The House of Adriano

by Nerina Hilliard

  Aileen bit her lip, not liking to appear ungrateful, but at the same time she wished he had not brought her here.

  Bart raised a laconic eyebrow at her expression. “I didn’t realise it meant as much to you as that. Maybe I ought to feel jealous.”

  “Of course not.” She flushed slightly, hoping the quick denial was not too quick. She could not admit even to Bart how she felt about Duarte and what his promise to take her to El Escorial had meant to her. “It’s nothing like that at all,” she went on. “It’s just that... well, we had something of a misunderstanding about it.”

  “Maybe we should drive straight back, then.”

  Although he spoke lightly, there was something a little hurt in his expression, so she shook her head.

  “No ... that would be silly.”

  “Anyway, you can’t see everything in one visit.”

  She was probably making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. It could not mean anything to Duarte whether or not he was the first one to bring her out here and, in any event, perhaps he need not know about it. She could still come out here with him.

  “It took twenty-one years to build,” Bart commented as they went towards the building. “Three thousand people were employed on it the whole time.” He pointed off to the south. “Over there are the Los Ermitanos mountains. Philip II, the guy who built the place, used to sit on a rock seat at the foot of them, watching the building going up.”

  Aileen frowned a little. “Philip II - wasn’t he the one with the Armada?”

  Bart nodded with a grin. “That’s him. And you know something - even to this day they blame the weather for the destruction of the Armada, not the English.”

  Aileen laughed. “Well, that’s one way of getting over a defeat.”

  Her first misgivings on learning where Bart had brought them died away as they approached the great monastery-palace. Whatever it had been in the past, it was now one of the show places of Spain.

  “They call this the Patio de los Reyes,” Bart told her as they walked across a sunlit patio that was flanked by shady cloisters and, high up, set with the statues of dead kings.

  There were endless galleries inside, and here the gloomy appearance of the outside disappeared and the grey granite walls were embellished with some of the world’s finest canvases.

  “Goya,” Bart said, pointing to one of them. “That’s a Tintoretto over there ... El Greco ... Zurbaran,” name after name, some of the most famous names in the world of art.

  Aileen gave him a curious glance, somehow never having associated him with an appreciation of art.

  “You must have quite a liking for this sort of thing.”

  “I guess I have,” he admitted with a nod. “I have a small collection of my own back home.”

  They went on, looking at one fabulous treasure after another ... incredible tapestries, sculptures, altar frontals ... manuscripts so valuable no price could be put on them ... needlework, porcelain, clocks. There was a vast library that contained a copy of every book published in Spain ... and a wonderful porphyry mausoleum where the bodies of Spanish kings lay. Last of all they visited the strangely frightening chamber where Philip II had died in 1598. Somehow, in spite of the priceless treasures contained within its walls, Aileen could not help feeling an instinctive kind of relief as they came out into the sunlight again, because in spite of the fact that later kings of Spain had not shared Philip’s forbidding outlook on life there was something forbidding about the building which the later embellishments could not take away.

  From El Escorial they took a road northward into the mountain slopes of the Lower Guadarramas, a lovely mountain range where there were good ski runs in winter.

  “Used to be bears there not so very long ago,” he told her. “There are wolves and foxes around even today.”

  “Really?”

  She looked so startled that he grinned again. “Don’t worry. We’re not going off the beaten track ... and only to the foothills in any case.”

  About seven miles from El Escorial they crossed the northwest road that ran from Madrid to the Biscay coast and went on, climbing steeply along a winding road, with the air becoming noticeably cooler.

  They stopped at the top of a fairly high hill and Bart drove the car off on to a grassy verge. The view was magnificent, down into a long valley that swept off into misty distance, the thin line of a road connecting half a dozen villages, with here and there larger houses, probably belonging to estate owners, or maybe even hotels.

  “Like it?”

  “It’s magnificent.” She turned back to him, smiling slightly. “For a non-resident of the country, you seem to know quite a bit about it.”

  He shook his head. “Not much really ... but I’ve been out here on a few other occasions and you tend to remember some things more than others.”

  Whatever direction the conversation might have taken then, it was summarily interrupted by Peter, who had apparently decided that before they got too engrossed in discussions on the scenery it was time to inform them that he was hungry.

  The picnic lunch that Bart had had packed by the hotel where he was staying was the sort to tempt even a laggard appetite, and they were all healthily hungry by then. The drinks in vacuum flasks were deliciously cool, and after their lunch they lounged back against the thick boles of trees that hung a cooling canopy of leaves above them, but on the journey back she began to remember the fact that she had first promised to go to the Escorial with Duarte, and even though she once again told herself that it could not matter to Duarte, there was still a fear that it might somehow spoil the new friendship that was growing up between them. It was precious to her, all that she could ever have from him, and she did not want to lose it.

  Duarte was not in when they returned home, but Dona Teresa listened smilingly to Peter’s excited account of where they had been. By some whim of fate he happened to remember the name of El Escorial perfectly.

