A Cottage in Spain

by Rosalind Brett

  “A frightful muddle, isn’t it?” she said at last. “Sebastian’s whole future rests on the house, because unless he comes to own it his people won’t do anything for him. They regard the place as his, and so it is, really. He’s so family-bound that he’d marry me to get it, even though he’s in love with Carmen.”

  “That probably strikes you as extraordinary,” he remarked drily, “but he wouldn’t find much difficulty in loving you and he’d probably be faithful. Spaniards may be hot-blooded but they’re eminently sane in such matters. I do see your predicament, though.” He thought for a minute, then suggested, “I could see Don Jaime for you.”

  “Sebastian’s father? Could it possibly do any good?”

  “I know him quite well. He supplies most of us along this part of the coast with wine, and I attended one of the sons’ wives when their own doctor was laid up. I’d have to be diplomatic about it, but if you’d like me to do it for you, I certainly will.”

  “Wouldn’t you have to present him with some alternative plan?” she demanded eagerly.

  “Is there one?” His regard was quizzical. “I’m afraid that the fact of Sebastian having failed to wring a promise of marriage out of you will be attributed to a lack in him, not in you. They’ll nag the poor fellow nearly to death and you’ll have a desperate man on your hands!”

  “That’s what I mean. Can’t you sort of ... divert them?”

  “I’ll have to think it over. No hurry for a day or two, is there?”

  “No, except that I promised to speak to Carmen Artino today.”

  “She’ll have heard of your accident,” he said. “See her tomorrow and tell her you’ve enlisted my assistance, but insist that she keeps absolutely quiet about it. We’ll see how things develop.”

  “You’re a dear,” she said impulsively, “and the very first person I’ve been able to speak to freely in this country.” His smile was companionable. “Well, I’m always here, only four miles away. In any case, I shall be calling on you before the end of this week and I’ll try to see Don Jaime before then. We’ll have another little discussion.”

  While she was speaking to him, her hand had gone up to the arm of his chair, and stayed there. Now, he took it between both of his and gave her that rather tired but wholly friendly smile. And in that moment Linda became aware that Philip had come through her room and stood behind them.

  Dr. Reeves gave her hand a final pat and leaned back, looking up at Philip with unconcern. “You’re early,” he said.

  “It’s Sunday, after all,” Philip commented a trifle coolly, “I imagined Linda would still be in bed.”

  His sudden presence did not make her happy; somehow it rasped. She said offhandedly, “I’m as well as you are, and perhaps even more rested, if you spent last night the way you spent the night before.”

  “I didn’t,” he answered crisply, coming round to lean against the veranda post. “How’s the foot?”

  “So-so. I can limp around ah right.”

  “I asked Maxine for your espadrilles.” He nodded at the bedroom. “We’ll get them on you, and go.”

  Hugh Reeves stood up. “Why don’t both of you have lunch with me, at my house?”

  “Thanks,” said Philip, “but it’s ordered at mine.”

  The doctor was not put out. “I’ll leave Miss Braden with you, then. She doesn’t have to be especially careful. Goodbye to you both.”

  Dr. Reeves had scarcely disappeared when Philip slipped a strong hand under her arm. She wanted to protest, she wanted to get angry with him, but there was that about him which told her it would be useless to fall back on her emotions. In the room he put on the espadrilles and tied the cords about her ankles, methodically picked up her handbag and jacket, took a comprehensive glance to see if anything else of hers might be visible, and again slid a hand under her arm.

  “I wanted to thank the nurse,” she said weakly.

  “I thanked her myself, last night. In a day or two I’ll send her a small gift.”

  “If you do it, it isn’t the same. Someone washed my frock and put several things I might need on the locker.”

  “I ordered those things to be done. Don’t worry,” with a sardonic grimness, “Hugh Reeves doesn’t run this place at a loss. The extras will go on the bill.”

  She almost dragged away from him. “That’s a hateful thing to say. He even spared time to listen to my troubles this morning.”

