Meeting in Madrid

by Jean S. MacLeod

  ‘We must get her to Las Rosas,’ he said. ‘It is the only way. To ride back to the hacienda before she is rested would be madness.’

  Catherine had passed beyond argument, even if it did seem that he might not want them at Las Rosas, which had once been his home. Her head was throbbing now with a red-hot intensity and only his arm about her kept her upright. She leaned back against him, conscious of the hard, taut body beneath the silk shirt and the firm muscles along his arm. Here was sanctuary when she most needed it; here was security and an untold peace. That was all she was going to think about.

  The journey down the other side of the ridge was only a blurred memory by the time they finally reached Las Rosas. The little house stood in a grove of eucalyptus trees, their pungent scent rising into the still air as they approached, and Catherine was lazily aware of yellow stucco walls and grilled windows in the Moorish style and a roof of rose-red tiles. It was a small house but perfectly proportioned, looking down across its unkempt terracing to the sea.

  From somewhere beyond the overgrown garden a stout figure in rusty black came to inspect them.

  ‘Ah, Maria!’ said Don Jaime. ‘We are in trouble. We have come to shelter from the sun.’

  A flood of rapid Spanish greeted his announcement, interlaced by Maria’s toothless smile. She was a very old woman and spoke a patois which only Manuel and Don Jaime could understand, but there was no doubt about her welcome. Rapidly beckoning to an even older man who had hobbled in her wake as far as the gable end of the house, she rushed on ahead of them to chase a gaggle of geese away from the door. Several brown goats had gathered at a respectful distance to study them, their velvet ears pricked in surprise.

  ‘They’re not used to intruders,’ Don Jaime said as the man chased them off into the surrounding scrub.

  And neither are you, Catherine thought vaguely. This is the place where you come to be alone when the intrigues of Soria become too much for you.

  As he lifted her down from the saddle his hands were curiously gentle.

  ‘Can you walk?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes—of course.’

  He led her towards an arched doorway where the old woman stood waiting. She had long, bedraggled hair and rough hands from grubbing around in the soil, but she had the kindest eyes Catherine had ever seen.

  ‘Take care of her, Maria,’ Jaime said.

  Beyond the door a dim, cool passageway seemed to stretch into infinity with shuttered windows on either side which shut out the torture of the sun. There was very little furniture, but the tessellated floor was highly polished, making it shimmer like a lake. Catherine stood quite still on the threshold of Las Rosas, drowned in the relief of shade and conscious of a warmth that she had yet to find at Soria.

  ‘Muchas gracias,’ she said, allowing the old woman to lead her forward.

  Don Jaime came up behind them, issuing a string of rapid orders which Maria hastened to obey.

  ‘Sit down, Cathy,’ he said when they reached the long room at the end of the passage. ‘You will soon recover now that you are in the shade. It is a discomfort that passes quickly, you will see.’

  She could have wept at his kindness when he had every right to be angry.

  ‘Don’t blame Teresa too much,’ she managed in a shaken whisper. ‘She didn’t mean to cause—all this upheaval.’ She glanced about her, realising that what furniture there was in the room was shrouded in blue-and-white dust covers. ‘I’m quite ready to go back to Soria.’

  ‘I think not,’ he decided, looking at his watch. ‘You will lie down for an hour and then we shall see about your return. If need be, you can stay here overnight, with Teresa to keep you company.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she protested, although her head still ached and her mouth felt dry. ‘If I could have something to drink—’

  Her voice trailed away and, suddenly, she was swaying on her feet. Don Jaime lifted her in his arms as if she were a baby, carrying her purposefully from the room and down another passageway where Maria was waiting at an open door.

  ‘In here, senorito,’ she said. ‘It is the room I always keep ready for you.’

  She must have known Don Jaime from infancy to have used the diminutive title so naturally, and it spoke of deep affection and pride.

