Red Lotus

by Catherine Airlie

  I mustn't have any doubts, she thought. Whatever happens, I must trust Philip.

  She had almost forgotten about Maria's death, about the gossip there had been.

  She went down to the terrace where her breakfast was set, only to find that Philip had gone. Julio, too, had left for the plantations and only-Sisa was waiting for her.

  "Is Conchita spending the morning in bed?" she asked, selecting a pear from the mound of freshly-picked fruit

  which the smiling Sabino placed before her. "She danced all day yesterday. She must be tired."

  Sisa broke a warm crescent of bread and buttered it thoughtfully before she answered. Her dark, finely-shaped brows were drawn together, her eyes troubled by her inward thoughts.

  "Conchita has gone back to Zamora," she said. "Back to Zamora?" Felicity bit her lip. "But why?" Sisa shrugged her bare shoulders.

  "Because she is disobedient and wishes to show Philip that she will do as she pleases, and because he made her come away last night against her will when Rafael had promised to take her to Santa Cruz."

  So that was it! Philip had not been mistaken when he had said that Conchita had no intention of dancing at the Country Club, suitably chaperoned by Isabella. She had wanted to spread her wings, to taste life in fuller measure, accompanied by Rafael, and Philip had been well aware of the fact. It was a difficult problem. Conchita was in her eighteenth year, but the fact remained that she had been placed in Philip's care. If she was to live on the island for the rest of her life, he could not afford to let her be seen in a Santa Cruz night club alone with Rafael de Barrios, no matter how friendly the two families might appear to be.

  Yes, it was a difficult position, but one which Philip had sought to deal with in the only possible way. He had been firm, but now Conchita had outwitted him and returned to Zamora.

  She had gone on the pretence of helping Isabella.

  "But really it is Rafael she has gone to see," Sisa said. She sighed a little, as if she, also, had felt the impact of the Marques' charm. "It is no wonder that everyone is drawn to Rafael. Even Maria would not have said that Rafael is a philanderer."

  "Maria—knew him very well?"

  Felicity's slow, measured tone brought the other's gaze back from the distance.

  "Oh, yes," Sisa said. "She was very fond of him." She gave another little shrug, as if these things were inevitable. "But, you see, it was arranged that he should marry Isabella."

  "Arranged?"

  "Their families desired that it should be so."

  "But, Sisa," Felicity protested, "these things don't happen nowadays!"

  "Oh, yes," her cousin said, not even emphatically. "It is often so. Rafael was willing, and Isabella was in love with him. She had also a very large dowry. Her father had much money made from tin mines in South America."

  Felicity pushed her fruit plate aside. She could not eat any more. Was Isabella's pathetic "marriage of convenience" the reason for the shadow in her dark eyes? Was she still in love with Rafael, or, greater tragedy still, had she come to realize the meaning of love too late, meeting Philip, perhaps, after her vows had been given? It was all so complicated, so difficult to understand.

  "What must we do?" Sisa asked, jerking her back to the immediate problem of Conchita's return to Zamora in defiance of authority. "If Philip discovers Conchita's disobedience he will be very angry and none of us will be able to go to Zamora for a very long time. Even Philip will stay away, and that will grieve Isabella."

  "I don't know what to do." Felicity rose to her feet, carrying her coffee cup to the terrace edge where she sat on the low stone balustrade looking out towards The Peak.

  "What am I to do?" she asked aloud. "What would Philip wish me to do?"

  "He would wish you to go to Zamora and bring Conchita back."

  "How can I do that?" She turned to look at Sisa, thinking that already her cousin had a great deal of wisdom, the sort of knowledge not found in a girl of her age in a more northerly clime. "If I interfere Conchita may be angry and may do something rash, and then Philip's displeasure would fall on me."

  "Not if you succeeded in bringing Conchita back to San Lozaro," Sisa pointed out. "Philip does not think that Conchita is really in love with Rafael. She is in love with the sort of life that Rafael leads when he is not at Zamora."