  Dona Teresa nodded approvingly at Bart, who had come in to take coffee with them.

  “A good choice. It is a gloomy and forbidding building, but its contents are well worth seeing.” She smiled her roguish little smile. “I remember that once I memorised certain statistics.” Her head went on one side as if she was trying to remember. “Three hundred rooms and two thousand seven hundred and sixty-three windows, twelve thousand doors, eighty-six staircases and eighty-eight fountains.” She laughed softly. “It was a whim that took me as a child. Dona Luana was most annoyed when I would recite like a guide book ... and also all the numbers of the interior courts and cloisters ... the chapels and holy relics.” For a moment she seemed lost in the past, then she turned to them again. “And where did you go after that? The road to the Lower Guadarramas is most attractive.”

  “That’s just where we did go,” Aileen told her.

  “Ah, it seems you have a most excellent guide.”

  After Bart had gone, Dona Teresa was still talking about the Escorial Palace when Duarte came in. He had apparently caught something of what they said, but not everything, because he smiled and shook his head.

  “Do not let talk of the forbidding exterior of El Escorial turn you away from a desire to see it. Some of its art treasures are unequalled anywhere else in the world.” He smiled at Dona Teresa. “I have said that I will take Aileen out there very soon.”

  Aileen’s heart gave a little jump at his use of her Christian name, but at the same time she felt herself tense.

  “Then ... what is that slang saying - you have been beaten to it,” Dona Teresa said with her impish smile. “Senor Renfrew took her there this morning.”

  Aileen shot a quick glance at him, but his expression did not seem to have changed.

  “I didn’t know he was taking me there until we actually arrived,” she explained quickly.

  He smiled again, but she thought she detected just a hint of disbelief in her explanation, something more felt than actually seen, perhaps because, remembering their former conversatio
n, she did not expect him to believe her.

  “There is no need to explain,” he said evenly. “You are quite at liberty to choose with whom you do your sightseeing.” He turned to Dona Teresa. “I go down to the Castillo tomorrow morning. There are things there that necessitate my attention. I shall be away perhaps two days.”

  The conversation then concerned details of his departure and the journey. Nothing more was said about Bart taking her to El Escorial, and after a while Aileen made some excuse and took Peter out of the room with her.

  It was not until the next morning that she saw Duarte alone, and that was on the way out to his car. She was crossing the main front vestibule at the same moment that he came into it.

  She paused. “Senor...”

  He turned, his attitude courteously enquiring. “There is something I can do for you?”

  “No ... it’s about yesterday ...”

  He smiled pleasantly, yet the smile was remote and almost indifferent. “You must not worry about it. I told you before that you are quite at liberty to choose your own companion for sightseeing.”

  “But I didn’t mean to...”

  He cut her off with a quickly upheld hand, still perfectly polite and courteous, but also still with that trace of remote indifference.

  “There is no need to prevaricate. I also told you before that I would understand if you preferred Renfrew to take you.” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have a long drive. I wish to start early, before it gets too hot,” and with a little inclination of his dark head he was gone, and Aileen was standing there wondering why fate had chosen to inflict such a love on her. Life was far simpler when one disliked a person with as disturbing a personality as Duarte Adriano.

  After that, even though Duarte returned in the two days he had stated and was always perfectly courteous and thoughtful when they met, it was Bart who always took her anywhere when she wanted to do any exploring. It was Bart who took her to visit the famous shop of Mariquita Perez, that fabulous store of dolls’ dresses, where everything that human beings wore was copied in miniature, even to a complete matador’s outfit. It was Bart who took her out to picturesque little towns and villages, and it was Bart who took her to the Prado, Madrid’s wonderful art gallery. One of the first pictures they saw in the vestibule, after they had passed through the turnstiles, was a painting of the Defence of Cadiz against the English.

  Bart grinned slightly, nodding towards the picture. “Those two certainly knocked each other around in the past.”

  “I don’t know quite how to take that,” she said with an answering smile. “I’m of English descent.”

  Yet of all the wonderful paintings in the Prado, there was one which stood out in her memory more than the others - Velasquez’ Las Meninas, depicting the Infanta Margarita playing with the ladies of the court and the dwarfs, her governess watching them and a dog lying contentedly in the foreground. At the left of the picture was Velasquez himself painting the king and queen, who were visible reflected in a mirror. It was so vividly real that it seemed almost possible that they might move or that you could step into the room with them. To increase the amazing sense of realism a mirror had apparently been provided at the opposite corner of the room, and when viewed in reflection the effect was almost third-dimensional.

  Afterwards they stood at a tabema counter and had vino conriente with champinones, tiny mushrooms cooked in gravy and served in little dishes with a fork.

  “The idea is to fork up the mushrooms and catch the drips of gravy with a piece of bread before they go all over you,” Bart informed her, and laughed at her efforts, which although somewhat desperate on occasion succeeded in saving her from a bath in gravy.

