Devil's Darling

by Violet Winspear

  The Don paused and toyed with a knife. ‘He requested that I be good to you. He warned me that you had been sheltered rather more than most English girls are these days.’

  ‘But you - you chose to ignore that warning,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Did I?’ He slung down the knife and the blade glittered like his eyes as the sun caught it. ‘Your guardian was remiss in telling me that you also had a sharp little tongue and a tendency to argue with a man, and I was not used to that. I found you less than the little angel you appeared to be, and I treated you accordingly. I am but a man. Don Devil, eh? I believe that is your name for me?’

  ‘I suppose you heard that from Carmenteira?’ There was colour high on Persepha’s cheekbones and little flickers of gold in her eyes, and she knew the Don was staring at her through his diabolical lashes. ‘She potters about in my bedroom and pesters me, and no doubt comes to you with her tales. No one really approves of me. They all feel that I’m a let-down with my English looks and ways, and it’s obvious they would have preferred a Latin mistress. Señor, why on earth didn’t you marry a girl of your own race?’

  ‘Because I married you,’ he said harshly.

  ‘And from the sound of your voice you’re as sorry about it as I am,’ she flung back at him.

  ‘Really?’ said a voice which seemed to come from out of the blue. ‘Is this the way you two behave when you are alone together?’

  In unison Persepha and the Don looked in the direction of the voice. ‘Madrecita!’ he exclaimed, and pushed back his chair and was quickly on his feet. ‘So you have found us out, eh?’ He gave a laugh that was more disconcerted than amused. ‘Discovered that when alone we don’t bill and coo like lovebirds.’

  ‘Diabo, put lovebirds in a cage together and they will peck each other to death,’ said the small, beautifully coiffured, darkly clad woman who had appeared on the terrace in the midst of their quarrel.

  Persepha could only stare at her, for the Don had called her grandmother, and she had believed that all his close relations were lost to him. Was this perfect figurine of an old lady the surprise he had spoken about? Persepha realized that if the woman had been in the car when it arrived she would not have seen her, for she had turned away when the Don had so mockingly bowed to her. She had gone to the other end of the terrace in order to regain her breath, her composure, and the courage to face him when he came to her after being away from her.

  It came as a shock to meet this close relative of his, who having heard their duel of words would not be persuaded that they were madly in love with each other.

  ‘Madrecita,’ he said drily, ‘come and meet my wife, the girl about whom you expressed doubts because she is English. You said, did you not, that it would be salt and pepper clashing together in the same pot?’

  ‘Si, Diabo, I did say so.’ The small and noble-looking woman kept her gaze fixed upon Persepha as she spoke to her grandson. Her eyes seemed not to miss a detail of the English features, and the way the slim, ringed fingers gripped the edge of the table. ‘You are very charming, my child, and now that I do see you I can understand why Diabo allowed Spanish good sense to be swept from his mind. Salt and pepper don’t really mix, but I imagine they can produce an interesting flavour. Come, you may kiss me!’

  Persepha came round the table to the Don’s grandmother and bending her head she pressed a kiss to the soft, powdered cheek. ‘I - I’m happy to know you, señora,’ she said shyly. ‘I had no idea - Don Diablo said not a word about bringing you to the hacienda.’

  ‘I imagine he wanted to give you a surprise.’ The señora smiled, with a little touch of wickedness, as she sat down in the chair which her grandson drew out for her. ‘I also imagine that he wanted to surprise me. He said you were young, fair, and inexperienced. He forbore to mention that you are extremely beautiful - my child, do be seated yourself, for you seem to be very shaken.’

  ‘I - I am,’ Persepha admitted, and now she cast a look at her husband’s face. It was impassive, giving nothing away. ‘Oh, did he say—?’ she wanted to cry out. ‘Did he tell you why he married me?’

