by Iris Danbury
He was silent for a few moments. “Are you sure that you would now recognise your sister if you saw her? Remember it is well over a year since your last meeting and she may have changed.”
“In small things, perhaps. Hair style, make-up, but not in her essential expression. This girl was exactly like that photograph that I showed you.”
Some weeks ago Nicola had acted on his suggestion that a photograph, even a snapshot, might help to locate Lisa, and one of the girls who had taken over Nicola’s flat in London had sent the only photograph she could find among Nicola’s belongings, one that Lisa had used for modelling.
“I wonder if we’re searching for a girl who does not now exist,” he said at last.
“Doesn’t exist?” she echoed hotly. “Do you also believe that I made up a missing sister—for my own ends?”
Momentarily he gave her a sharp glance, then turned his attention to the road. “I don’t believe that at all, whoever may have put that idea into your head. What I meant was that your sister may have deliberately changed her appearance.”
Nicola saw the logic of his argument. “So any girl who looks the way Lisa used to be probably isn’t her at all,” she said slowly. “That certainly makes it more difficult to find her.”
“Have you made thorough enquiries in England? How do you know that she hasn’t returned there and is now searching for you?”
This possibility had not occurred seriously to Nicola but she soon dismissed it. “The flat where I lived is now occupied by two friends of mine. They could soon give Lisa my address.”
Eventually she realised that Sebastian must have at some time on this journey taken a different route from Ramon’s road, for although he drove fast they did not catch up the other car, and again Nicola felt that warm feeling towards Sebastian.
Just before they reached the famous caves he asked, “D’you know anything about the caves?”
“Yes. They’re full of stalactites and there’s a lake at the bottom. We have similar ones in England—at Cheddar and other places.”
“There are none in England like these,” he returned smugly.
“Then I shall have to find that out, shan’t I?”
He was slowing down the car at the entrance and now he turned to give her a long, sustained glance. As she, too, turned towards him she blushed and was the first to avert her eyes. For one ridiculous, fleeting moment she imagined she had seen in his dark eyes the same light, half merriment, half admiration, that long ago she had seen in David’s eyes when she was engaged to him.
The other car with Ramon, Adrienne and Elena arrived within a few minutes and they all entered the caves with a guide who collected a few more people and sternly instructed his charges not to wander away from him or the paths.
Nicola speedily found that the caves were not quite like those at Cheddar or Wookey Hole. They were not only on a vast scale but miraculously lit as though for spectacular stage sets. Stalactites hung like waterfalls or tattered, windswept curtains; stalagmites reared from the ground in columns like pagodas or cacti, took the shapes of monks or fairies or groups of Dresden china—whatever the imaginative eye could invent
Steps or gentle paths led up and down to various levels, and as Sebastian had warned her, Nicola was glad to put on the lightweight cardigan she had brought with her, for the temperature was much lower than the blazing sunshine outside. At last they were down in a huge cavern where columns of stalactites and stalagmites met to form pillars apparently holding up the fretted scintillating roof. There was a glint of a mass of still, black water, and tourists were instructed to sit on the rough benches in front of it Suddenly every light was dimmed and the blackness, intense and enveloping, seemed a palpable thing that could be held in the hand and folded like velvet.
The guides, having brought their individual parties to this point, called quietly for silence, but the visitors had already hushed themselves, into an impressive stillness. Faintly, music came from a distant point, swelled as it approached, then a small boat decked with fairy lights emerged from a black tunnel, and the quartet of musicians was revealed. Boatmen dipped their oars without the slightest splash to disturb the Chopin nocturne and the boat with its two violins, viola and cello glided past the crowd and swung round for the return journey. Now they played the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, and Nicola knew that she would never hear that well-known air in more appropriate surroundings.
Only now was she aware that Sebastian had taken her hand in his and was gently swaying their twined fingers to the rhythm of the music. Tears pricked her eyes because the moment was too emotional, too beautiful, to be borne.
When the musicians’ boat had disappeared round the curving tunnel, Sebastian whispered, “We go out that way, too.”
“By boat?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The boats were small and took only half a dozen passengers at a time. When their turn came, Nicola selfishly hoped that none of the rest of Ramon’s party would be in the same boat. Impersonal strangers would not break the fragile thread of this experience, but subdued chatter from friends would debase it to just another tourist attraction.
In the darkness with only the faintest illumination coming from somewhere along the rough stone walls of the lake Nicola could not discern Sebastian’s face, but she did not need to be reassured that he was close by her side.
“What is the poem about the sacred river?” he asked her.
“Kubla Khan,” she whispered, “... ‘where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man. Down to a sunless sea.’ ”
Another voice in the boat murmured, “This is like crossing the Styx with old Charon.”
No doubt the boatmen were familiar with such sallies in half a dozen languages.
Daylight appeared with dramatic suddenness and the boat pulled in to a small platform for the passengers to alight.
“But it isn’t a sunless sea,” said Nicola. “A sunlit one instead.”
