Love is for Ever

by Barbara Rowan

  “I had an idea you ought to be warned,” she said, more quickly, “since you seem to have developed an affection for Sansegovia.” Her sudden, flashing smile was harsh and brittle. “And Dominic is so attractive, isn’t he? To anyone as unsophisti-

  cated as you it must seem quite an irresistible attraction!” CHAPTER TWELVE

  The morning of the fiesta dawned with a lavender haze over the sea, and the promise of an absolutely clear and unclouded day ahead for the islanders.

  Over her usual breakfast of delicious hot rolls, preserves and coffee, which was always brought to her in her own room, Jacqueline looked out over her balcony and thought that if this were England, and a fete or an outdoor celebration was imminent, the weather would almost certainly have disappointed, either by appearing dull at first, or by threatening clouds later in the day. But here on Sansegovia once that hot sun had really climbed into the heavens, there would be no need to entertain doubts about the quality of the hours that stretched ahead between such an exquisitely fair dawning and an almost African sunset. They would be golden and brilliant, heavy with heat later on, spun out beneath an arc of blue sky that would only fade with the fading of the light.

  Jacqueline dressed herself with more than her usual care, not because she was expecting to be admired, or because she had any desire to create an impression, but because already there was a feeling of fiesta in the air. She might never see anything like this again, and for a few hours she was hoping to enjoy what she did see—even the bull-fight, although she wished she could think up an excuse to avoid that. But she could imagine Martine looking at her with derisive amusement in her green eyes, and declaring that she would have to grow a little tougher if she wished to live amongst people who went in for such literally full-blooded sports, if she made any serious attempt to get out of it.

  Martine had declared herself ready for anything, and had stated that she had already witnessed and enjoyed a bull-fight in Madrid.

  “It was exciting!” she declared, looking at Dominic for approval. “I tossed a rose to the matador, and he threw me his hat! Afterwards I met him at a party someone threw that evening, and all the girls were quite mad about him. They’re terribly popular, these matadores.”

  “That’s quite true,” Dominic agreed, and Jacqueline felt certain that his eyes did actually gleam with approval and quite noticeable admiration as the film star successfully drew them to her. But when those same eyes glanced across at Jacqueline they were merely amused, and perhaps a little speculative.

  Was he thinking, she wondered, that compared with Martine she was rather a poor thing? Just as she simply could not compare with her in looks! Or was that really a hint of gentleness and understanding that followed hard on the heels of the speculation?

  But on the morning of the fiesta Jacqueline determined to try and forget everything but the fact that this was a day devoted to pure holidaying, and that she owed it to the islanders to appear gay amongst them, even if she was not really gay at heart.

  She selected a pink dress from her wardrobe and put it on. It was a faint, hedge-rose pink, of crisp linen, with a wide neck that left her pretty throat and shoulders bare to the kiss of the sun, and when she went downstairs she was carrying a little pink linen jacket which went with the dress, but which she didn’t really expect to need to wear.

  Dominic, who was standing waiting for her in the hall, looked up as she neared the foot of the handsome staircase. She had used a very light lipstick, which made her mouth look soft and fresh like a wild rose, and her grey eyes were rather wide with anticipation. By contrast with the creamy paleness of her forehead her dark curls looked more heavily blue-black than ever.

  Dominic, who was wearing a very thin silk suit, admirably tailored as always, and looked his usual impeccable self— although in Jacqueline’s eyes his startling good looks grew more noticeable every day—seemed for a moment to be taken almost aback by the sight of her as she descended the stairs. Then his blue eyes grew a little inscrutable, and the expression round his handsome mouth was inscrutable, too. He moved a little to meet her.

  “You look very nice,” he said. Then he contradicted himself. “No, that will not do at all—it is quite inadequate! You look very lovely!”

  Jacqueline felt herself flushing, but her heart started to expand a little.

