At the Villa Massina

by Celine Conway

  The stole Juliet was holding crumpled into her hand, and tension was audible in her voice. “Yes, senor?”

  “He recounted part of a conversation with you. You asked him, it seems, what would happen if I fell in love with the daughter of a fisherman.”

  A nerve throbbed visibly in Juliet’s throat. She knew that flippancy wouldn’t come off at this hour and in these circumstances, yet how else could one handle this? Bother Mario!

  “Well, it’s a point, isn’t it?” she answered reasonably. “Not for you, particularly, but for any man in your position. I know I shouldn’t have discussed you with Mario, and I apologize. I won’t do it again.”

  “I am glad of that. It is not that I mind your thinking these things, you understand? But, please, if you are truly interested, bring such questions to me yourself. I will answer them.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really? Without getting furious?”

  He smiled, with a trace of cynicism. “I cannot promise that, because you have a way of using words that occasionally reminds one of a small knife plunging about without direction but unconsciously seeking a sensitive spot. But whatever you ask, you shall have your explanation.”

  “Even of that particular question—the one Mario repeated?”

  “Yes, but not tonight. It cannot be compressed into a sentence.” He lifted a hand and for an insane couple of seconds she thought he was going to brush her cheek with it; her skin actually quivered and tensed. But he let the hand fall negligently to his side. “You must be very sleepy, my child. You look ten years old and hardly able to prop open those large grey eyes. That is what comes of ignoring the siesta. Go to bed.” Then brusquely, as he drew the door wide open, “One last word. It is unlikely that Mario Perez is falling in love with you. He is merely bewitched for the first time in his life—which is something that happens to every young man. I tell you this, senora, so that you will guard your own heart. Buenos noches.”

  He was gone. The lock snicked, and a minute later the car started up and slid away from the Villa Massina. Juliet switched off the lights and crawled upstairs to bed.

  “Jolly good,” chanted Tony next morning as he performed a laborious somersault on his bedroom floor. “Jolly, jolly, snipping, snapping good.” He sat up and watched Rina primly tidying his bookshelf. “I bet you’ll be seasick.”

  “I shan’t. I wasn’t seasick on the boat from England.”

  “But this will be a cockleshell, and it’ll smell of fish. Juliet!” he called. “You didn’t tell us what sort of boat we’re going in.”

  “I don’t know yet,” came the answer from the next room. “Luisa’s arranging for her son to take us.”

  “Then it will be a motor-boat. Goody, golly, goody.”

  Tony’s was by no means a complex personality. Nothing worried him very much and at the smallest sign of impending pleasure he let off steam, so that he was never strung up and seldom more than mildly excited. He had attended Rina’s private school for a few months and emerged untouched, and his mother had once commented with a laugh that Tony would never need to learn very much: he was going to grow into one of those engaging youths who ride roughshod over everybody, and as a man he would probably sit back and direct some enterprise which others carried for him.

  Rina was more finely keyed, like her father. She had been born with a sense of fitness which, at her early age, showed itself in extreme tidiness and an anxiety not to offend. Even indulgence during her illness had not blunted her desire to please whenever she could, and she never missed an opportunity of showing her brother how he should behave, though in this her methods were surprisingly adult. She never nagged, but persuaded by example.

  This morning, she finished lining up his books, straightened the bedspread which he had boisterously rumpled, and found a clean handkerchief for his pocket. Then she went out and knocked politely on Juliet’s door.

  “Come in, darling. I’m quite ready.” Juliet smiled at her. “You can take charge of my bag, if you like. By the way we mustn’t forget your jersey, in case it's cool on the sea.”

  “I took them both downstairs,” said Rina. “Tony’s and mine. Shall I get books?”

  “No, we’ll save reading for another rainy day. We’ll look for shells.”

  “I’d like that.” She stood gravely regarding Juliet’s white pique blouse, stared up at her face. “You’re sort of washy, like I was when I first came. Your eyes are like Bitty’s.” Bitty was Uncle George’s spaniel.