  Lying on Don Jaime’s bed with her eyes closed, Catherine allowed the world to pass her by. She was vaguely aware of the old woman moving about the room and of Teresa coming to stand beside her for a moment, and then she knew that Don Jaime had returned.

  ‘Drink this,’ he commanded, putting strong fingers across her brow. ‘It is something to make you sleep for a while.’

  Vaguely she wondered what time it was—how long they had taken to reach the gipsy encampment and come on to Las Rosas—and then she drank the cool, clear liquid he had poured into a glass for her and went to sleep.

  The light had faded when she opened her eyes again and gradually she realised that the peace of Las Rosas had been rudely shattered. Outside the window a woman’s high-pitched voice was raised in angry complaint, and it did not take her long to realise that it was Lucia. Teresa’s stepmother had come in search of them.

  Dazedly she struggled to her feet, glad that her head had stopped aching and her limbs were now her own, although she had to support herself by holding on to one of the high, carved posts at the foot of the bed for a moment before she could cross the floor.

  ‘You are to blame,’ Lucia was saying. ‘You encourage her!’

  She could not hear Don Jaime’s reply, but it seemed that Teresa had dissolved into a flood of tears.

  ‘Crying is of little use,’ Lucia told her, ‘but perhaps you thought you could stay here, away from my influence. Well, now you know better. You will ride to Soria with Manuel before the light fails and you will send the car back here for your irresponsible tutoress, who will now have to go!’

  The elation in the last few words was unmistakable, and Catherine stood tensed, listening for Don Jaime’s reply.

  ‘We must wait till we have calmed down before we make any decisions,’ he said. ‘I do not consider this entirely Cathy’s fault. It was an accumulation of circumstances which unfortunately went wrong. When we get back to Soria we will discuss it.’

  The finality of his decision was something which Lucia could do nothing about. She came to stand in the bedroom doorway while Catherine brushed her hair into place.

  ‘You understand, of course, that you will be held responsible for this—insurgency,’ she announced. ‘You knew quite well that you were not to ride outside the hacienda, whatever Teresa decided to do. She is not to be trusted. She is wild and wayward and ready to take any risk, but you should have known better. My brother-in-law has sufficient responsibility to shoulder without you adding to it by fainting from heat on his doorstep.’

  Catherine turned from the mirror to face her.

  ‘I did my best, senora,’ she said quietly. ‘I followed Teresa as quickly as I could and I didn’t ask to have sunstroke.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ Lucia agreed. ‘You look terrible, but I think you are ready to travel the short distance back to Soria by car. There can be no question of your riding back,’ she added, ‘even if Don Jaime was foolish enough to bring you here on his own horse.’

  She knew so much that Catherine could only assume that she had questioned Manuel, who was her obedient servant.

  As she stood framed in the doorway dressed in her conventional outfit of white breeches, white silk shirt and black riding-boots, with her wide-brimmed black hat slung over her shoulders, she was a commanding figure, not beautiful but certainly distinctive and with an unmistakable air of authority that chilled Catherine into silence.

  ‘Some food is being prepared for us,’ she said, ‘at considerable inconvenience. Las Rosas is no longer occupied, since both Ramon and Don Jaime live at Soria at the moment. Should either of them marry, naturally the other would move to Las Rosas. That is why Maria and her husband are kept in employment, to look aft
er the house and see that it is aired. They are too old to do a good job, but Jaime insists that they should stay. They live in a cabana further down the hill.’

  Catherine moved towards the door.

  ‘I am ready now,’ she said. ‘I won’t keep you waiting.’

  Lucia made no effort to move away. She had effectively blocked the doorway and she stood looking at Catherine with ice-cold eyes.

  ‘I think you should know that it is only a matter of weeks before Don Jaime and I will be announcing our engagement,’ she said. ‘It is something we have kept to ourselves because of Teresa who, of course, will not approve. You do not say anything. Miss Royce,’ she went on. ‘Is it because you are so surprised or because you had aspirations of your own, even after so short a stay at Soria?’

