“Don’t worry about me,” said Linda. “I don’t know enough Spanish to risk going far from the beaten track. It’s been grand seeing you, Miss Dean, and the two days have been lovely. Do please thank those people you live with for all they’ve done.” The car was pulling alongside the myrtle hedge. “Don’t get out. I’ve made you late.”
“The chauffeur will take your bag.”
“No, it’s very light. Good-bye, and thanks!”
She stood at the gate and waved the car away. The tightness in her chest had risen to her throat, and she drew in her lips and moistened them. Well, it had to be gone through, and she was nearer being equal to it than she had been two days ago. She wished now that she had ordered a taxi to call within an hour. That would have limited the possibility of unpleasantness and forced her to keep her mind on packing.
She took a deep breath and began walking up the path. Rigidly, she kept her glance averted from the house next door. If he were in, it was unlikely that he would have heard the car; even if he had he would not connect it with Linda, because an occasional vehicle did pass on its way along the coast road. She couldn’t bear another scene with Philip. It hurt, merely to be near him.
She was actually in the porch before she realized how dead the house was. She tried the door, put down her case and stared at the drawn curtains of the sitting-room window; then she walked round the corner of the house to the other window of the same room and found that it, too, wag curtained. Which meant that Anna was no longer in residence. Swiftly, she walked round to Anna’s room, which adjoined the kitchen at the back. The window was shuttered, the door locked.
Linda stood still for a moment, adjusting her thoughts. If Anna had gone, Maxine must also have left. But why should Anna have closed up the house when she had known Linda’s absence would last three days at the most? It was uncanny. Unless she had gone off for the day to a relative in the village. Yes, that must be it.
She opened her bag to find the key she had never yet had to use, and then it came to her, like a sickening blow, that she had never carried the key. It lay in the drawer of the old writing table, in her bedroom.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LINDA put her case against the wall in the patio and sat down in one of the garden chairs beside it. She tried to think and at last gave a little lost shrug. Even if she could find someone who would burst open the door, she had no right to allow such a thing to be done, because the place was as surely Sebastian’s now as it would be in a year’s time. Sebastian himself? Wouldn’t it be simpler to find Anna? Surely Maria Gonzalez would know where she was, or she might even have left the key with Maria. But the Gonzalez lived in the summer house in the forbidden garden.
As a woman will when she finds herself locked out, Linda paced all around the house, staring at every window for the chance that one might be open, even a little. But Anna had done her job thoroughly. No doubt with the object of preserving the furniture of her beloved old senora, she had left no crack anywhere.
Linda was at the front door again when a car braked out on the road. She looked towards the gate and her heart froze. Philip came up the path with long strides. For a nerveless moment Linda’s eyes were raised to his and she ached with a painful intensity to hear his voice. When he did speak the words were cold and quiet, icy fingers squeezing her heart.
“So you’re back,” he said. “I could have saved myself the run to Valencia.”
“Valencia! You ... you’ve been there?”
“Forget it,” he said brusquely. “Explanations would be anti-climax. Can’t you get indoors?”
“I thought Anna would be here,” she told him thinly. “Philip, if you’ve been put to trouble...”
He swung round on her furiously. “Be quiet,” he bit out, “I’ve had enough.”
Without a further word he thrust his shoulder hard at the door. At the second push something cracked and at the third the door flew open. She hadn’t found the courage to protest. He moved his shoulder under his jacket as though to ease it, looked down at Linda with eyes as steady and brilliant as set diamonds, and then turned and strode away, towards the gate.
Somehow, she was inside the house standing in the center of the sitting-room and staring at the empty vases and at a cigarette butt red with lipstick which had been callously ground into the carpet; a soiled whisky glass had been flung into the seat of a chair. Valencia, her mind echoed. Why in the world had he gone there? It was such a long way to go without apparent reason. If only Anna were here to clear up a few points!
