A Cottage in Spain

by Rosalind Brett

  Her eyes were closed under her hand, but when someone touched her fingers she knew it was not the proprietor; only one pair of hands had that magnetism for Linda. She shivered, and sat back as casually as she could.

  “Come with me,” said Philip, in thick, quiet tones.

  She tried to look at him and couldn’t, swallowed on the harsh dryness in her throat and found her breathing was difficult. The cafe proprietor steamed up, smiling.

  “Ah, Senor Frensham! You are here just when the senorita is in need of a car, to take her to Barcelona. You will take care of the senorita, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Philip, but he sounded remote and grim.

  Linda could not fight, even had she had the courage to carry on whispered warfare in this place. Philip was holding her case and gripping her arm as she stood. Weak at the knees, she went with him to the car. He started up at once, and as he took the familiar road it seemed that she would never be able to put pain behind her. She sat staring blindly at the murky scene.

  At last, just before they reached his villa, he spoke. “I saw your bedroom,” he said.

  “Did you?” she managed. “I told Anna to keep quiet about it.”

  “She was worried and came to find Maria in my kitchen. I heard a clamor out there and investigated. Anna wouldn’t say what had happened, but begged me to go to your room. I thought you must have fallen suddenly sick, so I went there at once. It wasn’t till then that she told me you’d ... cleared out.”

  Something in his demeanor scared Linda. “It was the only thing to do,” she replied almost inaudibly. “I wish you hadn’t brought me back here. It would have been much kinder to drive me to a hotel in Barcelona.”

  “I don’t feel kind,” he said, treading hard on the brake. “I feel bitter—bitter as hell.”

  It was not the kind of remark to which one could offer a reply. Linda got out with him and went up the path and into his sitting-room. And the first thing she saw, spread on a newspaper on the coffee table, was the scattering of fragments of bone and jagged pieces of clay that had once formed a beautiful Arabian mask.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FOR fully a minute she stood staring down at the heap of tan-pink fragments. Then she turned to him slowly.

  “That was a terrible thing to do,” she whispered. “It was worse than all the rest.”

  “What?” His gaze was dark and narrow. Then: “You mean the skull? I’m afraid I haven’t had time to think about that. Let me take your jacket. I’ll find you something to wear while it’s drying.”

  He saw her seated near a newly-lit fire, and went out. Linda drew tightly into the chair. She ached and was cold. A steel band seemed to be clamped about her head and she felt she would never comprehend anything again. She couldn’t trust this reprieve.

  He came back carrying one of his own pullovers. It was a huge thing with a rolled polo neck, and it slid down over her head like a tent; the sleeves had to be folded back and back, but the garment was warm as a nest. She looked ridiculous, but he didn’t smile.

  “Maria is warming some soup,” he said offhandedly, “You’d better rest till it comes.” He turned as if to walk through the archway into his workroom, and the movement was too much for Linda.

  “Philip!”

  He paused, without looking at her. “Yes?”

  “Why did you come after me?”

  “To bring you back,” he said expressionlessly,

  “I know that. But why?”

  Harshness in his voice, he said, “Men do these stupid things.”

  “Then if you know it was stupid...”

  He swung round towering over her, his eyes leaping. “This may be the devil of a mess, but you’re not running out any more. When you skipped off with the Dean woman I promised myself a first-class showdown, and I don’t mind telling you that as soon as you look as though you can take it, you’re for it!” He stopped suddenly, then said more gently, “I know it was an appalling experience to find every garment you had ripped to ribbons, but it’s not important. Just as the skull isn’t important. It’s what lies at the back of it all that counts. The time has come when you have to be honest with me, Linda.”

  She linked her fingers tightly in her lap. “I want to be, Philip,” she almost whispered. “I’m ... so tied.”

  “Tied? How?”

  “Well, that’s the snag, don’t you see? If I could tell you how, I wouldn’t be tied.”

