by Iris Danbury
Her suitcase had been irrevocably lost when the boat crashed, so it was fortunate that she had not taken quite all her clothes with her, for she still had two or three dresses at the Villa, and Adrienne was glad to provide her with whatever else she needed.
Nicola was relaxing in a long garden chair on the ‘Mediterranean balcony’ when Sebastian came to her at the end of another gruelling day of attending his injured patients, inoculating hundreds of others against typhoid owing to the lack of drinking water.
She had already seen for herself the damage in the Villa Ronda gardens, the magnolia, cracked and broken, the flower beds scoured and swept clear of bushes and plants, the red mud left behind. Even the swimming pool had to be emptied and cleaned, for mud and debris had been swept into it.
Adrienne came bustling up behind him and he frowned slightly at her.
She bent to kiss Nicola. “At last he has fallen in love with someone young!” she cried at the top of her voice for the whole landscape to hear. “I was so afraid he would let Dona Elena choose him.”
“There was no question of that,” murmured Sebastian.
“No?” Adrienne queried disbelievingly. “If Nicola had not arrived here, I would have had Dona Elena for both aunt and sister-in-law. Now Nicola shall be my aunt. Dear Tia Nicola!” Adrienne made an elaborate curtsey. “When it is possible, Nicola, you must give Sebastian a small medal—a decoration. He fished you out of the water when the boat sank. Of course, he could not save everyone, but you were special.”
Adrienne whisked away leaving behind her a momentarily silent couple.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Nicola at last.
“There was so little to tell. When I saw what had happened, I was able to get into another boat, then clamber along the small bridge which was wrecked. Then I brought you here,” he ended simply. After a pause he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about those bills of your sister’s?”
“I thought it better not to.”
“And all the time you were here, your salary was going to pay all those debts for your sister. You must forgive me for believing that you were like her.”
“Of course.” She stretched out her hand to him.
“But there is still a long story to tell you,” he said.
“Not unless you want to tell me,” she said quietly.
“I must. Otherwise you will never understand why I was so angry because a mere photograph had been pulled out of a drawer. Eduardo is much older than I, more than ten years. He married in France, then he and Heloise spent some time there, then in the Pyrenees and other parts of Spain. When I had qualified as a doctor and returned here for a short time, I fell in love with Heloise. Until then I had not known her very well, a few meetings, a few visits. But now—she was so beautiful, so gay and accomplished. She made my world, but she was my brother’s wife. She loved Eduardo and she had a child, Adrienne.”
He paused, and Nicola recalled that fragmentary mention by Ramon and Elena of “Heloise”.
“I decided that I must go away, although no other woman would ever mean as much to me. But it was Eduardo who asked me to stay. He wanted to go on a long expedition to the Pyrenees. So I stayed. But Heloise was wise. She absented herself for long periods, painting in the mountains or Andalusia. Then she became ill and in due course Eduardo returned. We treated her, trying to find out what was wrong. We brought other doctors for consultation, but with no result. Only when she died after several years of suffering was it possible to know that she had a very rare disease of the heart.”
Nicola laid her hand over his in a sympathetic gesture. “So we had both lost her,” continued Sebastian. “But Eduardo blamed me as well as himself for not recognising the symptoms until too late to cure her. Now, Nicola, you know why I have written a long book on these unusual heart conditions. It is dedicated to Heloise and in a way it is a kind of atonement for my longing for her.” He gave her a sudden, warm smile that illumined his sombre expression. “But now it is finished. The book, I mean. My attachment to Heloise—now I know it was only a boy’s infatuation. Even Eduardo has realised that life is not finished for him, although he needed time to know that.”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Nicola.
“You understand, of course, that now that Eduardo has returned, I am no longer the head of our house. If it should happen that he marries again, then his wife will be la madre, and not you, Nicola. Will you mind being the second—of less importance?”
“Second fiddle?” she queried happily. “I shall be content to play any instrument at the Villa Ronda or anywhere you happen to be.”
“Bless you!” He cradled her head on his shoulder.
Tonight was calm, but with only a few lights pricking the velvet dusk, for not all the electricity services had yet been restored. The storm, the nightmare waters might never have happened, except that Nicola had returned to the Villa Ronda and Sebastian.
“Adrienne has her fish,” she murmured, “and I have my second fiddle.”
“What is this joke about Adrienne’s fish?” he asked.
She laughed. “One day I will share it with you, dear Sebastian.” As she would also share with him everything else that life had to offer.
“If we are speaking of fish,” he said, “I must take you out one night for the sardine-fishing. It’s interesting and exciting.”
“I shall like that,” she murmured. What a man! To find romance not in roses and moonlight, but in the hazards of sardine-fishing.
Life with Sebastian would be full of surprises, and that was the way Nicola wanted it.
