The voice of John, the courier, broke up the moment of bewilderment, dismay ... yet enchantment. Yes, enchantment. For Zoe.
‘If you are ready, ladies and gentlemen,’ John called, ‘we will begin our second day’s journey. Our first stop, for coffee as well as the Cathedral, will be Chartres.’
Zoe rose and went dutifully across, to assist Mrs. Fenton.
Pale sunshine was buttering Rouen’s old walls when the party gathered outside the hotel to wait for the coach that the driver had garaged somewhere safer than the narrow street. In the distance the river had taken on a golden sheen and little boats were plying busily from shore to shore.
‘All aboard!’ John called, and turned on low music, for it was too early in the day for animated discussions.
It was not too early, though, for Mrs. Fenton to have her say ... if he had known what was to come, Zoe thought ruefully, John might have made that music louder.
After stating her absolute disgust at last night’s accommodation in no meagre terms, recounting her terrified state when the door handle had actually turned, warning all and sundry that tonight it had better be a different story or she would lay a serious complaint, declaring that her companion ... all eyes turned to Zoe in quiet pity ... must either have a bed placed in her room or behind an adjacent door—
‘Senora,’ interrupted a quiet but authoritative voice, ‘I was present last evening when you issued a very different ultimatum, you demanded a single suite.’
Now all the eyes were admiringly on Senor Raphaelina. Mrs. Fenton’s eyes were on him, too, but not admiringly. On the other hand they were not so assured as they would have been had the interjector been the unfortunate courier.
‘Of course,’ continued Ramon silkily, ‘it is a woman’s privilege to change her mind.’
For once Mrs. Fenton seemed floored. She just sat there silent ... but not for long.
‘This bus,’ she said angrily, ‘needs a sweep.’
It didn’t. Either the driver or John had made an excellent job of it ... what employee wouldn’t even if he was not so inclined with one of his employers aboard?
However, Mrs. Fenton said it was dirty, so that was that. For a moment Zoe waited for yet another correction from Ramon, but he must have decided the subject beneath his interest. Sitting back, he looked out on the French countryside ... what had he said? ‘The smiling fields of France.’
Chartres came ... and went.
More wide fields on either side of them, men and women working together in the fields, the women with peasant handkerchiefs on their heads, the men in berets.
Woods enfolded them’ ... a sun and shade-chequered road slid away into the distance ... the same butter colour that had started the day started the evening, only where the pale yellow had grown into gold, now the yellow would soon fade into obscurity.
Courier John, with each mile, was looking more and more uneasy, and Zoe ... and no doubt the rest of the passengers ... knew why. They were an exceptionally amiable group; Zoe, who had toured in Australia, taken several trips since she had arrived in England, was pleasantly surprised about that. Invariably she had found there were many thorns, not one. But now all the faces, except Mrs. Fenton’s, that turned to their guide were sympathetic and understanding. There would be no grouch, the expressions assured him, if the accommodation was not quite what the brochure had promised, if they had to bed down doubly ... even, in emergency, in a threesome.
John cheered a little, but he still wore that worried expression, and as soon as the coach pulled into the courtyard of the hotel at which they were to spend their second night, he was out in a flash.
‘It’s obvious,’ came Mrs. Fenton’s whining voice, ‘that this is going to be pot luck accommodation. I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing has been booked at all. Did you notice that young man’s face? Did you see how he rushed in?’
‘Yes,’ came in Don Ramon, ‘he is concerned, and no wonder. To be a courier to a coach is not all’ ... he paused ... ‘what do you call it?’
‘Beer and skittles,’ obliged a jolly Englishman, and everyone ... except Mrs. Fenton, of course ... laughed. Zoe could not help feeling a glow that Ramon was accepted so fully. It could have been so different, she thought; he was instinctively, she felt sure of it, a rather remote, even arrogant figure. Accustomed to respectful deference more than companionable circulation. But, as he had said, he was enjoying himself. His black eyes, searching for and reaching hers, smiled warmly. She smiled back, losing the guilt she had felt over the forfeited comb.