  ‘Sit down, Persepha.’ His hand pressed her down into her chair, and in front of his grandmother his hand didn’t grip and linger, but it drew away and left her with the strangest, wildest inclination to reach out and pull it back to her person.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE day that had passed had been a strange one, for after being introduced to the Señora Joaquina Calhariz, and after making polite and rather stilted conversation with her, Persepha had been left alone while the Don and his grandmother went off arm-in-arm for a tour of the hacienda which she had not seen for several years.

  She was the Don’s maternal grandmother, and when Carmenteira had spoken of the passing of her own mistress she had meant the paternal grandmother of Don Diablo. Persepha just hadn’t dreamed that far away in the city of Lima there dwelt this charming but slightly aloof woman who had actually known him from a boy, and who could call him Diabo with an affectionate ease and tuck her arm within his as they went together to speak with his Mexican people.

  The three of them had dined together last night, and then the señora had pleaded fatigue and the Don had escorted her to her bedroom suite, where her personal maid was waiting to assist her to bed. Persepha had lingered in the sala, but strangely enough the Don had not returned to her, and when she had gone to bed, taut with nerves because she had expected him, he had let the night pass without disturbing her.

  Now it was morning and Persepha wandered alone through the dew-fragrant courts and gardens, breathing the glorious air, so untouched by the day because it was still very early.

  She had not slept deeply, and several times had started awake, as if on thorns that suddenly the adjoining door was going to swing open to admit the Don. She had drifted off at last and awoken almost with the dawn, and at the call of the birds she had quickly washed and dressed and sped down to be alone with the flowers and the reinatas and the dragonflies that reminded her of the brooch that might assist her to fly away from this place that could never be her paradise.

  Her gaze wandered over vines pearly with dewdrops, clusters of lilies with their golden calyxes, and a zephyr of colour winging through the morning sunlight that was delicious because it had not yet expanded into that brilliant ball that bounced its rays on the helplessly exposed earth.

  The butterfly hung upon a petal, quivering there, intoxicated by the nectar that it drank in like wine, and Persepha stood very still so as not to disturb the delicate thing until it was ready to take wing and to fly out of reach.

  And it was then that she heard bells coming from the direction of the chapel, so close that they drew Persepha, making her start, making her disturb the butterfly though she hadn’t meant to. It flew ahead of her, its pale wings tipped with flame, and it seemed to guide her to the side entrance of the chapel among the trees, which stood partly open, so that she could see inside.

  A hand clenched against her heart, for the Don was there, standing before the Madonna, and there were candles burning, and a mass of white roses were spread upon the altar. The proud dark head of the man was bent as if he prayed, and Persepha knew that he was totally unaware that she watched him in bated silence for several minutes. She seemed held to the spot by chains around her ankles; she couldn’t move and just had to stand there and let her eyes wander over this stranger whom she had thought of as the total infidel: a man who took but who never relied on prayer to give him the things that he wanted.

  At last she could move and she turned silently away and slipped like a shadow among the trees, until she reached the patio where she took breakfast since he had been away. She sat down in one of the fan-backed chairs to await the young maid with her café con leche. Tea was always taken to her bedroom, and it would be there now, growing cold beside her bed in which she had tossed so much that it looked as if a hurricane had passed over it. She knew what the maid would surmise, young Mafalda with whom she often had a laugh
and a joke. The maids were earthy creatures, and as Don Diablo had once said to her, she wasn’t averse to a joke.

  She bit her lip and reached for a tea-rose that was opening its cup as the sun grew warmer. She had hold of it when she winced and saw a bead of blood on her finger. She put the finger to her lips, and wondered why it was that thorns had to grow among roses to cause pain, just as the problems of life could be so piercing.

  Mafalda would hint in the kitchen that the señor hidalgo was more than delighted to be home with his bride!

  Persepha stared at the blood on her finger.. . why had he suddenly let the door remain closed between them? She had felt instinctively that he had not been with another woman while in South America, yet after ten days he had chosen to ignore her. Could it be that he felt reserved with his grandmother in the house? It was a possibility, yet not one that Persepha found convincing.

  She visualized him once again at the altar of the little chapel, and she seemed to breathe again the powerful perfume of the roses. Pale like a woman’s skin... roses for remembrance ... and for love.