Linda went to the kitchen and set a kettle of water to boil. She pulled back a curtain and opened the window, put her closed fist to her forehead, as though to knock meaning into the facts that crowded her brain. She ought to go upstairs and find out whether Maxine had left Montelisa for good, but for some reason she was curiously reluctant to face all the implications if it were really so. Whatever had happened here during the past couple of days she, Linda, could not say. She had returned firmly resolved to pack her things and go, and her reason told her to follow this course without delay. It was Philip’s sudden arrival which had shaken her nerve.
Valencia. Why would Philip have gone to Valencia? Had Maxine disappeared without a word? Had he decided she would have followed Linda and driven after her? Why, oh why was there nothing in the house, not even a line on a piece of notepaper, to answer her questions!
The water boiled and she made some tea. When she helped herself to sugar her hand was shaky, and as she lowered herself on to a kitchen chair she let out a tremulous sigh. One thing she was sure of. The happenings of the past day or two had stirred Philip from his contempt of Linda; now he hated her.
She drank some of the tea but it was tasteless, so she went outside and emptied the teapot, washed her cup and put everything away in its proper place, after which she closed the window and pulled the curtain. She was hardly aware of the finality of her actions.
She went upstairs and paused in the open doorway of the room which had been Maxine’s. Without going to the wardrobe she knew Maxine would not be back. Her crystal jars and perfume bottles, the gold-backed brush and mirror were gone. Scraps of string and tissue paper littered the floor, and the bed-cover, the embroidered one which Linda had taken such pains to procure in place of the old faded one, was crumpled as if cases had lain upon it while being packed. Linda knew she must tidy the room, but she couldn’t do it now. She was spent.
She moved to the corridor window above the garden and gazed pensively at the blue Mediterranean which was creaming whitely along the shore. She hadn’t taken a single snapshot, and she was glad. She would give away the mementoes she had bought; get rid of them before she left the country. Well, to the packing.
It was some trouble to push open her bedroom door, chiefly because the skirt of her dressing-gown seemed to have been caught between door and jamb, but when at last she had pushed it wide, she stood, transfixed. Never, in her wildest flights of imagination, had she conjured a scene like this. The whole room was a shambles.
The wardrobe gaped, empty. Every one of her frocks had been ripped up and tossed aside; the white nylon was a mass of floss, the cottons were rags, the silks and her linen suit unrecognizable on the floor. Drawers had been dragged from the chest and emptied of underwear, which was now a jungle of pastel-colored shreds in the center of the bed. Nylon, stockings were neatly hacked in halves, a jacket had its sleeves cut away and a jagged hole in the back, and the long tweed coat and her rainproof had received similar drastic treatment. There was not a whole article of clothing anywhere, not even one worth repairing. A large pair of scissors and a thin-bladed carving knife lay on a stool.
Linda had been clutching at the door handle, trying to absorb the full horror of the mess. At last, however, she came further into the room, bracing herself for whatever else she might find. And there it was, on the floor and on the chair near the dressing table. Pearls wrenched from their clasp and scattered, the delicate little diamond bow which John had giv
en her for her twenty-first birthday madly twisted, the zircon earrings prised from their clips; the whole smothered crazily with face powder.
She was cold and white to the lips as she looked about her. The destruction was so ugly, so primitive and meaningless. There was an insane cruelty in the devastation, it was a frank and brutal laying waste. It seemed to Linda that her possessions had taken a beating which had been meant for herself. She turned towards the bed and then saw the thing that snapped the unbearable tension. Beside the rag and just beyond the edge of the hanging bed-cover lay the cameo brooch which had been her mother’s. It was smashed, ground into the floorboards by one of her own walking shoes, which had a jagged incision over the toecap.
Linda slid down beside the bed and pressed her face into the cover.
