by Jane Arbor
Raquel had no such reserves. She slung her handbag over her arm and started towards him, both hands outstretched—only to be forestalled by the golden girl’s stepping between her and Gil and lifting her face in invitation to his.
He bent and his lips touched her cheekbone lightly. She spoke in rapid Spanish; he replied. A tiny frown came and went between her brows and as his hand beneath her elbow took possession of her and turned her about, Raquel claimed him.
‘Gil! You are meeting us, yes? Me and Francisca? Such a long time, Gil! But you’ll remember her? Fran, we call her at home, you know. But your little chica—do you remember that was your name for her? That is, when the two of you weren’t quarrelling—’
Momentarily Gil’s expression was blank. Then his arresting smile broke and it was his companion who was left standing while he embraced Raquel, making Spanish endearing noises to her while over her shoulder his eyes met Fran’s, his scrutiny curious, appraising and faintly amused to a degree she resented.
Releasing Raquel, he cut the short distance between them and tilted her chin with a playful fist beneath it. ‘And what a little fury it made of you when I did call you “girlie”!’ he said in English. ‘But I’m forgiven now? Or for the time being at least? Until we fight next? So welcome, to El Naranjal, little cousin—’ And to Fran’s chagrin he stooped to kiss her full on the mouth with the passionless enthusiasm with which he would kiss a child. She felt relegated to exactly where she had been ten years ago. Patronized by Gil’s three years’ seniority; goaded and disarmed by him in turn; alternately sunning herself in his charm and bewildered by his storm clouds; finding Gil too Latin, too weathervane to understand and never sure how he affected her—either way.
With an arm across her shoulders he turned back to Raquel. ‘In fact, Tia Raquel, no, I hadn’t come to meet you and Fran,’ he told her. ‘I understood at luncheon that Tia Lucia was going to, as I’d already promised to pick up Senorita Merced when she flew in from Tangier. But you haven’t met, of course. Elena—my Aunt Raquel, Senora Page and my cousin Francisca, both out from England for the winter. Elena Merced, Aunt—a friend of mine. And now, as Aunt Lucia doesn’t seem to be showing up, I’ll drive you home myself. There’ll be room for us all in my car. So, Elena? That will suit you?’
The golden girl had acknowledged the introduction with a mere frigid bow, freezing Raquel’s impulsive offering of her hand and Fran’s smile. Now she lifted a shoulder indifferently. ‘As long as you drop me first,’ she said.
Gil shook his head as he made a signal which brought a porter running for the hand luggage. ‘No, later for you. My aunt and Fran here must have been travelling since dawn and I must deliver them up at the Quinta first.’
Elena’s reply was to sit again. ‘Then count me out. Tangier was a pit of heat and so was the aircraft, and I’m certainly not taking a trip out to the Quinta before I get to my apartment and take a bath.’
A gleam in his eye, Gil looked down at her. ‘Out to the Quinta and straight back should take less than half an hour.’
‘Half an hour too much!’
He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. Then you prefer to wait here for me to come back for you?’
She made a business of searching her bag for a lighter and taking out a cigarette. ‘Wait for you for the same time? Where would that get me? No, if all the taxis are gone by now, you’ll phone for one for me. Or no—you’ll phone anyway. I prefer the Cujos drivers to these pirates who hang around here.’
Gil brushed aside her lighter and sparked his own. As he bent to her cigarette he said evenly, ‘You’ll wait, amiga. For me.’ Then he took Raquel’s arm and offered a hand to Fran and walked away without looking back.
He made no attempt to phone, though there were no taxis in the car-park. The only cars in sight on the heat-shimmered tarmac were the long open American one to which he led the way and a small one which drove up fussily, with an elderly woman in black, wearing a black lace scarf draped on steel-grey hair, at the wheel.
Gil halted and waved in her direction. ‘Too late, too late, Tia Lucia,’ he chanted. ‘Look, I’ve already bagged the prey. Where have you been dawdling, you tortoise, you? Or couldn’t you get that elegant Mille Miglia award-winner of yours to start again!’
Lucia alighted, panting. ‘Oh, Gill. No, the car behaved all right, but I was held up in the town. The plaza was a-block. I’d forgotten about the fiesta ... Ah, Raquel, so you’ve arrived? And this is your little Francisca?’ As she spoke she touched first both Raquel’s cheeks with her lips, then Fran’s.