  She caught her breath, for sharper, more real, was the possibility that his grandmother’s presence here had brought back talk, and memories, of that lovely Latin woman whose death he had taken so hard. Was that why he had not been able to face her last night, because he and the señora had talked of that other woman, recalling her presence at the hacienda, her beauty and her laughing, flirtatious eyes above the frilled edge of a lace fan.

  His madrecita, like everyone else, could not approve his choice of an English wife. The old lady had been polite, but not really friendly, and Persepha’s teeth bit upon her own finger as she saw ahead of her days in which she was under scrutiny by his grandmother, her every action watched and commented upon. Her clothes studied, and her attitude towards the Don himself criticized for its lack of emotional warmth which a Latin bride would have shown him.

  ‘I can’t stand it!’ Persepha muttered the words to herself. ‘I shall have to get away!’

  Then she sensed rather than saw another presence on the patio, and pulling herself together she stood up and turned casually to face whoever stood there in the shade of a madrone tree.

  She had half expected to see the Don, but instead his grandmother had risen early and had appeared on the patio in that silent, unnerving way of Latin people, as if they walked as they danced, with an animal grace that made their feet seem in tune with the very earth.

  ‘Buenos dias, my child.’ The voice was richly sweet and cool, and there was a rustle of silk, and a sparkle of diamonds in a harp-shaped brooch as the señora came gliding across the softly coloured tiles of the patio, elegant in an old-fashioned style, both in her dress and her manner. As she approached and was quite plainly going to take the opportunity to speak to her grandson’s wife alone, it took all of Persepha’s courage to stand there and not obey her impulse to dash indoors out of the way of this Spanish woman who had overheard her say to the Don that she was sorry she had ever married him.

  Having been brought all the way to the Hacienda Ruy to meet her grandson’s bride, it was hardly the sort of thing she would have hoped to hear. Persepha pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her cabin-boy pants as the Señora Joaquina Calhariz ran her Latin eyes over the pants, which emphasized the slimness of Persepha’s figure, which had none of the voluptuous roundness of hip that was apparent in young Mexican women.

  ‘Good morning, señora.’ Persepha spoke politely in English, though in the weeks she had been here she had acquired a fluency with the Spanish language which she kept mainly for use when speaking with the staff. Whenever the Don spoke to her in his language, she invariably answered him in English, as if asserting her claim that she would never be anything else but a woman who lived here against her will. But he knew well enough that already she could speak excellent Spanish; more than once he had strolled into her bedroom while she was in conversation with Mafalda or Becke, a pair of Mexican sisters who quarrelled endlessly about their boy-friends. They had begun to ask her advice about these boy-friends, as if as a married woman she had some insight into love that they didn’t have as yet, and she knew how much it amused the Don that the Mexican girls should ask her such frank and outrageous questions. He’d quirk that devilish black brow of his as he lounged against the bedpost with a cup of coffee, and tell her not to be shy but to go ahead with her advice bureau. She knew that the two maids found him the epitome of Spanish muy hombre, and they’d giggle like a pair of fools when he was in the room, and deliberately flutter their long Latin eyelashes at him. They were both exceedingly pretty, and almost alike as a pair of pins except that Becke had a velvety mole beside her upper lip. In any other household, Persepha couldn’t help but realize, such come-hither boldness from such girls would have resulted in the master straying in their direction. But she had seen the Don look amused by them and nothing more. He had a curious aloofness when it came to other women, and Persepha felt sure she knew the reason.

  ‘I had hoped,’ said the Don’s grandmother, ‘that you and I could have a conversation together. When the girl Becke told me that you were probably down here on the patio awaiting your breakfast, I decided to join you. I don’t usually rise so early, so you must consider yourself of much interest to an old woman who likes to lounge in bed with her newspaper.’