* * *
Maria Gonzalez had some difficulty in locating Anna. It was only after she had tried the houses of several of their mutual friends that it occurred to her that Anna might have gone home, piqued, to the tiny abode dwelling she had once shared with a husband. This was some way out of the village and Maria had had to borrow a donkey cart. But Anna was there, stimulating her grievances with coffee and cognac.
“Who would have thought,” she grumbled bitterly, “that Don Sebastian would be so haughty! I go to him and say that this senorita of the white hair has bidden me to leave the villa, and all he can do is shrug and say it is not his business. He is not the same man, I tell you. Yet I myself saw him embrace the young senorita...”
Maria broke in scolding. “Hold your tongue, foolish one. My master, Senior Frensham, comes back from Valencia very angry. He calls me. ‘Maria’, he says, ‘find Anna and tell her Miss Braden is back and needs her. Do it at once!’ And here have I been searching for you throughout the town, and you half-dressed and drinking so much cognac that you talk nonsense. Come! On with your skirt!”
Anna half obeyed; that is to say, she trod into her skirt but did not pull it up over her petticoats. “Did the Englishman bring the young senorita back from Valencia?”
“Who knows? All I know is that they are both there.”
“I should tell Don Sebastian.”
“Tell no one. You must come!”
Maria had her way, and a few minutes later the two old women sat in the donkey cart, their shawls draped decently over their heads, while the donkeys took their time about pulling them up the coast road to the two villas which outwardly were so much alike,
Anna got down ponderously on to the path. “The old senora was not like these English,” she said scornfully. “She thought and behaved as we do, always.”
“But these are young,” Maria pointed out soothingly, “and it seems the Senior Frensham would not have had you leave the house so that the young mistress comes back to find it empty and locked. I have never seen him before as he was today.”
“Full of fury, eh?” A gleam of curiosity illumined Anna’s disgruntled expression. “What did he do?”
Maria gave a prodigious shrug. “Oh, he did not shout or swear; that is not his way. But you know the cracking of ice on the mountain before an avalanche? It was as if he could not trust himself!”
Anna rubbed her hands at this. There was nothing she relished more than an emotional storm where it was least expected. The pity of it was, the Englishman would doubtless see to it that the storm did not break. Tomorrow he was likely to be as cool and charming as a caballero.
She waved a vague hand at Maria and, from habit, walked round to the back of the house and let herself in. In the kitchen she looked about her and detected, with the housewife’s perceptiveness, that the tea towel had been used. O-ai! The young mistress had had to make her own lunch.
Quietly, she went first into the dining-room and then into the sitting-room. The house appeared to be as dark and dead as when she had left it. Was the senorita resting? Should one take to her some tea, or find out first whether it was needed?
The sight of the scarlet-tipped cigarette butt pressed into the Aubusson carpet inflamed Anna. The young senorita would never have done such a thing! She was sweet and gentle, and she had respect for the aunt’s house and furniture. That other one...
Anna scraped up the offending cigarette and worked vigorously for a minute on the stain it had left. Then she straightened and listened, and for the first time it came to her that the silence and the darkness had a strange, almost sinister quality. She didn’t like it, but neither did she dare to run away from the house. She must look into each room first.
At the top of the staircase she saw that the corridor window let in light. Someone had drawn back the curtains, which was cheering, even though it was beginning to rain. She turned towards the bedroom of the young senorita, saw the door was wide, and that...
“Dios,” she muttered hoarsely, and moved forward warily.
At first Linda was not visible. The chaos brought the old brown eyes starting from Anna’s head, and as she edged along like one under a spell, she let out a stream of unintelligible invective under her breath. Then she saw Linda, crouched on the floor against the bed, and the remains of her ill-temper vanished.
“Cara mia,” came her scandalized whisper. “What has been done to you?”
The face Linda turned to her was ashen, the eyes dry and weary. She spoke with difficulty. “I came to get my things but there’s nothing to ... to pack. Don’t worry, Anna I’ll get over it.”