  Catherine, who had been shaken by the unexpected announcement, looked back at her in disbelief, thinking about Manuel and that clandestine meeting on the moonlit terrace no more than a week ago.

  ‘You do not credit what I say?’ Lucia came a little nearer. ‘But that is foolish, since I could dismiss you on the spot. You are only here to teach my stepdaughter, not to fall in love with every man who may look your way.’

  ‘I am not in love—’

  ‘Already you are doubtful about it?’ Lucia’s gloved hands were suddenly clenched on the whip she carried. ‘You would be very foolish. Miss Royce, to set your sights too high. Of course,’ she added, ‘if you were to tell me that it is Ramon who has taken your fancy I would understand. He makes himself deliberately attractive to everyone.’

  Catherine drew in a deep breath.

  ‘Aren’t we being just a little ridiculous?’ she suggested. ‘I have been here so short a time, as you have just pointed out, that I could not possibly have fallen in love with anyone.’

  Lucia’s brilliant white teeth flashed in a mocking smile.

  ‘How truly English!’ she exclaimed. ‘No doubt it is your way to measure love or passion by time, but who is to say when we fall in love, Miss Royce, or how long it takes? One day—two, or half a lifetime. You are inexperienced in these things, I see, but I have given you a warning. I will not allow you to stay at Soria if you do not concentrate on your work and forget about falling in love. Yes, I will see that you leave the hacienda before you cause any damage in our lives!’

  Malice and determination struggled in her eyes as she turned away, and Catherine stood in the darkening bedroom when she had gone, wondering what would happen now. She had been employed by Don Jaime and his grandmother to teach Teresa, and the Marquesa, at least, had accepted her with warmth, but how could she remain at Soria in the face of Lucia’s evident disapproval? In a few weeks, Lucia had said, she would announce her engagement to her brother-in-law and after that she would be in supreme command, as she had been when Eduardo was alive. Mistress of Soria again!

  With so much ambition in her heart, did it matter whether Lucia loved Jaime or not? Did it even matter about Manuel who could so easily be sent away? Lucia would dismiss her lover with as little thought as she would give to any other servant who had ceased to please her.

  It was all wrong! Catherine turned back into the room where she had slept so peacefully for the past two hours, thinking how clearly it reflected the personality of its owner. Jaime was so forthright, so honest in every way, and Lucia had no right to trick him in any way, Lucia and Manuel, who could not help being in love with a ruthless mistress who wanted nothing but power. But perhaps it was the Spanish way—a little romance here and there, a little loving to pass away the warmth of a summer’s afternoon!

  She shrank from the suggestion, knowing how wrong she could be in Don Jaime’s case. He was not the man to love lightly and perhaps not for a second time. Alex Bonnington had spoken about ‘twisting a knife in an old wound’ when she had been discussing mistakes, and he had admitted to the folly of youth and love. If he had loved in his youth it would have been deeply, she felt sure, and suddenly her heart contracted with an almost unendurable pain. ‘Don’t love him!’ reason cried deep within her, but she knew that reason had nothing to do with love. Already Don Jaime de Berceo Madroza had stretched out a conquistador’s hand and touched her susceptible heart.

  A meal had been set out for them in the kitchen where it had been hastily prepared, the big yellow chick beans heaped in an earthenware bowl in the centre of the table and served with morsels of boiled beef and chicken and scraps of bacon.

  ‘Cocido!’ Teresa exclaimed, preparing to eat her fill. ‘I haven’t tasted it for ages.’

  Catherine sat on the wooden bench beside her, unable to eat but grateful for the wine which Maria had produced from a large stone jug. It was rough and cool, the product of Soria’s own vines, perhaps, but certainly local.

  ‘Don’t drink too much of that,’ Don Jaime advised, coming to sit down beside her. ‘It’s fairly potent when it has lain for a while. How do you feel now?’ he asked.

