‘I am thinking up insincere words of contrition. Do I apologize for speaking the truth?’
‘I do not know what the truth is,’ she said distractedly—in desperation.
‘I could say I’m not prepared to tell you over the telephone, but I suspect I do so every time I open my mouth.’
She could tell by the tone of his voice that his face had relaxed into gentleness.
‘Carlos, I’m so confused. I don’t know what to believe . . .’ Her voice tailed away tiredly. She felt emotionally drained.
‘Just believe,’ he said softly. ‘And now, goodnight little one. Buenas noches, pequeña,’ he repeated in Spanish.
‘Buenas noches. Carlos—’ urgently ‘—Don’t ring off. You haven’t told me why you phoned.’
‘I phoned to say goodnight.’
‘Oh . . . goodnight then, Carlos.’
‘Goodnight, cariña.’
She replaced the receiver in a haze of joy. Carlos had said, just believe. Dare she believe that . . . believe that he . . . that he loved her?
‘Are you all right, Dorcas?’
Dorcas answered in the abstracted daze she was in. ‘No, señor. I don’t think I will ever be all right again. Oh!’—as it hit her. ‘Señor Ruiz! I spoke without thinking. Even though I heard you and even answered you, I did not properly realize you were standing there.’
‘I understand,’ Enrique Ruiz said, stroking his beard reflectively. ‘At least I think I understand. I would know I understood if I also knew the name of your caller. If, for instance, I knew your caller was male. What am I saying, of course your caller was male! Only a man could paint such joy on your face, eh, Dorcas?’
His smile burst into mischief. His curiosity, though impertinent, was of the kindly nature that Dorcas was not proof against. All this weighed in with the compulsion to tell someone, and it did not seem at all incongruous that this someone was Carlos’s father.
‘It was Carlos. He telephoned to say goodnight,’ she said, in part triumph, and part disbelief.
The bearded chin nodded sagely. ‘That is what I thought. You did not speak up clearly enough for me to know for certain that you spoke my son’s name.’
‘I am sorry, señor,’—straight-mouthed. ‘Next time I will speak loud enough for you to hear.’
Unabashed, her kind señor said: ‘Next time it might be wiser to take the call in the privacy of my study. ‘It might also be wiser—’ Taking Dorcas’s arm and guiding her feet across the hall—‘if we continue this conversation with due regard to privacy. Come into my study for a moment.’
He did not speak again until they were in that masculine, book-lined room. Taking p ride of place on his desk was a silver framed photograph of Rose Ruiz. Beside it, appropriately, in a crystal vase, was a rose. The scent of this perfect bloom filled the room like an overpowering presence. Dorcas felt the potency of Rose Ruiz’s dominant personality as though the señora was standing by her side.
Enrique Ruiz also felt the domination of the rose—which was cut at the peak of its perfection and changed daily—but in a different way. His fingers brushed against the petals, absorbing the sweetness into his fingertips, and the eyes of an old man glazed over with the love of a young boy.
His chin came up. Without preamble he said: ‘Let us not shadow box, Dorcas. Let us come out in the open. Has Carlos said anything to you?’
‘If I replied that Carlos has said many things to me, would I be shadow boxing?’
‘Yes, Dorcas.’
‘Very well. Carlos has not asked me to marry him. But he has given me to believe that he will do so on his return.’
‘It is exactly as I thought,’ he said with disarming candour.
‘You are not displeased, señor?’
‘That does not come into it.’
‘What does, señor?’
‘I think you have been a part of our household long enough to appreciate the obstacles.’
‘Do you mean the señora?’ As far as Dorcas could see, Rose Ruiz loomed over her as the biggest obstacle.
‘My wife is not an obstacle,’ he chided, but more in humour than rebuke. ‘She is the finger pointing out the obstacle.’
‘I’m sorry, señor. I shouldn’t have made that unkind reference. Señora Ruiz has shown me every kindness.’ Her voice melted to nothing.
‘Your shame and your honesty do you credit, niñas. But let us not digress. Carlos already has a novia.
‘Isabel Roca.’ Dorcas supplied the name with dignity, keeping the twist of jealousy well hidden beneath a matter-of-fact tone.