  He dragged a chair forward suddenly, and sat down on it, so that he could look into her face. He spoke quietly, but crisply. “You made promises to Maxine, didn’t you? First of all there was her engagement to your brother, which she preferred to forget. Arising from that there must have been many other things—but I’m sure you couldn’t have promised her to keep silent in every instance. I’ve got to have the whole picture, Linda. I’ve a right to know!”

  A pulse began to beat very fast in her temple. The light which filtered through the window was grey and unrevealing, but he was near enough for her to see much of his expression, and what she saw set up a tingling in her veins.

  “Will you first tell me why you went to Valencia?” she asked shakily.

  His lower lip went for a second between his teeth. “I was a brute when I came across you on your porch, wasn’t I? Was that the reason you didn’t come to me when you found your things in ruins?”

  “Yes, I suppose it was. But ... I was ashamed of Maxine, too.” More firmly, she reiterated, “Philip, why did you go to Valencia?”

  He paused again. “You won’t understand, but I’ll tell you from the beginning. That morning, when Miss Dean walked in on us in your sitting-room and let out two or three things that you’d been at much pains to conceal, I knew we’d come to the end of something I’d been hating—your evasions and reticences. In a grim way I felt happy about it, and I went out with Maxine for two reasons: I wanted all the information I could get from her, and I was anxious to leave you alone with Miss Dean. I felt she’d help you as no one else could, just then.”

  She tried to sound normal. “Did you quarrel with Maxine?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a quarrel,” he said abruptly. “In order to give you and Miss Dean plenty of time I drove her out into the country. On the way, she gave me a glib explanation of the broken engagement, but my brain had been busy casting back to many things she’d told me before, and nothing she said then rang really true. I’m afraid I was rather outspoken.”

  Linda felt a peculiar, fluttering warmth which she attributed hastily to the outsize sweater. “Did she ... tell you anything about me?”

  “Not until she became really nasty,” he said, his look at her keen and calculating.

  “What was it?” she asked uneasily.

  “If I told you, you’d deny it.”

  “Then you must know it isn’t the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  He stood up, shifted his chair and moved towards the f lamp on the table; but he did not light it. His fingers adjusted the shade and flicked away a dead moth.

  Because she had to end the silence, Linda said, “She never did pass on the invitation to the house in Barcelona—the one you mentioned.”

  “No? Delicious piece of goods, wasn’t she?” Before she could become aware that her heart was accelerating with her pulsebeats, he added, “Why in the world did you take so much from her without retaliating! Where was your spirit?”

  She quivered. “It was for John’s sake. Put yourself in his place. Supposing you’d been deeply in love with a woman who found she didn’t love you. You couldn’t hold it against her, could you?”

  “I certainly could!”

  “But you wouldn’t want her to suffer, because you were suffering.”

  His tones were hard. “Oh, yes, I would; I’d probably make sure she did! All that stuff about true love being the kind that desires only the other’s happiness is pure eyewash. Human nature is a sight more vigorous!”

  “Fortunately, my brother doesn’t have your views, b
ut then he’s not given to violence in his feelings about anything.” With commendable steadiness she queried, “How did it end up between you and Maxine?”

  He pushed his hands into his pockets but still seemed to be inspecting the lamp. “Well, she became angry in a cold, uncaring way, and I suggested that if she didn’t leave Montelisa that day she might regret it. It was all very well-bred and rapier-like. I drove her back to your cottage and discovered at once that you’d gone off with Miss Dean.” His tones deepened and he flashed a glance at her that was like the flick of a whip. “It wouldn’t have taken you long to scribble a note!”

  “I didn’t think of it. All I wanted was to get away.”

  “You told Anna you were going to Valencia.”

  “That was our first decision. On the way to Barcelona in the car Miss Dean suggested our spending a couple of days together in some small resort.”

  “So while I was chasing across country you were only a few miles away!”

  Her lips dry, she asked once more, “But why did you follow?”