  Once again Sisa's maturity surprised Felicity and now she knew that she was going to act on her cousin's advice. "How can we get to Zamora?" she asked.

  "Sabin will take us in the car."

  "But supposing Philip should come back and wants to use it?"

  "He will not come back before nightfall," Sisa said. "He has gone to Lozaro Alto."

  The knowledge stabbed like a knife thrust deep into Felicity's heart. Philip had left the hacienda at dawn, probably after sleeping only for an hour or two. He had left before they were astir, before he could meet her again, to go to the valley where all his memories of the past lay buried. If he had wanted to revive those memories, he could not have chosen a better place, she thought bitterly. Remote and high, the hidden valley where tragedy had overtaken his love was forbidden ground to all of them. Only Philip might go there; and always he would go alone.

  "He would ride up to the valley," Sisa said.

  Felicity picked up her cup and replaced it on the marble-topped table. Her coffee was quite cold now, but she shook her head when Sisa offered to pour her some more.

  "We must get away as soon as possible," she said. "Do you know how Conchita went to Zamora?"

  "On horseback, across the ridge. There is a mule track that way," Sisa explained. "It is quicker, but it is not wide enough for a car to go. It is a very dangerous path, like the road up to Lozaro Alto."

  They could see the winding thread of the pathway twisting up among the olive trees as they drove along the lower road to Zamora. It clung to the side of the mountain in places with barely a foothold, it seemed, the ground sloping steeply away from it to fall almost perpendicularly to the rock-strewn gullies below. It was old volcanic land, lavishly overgrown now, but treacherous underneath all that abundant sub-tropical vegetation, with small craters scarring it here and there, ugly black sores against the new green of maize and vine.

  They screwed up their eyes, shading them with their hands for a first glimpse of a horse and rider on the distant path, but the hillside was without life.

  "Conchita must have already got there," Sisa said. "She left more than an hour ago, when it was still cool, and she rides very hard."

  Very hard and very recklessly? A new fear began to hammer at Felicity's heart.

  "Are you sure she has had time to get to Zamora, Sisa?" she questioned anxiously. "It's a long ride—"

  "Oh, Conchita would get there!' Sisa evidently did not share her nervousness on her cousin's behalf. "She can make Diablo go like the wind. Philip taught her to ride, you know."

  But not for this, Felicity thought. Not recklessly across the canyon to meet Rafael de Barrios in a clandestine way!

  For that, surely, was what Conchita intended to do. She had gone without leaving any message, prepared to face their censure on her return but determined not to be stopped by it beforehand.

  Well, she must be stopped somehow!

  "I can't make a scene, Sisa," Felicity decided as they approached Zamora. "For Isabella's sake we must persuade Conchita to come home quietly."

  When they reached the villa, however, Isabella was there alone.

  "We've come to say `thank you' for yesterday." Felicity had tried to keep the note of anxiety out of her voice, but she was immediately aware of Isabella's understanding. "We decided to come over early," she added lamely.

  "But you will stay, surely, for something to eat?" Isabella rang a bell for cooling drinks, and a platter of sun-warmed fruit was brought with them and placed on the low table in the patio. "Conchita has also been to say 'thank you,' but I persuaded her to ride back again before it became too hot. Sebastian has gone with her."

  Felicity smiled h
er relief. Isabella had packed Conchita off home again with a suitable escort in the shape of an old and trusted family retainer.

  But where was Rafael? He did not seem to be anywhere about the grounds or he would undoubtedly have joined them when he heard the car.

  "Rafael has not yet returned from Santa Cruz," Isabella said, sensing the unspoken question. "No doubt he has business to do there this morning."

  For the first time Felicity recognized the gentleness in Isabella. It was the quality she had sought to put a name to so often, the reason for Isabella's patience and her belief in the future. Because suddenly Felicity realized that the woman sitting facing her across the narrow table had such

  a belief. This was her life. Somewhere, somehow, and at some time, there would be something to be made of it.

  It was hardly an easy philosophy to accept and one that could only be made possible by Isabella's strong religious convictions, but was it also one that would work out in the end? Isabella de Barrios believed so.

