Night of the Singing Birds Read online

  But that, no doubt, was because she was partly English. He had spent a few years of his life in England himself, receiving his education at a famous public school, and he had seen girls like her on Speech Days, and at strawberry teas on the lawns of English country houses. No one would have guessed, had they not already been aware of the fact, that she was Spanish both by birth and upbringing, despite the fact that her father was an Englishman.

  Born here in this very villa, where the sun scorched every blade of grass and rendered the hillsides sere and yellow for at least three-fifths of the year. The remaining two-fifths provided sufficient nutriment for crops to mature and the simplest cottage garden to be a blaze of flowers when tourists came seeking the sun and prepared to soak up the colour of the sunsets and dawns as if they were eager sponges that could never have enough.

  But a naturally cool temperament like an English temperament was bound to be resistant to a certain extent, and Dona Miranda’s granddaughter would never be completely Spanish. Dona Miranda might have done her best to eradicate certain English failings, and to anticipate certain possible eventualities despite the effect of environment, but her guardianship even from her own point of view had not been an entire success. She had had charge of Angela from the moment of her birth, for her daughter had been too frail to survive it on top of the bitter disappointment of her alien husband’s death as the result of a riding accident, and it had been left to the old and experienced woman to supervise an upbringing that had been by no means strictly conventional from the point of view of a highly conventional Spaniard.

  True, Angela had had instilled in her all the right kind of ideas and beliefs about conventional behaviour and social conduct. But she had also been sent away to school, in direct defiance of the established tradition of Cazenta d’lalgo women; and in addition to that schooling she had had a finishing course at an up-to-date finishing school in Switzerland. She had absorbed ideas and attitudes, become infected with notions that were hardly Spanish, or so Don Felipe decided when he was first presented to her at a meeting arranged by her grandmother. It could not honestly be said that he fell in love with her, but she was charming and personable—rather more than personable—and despite a certain air of aggressiveness, reasonably submissive.

  It could not honestly be said that she was as submissive as her cousin Jacinta, whom he had at one time contemplated marrying, but if she had acquired convictions she had not yet acquired the courage to stand up for them. She was basically shy and diffident, and it boded well for a reasonably satisfactory marriage, if that shyness and diffidence were encouraged rather than discouraged.

  Besides, there was something about her looks that appealed to him. It could have been the bright, unusual hair and the sea-blue eyes and fluttering eyelashes, the mutinous little chin and the unpredictable mouth. And, far more important than all that, she was the possessor of estates that marched well with his, and it had become a burning ambition of his to unite those estates.

  Dona Miranda agreed with him, and so did all the uncles and aunts on the d’lalgo side. A marriage that was to take place almost immediately seemed an excellent notion, and now it was just a matter of getting all the details settled and various signatures on documents and things like that.

  But of course the girl herself had to be given some reason for looking forward to the marriage, and presumably a lot of new clothes was one reason that appealed to her. He smiled at her in rather a calculating and extraordinarily charming way, despite the calculation, and handed her the ring case for her consideration.

  ‘That is one of the most flawless sapphires you are ever likely to see in the whole of your lifetime,’ he told her, as he watched her snap open the case and gaze at the slightly cumbersome trinket it contained.

  Angela slipped the ring from its satin bed and on to her finger. It felt heavy and unwanted, and because she had no great interest in sapphires she took it off hurriedly.

  ‘It is indeed a very fine stone, senor,’ she agreed flatly.

  He smiled, and his excellent white teeth created a dazzling blur in his dark and even-featured face. One eyebrow went upwards a little whimsically.

  ‘And that is all you can find to say about it? You are not impressed?—Not really?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ she assured him stiffly, ‘I am very much impressed, senor.’

  He continued to smile, but somewhat wryly. He took her hand and slid the ring up and down her slender

  white finger—the finger that was soon to be further burdened by his wedding ring—and exclaimed because it was such a very slender finger, with a rosy nail that was highly polished, and the ring was far, far and away too large for her.