‘Welcome home,’ she told Raquel in Spanish, and then in the same language, her tone slightly cold, ‘You must remember we haven’t much English, Father and I, so we’re hoping you haven’t lost all your Spanish while you’ve been away. And that Francisca speaks and understands a little too?’
Raquel stiffened. ‘Of course. What do you think? Do you suppose I shouldn’t have taught her my own language? She needs practice, but she can be nearly as fluent in it as she is in English.’
Lucia nodded, as if satisfied. ‘That is as well. Father will expect it.’
Raquel looked at her wistfully. ‘It’s good to be back, Lucia. One could see very little of the island from the air, but you—you are still so very much as I remember you.’
‘I?’ Lucia laughed on a short note. ‘After all this time? We were only girls when you went away, and I’d have thought I’d have grown at least some dignity since then!’
Her sister recoiled slightly. ‘Dignity—yes. And of course you are older by the same degree as I am myself. But so much the same otherwise!’
Lucia said, ‘So? I’m glad you think so. I wish I could say the same of you. I remember you taller, and you have no colour in your face. As if you had been denied daylight in a cellar.’
Raquel’s hand went nervously to her cheek. ‘I have been ill,’ she pointed out, and then, ‘How is Father?’
‘As always—the uncrowned king of the island, ruling by divine rights drawn up by himself!’ It was Gil’s voice which cut in to reply and Lucia frowned sharply at him. Unperturbed, he went on, ‘And now you have arrived, Tia Lucia, how shall we divide the spoils? Wouldn’t you say Tia Raquel would be happier driving with you, while I show off my car’s paces to Francisca?’
Without waiting for anyone to agree he opened the doors of both cars, ushered Raquel into the one and Fran into the other, took the driving-seat beside her, sketched a salute behind his head and was away at an acceleration which took Fran’s breath.
The small tableland which served the airfield fell away. Beyond, the narrow road swept steeply downhill, then up and continually up, climbing between shelved, unfenced banana plantations, roughcast unmortared walls, with here and there a huddle of small houses and more than once, a magnificent facade with nothing behind it but a weed-choked court and a mess of fallen rafters.
Gil waved a hand at one of these. ‘The debris of some of our neighbours who’ve dwindled as we’ve prospered. You needn’t worry that the Quinta is as derelict as that. Though if it were and our respected grandparent decreed it was still habitable, we should continue to live in it, because he said so. At first sight you’ll probably find it fairytale, but fortunately for us, it’s civilized enough, even to its mod. cons.’ He paused to glance at his watch. ‘Meanwhile, when we arrive I must abandon you to the old man’s mercies. You’ll have heard me promise to make the airport again within half an hour?’
Fran said, ‘When Aunt Lucia turned up after all, I could have come up with her, and you needn’t have asked Senorita Merced to wait.’
‘No matter. She’ll be there when I get back.’
‘You sound very sure of her,’ said Fran tartly. ‘In her place, when I found you hadn’t called a taxi as I had asked you, I shouldn’t wait.’
Gil slanted a look at her. ‘Ah, you wouldn’t, but Spanish girls have more finesse, you see.’
‘ “Finesse”? To allow themselves to be walked on? Don’t you mean you’ve
trained them to be about as biddable as you want?’
‘Oh no,’ he disagreed. ‘When they rebel over the big things, that’s exciting. A challenge—no? But for the sake of their own image they know better than to defy a man over trifles. They’ve made an art of giving in with grace. If you were Spanish yourself, chica, you’d have learned that in your cradle.’
Remembering her role, Fran said, ‘Well, I—’ but was saved the lie by his quick, ‘Oh, one knows you are half Spanish through Aunt Raquel. But perhaps I should warn you that if you’re to find favour while you’re here, you’ll need to be rather more than that.’
‘Warn me? You mean—Grandfather?’
Gil nodded. ‘We have our prejudices, England and the English being among them. Your own father having had something to do with that, and even if you couldn’t care less on your own account you ought to for your mother’s sake. Just a word in season—’
Fran said flatly, ‘Yes, I see. I’ll remember,’ and was surprised when he took a hand from the wheel to pat her knee.