  “Well, thanks,” laughed Juliet. “I was too late to bed last night, and I couldn’t sleep when I got there. Today, I’m going to make up for it, and I’ve made up my mind not to care, whatever happens. Come on, sweetie, we’ll go and see what Luisa’s prepared for us in the way of a picnic. Call Tony, will you?”

  Juliet did, in fact, feel washed-out this morning, but she had also reached that state of indifference which was necessary for the sort of day she had to face. During the night she had repeatedly told herself that none of the circumstances in which she had become involved were her own fault, that whatever turned up she had to do what she thought was best in Norma’s interests, and hope no lasting trouble came of it. It had taken until dawn to convince herself, and then she had dozed, to be awakened by the sun and to find that the convictions arrived at during the night had not budged.

  At breakfast, Luisa had been dubious about the proposed picnic. The senorita, she thought, should rest after having had a long evening on the yacht. However, she was won round by the suggestion that a few hours at sea were a tonic for anyone.

  Now, she brought the picnic basket out to the porch and stood there, a veritable duenna in her funereal black with a scarf over her head, waiting till they were all ready to move off.

  “Is Luisa coming with us?” demanded Tony.

  “No. I do not come, senorita,” Luisa told him in her hard old voice. “I accompany you only to the beach and there hand you to my son.”

  “We’ll find him Luisa,” said Juliet. “You can't want to walk there and back in the sun.”

  The old servant made a hissing sound. “Would I let you carry the basket? And what is the sun to me? I have worked in the fields ten hours a day! Come, let us find Juan.”

  They came upon him about fifteen minutes later, a man who had rough curly hair under a stocking cap, and a white smile for “madre mia.” He indicated his boat, a small one at the edge of the sea, put an arm about Luisa and was pushed away with a spate of Spanish.

  “Always,” said Luisa with rough worship in her tone, “this one makes love to me. But he is worthless, does not even live at the cottage with me. Look at him! Holes in the cap, no button to the collar, gold earrings like a gitano! But you can trust him in the boat, for that is something to which he gives all his attention. You speak English with the senorita, Juan—you understand?”

  He took the basket, blew her a kiss and bowed respectfully to Juliet. “Please to come, senorita. My mother sent a message and the boat is ready. Just a cruise in the Bahia, is it not?”

  “Well, we might like to land somewhere for lunch. May we go that way first?” She pointed left, at the headland. “Keep close to the land so that we can see the villages.”

  Considering the way he had greeted his mother, this seaman son of Luisa’s was quite staid as he took them to sea. Obviously he regarded himself as an employee and Juliet as someone from an entirely different world, which she was. The boat chugged round the headland with Juan near the motor, a child on each side dangling fingers into the sunny blue sea and Juliet sitting central on a faded camp-stool. San Federigo disappeared suddenly, cut off by the cliff, and in front of them stretched the green coast spattered with the buildings and pink cottages of the port of Manca, beaches where fishermen were working, the curly white tideline and limitless ocean where hardly another craft was in sight.

  Juliet asked the names of the villages. San Martin, Porterro, Coroz, Manez. Another headland, and then a deep but tiny bay which had a narrow mouth and a village
at its heart.

  “Cortana,” said Juan. “You do not wish to enter the bay, senorita?”

  In spite of her nocturnal decisions, Juliet’s pulses quickened defensively. “But isn’t this where they make the lovely lace?” she said casually. “I’d rather like to see some of it.”

  It was all the same to Juan. There was no jetty, so he nosed the boat towards the beach and as soon as it touched sand he leapt out into the sea and dragged with all his swarthy strength till he could lift the children out on to dry sand. Politely, he gave one hand to Juliet and looked away while she jumped. The situation might have been amusing had she not been preoccupied.

  “It looks a very tiny village,” she said to him, “so we shan’t be long.”