Sebastian was looking away from her and did not answer. When Ramon, Adrienne and Elena arrived in the next boat he waved to them and seemed anxious not to be separated from them or alone with Nicola.
For the rest of the day he was no more than his usual withdrawn self. Nicola wondered at times whether he regretted those friendly gestures in the dark secrecy of the caves, whether he had been influenced by the grimly romantic atmosphere as she had been. But to her it was a novelty and Sebastian must have been on many previous occasions in the caves or others like them elsewhere on the island.
She resolved not to let the slightest cloud of disappointment spoil this day of days, for there was still the return journey to look forward to. But here she had to suffer the inevitable.
Elena made sure that Sebastian and Nicola would not drive home alone together. “There is room for you in Ramon’s car,” she told Nicola when they were ready to return home.
Nicola hesitated, and Elena smiled. “I shall accompany Sebastian. He will not have to drive alone. We have many matters to discuss.”
CHAPTER VII
It was noticeable, too, during the next few days how many times Elena cornered Sebastian on the pretext of needing his advice or discussing business matters with him. AH the same there were fleeting occasions when he seemed to escape from Elena’s supervision, if that was what it was, and spend an odd half-hour with Nicola.
She had accepted Adrienne’s suggestion that she should try painting.
“Daub away as you feel,” advised Adrienne. “What does it matter to spoil a canvas?”
“Who knows? Someone might think my effort much better spoilt and read genius into it, especially upside down.”
“You must not mock art,” Adrienne rebuked her. “One must look beneath the surface.”
“I’ll be content to paint the bay and the rocks and a chunk of blue sky,” declared Nicola, “and hope that I won’t have to put a caption underneath ‘This is a picture of Cala Castell.’ ”
Adrienne supplied Nicola with brushe
s and colours, a small portable easel and showed her how to carry a wet painting home without smudging it.
“I am most grateful to my art teacher,” Nicola thanked her.
“You are not in the serious mood that one should be,” grumbled Adrienne.
One evening before dinner Nicola was in a corner of the garden painting part of an archway between two courtyards and trying to catch the light and the long shadows. She heard footsteps approaching and was then instantly aware of Sebastian standing behind her. Her brash jabbed a splotch of colour in the wrong place and she took a rag and wiped it out.
“Leave it alone,” he commanded. “That gives the right misty look to the shadowed part.” He took the brush from her hand, dabbed delicately at the canvas, then wound the rag round the handle end of the brash and wiped some of the paint away. “Even though the wall is in shadow, we must see what it is made of underneath,” he said.
She gave him a swift upward glance. “I didn't know you also painted,” she said.
“All Montals paint,” was his brief reply, as he picked up a second brush. “My brother Eduardo was very good. He painted birds and flowers. Sometimes his work was used as illustrations for books.”
“So that’s where Adrienne gets her talent,” murmured Nicola.
“Not entirely. Her mother was a brilliant artist and exhibited in Madrid. Unfortunately she died too young to achieve the reputation she deserved.”
“That was very sad.” Nicola longed to say something less trite, but feared that some clumsy remark might hurt or offend him.
“I’m going in to the town of San Fernando tomorrow,” he said, handing back her brush. “Would you like to come with me? I doubt if we shall see your sister by chance, but we could make enquiries.”
Nicola eagerly seized the chance. She was flattered and delighted that he should ask her. But as soon as Elena heard of the plan she immediately declared that she had some shopping to do in San Fernando and would also accompany Sebastian.
Nicola’s enthusiasm for the visit was soon quenched, but she realised that she might have expected this reaction from Dona Elena. The day was not entirely spoilt, however, for when Sebastian suggested that Nicola should accompany him to the British Consul and other official authorities, Elena protested that surely Nicola could do that alone.
“But Nicola may need someone to speak Spanish for her,” Sebastian answered.
“At the British Consulate?” Elena’s eyebrows were raised in disbelief.
“Of course not,” retorted Sebastian irritably. “But we may have to talk to officials elsewhere.”
“And you think your sister may have come here?” Elena asked Nicola.
“I thought I recognised her the day we arrived in San Fernando. I may have been mistaken.”
“It is often the case that the memory of a lost person plays tricks,” replied Elena. “We see their faces everywhere.”
It was obvious that Elena believed that Nicola had invented this so-called chance meeting in order to induce Sebastian to take her to San Fernando. But this time Sebastian seemed determined not to give in to Elena, who had to be content with taking her siesta on the private balcony of the yacht club, where they all had lunch.
There was no information at the Consul’s office, but they made a note of Lisa’s name in case anything should be heard of her.
“Elisabeth Brettell is the name on her passport,” Nicola told the official. “But she is usually known as ‘Lisa’.”
Lisa had dropped her formal name even while she was at school except for official purposes. “Why I had to be named after some aunt or other beats me,” she had once grumbled.
When Nicola and Sebastian left the Consulate, he said, “Why do you never want to contact the police? What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing,” Nicola replied sharply.
“D’you think your sister may have had some trouble with the police?” he persisted.
“Certainly not!”