  Looking into the dark, calm eyes Felicity was humbly aware of her own shortcomings, her own doubt. She had doubted Philip and she had doubted Isabella, but unless she were set free from her marriage by the dispensation of Divine Providence, Isabella de Barrios would continue to honour it until she died.

  Such was her way. Such had been her training all through life, and with it had come a tranquillity which was not often disturbed.

  It was hardly ruffled now as she waited for her husband to return from the capital and Conchita to reach San Lozaro in safety.

  "We won't stay for a meal, Isabella, if you don't mind," Felicity said when they had refreshed themselves. "Philip has gone to Lozaro Alto, but he may return and want the car."

  "For the first time Isabella frowned and the fleeting shadow which Felicity had seen so often behind the lovely eyes was there again.

  "I wish he would not go to Lozaro Alto alone," she said. "He is only reviving a memory which would be best allowed to die."

  "You mean Maria?" Felicity had made sure that Sisa was far enough away not to hear. "You think that he goes there because of Maria?"

  "Yes. He blames himself needlessly for her death."

  "The rumours were so cruel," Felicity said sharply. "How can he be expected to live them down—to forget so easily?"

  "Philip is not affected by the rumours," Isabella said slowly. "These he can--and does—discount. Rumour is a thing to be treated with contempt when one is innocent. It is the people who feed the rumours who strangle themselves spiritually in the end. No, Philip is not unhappy about what is said of him in some quarters," she continued thoughtfully. "He does not need to care about that. When a man is at peace with his own conscience he has no fear.

  Philip's whole reaction is one of overwhelming regret, I'm afraid."

  Because he had ceased to care for Maria before she died? Again the bitter question rose in Felicity's mind, and although she sought to thrust it away, it persisted. Neither could she ask Isabella to share Philip's secret regret with her. Somehow she knew that Isabella had given Philip some sort of promise and that it must remain binding. Yet, if Isabella knew that Philip had asked her to marry him

  No, she could not presume that the woman who looked at her so earnestly across the table would betray Philip's trust on any account. All she wanted was to know the truth, not to be kept shut out from Philip's confidences.

  Jealousy had no part in the promptings of her heart now. She wanted to be loved completely, to be trusted and given her full share in the life of the man she loved.

  Was that impossible?

  "I wish you would come to San Lozaro more often, Isabella," she found herself saying as they shook hands. "I promised my uncle to stay there for a while, and now Philip wants me to stay. He believes that I can help him to make a home for Conchita and Julio."

  "They are the difficult ones," Isabella agreed. "You will have no trouble with Sisa. She is too like her father—your uncle. Conchita and Julio are Spanish—and the Guanche strain is noticeable in Julio."

  It was a repeated warning, a pointer to the fact that the greatest trouble might come through Julio in the end.

  Felicity sat back in the car and allowed Sabino to drive home to San Lozaro much faster than Philip would have liked. There was an urgency about their return for which she could not account, and when they reached the hacienda to find that Conchita had not yet arrived, somehow she was not surprised.

  Half an hour later the man, Sebastian, who had been sent with Conchita from Zamora, arrived leading Conchita's pony and his own mule. He looked ashamed and apologetic as he tried to give her an explanation.

  "The señorita commanded me to return her horse," he said haltingly, and then broke into a flood of rapid Spanish, liberally interspersed with the local idiom, which Felicity was completely unable to understand.

  "What does he say, Sisa?" she asked, but the sight of Sisa's face was enough.

  "He says that Conchita has gone. He says that she met someone who has taken her to Santa Cruz."

  "Does he—say who it is?"

  The tears were very near Sisa's eyes as she hesitated, thinking perhaps to shield her sister, and then she seemed to decide that prevarication could not possibly help and would only confuse the issue.

  "She has gone with the freight—in the plantation lorry with the bananas," she admitted.

  "But Conchita wouldn't dare—"

  "Oh, yes! If she wanted to go very much," Sisa said, "she would go—even that way."