  With her bag over her shoulder and a small hand in each of her own, she trudged up the beach and climbed the stone wall. They crossed to the pink-washed shops, which numbered no more than a dozen, and looked in the tiny windows at the reels of hand-made lace, the table mats and blouses, the piles of espadrilles, pottery and trinkets. There were little plaster shrines and cheap rosaries, miniatures framed in intricately woven wire and grasses which were brightly painted and beribboned, but none of it, Julie thought, was tourist-bait. Cortana was pretty, with its small old shops and cottages, the thatches warm and dark in the sunshine, but it was shut in by the headlands, forgotten.

  “I like those funny little dolls,” said Rina, “but their clothes are dusty.”

  “Why not buy one, clean it up and make it new frocks,” Juliet suggested, opening her bag. “Take Tony in with you, and let him choose something as well. I’ll wait here for you.”

  Perhaps it was a good omen, she thought hopefully, as the children marched into the shop. She had been nerving herself to send them in, but Rina had spoken first; perhaps other things would turn out as well. She moved quickly to where a woman sat sewing in the doorway of a cottage.

  “Buenos dias, senora,” she said, and at once showed the letter she had taken from her pocket. “You know this house—Los Pinos?”

  The woman was large and ponderous and not very bright. It took two repetitions of the question and some gesturing to elicit an affirmative smile, for she knew no English. The rest was even more difficult. Apparently this woman of Cortana could not understand why, when the house of Senor Lyle Whitman was only at the top of the hill—just there among the pines on the cliff—someone should be found to convey this letter to him. After all, the senorita must have come to Cortana for this purpose and it was hardly any more trouble to go up there and see the senor; quite certainly he was at home, because if one looked closely there was the shine of his car between the trees. Oh, yes, she could send it with the greatest pleasure but...

  Juliet hurriedly put a fifty-peseta note into the rough palm. “Give this to the messenger for me, please. There is no reply. You will do it?”

  The money and letter were examined, the woman nodded and held out the money, shaking her head. Juliet took it that the money wasn’t necessary, but she pressed the hand away.

  “Please take it,” she said urgently. “And muchas gracias, senora. Muchas gracias.”

  She wasn’t able to notice how soon the errand was attended to. The children came out of the shop, Rina clasping one of the dolls and Tony interested in a small wooden musical box. They talked as they trailed back to the boat, but Juliet found herself incapable of answering them till there was sea between the little craft and the village of Cortana.

  Juliet dabbed her temples with a handkerchief and let the breeze flow over her. She would let Juan choose the spot for a picnic.

  And a good picnic it turned out to be. The children paddled and ate sandwiches, snoozed and paddled again. Tony sat down absentmindedly in the sea and thought it mighty funny to wear his jersey as a skirt while the shorts were dried. The three of them found shells and sponges, scarlet seaweeds and pieces of driftwood washed by time into incredible shapes. At two, Juliet said it was time to return to San Federigo. Juan was already late for his siesta.

  Heading for home, he cut straight across the Bahia de Manca, and they were back at the familiar beach by three. Juliet thanked and paid him, allowed the children to carry the empty basket between them, and led the way back to the villa. When the hall clock chimed the half-hour the two were already stripped and in their beds, while Juliet washed feverishly and got into a printed silk frock.

  She was tired but determined. Seemingly, no miracle had spirited Inez de Vedro away from the Castillo, so one’s only course was to go through with the introduction and thereafter stay out of the business.

  She made up with care, set a pink straw hat on her golden head, took gloves and bag for formality, and, after telling the recumbent Luisa that she would be back by five-thirty and receiving an admonishment in return, she went out and down the steep cobbled road to the town.

  He was there at the corner, as she had asked him to be, and though he still had the careless look he had undoubtedly taken trouble with his appearance. He looked younger, and actually gave her a wink, as without a word, she got into the front seat of his dusty old convertible.

  “You’re some girl, Juliet,” he said as he let in the clutch. “I was sure you weren’t as hard as you pretended to be the other day, and now you prove it, by taking me to the Castillo. You look the goods, by the way.”