‘Don’t sound so depressed,’ he grinned. ‘You can be as English-fractious as you always were with me!’
‘I wasn’t fractious!’ she denied. ‘It was you. As I remember, when you decide to throw a mood, you throw one!’
‘Understated. When I throw a mood, I hurl it,’ he retorted. ‘And as I remember, you were never backward in hacking my shins when I hacked yours.’
‘If you’d ever been coward enough to try it on a girl, I would have hacked back. And you would have asked for it!’
‘You preferred me when I was all hidalgo courtesy and flattery, hm?’
‘Not that either.’ A small sigh escaped Fran. ‘Do you realize, Gil, we’re at odds again, within half an hour or so of meeting? Why are we?’
He didn’t answer at once. Then, ‘I think it’s because we’re two of a kind, you and I—’
‘We? Alike? Why, we’re poles apart!’
‘No. We both know where we mean to go, and for anyone who gets in our way, that’s just too bad—’ He broke off to grin. ‘How’s my English slang after all this time? Good enough?’ And then before Fran could reply, ‘Something to be thankful for, this, perhaps. No complications.’
‘Complications?’
‘That while we’re that much alike, we’re at no risk of being dangerously attracted, are we?’
‘No fear of that,’ Fran was stung to endorse. ‘You’re not my type.’
‘Come to that, you’re not mine, chica. One wet day we might get together and compare notes on the subject.’
As he spoke he swung the car between open wrought-iron gates, halting it on a paved courtyard from which wide terraced levels stepped up to a dazzlingly white stone house, Fran’s first sight at close quarters of a traditional ‘stately home’, Spanish style.
Above the studded, ornamental-hinged front door, flanked by fat, pineapple-carved pillars, a stone balcony guarded the first-floor windows along the whole length of the frontage. Close about every window to be seen were fixed fretted iron grilles from behind which trailing flowers and foliage cascaded down the walls. Above a second floor the roofline broke up into a series of turrets and flat levels, the latter fenced about with more ironwork, the turrets pantiled surprisingly in chequered blue and white.
At each side of it curved, fronded palms shadowed whatever gardens lay behind it, but the courtyard and white walls were a veritable trap of reflected heat, and Fran was thankful when Gil pushed open the heavy entrance door and ushered her into a hall which was dark as night in contrast with the glare outside.
She heard, rather than saw, a room door open. Then, blinking as her eyes adjusted themselves, she took in an impression of the elderly man who came forward—the grandfather she had always thought of as her own, the legendary Abuelo de Matteor who lived a thousand or two miles away on an island where the sun always shone ...
He was all she had imagined him, all Gil and her mother had described him. Erect, goatee-bearded, eyes with the gleam of black olives; himself with a curious air of gracing ruffles and knee-breeches rather than the faultless linen suit he actually wore. His sole concession to his age was an ebony stick with a carved ivory handle. Even this, Fran was to learn, he employed oftener to point his meaning than to lean on.
He was using it now in her direction, addressing her in Spanish. ‘So? You are my granddaughter? Francisca? You are the girl who wrote to me? It didn’t occur to you that I might refuse what you asked? What if I had, what then?’ Then without giving her time to reply to this flood he turned on Gil.
‘Why is she alone? Where is her mother? Where is Raquel?’
Gil explained, ‘I thought Tia Raquel would rather drive with Tia Lucia than with me.’
‘But I understood Lucia was meeting them, not you? What were you doing at the airport?’
‘About my own business,’ said Gil, in a tone which so implied ‘And I’d be obliged if you would mind yours’ that Fran did not wonder at the old man’s quick frown as Gil added to them both,
‘The aunts can’t be far behind us. They’ll be along any minute now. So if I may I’ll leave you two together?’ and turned away.
‘And where are you going?’
The question was a command which Gil chose to ignore, but an imperative: ‘Sir!’ brought him up short and he turned back. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘You are leaving now, but you’ll be dining here tonight?’
Gil shook his head. ‘No, I shall be out.’
‘You will dine.’ It was like a rapier being drawn and used. ‘Rendle Jervis is coming to dinner and I want you to be here too.’
‘I’m sorry, no. I have another engagement.’
‘I shall expect you.’