  “Thank you,” she returned, shyly, looking anywhere but upwards into his eyes. “At the moment I feel cool, but I expect by the time the day is finished I’ll neither feel cool nor look lovely—which, in any case, is almost certainly an exaggeration!”

  He said nothing in direct answer to this, but stood looking down at her with that strange dark look in his eyes. Oh, Dominic, her heart cried silently, why do you look at me like that when you're planning to marry another woman ...?

  And then she bit her lip and looked away, and actually turned a little pale because her heart had started to labor so heavily.

  “By the time the day is finished I hope you will have enjoyed it,” he told her suddenly, and very quietly. “This is a day the islanders look forward to. The evening, of course, will be devoted to festivities, too.”

  “Yes?” she said, and ventured to look up at him a little questioningly.

  “I thought we’d all dine again at The Golden Cockerel— Martine and Barr, and you and I.” The way he said ‘and you and I’ seemed to set them apart, but she knew that was merely an accident of speech. “And afterwards, until the early hours of the morning, there will be dancing in the streets. When Sansegovia celebrates it celebrates in earnest.”

  Her eyes glowed a little.

  “It sounds—a very full day!”

  “A very full twenty-four hours! Don’t imagine you’ll get to bed until the cocks have started to crow!”

  Her eyes glowed still more, for somehow now—unless it was purely her imagination—there was a kind of promise in his voice, something which did actually warm her whole inner being. She was not in the least sure what it was he was promising, but that it involved the two of them, and that it was important, by no means passed her by. As she looked for a moment full into his eyes she recalled that other occasion when they had dined at The Golden Cockerel, and what had happened in the lane afterwards ... And she knew that he was recalling it, too.

  Then, all at once, he smiled, with a kind of infectious gaiety, and became brisk.

  “Come along,” he said, “we mustn’t waste any time.”

  Outside his car was already waiting, and he helped her into it. He placed her in the front seat, beside the driving-seat, and she wondered whether she would have to vacate it when they picked up Martine.

  There was no doubt about it, the island was completely en fete. The waterfront was gay and crowded, with women in cotton frocks and little girls in long white frilly dresses, and men in their best suits, with flowers in their button-holes. Some of the young girls wore traditional costumes comprising white lace mantillas and scarlet petticoats flashing beneath embroidered skirts, and their escorts had black silk sashes wound about their middles, and wore wide-brimmed black hats with cone-shaped crowns.

  Nearly everyone seemed to have a flower, tucked either behind an ear, or in a bodice, or in a buttonhole. There were all sorts of little stalls set up side by side, old women presiding behind them and selling roasted hazelnuts, soft drinks, little cakes and sweets. Balloons were being sold, attached to little trolleys that were being wheeled through the streets, and handcarts loaded with favors and squeakers, toy monkeys that ran up and down sticks, golliwogs and bags of glass marbles.

  From the market, when they reached it, came the sounds of cattle herded behind protective barriers, and everywhere there were posters announcing the great attraction of the afternoon, the bull-fight. One of the matadores was billed as ‘The Greatest in Spain’, which, of course, was a slight overstatement, considering the size of Sansegovia.

  They picked up Martine at the albergue, and Neville at his bungalow, and then Dominic drove them for a considerable
distance along one of the best roads on the island, from which they had an unrivalled view of the sea all the way, and it was exhilaratingly cool and fresh because he drove at considerable speed, and being an excellent driver not even the parties of people all making for the town and the harbor whom they encountered at frequent intervals made it necessary for him to slow very appreciably.

  Jacqueline found she was not requested to change her seat, although Martine, a vision in summer white, with an enormous shady hat which she was forced to remove when the car got under way, looked at her rather pointedly when she emerged from the albergue and saw her sitting quietly in the favored seat. But Dominic simply held open the rear door for her, and Martine stepped into the car with as good a grace as she could manage, and later, when Dr. Barr joined them, she seemed to find the arrangement fairly satisfactory, and relaxed into the holiday mood which had held her when she was called for at her hotel.