John returned with a grin to match Ramon’s. All was well. The rooms were excellent. Many singles ... and ... a triumphant side glance at Mrs. Fenton ... one suite with an adjoining smaller room. It had been reserved at once for Madam.
But suddenly it seemed that didn’t suit Madam either. Mrs. Fenton decided she would prefer a large room for two and have Zoe sleep with her. After all, an adjoining room was little safeguard when someone actually tried, as they had last night, to enter.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said John, deflated, and, taking pity on him, Zoe called, ‘It doesn’t need to be so much bigger; I’ll need very little space.’
Two pairs of eyes turned angrily on her at that ... the rest of the party were preoccupied with getting settled in their own quarters, seeing around the city before night really set in.
One pair of eyes were Mrs. Fenton’s, of course.
‘I will do the directing, miss,’ she said furiously.
The other pair were Ramon Raphaelina’s. Apparently reaching up for a bag, he said for Zoe’s ears alone: ‘Must you make of yourself a mat for the portal, Senorita Zoe?—Is that the phrase?’
‘I think you mean doormat, and please don’t worry, for I don’t.’
‘I do. I dislike the idea of you sleeping in the same room as that objectionable person.’
‘What do you think she can do? I’m younger than she is. Only nineteen, you’ve dubbed me.’
‘You turn my words around, and that is all right if it amuses you. But me, I am not amused.’
‘Look, Don Ramon, she is not in good health—indeed, when she hired me she said she was a semi-invalid.’
‘If that is your argument it is a poor one. You will be expected to carry and fetch for her.’
‘I was using it as an argument against you, Senor Ramon. You seem to think I would be in—in some sort of danger—I, a stronger, younger woman.’
‘And a young fool,’ he hissed disgustedly. ‘All danger does not come physically. I tell you this woman—’
‘Mrs. Fenton and Miss Breen, Room 27!’
Zoe picked up her handbag and pushed past the senor without another word.
The room was grudgingly accepted by Mrs. Fenton ... Zoe uncharitably decided it was the narrower, rather uncomfortable bed that had been hastily pushed in for her that finally won the acceptance. However, with the briefest of nods to indicate that it would do, Mrs. Fenton dismissed the porter and began to open her bag.
It was then that Zoe said something that afterwards she wished with all her heart she hadn’t.
She offered: ‘Can’t I do that for you, Mrs. Fenton?’ and was immediately rewarded with an angry: ‘No, indeed, I won’t have anyone handling my things.’
Thinking no more about it, Zoe unpacked her few articles, made light talk of the happenings of the day, wondered what other aspect of France tomorrow would bring ... it was a very leisurely tour and they were not expecting to cross the border into Spain until the following day again ... to which Mrs. Fenton only responded with a sniff or a grunt.
Asking if she needed her, as otherwise she would take a quick look outside, and being rewarded with a contemptuous ‘Need you?’ Zoe excused herself and went out.
The overnight stop location was neither as old nor as historic as last night, but it was more beautiful. There were cobbled lanes and houses rising one above the other, gardens with box bushes and medlars, and somewhere not too far away a feel of woods.
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When Zoe said this aloud to a group she had joined, a voice ... the senor’s confirmed, ‘Si, we are near the woods.’ That decided them all to have a quick walk in the woods’ direction ... it would have to be only in the direction ... before dinner.
Zoe enjoyed every minute of the stroll, she loved the gentleness of the scenery and said so.
‘It is your preference in countryside, senorita?’ For some reason Senor Raphaelina looked perturbed.
‘Well—no, as a matter of fact,’ Zoe admitted, and was surprised at the instant lighting up of his face. ‘Australia is never understated,’ she explained, ‘so I suppose overstatement is what I belong to, but the difference of half-tones does have an immense appeal.’
‘Then, little Australian, you will feel at home in Iberia, for there half-tones have been left entirely from the scheme of things. Speaking of being at home ... are you so in your room?’