‘As you say, Isabel Roca has long been my son’s sweetheart. A marriage between them would ally a long-standing friendship and cement a business merger that is imperative for the survival of both families. I will not go into the details because I know you are already acquainted with them.’ At Dorcas’s involuntary start, his face bent a question at her. ‘Does it surprise you so much that my wife informed me of the—’ a delicate pause ‘—small conversation she had with you on the subject of why Carlos should marry the daughter of our dear friends?’
‘Yes it does. I would have thought she’d keep that to herself.’ The truth pumped out of Dorcas. Too late she realized where her unfortunate honesty was leading her. ‘Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to criticize the señora’s actions. After all, it’s natural for a mother to warn off . . .’ If, when she had made her first slip, she had left it there, it wouldn’t have been too bad. She was making it worse by going on about it.
Dorcas realized there was something odd in the way Enrique Ruiz was looking at her. It did not prepare her. Having sustained one shock, she was ripe for the next.
‘It is true that my wife endeavoured to warn you off.’ His eyes pierced hers with a brilliance of meaning. ‘On whose behalf do you think she was acting?’
So the señora wasn’t against her. She had been merely carrying out someone else’s instructions.
‘Yours, señor?’ she said. She had to grapple with the dizziness in her brain to think.
Nothing had changed. He wasn’t coming down heavily against her because . . . But the because of it evaded her. She wasn’t forgetting about the business angle. It would be a happy solution if Carlos were to marry Isabel Roca, but the feeling persisted that it went deeper than that. There was something else. But what?
She considered the options open to her. She could ask Enrique Ruiz to tell her now, or she could leave it until Carlos returned and ask him to explain it to her. Providing, of course, he knew.
Enrique Ruiz began to speak in a curiously sad-happy tone that blended well with the expression on his face. ‘It is true, you know.’
‘What is, señor?’
‘Life’s strange continuity. If you live long enough, the past catches up with you.’
‘What are you talking about, señor?’
‘You have been unwise enough to awaken certain aspects of the past, and so invite the nostalgic ramblings of an old man. Seeing you and Carlos together, observing the way you exchange glances when you think no one is looking, is like seeing a memory replayed. It has made me feel young again, but at the same time I have not been given youth’s energy to fight. I fought last time. Oh, how I fought last time! I cannot go through all that again. You have no idea at all what I am talking about, have you?’
‘No, señor.’
‘In the short time I have known you, Dorcas, you have become very dear to me, but I must oppose any marriage between you and my son. If Carlos were to marry you, he would bring dishonour to the family name and near ruination to the family business. And this will be quite apart from the fact that a merger will no longer seem so desirable from my friend, don Alfonso’s point of view. Long-standing orders will be withdrawn as the expression of disapproval certain of our clients will feel it necessary to make. Carlos will have a hard task, he will need to drive himself to unendurable limits just to build the business back to its present strength—which as we have already agreed, is not su
fficient for survival. So you see, Dorcas, you would not be enriching my son’s life, but taking from it. I am sorry to appear so ruthless, but I must ask this question. Could you do this, Dorcas? Could you?’
‘How can you be so certain it would be like this?’ Dorcas pressed.
Instead of giving her an answer, he seemed to swerve from the main issue. And yet Dorcas got the feeling that this was keenly relevant.
‘Nor can we discount your homesickness. My dear wife’s eyes used to fill with such wistful longing merely by looking at a Constable painting. She said she could smell the grass, and this made her nostalgic for England.’
Of course! Dorcas saw the link and knew he wasn’t talking at random. She didn’t know the details of Enrique Ruiz’s courtship of Rose, but thirty years ago a man of his standing would have been expected to marry into a Spanish house of equal social distinction. Had it been a disappointment, a scandal even, when he turned aside from tradition and chose an English bride who could not bring him valuable business connections? And now the wheel had turned full circle.
Dorcas was so deep in thought that she did not notice the señor get up and go over to the wine cabinet. She blinked in some surprise at the brandy goblet placed before her. Brandy? She must look as sick as she felt.
