by Jane Arbor
Fran did not answer, feeling they both knew what she would have to say.
However, at least Gil was not escorting Elena Merced that evening. For when, after going to the bar and watching the play at the tables, they went to the table Rendle had booked on the dance-floor, across the next corner of the room Elena was dining with two men, one of whom Rendle identified as her business manager, the other as her accompanist. A fourth place at the table was empty until a younger man joined them, bowed over Elena’s hand and sat down.
So placed, he faced full towards Rendle and Fran from only a few yards away. His first glance was casual, his next more searching, and presently, between talking to his companions, he was frankly staring at Fran.
Rendle noticed. ‘You’ve made a conquest. Is this where I start playing duenna too?’ he asked.
‘No—That is, I’ve an idea I know him. Or have known him, though I can’t place him. He seems to think he knows me too—I believe he’s coming over. Do you mind?’
Fran’s doubt was to last no longer than it took the young man to reach their table. They spoke each other’s names in one voice—Fran Page!’
‘Chris Bennett!’
Then Fran was introducing him to Rendle. ‘We used to be neighbours. We went to primary school together and we knew each other until Chris’s people moved away from our district. My mother and his were great friends too. How long ago did we lose touch, Chris?’
Chris said, ‘Oh, decades ago. I think I was around twelve. Fancy your remembering me, though I’d have known you anywhere. What are you doing here, anyway?’
Fran told him briefly. ‘And you?’
He grinned. ‘Clue—the percussion band in the infant class—remember?’
‘Do I not! You were its star performer. Oh, do you mean you’re in a band now? The English one that’s playing here tonight?’
Chris nodded. ‘The same. I ran an amateur group for a while and then went professional and I’ll say we do get around. I met Senor Calvos—that’s La Merced’s manager—in a bar in Cairo last year, and when he heard I was here he asked me to join them for a drink and to meet her. She’s really quite something, isn’t she?’ His glance went back to Elena.
‘She certainly is,’ Fran agreed sincerely enough. ‘But tell me, Chris, how long will you be here? Could you come up to the Quinta to see Mother?’
Chris pulled a ‘Sorry’ face. ‘I’d love to, Fran. But this was only a three-night stand and we’re off by air at first light tomorrow for Marrakesh. But when you’re back again in Heathcote I’ll bring my mother over to see yours one day. How about that? That is’—he looked a question towards Rendle—‘I suppose you will be going back?’
‘Oh, I shall be going back.’ Fran’s smile was thin. ‘Anyway, Chris, that’s a promise?’
‘Cross my heart!’ He sped back to the other table and was there for a while until the first act of the show came on.
It was a good show. Chris’s group was on before the interval and after it and starred in the finale. Afterwards Rendle and Fran danced once or twice, then adjourned to the tables, where, to her intense glee, her modest stake won her nearly a thousand pesetas. By that time it was nearly one o’clock and she was glad that Rendle made no demur against taking her straight home.
He got out of the car with her and brushed aside her thanks for the evening.
‘Next time I’ll insist you make it a bit more elastic,’ he said, and after studying her gravely for a moment, lightly kissed her lips. That, and asking, ‘I hope there’ll be a next time?’ without waiting for her answer, was his way of saying good-night.
He had been wrong about Gil, for as Fran went indoors a distant door banged and Gil came through from the direction of Don Diego’s study.
Fran halted and faced him. ‘One gadding female, home on the dot as promised,’ she challenged him gaily.
He glowered at her. ‘So one sees,’ he said.
‘After winning oodles of pin-money at the tables and meeting an old—’ She had meant to tell him about the coincidence of Chris Bennett, but he thrust unceremoniously past her without a second glance.
‘Gil, is anything wrong?’ But she appealed only to his back, and a moment later she was alone. She stood looking after him, aching to be in his confidence and knowing she had wanted him to be glad she had kept her promise. But whatever had brought down that thundercloud on his face had obviously wiped her from his thoughts. She could have gone out to Las Rocas with Rendle and stayed out till dawn, and she almost wished she had. But not quite.