  ‘You must supply me with one of your gloves, cara,’ he said, ‘and that will ensure that the new fitting will be exactly right. As to the setting, you can leave that, I think, to me.’

  ‘Yes, senor,’ she agreed.

  A vaguely vexed expression crossed his face.

  ‘I find your formality a little surprising,’ he confessed,

  ‘in a young woman so soon to be married. Did you not tell me that you have been receiving fittings for your wedding gown?’

  ‘Yes, senor.’

  ‘Then would it not be more natural if you addressed me as Felipe, and not senor? If we are to go through a married life in such a formal state of mind it will be very trying.’

  ‘Very well, senor ... I mean Felipe!’

  His dark eyes gazed at her as if he thought it might be as well to humour her, and then he turned away and walked to the window, the ring case safely restored to his pocket.

  Angela had hurried to the window the moment they entered the room and flung open one of the shutters, and he could see the blinding light in the courtyard falling in a dazzling fashion across the black and white tiled floor, and the boxes and tubs of colourful growth being scorched by it.

  ‘I noticed,’ he observed, gazing upwards at the hard blue of the sky, that was without even a tiny white cloud scudding across it, ‘that you did not find the dimness of this room restful. You have the English habit of throwing open windows.’

  She looked somewhat taken aback, because he sounded distinctly critical.

  ‘I—I suppose I got used to doing that in England,’ she admitted. ‘And Switzerland,’ she added. ‘Both basically

  cool places.’

  He turned and looked at her. ‘You were at school in England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You liked it? You felt, perhaps, that you belonged there?’

  ‘I—I wouldn’t say that.’ And then she decided to be strictly youthful—she had enjoyed every minute of her schooldays in England, and she had found Spain suffocating in more ways than one when she returned to it. The thought of cool English grass, soft breezes coming in at the window, the smell of clove pinks and roses floating in the warmth of a summer dusk, made her feel like someone who was being deprived. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and her throat worked. He could see the slender, shapely little white throat emerging from the pale linen of her dress, and the thought occurred to him that he might even span it with one of his lean, brown hands.

  Sharply he asked her:

  ‘You have returned to Spain, but you are not happy here? Is that it?’

  Once more she licked her lips.

  ‘I—I expect I will grow used to it.’

  ‘But it is your country....You will have to live here for the rest of your life! Does that thought not fill you with some sort of satisfaction?’

  ‘Not—not much, senor.’

  Impatiently he turned aside. She knew that his fingers were clutching the ring case in his pocket, and that they were hard, impatient fingers, just as his temper was of the fiery order that very quickly got out of hand. Meeting the frustrated, rather bewildered gleam in his exceptionally lustrous and really rather beautiful dark eyes— extraordinary that a man should have beautiful eyes, she thought and sensing that he wasn’t merely baffled by her a
ttitude but inclined to look upon her as rather a ridiculous young woman who might be improved by a good slap where it might hurt her most, she actually felt herself recoil from him.

  She hadn’t had much time to think about it before, but now it suddenly struck her that he was rather a terrifying member of his sex, and the fact that he was a hundred per cent Spanish made him more terrifying still. As an acquaintance—someone to sit beside her at a dinner-party, or even partner her at a dance—he might be acceptable; but as a man it had been arranged she should marry, who would have the right to order her life for her once she was married to him, and might find her just as difficult to get along with, he was—nothing short of terrifying.

  The thought that she was going to marry him suddenly filled her with cold horror. He could see it mounting in her eyes as they gazed at him, feel it quivering in the contracting muscles of her throat and the sudden tight clenching of her hands held rigidly at her sides.

  Even he suddenly asked himself if he wasn’t doing something quite ridiculous, marrying this girl.... And then he recollected all the advantages of such a union, and he told himself the whole situation was just simply absurd, and all he had to do to improve matters was to get to know the girl.