  ‘It was kind of you to join me,’ Persepha still couldn’t relax with this woman who must find her so hard to accept as the wife of a grandson she obviously adored. An English girl with hair that caught the sunlight, who wore boyish pants, and didn’t cling to Don Diablo as if he were her staff and her comfort. She drew out a chair for the señora at the patio table, who sat down carefully, sighing a little as the elderly do, and revealing a tiny elegant foot beneath the long hem of her dress.

  ‘My old bones ache a little after that long journey yesterday,’ she said. ‘But I just had to come and meet you, my child. And please sit down so that I can see you without having to look up at you - you are a tall girl compared to Latin girls, though it is not so noticeable when you stand beside Diabo. Every so often a man of his build is born into the Ezreldo Ruy family, for long ago Aztec blood mingled with Ezreldo blood, and the nobles of that time were tall, so that they had authority over their people. You find in him the smouldering fire of the absolute Latin, eh?’

  ‘I - I find him different from any Englishman,’ said Persepha, seating herself at the other side of the circular table, which was set against a bank of margaritas and huge roses, tall gladioli and plumy ferns; it was a setting she normally found attractive and relaxing, but not with the señora’s shrewd eyes upon her, taking in her skin, her features, her slim neck running into the open collar of her white shirt.

  ‘If he is so different, why did you marry him?’ The question was so direct that Persepha knew in an instant that the Don had not told his grandmother the full facts of their relationship. The señora thought they had met and courted in the normal way, and Persepha knew an instant, flaring desire to fling the bald facts across the table. And then she hesitated, for this woman was old and she had only memory and illusion to live upon. She loved the Don, for he was of her blood and she had held him in her arms when he was born. She had unbreakable ties with him; a bond of sympathy and understanding that no English girl could hope to break.

  And Persepha had no real wish to break it... love was too elusive and too precious to be treated to the acid of her own disillusion.

  ‘It just happened,’ she said hesitantly. ‘We met and married very quickly—’

  ‘And are you now repenting at leisure?’ the señora asked dryly. ‘I’d be an old fool if I thought it an ideal marriage which Diabo has undertaken, but he was always a man for a challenge, and as he has grown into maturity I have known that he would not settle for the placidity of life with a woman who would give him a clutch of babies but never an argument. You are like the grenadilla, lovely on the outside, but starchy and filled with pips that stick in a man’s teeth. I
don’t doubt that Diabo enjoys shaking some of the starch out of you, and tackling those pips with his strong white teeth.’

  The señora smiled to herself, and then reached out to take hold of Persephars gold-ringed hand. Her fingers were remarkably strong, like tiny, thin claws, the skin like ivory against Persepha’s pale suntan. ‘Was it Diabo’s money that drew you to Mexico? The women of Europe can be very mercenary, as they can in the United States. They place the possession of worldly things before the gift of love - I find myself thinking that women of the North are losing rapidly what the women of the South still retain - the ability to give all to a man. Body, heart and spirit. They give the body, but coldly, and keep the heart in cold storage. Are you one of these women?’

  ‘No! I’d never marry any man just for his money,’ Persepha said, with heat. ‘You have no right—’

  ‘Oh, but I have, my child. I have the right of someone who loves Diabo and would like to see him made happy. He has not been a happy man, you know. Certain things happened some years ago that blighted his life for a while, and I came with him to Mexico in the hope of finding that at last the old sad memories had been buried, or carried away on the winds like the black seeds that give birth to twisted plants.’ The tensile fingers gripped Persepha’s. ‘Does he ever speak to you of the past?’

  ‘Never at any time,’ Persepha admitted. ‘But I know—’

  ‘What do you know?’ The señora stared into the hazel eyes that held so much emotional conflict, giving them a beauty that was curiously poignant, matched by the mouth that was shaped to express passion and temper and a dulcet pity.

  ‘Carmenteira told me certain things - she has been here so many years that there are no secrets concealed from her. She let me into one or two, as was bound to happen. She resents me because I’m not a Latin, and I know about the Don’s unhappiness of six years ago. He married me, señora, but it’s no use pretending that there aren’t regrets on his side as well as mine. You heard what we said to each other yesterday.’