  He turned and moved towards the window. “Why does a man usually follow a woman?” he queried non-committally. “I’d got all I could out of Maxine and I’d guessed quite a bit besides. At that time there didn’t seem to be much more to clear up, and at last I felt I could begin to be happy about you.” He let out an impatient breath. “It was dark when I reached Valencia, but I’d travelled so fast that I had a feeling I must have passed you on the road. So I left my enquiries till next morning. Anna did look for a letter from Miss Dean but she couldn’t find one, so I had no idea of her address. I combed the city for two days.”

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I finally traced Miss Dean’s employer this morning, and got the edifying news that you two had never gone to Valencia but were at an inn near Villa Nueva. Their chauffeur had already left to pick you both up. So I came back via Villa Nueva, but you’d already set out from the inn.”

  “And ... and then you found me in the porch of the cottage,” she said huskily. “I realize now why you were so...”

  She stopped precipitately, because Maria had come in, carrying a tray. Even in her stress Linda discovered that the soup smelled good, and she remembered she had not eaten since a breakfast of rolls and butter at the inn.

  “The senor is sure he will not have soup?” asked Maria. “There is plenty.”

  “I had lunch and Miss Braden didn’t,” he said abruptly.

  “But that was a very small lunch the senor had,” said Maria. “You did not eat the fish.”

  “It was enough.” He sounded impatient for her to be gone, but softened sufficiently to add, “You’re making tea, aren’t you? Bring some cinnamon toast with it.”

  For a long time after Maria had gone he stood with his back to the window; then he moved to light the table lamp. “Finish the soup before we talk any more,” he said, and walked into his workroom.

  For the first time in days Linda felt hungry, but even so she couldn’t tackle much of Maria’s excellent soup. So much had happened since this morning that she was chockful of an assortment of emotions. Her mind throbbed restlessly over all he had said and implied, so that at one second she was cold and apprehensive and at the next unbearably and hotly expectant.

  She dabbed her mouth with the napkin, pushed aside the low table and got up. Soundlessly, she went to the archway that led into the workroom, but she halted there. Her heart stopped with a painful jolt.

  The central light was on and Philip was leaning back upon his desk, staring at a picture which hung above it on the wall. It was the watercolor of the little harbor at Montelisa—the one she had admired and longed to possess.

  She came beside him and whispered, “So you bought it. Why, Philip?”

  Indistinctly, savagely, he said, “Haven’t you a single instinct? Do you have to be told everything?”

  His fingers bit deeply into the flesh of her upper arm. Her faint gasp died and she knew at last the bruising sweetness of his lips on hers. His mouth was hard and cruel, but when after a long time he held her away and looked at her, there were tenderness and need in his eyes. And in Linda’s eyes he saw a liquid brightness and unbelief, as if she had been witnessing a miracle.

  “Maxine was right,” he said, still in the thick tones. “She said you were in love with me. “

  “Oh.” In spite of the ecstasy Linda couldn’t help shuddering a little sickly. “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it’s true—that we belong to each other. It is true, isn’t it Linda?” Her face was luminous and beseeching, and he added with a strange, breathy laugh, “God, you don’t know what a relief it is!”

  “How did you answer Maxine when...she told you that?” she asked shakily.

  “I told her I didn’t believe her but hoped it was true.” He raised her chin, looked deeply at her. “I followed you to Valencia because there was nothing else I could do. I had to tell you I love you and that you can never escape from me.”

  “You told Maxine you... you loved me?” she murmured wonderingly. “That was why she cut my clothes in shreds.”

  “Perhaps.” He pulled the chair from under the desk, gave her a gentle push into it, kissed her temple and said, “We’ll get you a trousseau in Barcelona tomorrow. I feel I don’t want you even to go back to that bedroom, but you must, for a night or two.”

  “I still can’t see why Maxine should have behaved as she did,” she said, tremulously aware of his closeness as he sat on the desk beside her.

