m beginning to find you very much in the way, and if you’ll arrange to go at once I’ll willingly pay all your expenses.”

  Linda’s lips were stiff. “Was the casket of perfume an advance payment?”

  Maxine gave a brief sharp laugh. “Hardly. It wasn’t meant for you at all. I bought it for myself, but used it to divert Philip from the livestock in the cage. How was I to know he had a thing about caged birds?”

  “You don’t know anything about him. And you haven’t any wish to know. He appeals to you because he’s different from the kind of men you’ve been used to. He doesn’t play around, or flatter you and worship you, and he has a strange and rather exotic background. As a person, he means nothing to you!”

  “How wrong you are, my dear,” said Maxine smoothly. “As a person he means a great deal to me; as a lover he will mean even more. I’ll admit that his work is way beyond me, but then I never did take an interest in the way a man earns his money; it’s the amount of it that matters. You, Linda, my pet, are far too soft. To get along in his world being simple and gentle isn’t enough. You have to pick out the things you want, and go for them. In a way, you may be right about my not knowing Philip, but I do know that he’s sufficiently like other men to appreciate the clothes a woman wears, and her fragrance. And he’s not so cool in his feelings as he’d have one believe, either!”

  Linda knew a sudden wild flare of jealousy, the more shattering because she hadn’t imagined herself capable of such a reaction. Thankful that the light of the window was behind her she said slowly, “I think I will leave the cottage at the end of next week, Maxine, but when I go I’ll lock it up and give the key to Sebastian. I’ll go on to Miss Dean in Valencia for a week, and then fly home.”

  Totally unconscious of Linda’s unhappiness, Maxine nodded her satisfaction. “Good. Did you ever find your passport?”

  “I thought you had it.”

  “Heavens, no. I never complicate life more than necessary. That morning, when the telegram came from John, I took the passport from the writing table in your bedroom. There was a wide crack at the back of the drawer and I pushed the passport down it. I expected to stick up, but it didn’t, so I’m afraid you’ll have to use a screwdriver and take off the back panel of the table. It couldn’t be helped.” There is a point beyond which it is impossible to be angry with another person. Linda had reached that point with Maxine. There was nothing the other woman could do now which would rouse her to a militant fury. Maxine had shrugged off John as though he were a shabby coat, established herself as the most important member of the cottage, used all the stratagem and artifice at her command in a hundred ways, and never once acknowledged Linda’s existence as a human being. It was pointless, really, to argue with her. So Linda made a move towards the door.

  “Just a moment.” Maxine raised a detaining hand. “Have you heard from your father or John lately?”

  “Not from John. There was a note from my father.”

  “Was I mentioned?”

  “Only casually.”

  “Do you think John would be fool enough to come here, after all?”

  “No, I don’t. His pride has had time to get working.”

  Maxine breathed audible relief. “Yes, of course. You Bradens are great on pride and stern fortitude. My father hasn’t seen John, thank the stars, so he has only my version.”

  “It seems you get luck,” Linda said bitterly, “even though you don’t depend on it.”

  “Not luck,” Maxine replied lightly. “It’s good management.”

  Linda went upstairs. She told herself it was wrong to feel sick and discouraged. She was young, and she loved working in her father’s bookshop, and there was no doubt about it: she couldn’t feel she belonged here, even temporarily. It’s work and relatives that make you feel you belong, she thought. Here at Montelisa she had neither. The dim graciousness of the house had become impersonal, and she felt no kinship with the woman in the portrait downstairs. Somehow, even the view of the sea and the long curve of beach with little boats drawn up and the harbor wall with masts and sails above it, had lost its intimacy and beauty. There was a saying that if Spain did not exist, one would have to create it. In Linda’s opinion, the atmosphere itself was overwhelming. Possibly, she conjectured hopefully, she would laugh at herself when she was no longer beside the sun-soaked Mediterranean.

  She went to the writing table and pulled out the drawer. In it lay the two or three letters from her father and the one which John had sent before Maxine’s departure from England. There was a box of notepaper and envelopes, her pen and a packet of picture postcards. She took them all out and laid them on the table, then tried to lift out the drawer. But, oddly, it did not open to its full length; it was not meant to be lifted out.

  She sat on the dainty damask-seated chair and
bent to peer into the drawer. Yes, there was the crack along the left side at the back; only when one took a really close look at it, it had more the appearance of a slot about a quarter of an inch wide. And, yes, the position coincided with the length of the drawer that was still left inside the table. How very queer.

  The tips of her fingers felt along the slot, pressing in the hope that something would give way. Nothing did, so she tried the bottom of the drawer. It was difficult, because she couldn’t see what she was doing, but apparently she presently did the correct thing, for a narrow block of the drawer-base slid under her hand, leaving an oblong aperture just large enough to admit her fingers. A secret drawer, she thought; shades of school fiction!

  Actually, the writing table was one of a number made specifically many years ago for senoritas. The little dark hole at the back of the drawer was supposed to preserve love letters from the vulgar gaze of servants and the testy eye of a parent. Only the young lady herself knew the secret of getting at them. Linda thought this one must have been damaged at some time; quite certainly there should have been no visible slot.

  Her fingers found the passport and she brought it out and blew the dust from it. Curiosity made her delve again, and when she felt the roughish texture of a thick envelope she almost dropped it in sheer surprise. She looked at it blankly, and read the inscription two or three times before taking it in. “For Linda,” it said, “from Aunt Natalie.”

  She jumped up, full of nerves; jumped again, when there came a tap at the door.

  “The lunch is ready, senorita,” called Anna. “Fish soup and omelette and a fine salad, with new oranges that Rosario brought this morning. Also I have made some ice cream. You come?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m coming,” she answered jerkily.

  The letter was like a hot coal in her hand. She dusted it gingerly with her handkerchief and dropped it into her handbag, washed her hands in the bathroom and went back to her room to comb her hair. Her bag lay on the four-poster and she took it up quickly and carried it downstairs with her.