Mrs. Page and Mrs. Bennett had been closer neighbourly friends than Chris and Fran ever had, and when she had told Raquel about their chance meeting at the Casino, Fran expected hardly to think of him again unless their paths did cross after her return to England. So that when she answered the telephone one day to hear Elena’s voice on the line, she hadn’t the slightest inkling of the trap which their brief encounter had laid for her.
She identified herself. ‘Francisca Page speaking.’
‘Yes. Good. I’d rather like to see you, so if you would name a time when you could come to my apartment?’
‘To see me?’ Fran paused. ‘You do mean me?’
‘I do mean you.’ Elena’s echo was deliberate. ‘When can you come?’
‘Well, any time, I suppose. But may I know why?’
‘Not over the telephone, I think. We shall be more private here and I imagine you would prefer that. After siesta then today? Say at three, when my maid will be out?’
More than vaguely disturbed, Fran agreed. Foreboding made her over-punctual at Elena’s door, and the other’s cool reception of her did nothing to put her at her ease.
Elena began, ‘You’ll be wondering about this, but as it is as important for you as it is for me, I hope you’ll hear me out and—co-operate. You’ll remember the evening at the Casino when the young man who joined my table found he was an old friend of yours and came over to speak to you?’
‘Of course. Chris Bennett,’ Fran confirmed. ‘Why?’
‘Just that, when he rejoined us,’ Elena chose her words carefully, ‘he naturally told us what you knew of each other and added something about you which clearly had no significance for him, but which I have an idea you might not want generally known. Or, shall we say, not known here? At the Quinta? Nor by anyone on El Naranjal?’
‘Something about myself that I don’t want known?’ But Fran was at a loss for only a split second before she understood, and her blood seemed to freeze as Elena went on,
‘Yes. It would be—inconvenient if it came out, wouldn’t it? Of course I’m only an outsider, so I can only guess at how awkward it would be for you. But I ask myself, if it weren’t quite a dilemma for you, why should you and Senora Page be at pains to keep it secret? Why shouldn’t it be common, unimportant knowledge at the Quinta that you are no blood de Matteor at all? You see—?’
Fran’s thoughts raced. She had understood from Raquel that after she and Tom Page had moved out of London to Heathcote, no one there had been told that their baby daughter wasn’t their own. Fran couldn’t believe Raquel had wittingly lied, so she must have forgotten some spurt of confidence which had told her friend, Mrs. Bennett, that Fran had been adopted very soon after her birth. Because if Chris had told the story in all innocence, he could only have heard it from his mother—
Fran moistened her lips. ‘You mean, I suppose, that Chris Bennett mentioned that I’m not really related, through my mother, to her family? But what makes you suppose it matters?’
Elena laughed shortly. ‘My dear, I don’t have to “suppose”. I know. And so do you—only too well. If not, why doesn’t Gil know? Why doesn’t your grandfather? Your Aunt Lucia? And they don’t, do they? You and your mother haven’t told them, for reasons best known to yourselves, and I think I can make a guess even at them.’
Fran queried, ‘And they are?’—and saw too late that the question seemed to admit she had guilty reasons.
‘Well, for
one—’ Elena savoured a long pause—‘the de Matteor family feeling being what it is, you must both know you are only tolerated for what you appear to be—Senora Page’s daughter, which makes you a born de Matteor granddaughter and cousin and niece. And so you are “Francisca”, when your young friend says he never knew you as anything other than “Frances” or “Fran”! Oh no! Whether or not Don Diego de Matteor would have accepted the truth once, it’s too late now. Far, fax too late for your mother to be able to admit she has foisted you on him under false pretences. Especially when she can be in very little doubt about his plans for you, wouldn’t you say?’
‘His—plans for me?’ Fran felt she must play for time,
Elena flicked a light for her cigarette. ‘My dear, even you must know he has some!’
‘He has never mentioned any.’
‘He wouldn’t need to, if you were as nearly Spanish as he believes you to be, or if your mother were properly frank with you. For she must know you are being groomed as Gil’s future wife, even if she didn’t bring you here with exactly such a hope in view!’