The servant had her strong hands under Linda’s arms. “Come, senorita. Let us go downstairs and plan what we shall do about this. You cannot leave now, without clothes.”
Stiffly, Linda got to her feet. “Yes, I can. This doesn’t make any difference. Have you your house key, Anna?”
The white misery in her face brought quick tears to the old woman’s eyes. “Senorita, I beg you to come downstairs and have tea. I will call Don Sebastian and he will arrange everything.”
“Have you the key?” Linda repeated, her voice stronger.
“Yes, I have it.”
“Good. I want you to get rid of this mess, Anna. Carry it into the garden and burn it, and afterwards make the house as fresh and inviting as it was when I first came. When it’s ready, give the key to Sebastian. Tell him I’ll ... write to him.”
“But you cannot do this! Such wickedness,” her hand was flung out to indicate the ruin, “cannot go unpunished.” Suddenly, she whipped up the knife from the stool. “I would kill anyone who did such a thing to my poor skirts and slippers!”
Linda glanced fleetingly at the smashed cameo brooch. “All I want is to get away.”
Unsteadily, she walked out of the room and down the stairs, with Anna panting along behind. In the sitting-room she took up her bag from the table and looked into it. Yes, her passport was there, and enough money to get her home. Fortunately, she thought exhaustedly, she had chosen her travelling suit for the two days with Miss Dean. If she bought another blouse it would carry her through.
“You cannot go yet,” Anna was pleading. “You are not fit to travel alone.”
“I shall be all right.” Linda paused. “You’ll do as I’ve asked, Anna?”
“Of course. But, senorita...”
“Bum that stuff at once, and don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen. Not even Maria. Remember, we don’t really know who did it.”
Anna glinted venomously, as though she had a pretty shrewd idea, but she was distracted and not in the habit of thinking quickly. She nodded mournfully. “It is raining. You cannot go, senorita.”
But what was rain when one’s world had finally tumbled? She had to escape, not so much from this house as from the house next door.
“Good-bye, Anna,” she said quickly, and went out.
She took up her case from the patio, noticed without caring that the blue sky of a couple of hours earlier had turned grey and that a drizzle was falling, and stepped out with resolution. She didn’t look back at the cottage.
On the way down into the town she saw only an occasional barefoot boy. The Montelisanos di
d not possess waterproofs; when it rained they took the simple precaution of remaining indoors. The village itself was wet and grey and some of the shopkeepers must have smelled the coming rain for they had not reopened after siesta. But the cafe, towards which Linda had automatically turned, was not only open but fairly full, chiefly of youngish men who had no taste for home when most of the family were there.
In other circumstances, Linda would have been relieved to see that these young men were intent upon their card and dice games. This afternoon, however, she was oblivious of them. She sat at a side table.
“Senorita?” enquired the waiter, politely.
“When the proprietor is free I wish to speak to him,” she said.
When this was understood the waiter went away, and soon his employer gave his plump bow at Linda’s side.
“You wish something, senorita?”
“I must go to Barcelona,” she said. “Do you know anyone who would drive me there?”
He looked about him, shrugging. “These boys have no cars, but perhaps one of them would be able to help you.”
“Please ask them.”
He went away and she kept her head lowered, so that she should not meet the inquisitive glances. Some of them knew her, of course, because everyone knew Sebastian and in the gossip of Montelisa she was linked with him. Well, tomorrow they would talk, and the next day she would be forgotten.
She pressed a shaking hand over her eyes. What a good thing it was raining. With a varnishing of wet over the cobbles and the shopfronts black, Montelisa was drab and unattractive. Always she would strive to remember it this way—cold and hostile.
She wished the proprietor would hurry, that one of the men at the tables would exclaim his willingness to conduct her to Barcelona. But they were all aware that the de Meriagas owned an opulent, if aged, limousine; they also conjectured, probably, that she wished, to escape without saying good-bye to Sebastian. Possibly they were wondering whether it were wise to offer help, against a friend.
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