  Of course! Why had it never occurred to him before that she was not quite as other Spanish girls were? In fact, very far removed from being a Spanish girl! She looked English, and to all intents and purposes, apparently, she was English, and something would have to be done about it.

  ‘I have your grandmother’s consent to take you out to dinner to-night,’ he told her. ‘There is a fiesta in the town. Would you care to entrust yourself to me and see something of it? ’

  ‘I—I—’

  She was quite appalled by the prospect.

  He looked rather more than impatient—in fact, she was inclined to suspect that he would boil over at any moment.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I—er—Y-yes, thank you, senor—Felipe! I would enjoy it very much indeed,’ she told him as if he had demanded from her an acknowledgement that she would enjoy having all her teeth extracted. ‘It is—please believe me that I think it is!—very good of you to suggest it! ’

  He turned away. And then he turned back to her and bowed stiffly.

  ‘I will call for you at eight o’clock this evening. Please do not keep me waiting when I arrive!’ he requested formally.

  CHAPTER III

  IT was already dark when he called for her. The night closes down swiftly in that southern province, and it seemed to Angela a pity that so much of the magnificent splendour of Andalusia was lost to her when they set off in his powerful cream car.

  But before that she had to spend half an hour waiting for him to collect her, and during that half hour she sat and talked to her grandmother in her grandmother’s ornate bedchamber.

  The old lady retired to bed early these days, and already she was ready for her maid to settle her down amongst the pillows of her great bed, made of Spanish mahogany, and with an overhanging tester that was more like a catafalque.

  Robed in a voluminous dressing gown and with her splendid dark hair—not one sign of grey lurked amongst the sable darkness—smoothed and braided for the night, she sipped a cup of hot chocolate and discussed with her only granddaughter the possibilities of the evening ahead of her.

  Angela was dressed in white—an enchanting shift-like dress in wild silk—and with it she wore the usual hair-ribbon looped through her hair. Only to-night it was worn like an Alice band, and the hair was flowing loose on her shoulders. Dona Miranda was secretly very proud of that hair, just as she had been secretly very proud of the son-in-law who had been a member of the family for such a very short while before his fatal accident.

  To a Spanish woman, accustomed to the swarthiness of her countrymen, the exceptional fairness of Brian Grevil had been nothing short of miraculous. Even for an Anglo-Saxon he was an outstanding example of how utterly arresting a fair-haired, fair-skinned man with blue eyes can appear when viewed against a background of alien Latin types. His hair had been much fairer than his daughter’s, and his eyes a lighter, sunnier blue. But she had inherited the excellent quality of his features, as well as the slenderness of his build. At the moment the one thing that worried Dona Miranda about her—apart from her marked English temperament—was her lack of curves of the right kind. By that the Spanish woman, if asked, would have explained that she meant seductive curves.

  For according to her view a woman who lacked seductiveness was unlikely to earn the full appreciation of her husband. And although, unfortunately for a large number of Spanish women, they did very quickly outgrow their seductiveness and become positively fat and forbidding, it was better to be plump at the right time than never to be plump at all.

  The fact that Dona Miranda herself was extremely thin, and rather raw-boned, no doubt inclined her somewhat strongly to this view.

  ‘You will enjoy yourself, child,’ she said, ‘if you forget to be afraid of Don Felipe. He is to be your husband, and the sooner you overcome your awe of him the better. It is natural, of course, that you should regard him with some awe—as well as, of course, admiration. But to look at him as if he petrifies you as soon as he makes an appearance in the same room as yourself is another matter altogether.’ Angela looked faintly guilty, but there was one thing she had to get clear.

  ‘I am not at all sure that I do admire him, Abuela,’ she confessed. ‘In fact, I do not think I admire him at all. He is far too alarming to be admired.’

  Dona Miranda looked impatient.