‘Of course.’
‘You speak too quickly. Are you afraid then to complain?’
‘I’m not afraid, and I have nothing to complain about.’ He regarded her quizzically a long moment, then said, ‘It must be a very great desire to see my country.’
‘What, senor?’ she queried.
‘To put up with so much.’ He smiled and let his hand rest briefly on her shoulder. ‘I am indeed honoured.’
She felt a false pretender accepting his warm praise, his deep appreciation on behalf of his country, but she had left it too late to explain, she should have said her piece in the beginning. That reminded her of something else that had happened in the beginning in him ... it had been that quick ejaculation of his when she had corrected him that she was not English but British. When she had said that she was Australian, he had shown a marked ... unfavourable? ... response.
Dare she ask him why at this late juncture? she wondered, but no, the crowd ahead were calling aloud their applause at pale blue evening sky growing even paler as they watched it in comparison to the brown tops of elms, and it was neither the time nor the place.
Returning to the hotel there was no opportunity, either. The tourists had struck up friendships now, and in the darkling light they linked arms. To Zoe’s further surprise, the Spanish gentleman not only joined in and linked Zoe’s arm in his, but linked it with the others. He seemed, she thought, almost like a schoolboy on holiday. This without doubt was not the usual Senor Ramon Raphaelina.
Back at the hotel an excellent meal awaited ... beef this time, but again in wine ... crepes suzettes with lemon. Even Mrs. Fenton made no audible complaint.
A little intoxicated with the fun and the goodwill of it all, with the happy way everything was turning out, Zoe leaned across to the Senor Raphaelina and assured him, ‘Of course I’m at home.’
He flashed her a smile in return.
It was soon afterwards that the pack-of-cards castle ... or so the situation seemed in retrospection to Zoe, just a flimsy pretence of cardboard ... broke up. The first card fell with a little scream from Mrs. Fenton and a shrill: ‘My money purse!’
John, who was telling the rest their destination tomorrow, the country through which they would pass, what they could expect to see, looked up at once.
‘My purse isn’t here!’ Mrs. Fenton cried.
‘In your room, then? It will be quite safe there.’ John put on the soothing voice of the courier.
‘No, it isn’t. I remember bringing it down, I’m not such a fool as to leave a purse in a room. Wait, though, it was my travellers’ cheques I brought down, not the purse at all.’
‘Then—’ began John.
‘I remember!’ Mrs. Fenton cut in triumphantly. ‘I didn’t bring it down because I hadn’t seen it. I thought as I was unpacking there was something unaccounted for, and it fretted me, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Now I know. It was the purse of course—my little mesh purse of notes. And not foreign notes, either.’ Scornfully. ‘English notes. Substantial notes.’
‘When did you last see the purse? Would you like me to search the coach?’
‘It would be a waste of time, young man, for I had the purse after that, I particularly remember laying it down on the bed beside my larger bag. I recall it very well because Miss Breen crossed over at once to ask me if she could unpack for me.’
Now Mrs. Fenton was looking in Zoe’s direction, her eyes narrowed to even smaller than their boot-button size.
‘The chambermaid might know,’ John was saying desperately.
‘She never came near. There was no assistance at all. It’s that sort of hotel. Oh, no, you needn’t look any further than my room.’
‘Then you think it is in the room?’
‘I know it isn’t, and when I said you needn’t look any further than the room, I meant the occupants of the room.’
‘But besides you, Mrs. Fenton,’ John was saying helplessly, ‘there’s only—’
‘Yes!’ Mrs. Fenton’s voice had risen almost to a thin scream. ‘Yes, indeed, there is only Miss Breen.
‘And Miss Breen it is, of course. Why otherwise would she have rushed forward to help me, she who hasn’t lifted a finger to help since we left London?’
‘Senorita Zoe,’ broke in Senor Raphaelina quietly but forcefully, ‘did you go forward to assist the senora?’
