The House in the Pines

by Margaret Carr

‘In fourteen eighty one, it is said the Madonna appeared amongst the branches of the pine trees on this very spot and there has been a church here ever since. The one you see now was completed in seventeen sixty seven. The Madonna you will see inside is the Virgin of Gran Canaria and people come from all over the island on September the eighth to her festival. They walk for miles, sometimes falling to their knees and crawling through the town to the church to bring their gifts. It is a very emotional experience.’

  He took her arm and led her into the church. Lynn was awed by the splendour of the magnificent Madonna whose jewel-encrusted gold adornments and altar dominated the interior of the church. A long line of people filed past continuously as Luis made his sign and bow before they both sat quietly and gazed at the shining spectacle.

  Now, as she sat in the car next to him and listened to him promise to bring her to the festival in September if she was still here, her heart did a double switch and she knew without any doubt that she would stay.

  Over the next few days, she found that the office work turned out to be less difficult than she had imagined. At first she was extremely slow on the word processor, taking over an hour on each letter Luis left her, but he never complained. Taking messages over the phone, sorting the important from the mundane, filing and filling in forms were second nature to her after her work as hospital ward sister and these she did well.

  At the end of the first week her speed on the word processor was picking up and Luis had insisted she continue at the same rate of pay as she’d had before. She found that she was beginning to enjoy the work.

  Luis was rarely in the office during the day and she had the place to herself. She kept well out of the way of the ladies and she had Peter if she got lonely.

  On Friday afternoon, a week after she had started work in the office, Peter popped his head around the office door.

  ‘I’m off out with friends today but if you’re not doing anything tomorrow I thought I might show you the rest of the island.’

  She looked up from what she was doing.

  ‘That would be lovely, Peter, thank you.’

  He gave her a cheeky grin and disappeared.

  Lynn smiled to herself and resumed her work. She now had both Saturdays and Sundays off and it would be nice to have Peter guide her to places she had yet to find.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The following day found Lynn and Peter out in the car Luis had made available for her. Peter was free of his cast now and in high spirits as they set off. They turned inland and Peter directed her to take a left fork up the narrow road to Bandama.

  ‘It’s a volcanic crater and we can only go along its rim for there is no way in or out unless you are a donkey. But a man lives down there alone. Then there is an eighteen-hole golf club at Atalaya on the other side of the volcano. Lots of famous people go there. Then we shall go to San Mateo and back over the mountains to Telde, where the cars race. It is very exciting there.’

  The gradient had risen sharply with hairpin bends every few yards and nothing but sheer cliff face on both sides of the narrow road. Lynn made a face at the suspicious thought of the real reason for their day out. The last thing she needed after a drive like the one she was on now was an afternoon at a car rally. They arrived at the rim of the crater in one piece much to Lynn’s relief and she pulled the car over on to the lookout platform and climbed out.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ she whispered approaching the fence and gazing down two hundred metres to the bottom of the crater.

  ‘We are five hundred and seventy five metres above sea level here and over there is the golf course at Atalaya.’

  He had come up behind her and was pointing over her shoulder.

  ‘The crater was named after a Dutch wine merchant, Van Damme, who settled here in the seventeenth century.’

  ‘How does the man down there survive on his own?’

  ‘He will be mostly self-sufficient but when he needs to come out he will come up with his donkey. I think we should send grandmother down there to keep him company.’

  They were both laughing as they climbed back into the car and Peter continued to guide her into the mountains. They had cheese and ham toasties and long, cool drinks of freshly-squeezed orange juice in San Mateo under the shade of a large umbrella as they gazed down the valley. Then they were on the move again through pine-clad mountains on tree-shadowed roads that wound around in a never-ending switchback.

  It was from high up on the side of a narrow valley that Lynn first saw the house. It stood half hidden among the pine trees on the opposite side of the valley. She caught only a glimpse of it before they drove through a small village. For some reason she mentioned it to Peter and as they drove around the head of the valley and up the other side Peter suddenly pointed out an entrance on the roadside.

