by Iris Danbury
“This is quite a place, isn’t it?” he commented. ‘Take me on a tour first before we go down below.”
Nicola was agitated by the violent scene of which she surmised she had seen only the beginning. Probably it was still going on, with Adrienne becoming more intense and angry every moment. Nicola was not exactly in the mood to point out the beauties of the Villa Ronda and its setting, yet as she conducted Patrick through one patio, down flights of steps to another, showed him the swimming pool, she felt tranquillity flow into her mind. It was usually easy to be companionable with Patrick and she was grateful to him for unwittingly giving her time to recover.
When she and Patrick arrived down by the shore, tables and chairs were already set out on the fiat raised part of the rocks which formed a natural platform. Many of the tables were already occupied by groups of people and at one end a small band of musicians was settling itself. Lanterns and strings of coloured lights in the shape of oranges, lemons or peaches were in position but not yet lit.
“So this is the Montals’ private beach,” said Patrick. “Their very own little piece of Spanish coastline.”
“Over there is the beach chalet,” Nicola pointed out, “where there are several rooms for changing into swimsuits and so on.”
“All mod. cons!” Patrick’s tone was slightly derisive.
Ramon approached Nicola and she introduced him to Patrick.
“Bienvenido!” Ramon welcomed Patrick and raised Nicola’s hand to his lips at the same time. He was dressed in white shirt, black knee-breeches with a wide orange sash and cap.
“Should I have come in fancy dress?” enquired Patrick when he and Nicola had moved away so that Ramon could greet a crowd of guests just arriving.
“Not at all,” returned Nicola. “You look very smart. I wonder why men at home don’t wear white dinner jackets, at least in summer.”
“Summer?” echoed Patrick. “After a couple of years in Spain, I don’t really miss English summers. What frightens me is that I might even have to spend a winter there.”
“You’ve gone soft!”
Patrick’s eyes glinted with amusement, but he did not reply to her gentle teasing.
Adrienne’s appearance was the signal for the party to start in earnest. Since most of her friends were Spanish, she spoke in that language, but with a minimum amount of help from Patrick, Nicola understood that everything was to be free and easy and nothing too formal arranged. The guests could swim or dance or eat or merely sit in secluded corners as they chose. The band struck up a gay tune, the Villa staff and a few extra helpers were there to serve drinks and food, and Patrick nimbly lifted two glasses of wine from a tray momentarily set down.
“Here’s to us,” he said, toasting Nicola. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you decided to stay here after all.”
Nicola supposed he meant that he thought her suitable and congenial company during the next two or three months until he returned to England. But surely he must know quite a number of other girls? Perhaps they were all Spanish and engaged to jealous and fiery young men.
At the back of her mind while she chatted and laughed with Patrick was the remarkable appearance of Adrienne, cool, poised, and smiling, the perfect hostess despite her youth, and no trace of that stormy outburst less than half an hour ago. To Nicola it was an example worth studying. If such a scene had happened to me, she thought, I wouldn’t be fit to be seen for hours.
Adrienne also wore a sardana costume, but in different colours from Nicola’s—a pink and white dress, with deep green shawl and apron, a green headdress with a filet of tiny pink flowers.
Patrick decided that he would like to bathe in the Montals’ private patch of the Mediterranean. “Coming, Nicola?”
She hesitated. She had taken some trouble with her make-up and hair-do and was not particularly anxious to swim just now, but she agreed for Patrick’s sake.
“Afraid of mussing up your hair?” Patrick read her thoughts correctly.
“It’ll be all right,” she assured him.
Together they went to the beach chalet and she pointed out to him the men’s changing room. Then Ramon seized her by the waist and whirled her about.
“Come, please, and dance with me,” he invited.
“But I was just about to go in swimming,” she objected.
“Time for that later, when it is really dark and the moon has risen.”
By this time he had guided her away from the chalet and towards the flat space below the platform where a number of couples were already dancing.
“I don’t know what Patrick will say,” she murmured doubtfully.
“The young Englishman? No doubt he will explore the sea trying to find you, and that will occupy him for a short while.”
The dance was an unfamiliar one to Nicola, a cross between a waltz and a galop danced to paso doble time, but she managed not to make too many mistakes, and Ramon was such an energetic dancer that he practically lifted her off her feet at every opportunity. By the end Nicola was so hot that she would have welcomed a bathe in the sea. Instead, Ramon conducted her to a table in deep shadow, commandeered platefuls of food, a bottle of wine, and proceeded to combine the business of eating with many exaggerated compliments. Sometimes he spoke in Spanish, then gave her a ludicrous translation.
“Tonight is for romance!” he exclaimed, raising his glass to her and thrusting his arm around her shoulders, so that she could scarcely raise her own glass. “I drink to your most beautiful eyes.” He gave her his most genial smile.
“I shall drink to the return of your sense, Ramon,” she told him, laughing.
“Oh, no. Nonsense is for the night-time and sense for the morning,” he protested.