  They returned for lunch to the Cortina villa, and Tia Lola joined them, gradually beginning to look a little more like herself.

  The thought of the bull-fight, taking place in the heat of the day, hung rather like a cloud over Jacqueline, particularly as Neville described one he had once visited which had been a particularly gory affair, and described also the operating room and chapel which adjoin all bull-rings as part of the service for gored matadores; but when he saw her looking noticeably squeamish his eyes twinkled at her.

  “Cheer up,” he encouraged her, “this is only an island affair and I don’t suppose they’ll have as many as half-a-dozen bulls. Although Senor Montez really does pride himself on giving us this annual treat. It would never do to let the old boy think you couldn’t take it,” and he gave her shoulder a comforting as well as a heartening pat as they left the table.

  Dominic noticed the pat, and his lips set a little closely. Once again he put Jacqueline into the front seat of the car, while Martine seemed quite happy to subside on to the back seat with Neville. This afternoon, however, he found it difficult to drive, because of the excited crowds making their way to the bull-ring. When at last they arrived, Senor Montez was waiting for them with a party of his own guests, and they were all provided with excellent seats in the shade, where their view would be quite unobscured.

  This rearrangement caused Jacqueline to find herself sitting next to the Senor, with a very smart middle-aged woman beside her on her other hand who was obviously looking forward to the entertainment. Several seats removed from them were Martine and Dominic and Neville, all three sitting together. Jacqueline looked along at Dominic before the fight started, and saw him watching her, and there was a little smile in his eyes which made her feel slightly more happy than she had hitherto done.

  She wondered what it was like at a really big bullfight, but here, with only a make-shift arena, and seating accommodation for the audience, fortunately in the shade of a good many trees, the atmosphere was rather like that at a matinee before the curtain rolled up. There were young girls peeping into mirrors and making up their faces, plainly waiting for the moment when the ‘greatest matador in Spain’ should make his appearance. Cigarettes and chocolate were being sold, and bottles of cooling drinks with which were supplied straws. Looking about her Jacqueline decided that there couldn’t be anything unusually revolting about a bull-fight—‘unbearably’ revolting was the word she used to herself—seeing how happy and anticipatory everyone looked, and she began to feel a trifle more at her ease, waiting for the moment when a fanfare of trumpets announced the commencement of the contest.

  For the first few minutes—even the first quarter of an hour—Jacqueline found that she was fascinated by the splendor of the matadores gold-embroidered jackets, their knee-breeches and curiously folded hats, their swinging magenta cloaks, and the way in which they placed themselves and preened themselves in various corners of the arena. Senor Montez, who was anxious that she should miss none of the thrills of the entertainment as a result of being English and unfamiliar with the routine, explained to her all that should happen if everything went according to plan, and it was when she realized that the banderilleros were there for the sole purpose of sticking darts into the unfortunate bulls to make them really angry, and the picadores to draw blood by lancing the bulls in the neck, that all her earlier apprehensions returned, and she began to feel both revolted and slightly sick.

  After half-an-hour she was feeling much more than sick. Even in the shade it was almost overpoweringly hot, and that half-hour seemed like an eternity. The first bull was killed quickly, and the audience shrieked their delight, rising to their feet and fluttering handkerchiefs and throwing flowers at the matador, like a trained actor, stood bowing and posturing with drawn sword beside the body of the fallen bull. There was a good deal of blood seeping across the sandy floor of the arena, and it looked very bright in the sunshine, and the word which left the crowd’s lips was Ole! Ole! Ole!

  It sounded like a heathen chant to Jacqueline.

  When the doors were opened for the second bull she gripped the edge of her seat. Somewhere along the row of seats she felt that Dominic was watching her, and not the bull-ring, and Martine also was stealing her occasional openly amused glances. But Dominic’s were not amused.