  “Don’t flatter me, please ... and I’m still as hard as you thought I was,” she said firmly. “Let me explain. Before you saw Senora de Vedro outside the Villa Massina you knew her by sight. Well, the same applies in her case. She asked me about you, I let out that you were a writer, and that did it. She leads a narrow life and you’re a minor highlight just now. She wants to meet you.”

  “Better and better,” he remarked. “I want to know her, too. She’s a good-looking woman.”

  “And rich?”

  He gave his easy laugh. “You’ve really got it in for me, haven’t you? Why should I care if she’s rich?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all a bit beyond me, and I don’t believe I really want to understand at all—only to be left out of it. Heaven only knows what Norma’s going to say!”

  “Does it matter?” he murmured, taking a corner wide and scattering a number of chickens. “Norma’s no saint, and I’m certainly not threatening her in any way. When she does arrive you can tell her to pretend she doesn’t know me; I’ll keep it up, if I have to. After all, we three are the only ones who know otherwise, aren’t we? Do you dislike me for having been friendly with her?”

  Juliet considered this. “I don’t think so. If you didn’t know of the existence of Rina and Tony...”

  “I swear I didn’t!”

  “Then I suppose you simply regarded her as a someone who’d married the wrong man. Still, she was married.”

  “Oh, come. Where’s the harm in an Englishwoman seeking a little shallow consolation from a countryman?”

  “Yes, you do seem very English,” she admitted. “Why did you give it up?”

  “My nationality?” A shrug. “It was convenient. I wanted to live in Spain without the trouble of being an alien.” His smile was jaded. “At the age of twenty I so annoyed my father that he kicked me out, so I started wandering. But, you know, one never does really give up one’s race. You make me feel even more British than Norma did.”

  “Well, I hope it hurts,” she said flatly. “You’ve given me some bad times, Mr. Whitman!”

  He winced theatrically. “Call me Lyle; it’s good to hear it pronounced as it should be. I like you Juliet. I like you very much. But your protective tentacles are a little sharp.”

  Ramiro had hinted at the same thing, in the early hours of this morning. Where was he now? In Cadiz, either watching a wedding or toasting the bride? He would do it well, particularly as she was the bride of one of his staff. He was markedly the chivalrous hidalgo when it came to dealing with subordinates.

  Juliet wrenched her thoughts back to the man beside her. She said, “We’re not far from the Castillo,
and I haven’t yet had your promise that you won’t take advantage of this introduction to Inez de Vedro.”

  His brows rose. “How could I take advantage, my sweet Juliet? She and I wish to meet each other. What might follow is neither in your hands nor in mine, at the moment. By the way, will her brother be there?”

  She looked at him quickly, saw only a pleasant profile and smiling lips. “No, he’s away today.”

  “I rather thought so. The senora is probably going to try me out. If I lit, I’ll be admitted to the circle. But maybe on closer acquaintance I shan’t like her at all, in which case I shall claim writer’s licence, and decline her next invitation.”

  “That’s not funny,” she said abruptly. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m hating this and I want to get out of it as soon as I can.”

  He put out a hand and touched hers, gripped firmly when she tried to withdraw. “I’ve a rotten sense of humor, I admit. Everything’s going to be all right—you’ll see. I’ll behave impeccably.”

  “You’d better! Since I’ve been here I’ve already had as many complications as I can take.”

  Lyle stopped the car in the courtyard of the Castillo, came round to open Juliet’s door. A servant appeared, one of the many who wore dark uniform, and he bowed first to Juliet and then to Lyle. He murmured something in Spanish and Lyle answered him fluently. Juliet found herself once more inside the reception hall and being led into a more intimate room that she had thought the Castillo possessed. But even in here the walls were lined with cream and gold damask, and the furniture was delicate rococo, the satin a faded scarlet. In the wall hung a single portrait, that of a young woman in a black and silver dress, tight at the waist and flowing in folds to the floor. The sleeves were full and slashed with white, and aslant on a head of dark red curls an insolent little plume in royal blue was set. It was odd, but gazing at the picture Juliet knew a sudden impact of ... was it warning, or merely a touch of excitement?