“The morning after?”
Yet it was exhilarating to be in his company and accept his nonsense.
Presently she said, “I ought to go and look for Patrick. He doesn’t know anyone else here, and he’s my guest.”
“Have no fear. He will come to you, drawn by a magnet!” was Ramon’s flowery answer.
As it happened, it was ridiculously true, for at that moment Patrick appeared close to Nicola’s table.
“Patrick!” she called to him.
“Oh, there you are!” His glance took in Ramon’s closeness to Nicola, his arm around her waist.
“Sit down, Patrick. You must be starving,” Nicola said.
“I thought you were coming in to bathe. Or did you have a quick dip in and out again?”
Nicola began to giggle. “I was waylaid by Senor Don Ramon and marched here.”
“But not against your will!” Ramon asserted.
Patrick sat down at the table and suddenly Dona Elena appeared, tapping Ramon on the shoulder. She said something quickly to him in Spanish and he rose, annoyance darkening his face. Dona Elena had already melted into the shadows. He bowed to Nicola, nodded to Patrick and deliberately and very slowly followed the direction Elena had taken.
“Well, that’s got rid of him, whoever she was,” said Patrick contentedly. “She looked like the Fairy Carabosse.”
Nicola flung herself back in her chair and laughed. “It’s fortunate she can’t hear you. She’s Ramon’s sister, Dona Elena Rabell, and not too fond of me. She thinks I’m an intruder.”
Patrick leaned across the table and grasped her hand. “Perhaps you are.”
She gently withdrew her hand. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m puzzled by you, Nicola,” he said, when he had helped himself to an assortment of seafood and salads from a laden trolley.
“What makes me an enigma?” she queried. Perhaps it was the effect of the wine, but for once she felt both lighthearted and poised, ready to tackle any situation.
“Well, for one thing, you’re not married. You say you’re twenty-three, and nowadays most girls get themselves tied up at twenty-one or younger, sometimes much younger.”
“I suppose it isn’t a crime? Or d’you think I’m halfway to ending up as an ol
d maid?”
“I should think that’s very unlikely,” he said firmly.
“As gallant as Ramon himself,” she commented lightly.
“Oh, I can’t compete with the Spaniards, much as I like them.”
Soon people began to move from the tables down to the beach, there was a hissing of conversation and the band was now sounding only a drum.
“They’re starting the sardana,” Patrick told her. “Let’s go.”
The drummer stopped playing and now a shrill piping followed by a squeaking fiddle introduced the dance. Nicola had already noticed the curious combination of instruments that made up the small band; one double bass, a trombone, pipe, tabor, a fiddle and several instruments she did not recognize all combined to make harmonious or exhilarating noises.
On the beach where moonlight now flooded the shore and cast a silver pathway on the sea, people were arranging themselves into circles of eight or ten dancers. Nicola and Patrick took their places among one of the circles and the band launched into the tune.
In spite of the preliminary tuition she had received from Dr. Montal earlier in the evening and the fact that Patrick was by her side and she had only to copy his steps, she found this intricate, stately dance with its toe-pointings and mathematical tip-toe caperings very difficult to follow.
The music changed and Nicola found her hands suddenly lifted to head-level by her two partners, then as rapidly lowered.
“I shall never learn this one, Patrick,” she whispered. “I’d better try flamenco.”
“Patience!” he answered. “Flamenco isn’t your style, anyway, and you must keep a proper solemn face now or you’ll be thrown out for rowdyism.”
Moonlight flashed fitfully across the dancers’ faces and she reflected that surely no dance was ever performed with more dignified gravity than the sardana. It would not have been out of place in church. But as soon as the band decided they needed a rest, there were clappings and chattering and delighted grins. After a short interval the band played a different tune, but to the same rhythm, a sort of brisk march overlaid with a hint of a more languorous style.
“You go, Patrick, with another partner,” Nicola said. “I’ll watch.”
“You’ll never learn it by looking,” he warned her. “Come along.”
Ramon suddenly appeared on her other hand. “This is good fortune,” he said with his usual flattering glance.
This time she progressed and at least knew when to raise her hands and move to right or left. Then another hand closed round her wrist, Ramon was pushed aside and she saw that Dr. Montal had taken his place.
“So now you know our local Catalan dance,” he whispered to her.
“Not yet. I’m still making crowds of mistakes.”
Until now she had been concentrating on the pattern of steps, but with Sebastian Montal deliberately interposing himself between her and Ramon and ousting him, she realised that perhaps this was the moment she had been unconsciously awaiting all the evening.
Her feet failed to respond to her direction and she felt clumsy and awkward, yet when he turned his face towards her and gave her an encouraging smile, her heart lifted and confidence flowed into her. At the end of the dance she introduced Patrick to the doctor, but the two men did not seem to have much to say to each other, beyond conventional politeness. The band demanded a rest and adequate refreshment, so the rings of dancers dispersed and Sebastian excused himself and disappeared into the shadows.