  ‘I think that leads up to that house you saw,’ he said.

  Lynn pulled into the side of the road and parked the car. They couldn’t see the house from the road but Lynn suggested they got out and took a walk up the unsurfaced track. Peter reluctantly agreed and they set off in search of the house.

  ‘There are no fences or anything to say it’s private. Do you think we are trespassing?’ she asked.

  ‘Fences are unnecessary here. All that is needed is a gate.’

  He lifted his shoulders in a typical shrug.

  ‘Well, there was no gate down there and this stony way can hardly be called a drive.’

  After climbing for half a mile or so they came to a weed-shrouded clearing in front of the house.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Lynn breathed.

  ‘No, it is old,’ Peter laughed.

  Mist, like a wisp of silk, had vanished from the tips of the mountains, leaving a fresh silence alive with the sound of bird song and dripping water. The house stood high on the mountain side surrounded by the tall pines that hid it from the road below.

  It was of Spanish design tempered with the Moorish influences of stylish archways and intricate pebble mosaics on the floor. A lone orange tree grew in the corner of the inner courtyard. Its branches, fruitless and overgrown, encroached beneath the roof tiles of the house.

  A bang from above made them both jump as they turned from the dry fountain to gaze along the windows above the main entrance. The shuttered fronts of the windows were peeling, some hanging lopsided from broken hinges. The whole place had an air of distressed disintegration. From behind them an old man shuffled into the courtyard. His smile was welcoming as they turned their startled gaze towards him. Peter questioned him in Spanish. The old man replied and Peter translated it for Lynn.

  ‘He is the caretaker.’

  ‘Does he mind us being here?’

  ‘Not at all, young lady. It is a long time since anyone took any interest in this house.’

  The old man’s English was slow and precise.

  ‘My name is Manuel Carrara and I am delighted to meet you.’

  ‘My name is Lynn Raynor and this is Peter Falcon. I am a nurse in the household of Peter’s father. May we have a look around?’

  ‘Please. If you want me I will be in the kitchen, through that archway,’ he said, indicating the arched entrance at the back of the courtyard. ‘Mind you, take care. The old house isn’t as strong as it once was.’

  Then he moved off across the courtyard and they were alone once more.

  ‘He was right about one thing,’ Peter said, as Lynn moved towards a wooden staircase deep in the shadows of the lower gallery. ‘We’d better be careful where we step. The whole place looks rotten to me.’

  But Lynn was already in love with the house.

  ‘Wait here for me if you’re not interested. I must have a look around. I wonder how old it is and how long it’s been empty. What kind of people lived here and where are they now? I mean, they must still own the place or why is the caretaker here.’

  Peter followed her reluctantly up the stairs, dismissing her questions with a shrug of his shoulders. It was two hours before they sat d
own again on the edge of the dried-up fountain. The old man came out with two glasses of lemon drink on a tray.

  ‘Have you seen all that you wish to see?’ he asked.

  ‘For the moment,’ Lynn said, ‘but I’d love to come again if I may.’

  Manuel Carrara smiled.

  ‘As often as you wish, senorita.’

  Peter had finished his drink and was ready to go when the old man started to tell them a story in answer to Lynn’s request to know the name of the owners of the house and why they didn’t live there anymore.

  ‘Fifty years ago, all this valley belonged to one man. To enhance his fortune even more he married his only daughter to a colleague of his who was many years older than the girl. Their marriage was childless and in time she became bored and restless. Then one day she met a man and fell in love. They had an affair then her lover of several months, who was staying in the district but did not belong there, told her he must go home. He asked her to go with him but she refused.