At that Fran’s temper flashed, even before she had grasped the full import of the words. ‘How dare you suggest my mother had any such idea?’ she demanded. ‘Gil’s future wife—me? And how can you possibly suppose my grandfather has thought of it either? You must be mad! I’m—that is, you know he believes me to be Gil’s cousin, and first cousins don’t—’
‘Don’t marry?’ Elena finished for her. ‘In Spanish high-born families it isn’t a rock-fast rule. For instance, there’s a little relative of Gil’s, Pilar del Prado, who has already been spoken for by her cousin. I understand that everyone in the family is happy about that, and so they would be if Don Diego de Matteor’s plans bore fruit and you and Gil were engaged. But of course it isn’t to be allowed to come to that point ... Is it?’
‘It certainly isn’t!’
‘So!’ Elena put in quickly. ‘You agree. I hoped you would. Because otherwise I should be forced to prevent it alone, which might not be easy, in view of the strength of the opposition.’
Fran made a gesture of bewilderment. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Whatever ideas Grand—that is, Don Diego—may have, Gil doesn’t want to marry me and I ... wouldn’t marry him. Which makes nothing to be prevented, and even if there were, how could I help?’
‘Tchah! You under-estimate the pressures, my dear. Very certainly there is something to prevent, and you must do it. By going away. By finding some urgent reason for returning to England, then going and not coming back.’
Fran wondered if she had heard aright. ‘I— “must” go away at your say-so? I’ll do nothing of the sort!’
Just perceptibly Elena lifted an eyebrow. ‘No? That’s a pity. Then you would really rather the Quinta learned of the deception that has been practised on it by its prodigal daughter and its pretty novia for Gil, who has been learning all her bride’s lore so obediently? You would? Surely not? Yet if you can’t see that it’s best you should leave, I’m afraid it might have to come out.’
‘That’s—blackmail,’ said Fran slowly.
‘Yes. But necessary. And not so very different from the threats which will be used to bring Gil to heel in the matter of marrying you.’
‘Gil wouldn’t yield to threats!’
‘It depends on the alternatives, I think. Faced, say, by the loss of his de Matteor inheritance if his association with me continues, he might see a marriage of convenience to you as the lesser evil. And as I imagine you would care for that no more than I should—you English set such store by “romance”—I’m sure you would rather remove yourself from the scene.’
Fran said desperately, ‘I tell you I wouldn’t marry Gil—or any man—for anything less than love on both sides. But equally there’s no reason for my leaving El Naranjal yet which could possibly hold water. What’s more, I’m not leaving without my mother, and we’re not going until she is ready to go and wants to.’
‘You’d rather risk my choosing my time for telling what I know?’
Fran stood up. ‘I can only trust you not to.’
Elena stood too. ‘And that’s not very wise of you. I shall pick my time rather carefully. But as I shan’t warn you, you’re never going to know whom I’ve told or when. From now on, you’re never going to feel quite safe—are you?’
It wasn’t a question. It was the crest of Elena’s triumph, and they both knew it.
CHAPTER VI
Later Fran hardly remembered leaving Elena’s apartment, nor what she did during the hours when her mind seemed one huge question-mark—What to do? Who could help her? How could she combat Elena’s threats alone, without confiding them to Raquel? And—a ray of hope—how unsure of Gil was Elena, if she feared he might be influenced by some ‘Either ... or’ of Don Diego’s? Or—darkness again—was it that she was as sure as she need be of their present relationship, but she did not want Gil without the wealth and status and public welcome of a de Matteor marriage?
Later still, her own good sanity reassured Fran that even a Spanish arranged marriage couldn’t be a forced one. The parties had to be at least willing, which Gil wouldn’t be, and nor would she—on such terms. Don Diego and Lucia (though surely not Raquel too?) could scheme and matchmake as they pleased and still find themselves defied. But though in fact Elena had less to fear than she claimed—hadn’t Gil said that she tended to over-dramatize everything?—the real danger lay in her possession of Raquel’s and Fran’s secret.