  ‘Nonsense, child. There is nothing in the least alarming about Felipe. I knew his mother and his grandmother, and he has always treated me with affection. I am really quite fond of him already, although he has yet to become my grandson-in-law. It is true that with you it is slightly different—you have been at school too long, and you have seen hardly anything at all of the men of your race. They are handsome and virile, and should be the answer to every young girl’s dream. So if you formed some attachment for some visiting tutor in Switzerland you must forget him. In any case, the Swiss make appalling husbands! ’

  ‘I have formed no attachment for any man I have yet met, Abuela,’ her granddaughter told her gravely, as if she suspected that at her age that was a trifle odd. ‘As a matter of fact—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Although some of the girls at Madame Dupont’s did develop crushes when they went on holiday, and for the school doctor, I have always been a little bored by the society of men.’ Her tone was so prim and restrained that Dona Miranda smiled to herself, thinking this was a very un-Spanish tendency. ‘There are so many things in life that I want to do, and being married to a man is not one of them. I don’t even want to be mistress of my own house, and I’d rather look after other people’s children than, have some of my own. In fact—’

  ‘Yes?’ more sharply than before.

  ‘It did occur to me at one time that I—well, that I might take up nursing, or something that would involve me with children—That was before you decided that I must marry Don Felipe!’

  ‘Rubbish! The only children you will concern yourself with will be your own.’

  ‘But I would far rather—’

  Dona Miranda held up a white, bony hand in a very disapproving manner.

  ‘This is not the kind of talk I enjoy,’ she stated stiffly. ‘In fact, I am quite horrified by it. An engaged girl—’

  ‘But, Grandmother—! ’ Angela got up from her chair and moved eagerly nearer to her—she even knelt on the floor at her feet. ‘I am not yet twenty, and there really are a number of things I want to do that I will be quite unable to do once I am married.’ The words poured forth eagerly, in a soft flood. ‘I have a house in England that I have only visited on one occasion, and enough money to go and live there, and—and breed horses—’

  ‘Horses?’ in horrified accents.

  ‘Yes; I—I ride well ... and I could teach horse-riding—’

&n
bsp; ‘Over my dead body! ’ the older woman declared.

  Angela sighed, and sat back on her ankles.

  ‘Then I have friends, who have invited me to stay— one friend in particular. She, too, is interested in horses, and in fact she hunts ... and her brother hunts, too!’

  ‘Her brother?’ The older woman’s eyes rolled. ‘The sooner we get you married the better, my dear, and it might be as well if the marriage date is put forward. I will speak to Don Felipe to-night. And thank goodness your wedding gown is practically finished, and all the details of your trousseau. Had I had the least idea that you were thinking like this I would have been most alarmed....’ She certainly looked alarmed, and her fine eyes flashed with annoyance and bewilderment. ‘To think that a Cazenta d’lalgo should have such disloyal thoughts and aspirations when she is formally betrothed, and should be thinking instead how very, very fortunate she is to have contracted such an alliance.’

  ‘You mean, you contracted the alliance for me, Abuela,’ Angela pointed out with very English dryness. ‘And I am not really a Cazenta d’lalgo,’ she added. ‘I am a Grevil. I like to think of myself as a Grevil.’

  ‘Why, certainly, since your father was a Grevil. But that does not mean that you are not also one of us. I hope you will never forget that your mother’s family is one of the finest in Spain. You should be immensely proud of the Spanish blood in your veins.’

  Angela gave up. She was by no means clear why she had suddenly, as it were, gone off the rails like this ... and of course she was proud of being a Cazenta d’lalgo. But certainly not as proud as her grandmother was. And despite the fact that a Spanish landscape, a Spanish sunset—and, in particular, Spanish moonlight—affected her in a way that nothing else had ever yet quite done, she was sure that every drop of blood in her veins was pure English. She neither thought nor reacted as a Spanish woman did, and as a matter of fact she despised the attitude of mind of Spanish women that permitted them to accept a second-class role in Life.