  His grasp became firmer. “Did he, now,” he said drily. “I expect he found you a change from bleary artists and goodtime women. What’s he going to do about your troubles?”

  “You annoy me,” she said abruptly. “Let’s go.”

  She wasn’t only angry with Philip. She was angry with herself for having to walk so slowly, and for her own unwisdom in telling him that she had unburdened to Dr. Reeves. He was so difficult that he would resent that simply because she hardly knew the doctor. Yet she felt as if she knew Hugh Reeves very well, considerably better than she knew Philip Frensham. The difference was, of course, that Dr. Reeves was normally receptive, whereas Philip was obviously friendly against his will.

  It hadn’t seemed that way yesterday, when they had set out for Valdez, her heart told her a little bleakly. There had been a delicate bond between them, and it had been a toss-up whether the tenuous thread would hold. As it happened, it had snapped, cleanly and brutally, and she was left with an unbearable sense of failure. Which was ludicrous, when one considered that Philip had no idea of what was going on within her.

  He drove fairly fast, and as they neared recognizable landmarks an uneasiness settled upon her. In the nursing home, even for those few hours, she had been cut off from Sebastian and Carmen, from the cottage she could not give away ... and from Maxine. She saw the vivid green bowl of the valley with Montelisa on its rim, the blue gossamer mountains, the mist of pink and white flowers in her own garden, and beautiful as they all were, she knew suddenly that from every angle her visit to Spain had been a defeat, Yet such was her conscience that she knew she could not leave till order was manipulated from chaos.

  Philip turned the car into his own drive and pulled up as close to the porch as he could. He had hardly spoken since leaving the nursing home, and now he gave her that look which was both mocking and intolerant, and asked,

  “Does it seem a long time since I brought you here last night?”

  “It does, rather. Philip, I don’t want to make you angry, but...”

  “Let it remain unsaid, then,” he advised. “I promise you it wouldn’t take much.”

  “But why?” she was foolish enough to ask. “If you felt angry before you set out for me this morning, why didn’t you get Sebastian to collect me?”

  “Every time you speak,” he said, his teeth tight with exasperation, “you go one better ... or worse.” He thrust open his door and looked back at her. “Some time, before you make too big an idiot of yourself, you and I are going to have a talk. You won’t enjoy it, and neither shall I, but it’s bound to come. And don’t try to leap out of the car, or they’ll have to put more of you in plaster!”

  Maxine’s head appeared framed in the open half of the stable door. The whitish hair was tied with a scarlet ribbon, and she wore one of those rakish, expensive frocks in yellow sackcloth girdled by a gilt chain. She greeted Linda with extended hands.

  “We’ve been so worried about you, Philip and I. It was awfully naughty of you to hurt your foot like that, Linda, and give us a scare, and we decided over breakfast this morning not to allow you so much freedom. My dear, anything might have happened to you when you got parted from Philip yesterday, and what on earth would I have told your father?”

  Linda did not have to reply to this. Seeing that Maxine was never likely to see Mr. Braden again the final query was superfluous; and she had grasped, as Maxine had intended, at more significant words: “We decided over breakfast this morning...”

  Had Maxine come here, or Philip gone to the cottage? Linda wouldn’t ask, ever. Sh
e ate lunch almost in silence and when she was allowed to go home she took Philip’s arm obediently. When at last she was alone she knew that Maxine was at the house next door, with Philip. Perhaps they were using the Garnett-Smiths’ tennis court. Maxine was one of those women who do everything well, so she was no doubt excellent with a tennis racket. Oh, well, Linda thought hollowly and with resignation; good luck to them.

  * * *

  Sebastian made a fuss about the foot. He brought flowers and boxes of chocolates and he sat on a stool beside Linda and spoke very quickly about all the happenings in the village. He had planned to take her to the fiesta on Thursday, but now, naturally, she would not wish to mingle with crowds. But they could watch the procession from a balcony in the plaza, though for that it would be necessary to invite others. It was not discreet to be seen alone unless there was an engagement.