She might not need to use it maliciously for her own ends. But any day, on the merest whim, she might drop it lightly into a pool of gossip; the ripples would spread and the harm would be done. Too late then to shield Raquel; far too late to hope to persuade her that the affronted de Matteor pride would ever forgive her.
Time then, thought Fran, was what she needed; a respite before Elena did her worst, in which Raquel must be gently edged towards a decision to leave El Naranjal for England. How little she wanted to go back, Fran knew for sad certainty now. But they had been given no choice and, once away, whatever exposures echoed behind them, Raquel could be hurt less and she need never come back.
Meanwhile there was something Fran needed to know. Something she would take neither to Don Diego, nor to Raquel nor to Lucia. That left only Gil, and though she knew it was playing with fire to ask him, she confessed to herself that more than her curiosity wanted to hear his answer ...
When she saw how she could bring it up casually, she put herself in his way one morning, hoping he might ask her to go with him on whatever estate project he had in hand.
He did. ‘I’m making a tour of the plantations. Come along?’ he invited carelessly.
‘If I’d known you were going, I’d have invited myself,’ she retorted with brittle gaiety.
‘Come on then. Bring a towel and things—we could take time out for a swim, and we’ll pick up a bottle of wine and some cheese and fruit on the way.’
The de Matteor banana grounds had been put down wherever the terrain offered a comparatively level shelf of land or a fairly gentle slope. This scattered them considerably and Gil’s inspection of each sometimes entailed leaving Fran in the car on the hilly roads while he climbed and ranged, advising the fieldworkers on the culling of the new season’s weakling suckers, leaving the strong man of each plant to make its ripe growth of stem and frond and the one great pendulous purple blossom which would incredibly become a hand of bananas.
Once or twice Fran went with him, admiring his knack of appearing to take advice when he was actually giving it, and understanding what Rendle Jervis had meant when he said Gil knew how to handle people. When Gil was blunt that he could travel a rough path quicker alone, she sunbasked and watched for his coming down to her, surefooted and loose-limbed, the white of his open-necked shirt in dazzling contrast to the deep bronze of his skin. Every time he came she was quietly happy. For these few hours alone with him she let herself pretend he was hers.
Once, returning to her
, he asked if she were bored with waiting.
‘Bored?’ Her emphatic echo of the question was its answer.
‘No? Some girls would be.’
And once she asked him if he would let her drive.
He looked his surprise. ‘I thought you said that driving with me was anathema to you?’
Fran dimpled. ‘That was with you as an instructor and a critic. Just for today couldn’t you pretend to be a mere passenger and hold your tongue?’
‘All very well! Even passengers have skulls and the usual assortment of limbs for breaking. But if you want to—’ He drew up and they changed places.
Fran knew she was driving well and she glowed when he said, ‘Fine. What was I worrying about?’ That was just before he told her to stop at the next bodegon—a cross between an eating-house and a bar—where they bought one of the rough local wines and some picnic food.
From there a beach was within easy reach and they swam before they ate. There was no sand and Fran had to accept Gil’s hand and, once, his arm bodily round her to help her over the slippery volcanic rocks in order to reach the sea and to regain the shelf high above tide level where they had left their towels and their picnic gear.
After they had eaten Fran made a business of collecting all the small fragments of porous rock within reach and building a cairn with them. Gil lay prone, making a pillow of his crossed arms, and lest he should fall asleep before she had put her question, Fran blurted it out, though she kept her eyes on her task.
‘Gil, someone said the other day that Pilar de Prado is already sort of betrothed or promised or something to her first cousin. Is that so?’
‘I believe so. To Pedro Madariaga. Why?’ Gil’s reply came muffled.
‘Well, she’s so young, for one thing.’
‘So were a lot of the girls at the Marriage Fair. Anyway, it’s not a formal engagement. Just an idea that’s in the air.’
‘But if it became more than that, would it—do? Cousins, I mean? In England—’