‘Is that to your taste?’ Enrique Ruiz enquired, not unkindly.
Dorcas took a tentative sip. A cup of tea would have been infinitely preferable, but she nodded, wondering with a clutch of apprehension if tea wouldn’t have served Enrique Ruiz better than the contents of his glass. Or did he too need the stimulus of brandy?
On some vague, not properly functioning plane of thought, it came to her that Carlos had entrusted her to see that stress was kept to minimal proportions, and yet here she was contributing to it. Yet the señor did not give the appearance of a man under stress. True, there was a tensile look about him, but it was an expression that pursued a happier, lighter element of thought which in her view did not fit under the heading of stress.
And then, of course, there was his benign manner towards her, lulling her into a false sense of security.
Nevertheless, she kept her eyes fixed fiercely on her brandy glass. ‘You must think me very stupid, señor, not to have seen before that this is parallel with a major event in your life. But—’ She stopped and swallowed, tightly clasping her hands round her glass, as though to stop the conviction that she was right—and her daring in declaring this—from slipping away. ‘Times have changed. You are speaking as though thirty years has been put under a glass case, untouched by a softening outlook that makes what was an outrage then, no more than something to gossip over now.’
Enrique Ruiz did not react; he neither expressed pleasure nor displeasure at Dorcas’s spirited outburst, causing her to reflect, in self doubt, that perhaps she had gone too far. Isabel Roca would never have spoken up in this way. Isabel Roca accepted the social system that put women subservient to men. But that structure of thought was too restrictive for someone of Dorcas’s enlightened outlook. She was very much afraid that her kind señor saw her frankness as impertinence.
One moment Enrique Ruiz was pondering the curling, down-swept lashes that only screened, without totally hiding, the militant fire. The next he was being swept up in the apology issuing from eyes that were devoid of the light of argument. And while her look awarded him the veneration he had come to expect from someone of Dorcas’s age, he sighed for that lost spark of rebellion.
When Dorcas said: ‘I’m sorry, señor. For a moment I forgot myself,’ he was quick to reply: ‘Your reaction was most predictable, my dear. I believe I used much the same words in reply to my father’s opposition.’
Meeting his eyes, Dorcas did not know whether she had won or lost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The following day the house was thrown into a state of uproar by the unheralded arrival of Madelena Ruiz, Carlos’s imperious grandmother. She stepped out of a vintage taxi, a deceptively fragile-looking old lady with the bearing of a queen, and mounted the steps with the taxi driver in attendance.
While Brigida went to alert her master and mistress, Dorcas automatically pulled her stomach in, her shoulders back, and tweaked an offending wisp of hair into place behind her ear.
A process she saw repeated brief seconds later as Rose Ruiz advanced to greet her mother-in-law. Reverently taking those incredibly tiny hands in a warm, although slightly nerve-disorientated welcome, she said: ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming? Enrique could have fetched you to lessen the strain of the journey.’
Dark flashing eyes made their unhurried appraisal of Rose Ruiz’s flushed features and rather harassed expression. Standing to one side, visible without making her presence blatantly obvious, Dorcas thought: ‘You wicked old woman! Carlos’s grandmother knew she was plunging her daughter-in-law into deep confusion; knew it and was revelling in it! It was strange, and not a little disturbing, to see Rose Ruiz’s dominant personality crushed by this diminutive presence.
The old lady didn’t so much speak as grant an audience. ‘I have been well looked after,’ she said, waving grandly in the direction of the taxi driver, who was hovering uncertainly, still clasping the pigskin suitcase. The suitcase provided only a limited clue. It was larger than an overnight stay would warrant, but not large enough for the requirements of a longer stay of say more than a week.
‘Put the suitcase down,’ doña Madelena instructed crisply, with little patience for the poor taxi driver’s awe of her. ‘Yes there. Rose, pay him.’
‘Of course. Certainly.’ By this time her husband had also put in an appearance. ‘Enrique?’ she appealed.
Enrique Ruiz paid off the taxi driver who bowed his head in polite homage at the assembly in general, before making his escape.