  ‘Very much better, thanks to you.’

  ‘Well enough to return to Soria?’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘Quite well enough.’

  She could not fail to see the look of satisfaction in his eyes as he rose to his feet, thinking how right she had been about his not wanting them at Las Rosas. It had been a necessary invasion, but he would be relieved when they finally departed.

  Teresa and Manuel had both disappeared immediately after they had finished their coffee, but Lucia had tethered her black horse firmly to the fence which surrounded the courtyard, determined to stay where she was until the car arrived. The atmosphere in the tiny kitchen became electric even with the homely figure of Maria hovering around as she cleared up the remnants of their meal. Don Jaime drank the remainder of his wine and went out.

  ‘You and Teresa have cost him half a day’s work between you,’ Lucia pointed out. ‘You do not seem to understand how busy he is at this time of year. The hacienda does not run itself. Miss Royce, and he can hardly be grateful to you for adding to his burdens instead of lightening them. Of course, he should have dealt firmly with the whole problem of your age at the beginning, in Madrid.’

  ‘Perhaps he should,’ Catherine agreed faintly, ‘but he didn’t because I may have talked him into believing in me.’

  ‘And the Marquesa would have helped you,’ Lucia observed, her mouth twisting in a sneer. ‘When she comes to stay here there is always trouble, and even when she is far away in Andalusia she exerts her authority where Teresa is concerned. You would not like to be a stepmother, Miss Royce, I can assure you, and I am too young for the role. Teresa has defied me ever since I married her father four years ago. She was twelve then, but amazingly precocious, even for a Spanish child. Eduardo and Jaime had spoiled her between them and Ramon was too near her own age to be anything but a daring playmate. That was the situation I had to tackle at Soria when I came here as Eduardo’s bride. Not a particularly romantic one, you will agree.’

  ‘I’m sure you had the—strength of purpose to handle it in your own way,’ Catherine answered. ‘The tragedy seems to be that—your husband died so soon afterwards.’

  ‘Less than a year afterwards.’ Lucia’s expression had not changed, even at the mention of her loss. ‘There was much to do for Soria, and Jaime and I did it together. Eduardo had allowed the estate to deteriorate at an alarming rate after his first wife absconded to South America to resume her dancing career. There was no other man, you understand; just her career.’

  Stunned into silence by the unexpected revelation, Catherine stared at her incredulously.

  ‘You are surprised that I should tell you all this,’ Lucia suggested, ‘but it is best that you should know the truth about Soria. Eduardo destroyed it by continuing neglect while Jaime had to look on, unable to do anything much about it because there was so little money to spare. That’s where I came in,’ she added proudly. ‘I had the money they needed. I knew Eduardo was fond of me, of course, in a second-best sort of way, but it was really Soria that mattered most.’
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br />   ‘It must have been—difficult for you in the beginning,’ Catherine acknowledged.

  Lucia smiled.

  ‘Oh, don’t feel sorry for me, Miss Royce,’ she said. ‘I am—how do you say?—a realist. I do not expect too much from life or love, but what I have built up at Soria is mine. I will not allow anyone to take it from me.’

  ‘Surely it will all be yours when you marry Don Jaime,’ Catherine said heavily.

  ‘Si, that is so!’ Lucia was still studying her closely. ‘He does not know that I have spoken to you in this way, you understand?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  A heavy silence descended on the kitchen as Maria went out with the scraps of left-over food for the goats.

  ‘What will you do when you leave Tenerife?’ Lucia asked, breaking it to put the question she had been determined to ask.

  Catherine had not even thought about the future, even when Lucia had first threatened her with dismissal.

  ‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Back to London, Where I suppose I really belong.’

  A shadow darkened the doorway, but it was Don Jaime who came in and not Maria.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. ‘I have brought round the horses.’ He was looking directly at Lucia. ‘Shall I lead yours so that you can go back in the car?’