To Fran the silence which followed seemed to spark with the hostility which ran between the two men. Then Gil gave in.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But you’ll understand that I must bring my guest here and that we’ll be going on somewhere afterwards?’
Don Diego compressed his lips. ‘And your guest will be—?’
But before Gil could answer the open front door was shadowed and Lucia and Raquel came in. Raquel halted and ran her fingers across her eyes. Then she faced Don Diego, drew a tremulous sigh and went to him as she had gone to Gil.
‘Padre!’ she murmured. ‘Mi—’ But that was all. He half caught her as she reeled and in a couple of strides Gil was there too.
At Don Diego’s signal Lucia dragged at an embroidered bell pull and Fran ran to kneel by her mother who came round to falter, ‘Just the heat—and the flight—and coming home. Nothing—’ before wearily closing her eyes again. After that there was a chatter of concerned Spanish voices, little excitable maidservants running and Gil’s strong arms carrying Raquel to bed in a bedroom shuttered against the sun and heavy with carved furniture.
Raquel begged that a doctor shouldn’t be called. She had her tablets and would be quite all right after an hour’s rest. Fran, knowing by now the pattern of her stresses, told Lucia that this was probably so, and presently, when Fran had heard Gil’s car drive away and the house had quietened and the swift darkness fell, Raquel slept for the first time for a quarter of a century in her own home.
Fran sat by her thankfully, resolving that by no unguarded word or act of her own should her mother be hurt.
CHAPTER II
Some time before the late Spanish dinner-hour of nine o’clock Raquel waked and felt sufficiently better to urge Fran to join the others for it. So Fran bathed in the tiny bathroom which opened off her own small room and was ready when Lucia came to see how Raquel was.
One of the little maids was summoned to sit with her, and Fran and her aunt went downstairs together. Lucia led the way into a long Moorish-inspired salon where thick yellow satin curtains were drawn across arched window embrasures and the only lighting was from wrought-iron standard lamps. Wine decanters and glasses were set out on a side table, but Lucia did not glance their way before settling to work
on a tapestry-frame under one of the lamps.
She questioned Fran in Spanish and Fran’s Spanish was mostly equal to understanding her. Between them they managed quite a conversation, then Lucia said, ‘Our dinner-guest tonight is English, a Senor—Jervis’—making a long roll of the ‘r’ and breathy sound of the ‘J’ ‘so I may have to ask you to help me to understand him.’ Unaware that Fran already knew this, she added, ‘Gil is also bringing a guest of his own—a friend of his, Senorita Merced.’
‘Whom, as it happens, I’ve met,’ said Fran. ‘She had arrived off a plane from Tangier at about the same time we landed, and Gil introduced us.’
Her aunt’s needle paused in mid-air. ‘So that was why he was there? And Senorita Merced—when he was ready to bring you and your mother up here?’
‘She didn’t wish to be dropped at her apartment, so he asked her to wait for him to go back for her.’
‘And she agreed?’
How to answer that? Fran hedged. ‘I rather think she meant to take a taxi instead.’
‘I see.’ Lucia’s tone was non-committal and, the detail settled, her needle went to work again. Presently Don Diego’s guest, a fair, solemn-faced Englishman of about thirty, was shown in, was introduced to Fran and proved, to her aunt’s relief, to have a faultless command of Spanish.
Don Diego had still not put in an appearance when Lucia excused herself, saying she must see her cook, and when she had gone Rendle Jervis said thoughtfully, ‘And that’s an attitude, you know. I’ve an idea that if we had both been Spanish, we shouldn’t have been left alone together.’
Fran laughed. ‘Shouldn’t we?’
‘I doubt it. The old codes die hard, especially in an island community like this. They’ll skip the proprieties for us, but not for their own.’
Thinking of Raquel and her headlong romance with Tom Page, Fran said, ‘But some of their young people do rebel—sometimes.’
Rendle Jervis agreed. ‘Oh yes, though not without a struggle, I’d, say. As you can imagine, it makes life rather difficult for the men. I haven’t been here long, but I’ve yet to be allowed to get anywhere much with an El Naranjal girl, though, as you say, there are a few rebels around who manage to kick over the traces. Sophisticates, travelled women, “ stars ” in some sphere or other. No one “duenna’s” them. For instance, like—’ He broke off.