“H’m,” Patrick muttered. “So that’s your boss! Is he always as ruthless in throwing people out of his way?” He laughed. “I’m glad it was that chap Ramon that he chased away instead of me!”
Nicola shared his laughter. “Perhaps Dr. Montal didn’t recognise my English friend until I introduced you.”
The party continued with more dancing and singing, and Nicola realised that midnight must have come and gone long ago, for the moon now illumined a different part of the beach, leaving the platform in deep shadow, pricked out with its lanterns and fairy lights.
“I ought to try to find Adrienne,” Nicola murmured. “She wanted to meet you.”
“I can wait. Some other time.” Patrick had drawn Nicola into the inky darkness made by a jutting rock. His arms went round her as he held her in at first a gentle embrace. “As long as I have you here, I’m not discontented,” he said, seeking her face with his lips.
Perhaps, thought Nicola, it was a natural conclusion to a good party that Patrick should kiss her, but when she realised the fierceness of his demanding kisses on her mouth, her cheek, her neck, she tried to push him away.
“Nicola, my darling,” he whispered, “you’ve bewitched me. I can’t think of anything else when you’re with me.”
“Patrick!” she murmured. “This isn’t you. It’s the wine, the excitement, the party...”
“It’s nothing of the sort—and you know it. D’you think I haven’t drunk plenty of Spanish wine before now?”
“But you’re engaged to someone else, a girl at home,” she protested.
“I’m supposed to be, and sometimes I wonder if Maureen isn’t enjoying herself with another man. It would be natural.”
“But not very honest for either of you.”
“Nicola dearest, you take these things too seriously.”
She drew away from him, although his arms still held her. “Then I won’t take this incident seriously at all. It’s just a goodnight kiss after a party.”
“Not on your life!” Patrick drew her against him with some violence. “I’m not too sure that I want to go home and marry Maureen.”
“Because of a passing fancy?” she demanded angrily. “Patrick, you can’t make me a party to this. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether you’re going to marry Maureen or not, but I’m telling you very plainly that I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“But, Nicola, I thought you liked me.”
“So I do. Very much—as a friend.”
“And you can’t possibly imagine that you might fall in love with me—as I have with you?”
“No,” she snapped. “And if I thought that I might fall in love with you, I’d leave this place, leave Spain and never see you again.”
Unconsciously he had relaxed his savage grip on her and his voice became more gentle. “What’s Maureen to you?”
Nicola stared at him, although she could see only the vague outline of his features. “A girl who apparently trusts you. She doesn’t deserve to be let down.”
“Ah!” he murmured. “So that’s it. Someone once let you down?”
“It’s all in the past, over and done with.”
“So because someone—some man hurt you, you’re going to shut out all romance and love for the rest of your life?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that I couldn’t bear to take someone else’s fiancé.”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that engagements are made so that if necessary they can be broken before it’s too late? Once the marriage takes place, things become more difficult.”
“You have an easy philosophy, and up to a point I admit you’re right about engagements.”
“You won’t tell me about this past episode in your life? If you’re always going to bottle it up, you’ll end by being bitter.”
She was stung. “All right, you can have the truth. The man I was engaged to did exactly what you say you have in mind. He went on a sue months’ business trip to Australia, and a month before our wedding he wrote that he had met another girl and married her.”
“Nicola, I’m sorry.” Patrick’s tone was tender enough now.
“Now perhaps you can understand how I feel about stealing another girl’s man!” She was near to tears and she broke away from him and walked across the beach, leaving him to follow.
“I shan’t give up hope, Nicola,” Patrick said quietly when he had caught up to her. “Who knows? Maureen might be glad to release me, and then—”
“Don’t bank on anything,” she said.
“I can’t encourage you to think that way. Let’s go and find Adrienne if we can.”
“Damn Adrienne,” he muttered softly under his breath.
Nicola secretly hoped that she might also find Sebastian Montal, but among the small groups and knots of people, she could find no trace of either. Possibly they were both swimming among the half dozen bathers still amusing themselves tossing a ball to each other.
Patrick decided to leave. “I don’t want to inflict myself on you any longer tonight,” he said, “and I can’t stand seeing that Ramon chap flirting with you, so I’ll go.”
“Did you come by car, or can I get you a lift with someone back to Barcelona?”
“I borrowed a friend’s car.”
By the time he and Nicola had reached the Villa, many of the other guests were straggling up the path.
“See you soon,” Patrick said casually, as he entered his car. “Ring me some time. In the meantime, don’t fall in love with anyone else, will you? Especially not that doctor boss of yours? He might be a menace.”
In a moment he was gone, leaving Nicola standing there, her hand upraised in mid-wave. Around her a crowd of people were entering their cars, laughing, chattering, thanking someone for a lovely party, but Nicola heard nothing.
She was already overwrought by Patrick’s sudden change from a companionable friend to a man demanding her love, but his last remarks had finally unnerved her “... don’t fall in love ... that doctor boss ... he might be a menace.”