  She knew that she was turning gradually paler and paler, and that it was only a question of time before the whole thing overcame her. The question which caused her mental agony, however, was whether she should get up and disturb the party with whom she was with, and other members of the audience as well, by attempting to force her way out and past them to the comparative sanctuary of the space beyond the main gates, or whether she should just simply allow herself to faint dead away where she sat.

  She had never fainted before in her life, but she knew she was going to now, and in desperation she put out a hand to clutch at Senor Montez’s arm. But even as she did so the world blackened out around her, and an arm which was not Senor Montez’s caught at her and prevented her falling flat on her face, while another arm came round her and lifted her, and she was carried past all the people in the seats the organizer of the party had selected with such care, and out into the space beyond the bull-ring and the main gates.

  She had not even returned to consciousness when she was lifted into a car and placed carefully against the back of a hot seat, while Dominic slid into his driving seat beside her and started up the car with such little loss of time that in a matter of seconds the air was fanning past her cheek and lifting the soft curls from her brow, and they were making for the open cliff above the sea.

  Then, when Dominic stopped the car, she was lying looking at him with a bewildered gaze, and she was still so pale that he inserted an arm beneath her and drew her protectively up against him.

  “You are feeling better now?” he asked, his voice full of concern. “It is cooler here, and I think it was the heat that upset you more than anything.”

  But Jacqueline knew she could never agree with him over that, although he was probably merely attempting to spare her feelings. And the heat had undoubtedly been intense, but ... She turned away her face as a wave of revulsion rushed up over her, and she said to herself that never again—never again!...

  “I have some brandy here in the car,” Dominic told her.

  “Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you.” Her voice was faint and far away, a mere whisper in the stillness of the afternoon, but her conscience was beginning to prick her badly, and she managed in rather a stronger tone: “But I’ve spoilt your afternoon for you—I’m afraid I may have spoilt it for Senor Montez and the rest... ”

  “Nonsense,” he replied, very softly, looking directly down at her. “It is your own afternoon that has been spoilt, because I should have realized that you were not in the least keen to see one of our bullfights, and that you are not like Martine... ” He paused. “But there will never be any need to repeat the experiment.”

  “No,” she agreed, still barely above a whisper, and she thought he was referring to the pos
sibility that she would be leaving Sansegovia soon, and that once she said goodbye to Sansegovia such things as bull-fights would have little place in her life.

  “I must ask you to forgive me for causing you to endure a very unpleasant half-hour.”

  “Was that all it was?—half-an-hour?” she asked, and still felt inclined to shudder.

  “Yes. But as the experience was so bad it probably seemed much longer.”

  “It did.” She half turned her face into his shoulder, and then suddenly realized what she was doing and checked herself. She made an attempt to sit up and free herself from his arm, but the arm actually tightened about her and she found she had to relax again.

  “Lie still,” he urged, his voice very soft, and so gentle that it was like a caress. “There is no reason why you should move yet, and this air from the sea will revive you. You fainted, you know—you actually fainted dead away!”

  “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I’ve never done such a thing before in my life.”

  “Ah, but then you’ve never lived amongst barbaric Spaniards before, have you?” There was a laugh in his voice, and she knew he was teasing her, but she felt extraordinarily content just then, and if this was the result of her fainting, and the horror that went before it, then she didn’t regret it in the slightest. “And I suppose you do think we’re very barbaric, don’t you? You’re gentle, and feminine, and very English yourself, and you feel that our way of life is barely civilized?”

  “Of course I don’t think anything of the kind.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. I’ve never known such kindness as your grandmother showed me, and Tia Lola is so kind, too. The way of life at the Villa Cortina is extremely civilized, I think, and extremely humane.”

  “And that includes me, does it?—Since the Villa Cortina now belongs to me!”

  “You,” she reminded him, not daring to move her head by so much as a fraction of an inch because that might enable her to see the expression in his eyes, “are only half Spanish.”