  “I can.” He sounded grim. “People who deliberately deceive and are so found out can never retire gracefully. When we discovered you’d gone off with Miss Dean, I told Maxine I was going to follow you to Valencia. She said that if I did, people would put only one construction upon it, and I replied good luck to them, because I intended to marry you as soon as I could, anyway.” He smiled suddenly, teasingly. “Don’t look so horrified, darling. The formalities will take at least a week.”

  “Don’t you think we ought to get used to the idea first?”

  “I’ve lived with it almost night and day since we met. Surely you’re not still harping on the theme of a long friendship before marriage!”

  “We could be neighbors till your work is finished.”

  “So we could.” A very faint coolness entered his voice. He straightened slowly and stood up, with his hands in his pockets. “Harking back to Maxine—I left her more or less in Anna’s charge, but I gather that she simply kicked Anna out and went about the details of destruction. Knowing we were both out of the way for some time she was able to attack it systematically. Great heaven, what a mind that woman must have!”

  “I’ll never understand why she chose that method.’’

  “I believe I do. Clothes and trinkets mean almost everything to Maxine, but if hers were destroyed she’d be able to afford the same again. Where you were concerned she thought there was no worse harm she could do. Just as she imagined that by entering this house and using a hammer on the most perfect of my specimens she was hurting me where I’d feel it most. She was certainly wrong about me.” His sideways glance was keen. “Wrong about you, too, wasn’t she?”

  Linda nodded, not looking his way. “Can you get that man at Valdez to put the skull together again?”

  “I expect so.” To end a brief silence he added, “Did you really believe I was taken in by Maxine?”

  “Not taken in, exactly,” she answered, low-voiced. “My brother loved her—probably still does—and I thought it likely that you might, too. She meant to marry you, if she could.”

  “Maxine was after excitement, not marriage. She’s not fit to marry; I doubt if she ever will be. Tell me, Linda—did she inspire that newspaper article?”

  “Yes,” she replied baldly.

  “Why did you keep the fact to yourself?”

  “It was her word against mine and she threatened to bribe the reporter or to blame Sebastian. It was wi
ser to let it blow over.”

  “Sebastian?” Dislike edged his tones.

  “The report said I was infatuated with him, if you remember.”

  “We’ll get away from this place,” he said roughly. “By the end of this week Sebastian can have the damned cottage and do what he likes with it. If he needs help in buying it when the year is up, he can get in touch with me. “

  “Do you think he’ll marry Carmen?”

  He shrugged, almost irritably. “Who knows? I don’t care whom he marries! I never want to see him or the cottage again!”

  “The cottage would be all right,” she said quietly, “if one were able to be happy there. It was through my aunt’s will that we met.”

  “We’d have met, somehow. I didn’t know it, but I’ve been waiting for you to come into my life.”

  “Oh, Philip, that’s a lovely thing to say.”

  “But I still detest the cottage,” he stated in clipped accents. “Who wants to be reminded of the wreckage left by Maxine, or of the kiss between you and Sebastian! Even the villagers are expecting him to marry you.” He stopped there, as Maria’s slippers whispered across the sitting-room.

  “Your tea, senor,” the servant said, her eyes gleaming inquisitively as she noticed their nearness to each other. “You have orders for dinner?”

  “Get what you like—for two.”

  They went into the sitting-room and Philip poured the tea. But he did not hand a cup to Linda. Instead, he came to where she stood above a table, piecing together the fragments of bone. She was thinking about the letter addressed to her by Aunt Natalie; it lay over there, in her bag, yet she was unable to show it to Philip. She ached to tell him that Sebastian had protested his love for Linda and kissed her out of a weird kind of loyalty to his aunt, to whom he had given promises and whom he had quite honestly adored; perhaps, fairly soon, she would chance telling Philip that much. But the rest, the fact that Sebastian would automatically inherit the cottage if she married someone else within the year, must wait till her own wedding day. Her wedding day!