  ‘He was very angry and they parted on bad terms. Then one stormy night he returned to her house with a young girl, explaining she was a niece who had become pregnant and whose family had disowned her. He begged his lover to take the girl in. She could not refuse him and he vowed to come back in the spring and collect the girl and her child. But when he returned the house was locked up and the family gone.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Who knows?’ the old man replied.

  ‘We must be going now, Lynn. Soon it will be too hot to sit here longer,’ Peter interrupted.

  ‘The young senor is right, senorita,’ the old man said, as he rose to his feet and collected the glasses. ‘I hope you will visit us again.’

  He turned and made his way slowly back to the kitchen as Peter and Lynn hurried back to the car. The sun was directly overhead now and they had to wait several minutes for the interior of the car to cool down. Lynn followed the road down to Telde where again they stopped for drinks and a walk around.

  ‘I suppose they could have found the girl a husband,’ Peter said, as they strolled around after discovering there was to be no racing that day. ‘And the senora’s husband could have died and left her to marry again.’

  ‘Then if her husband died, why didn’t she wait until her lover came back and marry him?’

  ‘We will never know, I suppose,’ Peter remarked.

  They were at the Hermitage of San Antonio when Lynn suddenly said, ‘You know, I can’t rid myself of the feeling that I have seen that house before.’

  ‘Have you come this way before on your own?’

  ‘No,’ Lynn said, with a shake of her head.

  ‘Then you have not. It must have been another house on some other island perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, but she was unconvinced.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was on their way back to Las Palmas, on the north bound motorway, that Peter suddenly broke the silence that had fallen between them.

  ‘I shall tell them tonight.’

  ‘Tell whom, what?’

  The breeze from the open window blew Peter’s hair back from his handsome face revealing his stubborn expression to Lynn as she slid him a sideways glance.

  ‘The family. I shall tell them that I will study art and design in London. I will leave soon so that I have the summer to find somewhere to live and to be enrolled for the college. My cousin, Denys, writes and tells me what I have to do to accomplish this.’

  ‘You have family in England?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but my father does not communicate with them.’

  ‘But surely you don’t want to upset your father by going against his wishes. If he wants you to do a business course first he must have good reason. Wouldn’t it be possible to do that, then, when he finds out you’re not interested you could carry on with your art?’

  ‘And waste several years, for what?’

  Peter turned away and hung his hand out of the window.

  ‘I have money of my own left to me by my mother. I can do as I will.’

  Lynn sighed as she drove back to the Casa Mariana and garaged the car.

  They were all gathered in the sala later that evening when Peter made his declaration. At first there was a deathly silence and Lynn held her breath. Senora Medina’s cane rapped the floor.

  ‘This disobedience will not be tolerated. It is obvious he is being exposed to outside influences.’

  ‘Don’t talk about me as though I were not here grandmother,’ Peter said.

  ‘How dare you speak to your grandmother like that!’

  Sofia, her face frozen with shock, reprimanded him. Her ice cold tone continued.

  ‘Your future is of great importance to the family. Your first concern should be that future as you very well know. It takes little insight to see where this other encouragement comes from,’ she concluded and she glared across the room to where Lynn stood by the window.

  ‘Enough, Sofia,’ Luis said. ‘Peter knows how we feel. If he is still determined to study art, then he’s right. We can’t stop him.’

  ‘Well, if his own father cannot stop him I can and will,’ Peter’s grandmother declared. ‘This money of his mother’s he is so confident about can only be freed by my death or with my approval, and without money he can go nowhere.’

  Peter’s face paled with shock and Lynn’s heart twisted on his behalf. A nerve jerked along Luis’ jaw and he spoke sharply to the old woman, in Spanish.

  ‘We are talking about Peter’s wishes here. The money is irrelevant.’

  There were strong emotions running beneath the surface as they all went into dinner that evening.

  It was some surprise to Lynn when a few days later Peter arrived at her office door to say that his father had agreed to his plans and he would be off to England the following month. Lynn would be sorry to see him go and knew she would leave once he had gone.