  Linda had seen Carmen Artino and told her that Dr. Reeves was hoping to persuade Don Jaime that Sebastian should be allowed to marry for love. Carefully she probed Sebastian, to find out whether the doctor had yet called upon his father, but up to Wednesday afternoon it seemed he hadn’t. Linda knew there was very little she herself could do, yet she was impatient for news from the doctor. Even though she had only reading or mending to fill them, the days were passing with incredible swiftness, and the end of the month was barely two weeks away. She had never felt so restless and impotent in her life.

  Maxine was behaving impeccably. True, they were only alone together for an occasional meal, for Maxine often contrived to be elsewhere when Anna was ready to serve; but the other woman’s demeanor was quieter and more friendly than Linda could ever have believed possible. She felt she could be forgiven for distrusting it.

  She read a great deal without taking it in, ate Anna’s concoctions, smoked a cigarette now and then, and even concentrated on Aunt Natalie’s unfinished petit-point for an hour or two. A letter came from her father, one of his usual benign epistles in which Maxine hardly figured; though he did mention how pleased he was that Linda could now be spared for a prolonged stay in Spain. The shop was going fine, John was keeping the accounts up to date, and if Linda wished to extend her holiday still further it would be quite convenient. In fact, Miss Woodham’s young sister was shaping so well that Mr. Braden jestingly suggested he might have to take Linda as a partner when she came back, and enlarge the business!

  She folded the letter and smiled palely to herself. John must have kept the telegram to himself. She didn’t blame him; it was what she would have done, in similar circumstances. But she did wish there had been a letter from him, if only something brief and conventional. It might have revealed in some degree how he was feeling. When she allowed herself to dwell upon his anguish she went cold.

  She saw dimly that Maxine was happy because she was so sure of herself. And with every day she was becoming surer. Somehow, she had got round the Spanish authorities, and now she had a hired car in which she could run into Barcelona for the morning. She had got to know an English couple who enjoyed night life, so it was not uncommon for her to spend an evening in the town as well. And between times she would pay much attention to her beauty and read the fashion magazines of which she never tired. If she was in the cottage long enough to get bored, she would wander next door.

  Linda noticed that with Philip, Maxine was smiling and careful. If he came in for ten minutes she was solicitous about Linda’s foot.

  “Always put it up when you rest, darling. The bruises aren’t quite gone, and it would be too ghastly if someone accidentally knocked it.”

  Sometimes Philip’s eyes narrowed just slightly when he watched Maxine; not as they did when he was vexed with Linda, but with a small sort of interest. With a wide, candid look in her green eyes Maxine would ask how his work was going.

  “Fine,” he would answer non-committally;

  “I’m so glad,” she invariably told him simply. “You’ve given me an enthusiasm for something I’d hardly heard about before.”

  With Maxine, he was always charming. Since Sunday, he had spared little time for the social graces, but when he did, Maxine always seemed to meet him in the garden, and they would come together into the house, smiling as if at a shared pleasantry.

  “All right?” he would ask Linda, briefly.

  “Fine, thanks,” she would return.

  After that he would mention the weather, which had turned showery, discuss some item of news in the paper or ask how Maxine’s car was running, while he took, down a drink. The drink finished he would murmur, “So long,” to Linda, and Maxine would go out with him. Not that Linda was incapable of walking outside; accompanying him to the gate had merely become Maxine’s prerogative.

  The change in Linda’s attitude towards Montelisa was strange. The mornings were no longer full of intoxication with the rain-washed scents of the flowers, the salty tang of the sea, the golden sunshine, the pale glare of the beach. Nor was there any magic in the velvet evenings. Sebastian drove her down into the village, and during a slow walk round the plaza she saw that the painting of Montelisa which she had so much admired and almost decided to buy had gone from the window of the art shop. All the other pictures were there, but on the easel which had held the one she had wanted a portrait of an embroideress now stood. Which meant, of course, that her picture had been sold. But she didn’t much care.