‘Yes, I did, but—’
‘There,’ pounced Mrs. Fenton triumphantly, ‘she admits it! Oh, what a fool I was to agree to bring her with me, but she seemed so eager to come, so anxious—’
‘And no wonder.’ The deep low voice of Senor Ramon Raphaelina broke in quietly again, yet even more authoritatively. ‘No wonder that the child wished to escape to some other place than a place where vile accusations as you have just uttered can spring.’
‘Child?’ echoed Mrs. Fenton.
‘She is no more than that compared to you, senora.’
Mrs. Fenton, dull red now, managed, ‘Indeed! And escape, you said? She desired an escape to Spain?’
‘Which she is doing this very night. Now. Oh, I am well aware, John’ ... the senor had turned to his courier ... ‘we reach the border early the day after tomorrow, but it’s just not good enough. Nor soon enough. The senorita will leave with me now. This very instant. Have someone bring down her bags.
‘Meanwhile I will leave Madam to find the purse she has obviously not lost, only mislaid, and wait for the car which you, John, will arrange for me to hire immediately.’
Turning again to Mrs. Fenton, the Spaniard said clearly and unmistakably, ‘Having concluded the scandal of the purse, you may care to spend your time concocting the scandal of a young woman leaving a hotel at night with a man. But, at the risk of spoiling your diversion, senora, I must assure you that this will not be the case. As a Spaniard, such things are of grave importance to me, and the first thing I will do will be to find a suitable duenna, or chaperone, for the child, for the Spanish do it that way, they protect the young, not the young protect the old.’ A pause, then sardonically: ‘I should have said the older.’
He turned. How tall he looked. How strong. How—how ruthless!
‘A safe trip,’ he wished over his shoulder to Mrs. Fenton. ‘To you, my very good friends’ ... to their coach companions ... Buenos noches, you have been pleasant to travel with, and I sincerely regret to leave you like this.
‘And now, Senorita Zoe, if you are ready—’
Zoe was not. She was still confused, she was in a vortex and whirling round and round, but this time the fingertips under her arm were not impersonal, they were very personal—and intentional. They were also masterful as they prompted her out of the room, into the vestibule, down the stairs to the street. Almost within seconds, it seemed, into a large black car.
‘It never happened.’
These were Zoe’s first bewildered words. They had threaded a way out of the city proper, past occasional night clubs brightly lit and with people sitting around small tables, they had twisted around curving streets, gone under a bridge and by another cathedral floodlit just a
s the cathedral at Rouen had been illuminated. They must be almost, Zoe thought vaguely, still half in the whirlpool, at the woods.
In all this time Ramon had not spoken a word. Once she had dared a look at him and had been shocked at the cold, still anger in his face. Was this the same man as several hours ago? The man who had linked her arm in his, then linked another’s, the man who had turned warm dark eyes to her? Smiled companionably? Was it the same Ramon Raphaelina?
But now at last he did speak, and his voice barely leashed his fury.
‘It happened, senorita.’
‘But—but it wasn’t as she said, as Mrs. Fenton said, I didn’t even see her purse, I vow to you, senor—Senor?’ For the car, a large and luxurious one, had stopped with an abruptness that would not have pleased its makers.
‘You little foolish one, you utter ridiculous atom, you—you child! As though I do not know that! Why otherwise would I be taking you away like this? Away from that evil woman? I tell you, senorita, I have never been quite so angry in all my life ... and that is including a recent cause for anger in me, an anger that at the time I believed could have no peer. But now I know that that was only a storm, as you English—British—say, in a teacup, compared to this.
‘However’ ... taking out a smaller cheroot than he usually smoked, more a cigarillo ... ‘in a way it has turned out well. It is not in the Spanish nature to turn the other cheek, to suffer gladly. In a manner it is much better to get the thing over in a rush and not build up the grievances until they fester like a sore.’
‘I could have put up with them,’ Zoe inserted doggedly.
Spanish Lace Page 4