  She was a nurse not a secretary. Perhaps she should be looking for another nursing job here in Gran Canaria as she had first intended. She could try for an agency job with an independent flat. This live-in work was rarely successful.

  Of course there was the comfortable accommodation which she would never be able to afford on a nurse’s salary. The generous wages Luis paid her would be a hefty loss and then there was Luis himself. At the thought of never seeing him again her heart lay heavy and hard in the middle of her chest. She tried to examine her feelings for Luis and couldn’t, he was such an enigma. Yet she had promised herself she would stay, at least until September and the Festival of the Virgin in Teror.

  She had carried a chair out into the sunshine for her mid-morning break when she heard the Senora Medina calling for Peter.

  ‘Peter,’ her voice rang down from the balcony, ‘come to me at once.’

  For such a small woman her voice still held a strong authority.

  ‘I’m afraid Peter isn’t here, senora,’ Lynn shouted back.

  ‘Well, find someone else to help me down the stairs,’ the old lady grumbled.

  Lynn ran lightly to the stairs and looked up at the stiff figure waiting at the top.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she demanded, before Lynn was halfway up.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Lynn said, coming to a stop two steps below the senora.

  ‘I have no intention of allowing you to help me, Miss Raynor. Now, please remove yourself so that I may descend.’

  Lynn tried to protest but was dismissed and had turned to retrace her steps down the stairs when the old lady’s cane prodded her savagely in the back.

  ‘Get a move on, girl.’

  Lynn grabbed at the banister to stop herself falling, knocking aside the cane as she did so. There was a thump and shuffle behind her and as she straightened up she was horrified to see the senora sliding down the stairs in an ungainly tumble.

  Within minutes every member of the household appeared as if they had been waiting in the wings for their cue. With wild gestures and cries they clustered around the bottom
of the stairs, blocking Lynn’s path as she tried to stop them from lifting the senora before she’d had a chance to evaluate her injuries.

  Moans came from the near transparent lips as Lynn felt for any broken bones. With relief she decided that she could detect none. Gently she took the quivering pulse then loosened the tiny buttons and opened the high collar of the senora’s dress as her eyelids fluttered open. Sofia pulled Lynn away and fell on her knees by her aunt’s side.

  ‘Aunt, oh, Aunt, merciful heavens, what has she done to you? You’ve killed her,’ she wailed when the senora’s eyelids closed and lay still.

  Then Luis was there, lifting Sofia to her feet, calming Ana and handing Sofia over to her before asking José to phone for the doctor. By the time the doctor came, the senora had been wrapped in a blanket and carried up to bed.

  Lynn explained to the doctor and Luis what had happened and gave details of her actions, then she went to her own room, leaving the family and the doctor with the old lady.

  Later that evening, Lynn went quietly along to check on her patient before going in to dinner. As she neared the sala she could hear voices raised in anger. They were speaking in Spanish but even so it wasn’t hard for her to understand about whom they were talking for her name cropped up repeatedly.

  There was a sudden silence as she entered the room. Enrique was standing next to Sofia whose immaculate make-up hadn’t taken into account the natural flush of anger that stained it now. Peter was slouched in a chair beneath his father’s pinning scowl. Luis turned from his son at her entrance and although there was no outward sign of anger, Lynn just knew he was furious.

  ‘It would appear that no-one was around to witness this accident,’ Luis said, waving a dismissive hand at Sofia who opened her mouth as though to speak, ‘when Maria Medina fell.’

  Enrique came over to Lynn and handed her a small brandy.

  ‘For medicinal purposes, for you also must have suffered a shock.’

  His smile was gentle, his large brown eyes warm with sympathy rather than blame. Lynn’s muscles went slack with relief. She hadn’t realised until then just how tense she was. Her mind was whirling with doubts. Had the senora really tried to push her downstairs, or had it simply been an accident? Although there was no love lost between the two of them Lynn preferred to believe the latter.