  In the middle of Thursday morning, Dr. Reeves paid his visit to the cottage. Maxine was there, and he looked at her with the startlement of a man who hadn’t been prepared for the shock of her beauty. But to Maxine a doctor was merely a necessary evil—or rather, an unnecessary one, in this instance.

  “Linda walks almost normally,” she told him coolly.”

  “Are you sure that plaster casing on her toe is necessary?”

  Hugh Reeves sat on the stool and took Linda’s foot upon his knee. Without looking up he answered, “If you had a fractured toe-bone you’d like to be sure it would knit together securely, wouldn’t you?”

  In that moment she seemed to recognize in him an antagonist; she put on her sharp smile. “Why do you practise on the Costa Brava, Dr. Reeves?”

  He was fingering the discolored skin of the foot, so that his head was bent when he replied, “I like the Costa Brava.”

  “Isn’t it rather odd for an Englishman to practise in a foreign country?”

  He raised his head. “I’ve done my share of gruelling work.” Then he added the unforgivable: “You could do with a year or two of nursing the sick, Miss Odell. It might take your mind off those amazing good looks of yours.” The clash of personalities had happened so suddenly that Linda was stunned. Hugh Reeves, however, gave her a professional smile which ignored Maxine’s sudden tense anger.

  “The foot is grand,” he said, “because you’re young and heal quickly. There’s nothing more I can do to it. By the way, I did that errand you commissioned me with. Where can we talk about it?”

  Maxine didn’t say a word; she just moved at her usual glide from the room. Linda shrugged apologetically.

  “I’m sorry she spoke to you like that,” she said. “Maxine is so accustomed to saying exactly what she thinks.”

  “I gathered that,” he remarked with irony. “Did you say she was a friend of yours?”

  “You mustn’t mind Maxine.”

  “I don’t, for myself. But I wouldn’t trust her with much of my friendship, if I were you. I’d say she hasn’t much feeling for anyone but herself.” He pondered a moment, as if questioning the wisdom of what he was about to say. “They’re gossiping about her and Philip Frensham up the coast. Is there anything in it?”

  Linda chilled. “I ... don’t know. They seem to get on fairly well together.”

  “That’s significant. Philip doesn’t often bother with women.”

  She didn’t want to put another question, but she had to: “Do you think he’s capable of falling in love, and marrying?”

  “My dear girl,” he said, his smile pleasant and almost affectionate, �
��any man is capable of it. Philip is a harder case than most of us, because as far as I know he’s never had a single yearning towards any particular woman. But I say that’s an indication he’d fall all the harder if he did weaken.”

  She persisted with the self-torment. “Would you call Maxine his type?”

  His shoulders lifted. “What is it that first attracts a man to a woman? Something intangible, I think. She doesn’t have to be a classic beauty, like your friend, but if she is, it helps. In my case it was a peculiar little nose plus a quiet deftness. I was once in love, you know, Linda.”

  “Were you?” Looking at him, she sensed a tragedy, lived down. He now had an expression that was half-amused, half-weary.

  “She was a nurse, in Burma. She was right under my nose for so long that I hardly knew how I felt about her till she asked to be transferred. I told her I couldn’t do without her, but before I enlarged upon it and made a fool of myself, she said the transfer would bring her close enough to her fiancé for them to get married. Needless to say, I found no further obstacle.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Linda, distressed. “Why couldn’t you pick on someone who was free! You ought to be married, you know.”

  His tone was philosophical. “Yes, I do know it. But when you’ve had one bump you go warily. Now, about your young Spaniard and his Carmen. I’ve seen Don Jaime this morning, and it doesn’t look as if we’ll get much help from him. He has your aunt’s will off by heart and he deals very much in facts. If you return to England this house will be sold one year from the date of the Senora’s death, and the money used for educating the Montelisanos in English. All very stupid, but there it is.”

  “But surely he doesn’t think I’d marry his son to avoid that?”

  “He would, if you were Spanish. The English, he told me this morning, are incomprehensible, but even so he cannot imagine that a young Englishwoman would give up a house and furniture worth about five thousand pounds simply because the condition of keeping it is marriage with a handsome young Spaniard.”