  In a way Bart was a good antidote to Duarte. She could be at ease with him, knowing there was nothing serious in his friendship. It therefore came as even more of a shock to her when he suddenly proposed to her, stopping the car one afternoon on a quiet hillside.

  Aileen could not comprehend for a moment what he had said, but it eventually did sink in, and she could not stop an expression of dismay crossing her face.

  “Bart, you’re not serious?”

  His face crinkled up in a rueful grin. “That’s the trouble with my kind of guy. Nobody expects you to be serious.”

  “But...” She shook her head, hardly knowing what to say. That Bart - Bart of all people - should suddenly ask her to marry him, when she had thought all along that there was nothing but an easy friendship between them.

  The expression on his face grew more wry. “That look doesn’t exactly make me feel hopeful. You hadn’t even thought about it, had you?”

  “You seemed ... I mean ...” She did not know what she did mean, so she broke off once again, looking at him worriedly.

  This time he smiled, leaning across to kiss her lightly. “Don’t look so worried, honey. It’s out now ... so maybe you’ll think about it.”

  “Bart... I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I guess I just suddenly made up my mind that this big brother attitude wasn’t getting me anywhere. Just so long as you don’t get the idea of putting me out of your life now.”

  “But, Bart, it wouldn’t be any good...”

  He cut her off this time. “Maybe I’m egotistical enough to hope you’ll come around to my way of thinking now you know how I feel about you - just so long as there isn’t anyone else.” He paused, watching her closely. “There isn’t, is there?”

  “No, of course not. Who could there be?”

  But this was a new Bart, one who was almost a stranger to her, and something in her voice must have given her away. He whistled softly.

  “So there is someone else.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s Duarte, isn’t it?”

  Aileen bit her lip, looking away from him, trying to control her voice enough to be able to shrug and dismiss the matter.

  “He’s the last person I’d fall in love with. I told you before, I don’t even like him very much.”

  “But you were shaken up because I’d taken you to the Escorial Palace instead of him.”

  “That was just because there had been a certain amount of ... of misunderstanding between us previously,” she said carefully.

  Bart turned her gently to face him. “It doesn’t ring true, honey. When you’re in love yourself you get a sort of instinct about people, you know.” He shook his head. “You’ve sure bitten off a hunk of trouble there.”

  Aileen gave a little shrug, more or less admitting the truth of what he said.

  “I know it can’t ever come to anything.” She turned to him suddenly. “Oh, Bart, I’m sorry it happened to you this way too. I... I know how much it can hurt.”

  Bart shook his head again, but smiling slightly this time. “These things just happen, honey. None of us can control them. Maybe though I don’t feel so bad about it now I know that it’s Duarte.”

  “Because he’s going to marry Alesandra, you mean?” She gave a bitter little smile. “Even if he wasn’t, it still wouldn’t have worked out. I’m not the type of person he would have fallen in love with.”

  “And he’s not really your type either,” Bart pointed out quietly. “Don’t forget that. Even if things had worked out differently, do you think you could have put up with the Spanish type of marriage?”

  She looked down, gripping her hands together tightly. “When ... when you love anyone I think you would probably put up with anything just to be with the person you love ... like the Italian girl you mentioned before.” She looked up at him and managed a little shrug. “Anyway, nothing like that’s likely to happen, so the question doesn’t arise.”

  He grinned suddenly, his old infectious grin. “You know, I have a feeling you’re going to marry me after all. He’ll announce his engagement soon now, so I’ll wait until then.”

  Aileen shook her head. “It won’t make any difference. It’s something I’ve been... expecting myself for a long time.” She pause
d, and then could not help asking a little curiously, “Would you really take me on the rebound ... knowing I was in love with Duarte?”

  His grin died and his expression became tight-lipped. “I’d take you on any terms. We get on well together, don’t we? Maybe in the end I would be able to make you stop thinking about him.”

  Could anyone ever do that? She did not think they could. Sometimes fate seemed to be almost maliciously blind, with no consideration at all for human beings, throwing love at them and then preventing it ever coming to anything. First there was her own hopeless love for Duarte, and now Bart seemed to have been put in the same position. Much as she liked him she did not think she would turn to him on the rebound when Duarte actually announced his engagement, as Bart seemed to think would happen, as if she was subconsciously waiting for a miracle to happen, and not until then would she give up all hope. There never had been any hope, and she had long ago made herself accept the fact.

  CHAPTER X

  The days drew on, sometimes a little wearily, but always with a pretence that everything was quite happy and normal with her life. She had tried to make Bart understand that she could never make a marriage where she did not love her husband - and especially where she loved someone else-but he still insisted that he would go on hoping. When he telephoned to ask her out again, she tried to refuse, but his insistence wore her down in the end. He seemed to have meant it when he said he would wait until Duarte actually announced his engagement, because he made no other mention of wanting to marry her.