‘It is good to see you,’ Enrique Ruiz said, kissing his mother’s offered cheek before holding her slight frame at a good viewing angle. He then proceeded to coax warmth into those cold, aristocratic features with the melting magnetism of his smile. ‘You are looking wonderfully well, Madre.’
‘Looks can be deceptive,’ she said, sniffing autocratically, but succumbing to her son’s charm with obvious enjoyment.
Dorcas was more than content to stay in the background, but knew it was only a matter of time before the old lady’s compelling gaze swept her into the unwelcome limelight. It zoomed round the hall, focusing on her like a high-powered beam. The resonant voice boomed out: ‘What are you doing skulking in the shadows? Come forward, child, and let me look at you.’
Dorcas went through the stomach in, shoulders back routine again, and for good measure added several deep swallows. She came forward, marvelling that such a fragile looking person could have so strong a voice and such an overwhelming personality.
Not quite knowing what to do, she said: ‘Buenas tardes, señora.’ And held out her hand in a very formal, very English way. To her delight it was ignored in favour of her cheek, which received a paper cool kiss.
Dorcas was less delighted to hear the old señora’s cruelly perceptive observation. ‘You look better than when I last saw you, but not as well as you should look. What is bothering you? Is it your leg?’
‘I do not know that anything is bothering me,’ said Dorcas as a medium-sized flurry of unease threatened to wreck her insecure confidence. ‘My leg is better. I have to return to the hospital in two weeks’ time for a final examination. But that is just a formality.’
‘Ah . . . yes. Formalities . . . rituals to be observed.’ Her stick impatiently tapped the mosaic tiles. ‘The ritual of greeting has overrun its time. How long are you going to keep me standing here, Rose? Show me to my room.’
The redirection of attention allowed Dorcas to breathe easier.
Rose Ruiz sprang forward. ‘Of course, Madre. How inconsiderate of me. Take my arm.’
The tapping of her silver-topped stick marked her painfully slow progress. As the old eyes flicked back at her, Dorcas knew she had only been awarded a temporar
y respite. It would all be wheedled out of her, but at the same time she knew she had a kindly inquisitor in Carlos’s grandmother.
* * *
‘. . . and there it is, señora,’ Dorcas confided some hours later. The journey had tired the old matriarch more than she cared to admit. She had grudgingly concurred that . . . yes, perhaps she would have a supper tray in her room. Barely had Dorcas finished her coffee than the summons came that doña Madelena wished to see her before she retired for the night.
As she had known it would be, Dorcas had been in the grand presence a matter of minutes before the truth was prised out of her.
‘I love Carlos, but how can he love me? I’m so ordinary. And even if he did love me, it would be hopeless.’ All the time Dorcas was speaking she kept her eyes shyly fixed on her hands. ‘And then, of course, there is Michael’s attitude. You haven’t met my brother yet, señora. He sends his regards and I am to tell you that he looks forward to seeing you in the morning. You’ll like Michael, at least I think you will like him, because most people do. Unlike me, he always knows the right thing to say. Only, it always seems to be the wrong thing from my point of view.’
Dorcas thought it strange that she was being allowed to talk so freely and at such length without even an interruptive duck of sympathetic understanding or a dry cough to indicate that her listener was bored silly. When she did look up, peeping a glance from beneath cautiously lifting lids, she saw why. The poor exhausted soul was fast asleep. Her white hair lay sparsely on the pillow, in sleep her fragile features had recaptured the vulnerability they had known as a child. And, childlike, one hand lay crumpled under her cheek.
With an outsize lump in her throat, Dorcas smoothed the top sheet, tensed to kiss a pale cheek, and tiptoed quietly out of the room.
At about this point, Dorcas admitted to herself that the old señora had not deliberately set out to trap a confidence from her. Rather, Dorcas had selected Carlos’s grandmother as confidante, because the compulsion to tell someone had been so great that it would not stand bottling up a moment longer. She’d had to invest the role of inquisitor upon someone, and Carlos’s grandmother had admirably fitted this part. Thinking about it now, it seemed very weak-minded of her. But no harm done. She felt better for having got it out of her system, and she didn’t mind—and even admitted to being relieved—that the old señora had fallen asleep.
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