  "But the lorry will go straight to the docks!" Felicity protested. "And how will she get back before Philip comes home?"

  "She can't get back. The lorry will not return until tomorrow. But perhaps someone will bring her home," Sisa suggested. "Conchita would not have gone unless she was very sure that Rafael was still in Santa Cruz, or at La Laguna. There is only one way he will come back—only one road. If he has already left Santa Cruz, Conchita will meet him on the way."

  "But it's madness!" Felicity cried. "Anything might happen." Then quickly her lips set. "Sisa," she commanded, "tell Sabino not to put away the car. Tell him to wait. We are going to Santa Cruz."

  As quickly she gave her orders to Sebastian. He was to return to Zamora and say nothing of his interrupted journey to his mistress. Felicity explained that she would tell the Marquesa herself when next they met. He had fulfilled his task to the best of his ability. He could do no more. Accustomed to receiving orders all his life, he would not even have thought of protesting to Conchita when she had changed them so dramatically half-way to San Lozaro, and now Felicity thanked him and told him to seek some refreshment in the kitchens and return to Zamora before the hour of siesta was fully upon them.

  For herself and for Sisa there would be no siesta.

  "Don't leave me behind, Felicity!" Sisa pleaded. "I may be able to help you. Conchita has told me much about her

  dreams. It is in her heart to dance for a living and she believes that Rafael is the one to help her."

  "Not in this way, Sisa," Felicity said, her heart pounding as she mounted the stairs to change swiftly into a cooler dress and find a shady hat for the long drive across the island. "The right way is to approach Philip."

  "Conchita fears that Philip would not permit such a thing," Sisa informed her gravely. "It would be against my father's wishes."

  That was sufficient for Felicity. She felt that her hurried journey to Santa Cruz was completely justified now, and they were on their way within half an hour.

  As the little towns and villages along the coast dropped away behind them she had thoughts for nothing but the road ahead. Fields of asphodels and patches of wild lilies spread prodigiously on either hand, covering the land like snow, but she had no time to pause even at the sight of beauty. Walls clustered thickly with bougainvillaea flashed past unnoticed, and the wild broom flared arrogantly against the stone-crested peaks unseen by her anxious eyes.

  Lean, brown-skinned men stood in the fields, reminding her of Jul
io, and women with crammed flower baskets on their heads stood waiting for the local buses that would carry them and their fragrant burdens to market. Children laughed, tossing bunches of camellias into the roadway, shouting "Peni? Peni!", a cry, she supposed, that they were taught from earliest childhood, and high up on the ledges and crevices of the barrancos wild cineraria in every shade of lilac stained the grey face of the rock.

  The elements of a patriarchal world still lingered here and poverty was without too harsh a sting. There was always the sun and the blue sky and the ancient, strong, enduring root of peasant life firmly fixed in the good red earth. Yet Conchita was prepared to thrust it all aside, to discount it and change it for a life of gaiety in some city club.

  Subconsciously Felicity began to look into all the lorries they passed on the way, but Conchita had had a good start.

  "We will see my father's name on the lorry when we come up with it," Sisa reminded her.

  A proud name. A good name. A name which Philip was determined to protect. Felicity's anger with Conchita

  increased with every mile they covered, but she was more angry still with Rafael de Barrios. Angry because of Conchita and because of Isabella, and in some subtle, inexplicable way, angry also because of Philip.

  They passed four of the plantation lorries on the way to Santa Cruz, each with Robert Hallam's name painted clearly on the back, but in none of them was there any sign of her cousin. Could Conchita have changed her mind and returned by some other way?

  There was no other way, Felicity reminded herself. Short of Rafael de Barrios' Mercedes passing them going in the opposite direction, with Conchita as a passenger, her cousin must by now be in Santa Cruz.

  When they climbed on to the high moorland surrounding La Laguna a wind met them, bringing relief from the heat. They began to pass parked lorries by the roadside, their drivers lying beneath them in the shade sleeping through the siesta hour in the dust, and Felicity closed her eyes before each one, hoping that she would not read the familiar name of Hallam as she passed.