Sebastian smiled. “Your answer was too quick, Nicola. You don’t want to go in case you learn the worst. It was the same in Barcelona. What sort of scrape makes you so cowardly that you can’t bear even to find out?”
Nicola tried to smile back. “I just don’t imagine for a moment that Lisa would be in any sort of trouble or scrape.”
Sebastian sighed. “It’s no use lying to me. I’ve been trained as a doctor to know sometimes, although not always, when people are not speaking the truth.”
“Oh, very well then, we’ll go to the police and make the fullest enquiries,” she said in exasperation, forgetting how much she owed to Sebastian even as her employer.
“That’s better,” he commented. “Haven’t you thought that if your sister is really in any serious trouble, she may believe that you have deserted her?”
“That’s possible,” she admitted quietly, although she thought the idea was far from probable.
There was nothing on record at the police headquarters, and Nicola was intensely relieved.
“Now that the doubts are off your mind,” said Sebastian, “we will try to visit the glass factory and watch them blowing beautiful bubbles.”
The men had just started work again after their siesta, and Nicola realised how much they needed rest in the hottest part of the afternoon for the furnaces radiated an almost intolerable heat. She watched men manipulating molten glass as though it were toffee, forming brandy balloons and fantastic, coloured shapes. The long showroom of finished products seemed cool by contrast and Nicola sauntered along inspecting the pieces on the shelves and in showcases. She saw a sea green ornament one could hardly call it a vase or bowl—for its shape was like a large flattened doughnut upended on a stand. Yet it had a small opening near the base for flowers, and a demonstrator showed how flowers could be inserted and the water would reach its own level in the transparent double circle.
“Isn’t it a remarkable piece!” she exclaimed to Sebastian at her side.
“D’you like it?”
“Oh, yes. I shall buy it”
“No,” he said gravely, “I shall buy it for you.”
She ’was too astounded to reply, undecided whether this was merely a generous Spanish custom to buy something that a guest admired or whether he was really meaning to make her a gift
Whatever his motive she would treasure this piece of green glass all her life. Although he did not ask her to accept this small present in secrecy, Nicola had enough sense not to disclose who had actually purchased it. Not even to Adrienne would she admit Sebastian’s impulsive gesture, which might, Nicola reflected afterwards, have been more in the nature of a consolation prize after the failure to learn any news of Lisa.
Sebastian’s holiday was nearly up when he astonished Nicola and probably everyone else at the Casa Margarita by saying that he must fly back to Orsola the following day.
“If Nicola can tear herself away from this enchanted island, I’d like her to come back with me,” he announced when they were all at dinner.
Nicola almost swallowed some food the wrong way and partly choked.
She looked across the table at Elena, whose already pale complexion seemed to have gone whiter.
“You’re taking Nicola?” Elena managed to whisper. “But why?”
“Yes, why should you deprive Nicola of her hard-earned holiday?” asked Adrienne.
“Because I have work for her to do. I want that book finished as soon as possible,” was Sebastian’s reply.
Nicola knew that he was looking at her and she raised her head and smiled at him. “Of course I’ll come back whenever you say,” she said. She hoped her tone conveyed the dutiful secretary rather than the voice of a girl who knew she was now head over heels in love with him.
“What shall I do without my Nicola?” wailed Adrienne.
“What you did before she came, no doubt,” returned Sebastian drily. “You have Ramon to amuse you and Dona Elena as your hostess. What more could you desire?”
Adrienne opened her
mouth to make further heated protests, then caught sight of Nicola’s face and suddenly changed her mind. “It shall be as you say. Life is full of unexpected happenings.”
“Would you want it any other way?” asked Ramon gently. “You would complain that it was monotonous.”
But if Adrienne had accepted for her own unknown reasons Sebastian’s sudden decision, Dona Elena did not follow suit. After dinner, Nicola knew that a long argument developed between Elena and Sebastian. They sat on a bench in part of the courtyard behind the archway which Nicola had tried to paint. They spoke in Spanish and their voices only occasionally drifted Nicola’s way, but she could easily gather the gist of Elena’s angry sentences. Nicola herself in the midst of this flurry of changed plans hugged herself, dreamily revelling in the prospect of being at the Villa Ronda with Sebastian and, more than that, knowing that he wanted her there.
The plane trip in Sebastian’s company, the welcome at the Villa Ronda, the three days that followed were all sheer joy to Nicola. Without the disturbing presence of Dona Elena or even the unpredictable vagaries of Adrienne, Nicola had the feeling of being home in an idyllic setting. Sebastian was out of the house most of the day, either at one or other of the hospitals, or at his clinic, yet she was conscious of his intangible presence in the rooms where he worked and lived. Dinner with him on the “Mediterranean balcony” or some other part of one of the patios was the focal point to which the rest of the day led, the moment to savour, the time when he seemed to relax, even recount anecdotes about his patients.
Nicola might have guessed that this brief passage of time was too fragile to endure the rough bufferings of daily life. It was shattered as suddenly as though it were a bubble of glass imperfectly shaped and deliberately smashed as she had seen in the glassworks at San Fernando.
