The Stars of San Cecilio Page 6

  Lisa felt almost taken aback for a moment by the studied coolness — even insolence — of the inquiry, and a ready reply would not rise to her lips. She was still feeling oddly strained after her long, confined day, and not even a bath had restored her mental alertness. And the fact that she was still in need of a good square meal made her seem hopelessly vulnerable just then.

  But, surprisingly, Dr. Fernandez came quickly to her rescue. He lifted a decanter and poured sherry into a wineglass, and put it into her hand, and then her into a chair. He didn’t smile at her, but his voice was quite gentle as he said, as if Dona Beatriz had said nothing at all:

  ‘You shouldn’t attempt to do a job of nursing on an empty stomach. It isn’t fair to the patient, and it’s certainly not fair to yourself. ’

  Lisa heard herself stammering:

  ‘No, I — I suppose not. . . . ’

  And then Dona Beatriz cut in:

  ‘I don’t suppose Miss Waring knows very much about nursing, Julio — she’s too young! That’s where your Miss Grimthorpe, though so offensive to look at, was in some ways more useful. She had trained properly for the job of looking after children, and she was of course thoroughly reliable. ’ The inference here was so obvious that even the man frowned. ‘ Did your training include any nursing, Miss

  Waring?’

  Lisa had to admit that her training had been very brief, but reasonably comprehensive. She had been so anxious to start earning money that she hadn’t dared to linger over the task of preparing herself, believing that all her instincts were the instincts that ultimately made for success when dealing with the young. And, so far as the young themselves were concerned, she had not so far proved that her instincts were at fault.

  But she didn’t say all this to Dona Beatriz. She merely explained about the brevity of her training, and watched the slow look of satisfaction dawn in the other’s face.

  ‘Then it was a little impetuous of you, Julio, to say the least, when you engaged Miss Waring!’ the Spanish woman remarked. ‘And it could explain the unfortunate happening of this morning. Miss Waring isn’t quite alive— not, shall we say, sufficiently alive to the responsibilities of her position as yet. But for your timely arrival on the scene anything might have happened to Gia! ’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Dr. Fernandez said, in a cool, almost a clipped tone, and his frown certainly didn’t diminish. ‘It was never my opinion that Gia was in any actual danger, and she has admitted that she made short work of the contents of a box of confectionery — rather an outsize box for one as small as she is! — which you sent her only a few days ago. It was extremely generous of you, but Gia has a natural passion for sweet things, and the young are not particularly abstemious when it comes to anything they enjoy. ’

  As a vexed expression flitted across Dona Beatriz’s face, and she looked as if she was about to say something, he spoke quickly, cutting short any defence of herself she was about to make.

  ‘I asked Senora Cortina to put forward the evening meal, as Miss Waring has had practically nothing to eat all day, and I think I hear movements in the dining-room now,’ he said suavely. ‘Shall we go in before the gong starts to wake up Gia, if she’s asleep?’

  During the meal — which was very definitely one of Senora Cortina’s best, in spite of the request to hurry her culinary arrangements — Lisa was glad that the other two seemed to get back on a more harmonious footing. She had been surprised by the doctor’s somewhat abrupt championship of herself, but she would have been uneasy if it had driven a wedge into the smooth companionship of this handsome pair who were in so many ways amazingly suited to one another. For Dona Beatriz was not the type to brook wedges being driven into any plans of her own. As it was, she was barely able to conceal the antipathy she felt for the English girl, and that antipathy would have increased if the English girl had been the cause of any strained relations between herself and the dark, determined doctor. And antipathy can be dangerous.

  But, as the meal proceeded, delicious course following delicious course, the complacent calm of the dining-room seemed to fall like balm upon the spirits of each, and they discussed many things that could not possibly interest Lisa, content to be allowed to get quietly on with her own meal.

  She had very little appetite, but the way to avoid attention was, she realized, to do as much justice as she could to the various savory helpings placed in front of her, and when at last coffee was served the only direct notice she received from her employer came her way.

  ‘You did very well,’ he said quietly as she refused a liqueur. ‘Don’t try starving yourself in future!’

  Afterwards, in the big glassed-in verandah that opened on to the patio, Dona Beatriz seemed to regard her with more favor, also, and she even asked her a few questions about her life in England.

  ‘If you’re fond of foreign travel,’ she said, ‘and you prove yourself completely satisfactory while you are here’ — with a meaning little pause to let this sink in — ‘ I am almost certain I can help you to find another position that might take you even farther afield when the time arrives for Gia to go to school. I have a wide circle of friends, and a great many of them travel a good deal, and with young families help is always needed. Your time here will soon pass, and it might be as well if I begin to make inquiries with a view to obtaining for you some further employment. ’

  ‘You are very kind,’ Lisa said, sitting still and pale as a moth in the gloom of the wide verandah, although the light of the rising moon made a splendor of her soft gold hair.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a little early to talk about finding Miss Waring further employment?’ Dr. Fernandez inquired, staring at the tip of the cigarette he had just lighted. ‘Gia hasn’t gone to school yet, and until she is reasonably fit I shall not make any definite plans for her to do so. ’

  Dona Beatriz’s eyebrows arched.

  ‘But I understood they were made! We talked the whole thing over. ’

  Lisa stood up.

  ‘Do you mind if I go to bed?’ she asked. ‘And I would like to make absolutely certain that Gia is quite all right. ’

  The doctor nodded casually.

  ‘You will find that she is fast asleep, and in the morning will be much as usual. But you probably do feel tired, and of course we don’t mind if you go to bed. ’

  It was a politely careless dismissal, and it made something deep inside her feel very lonely and isolated just then. But she took herself to task as she went up the wide staircase. Her employer was considerate in his detached, impersonal fashion, and if it was impersonal that was not his fault. A governess was, after all, a governess — and he had Dona Beatriz, with whom he no doubt wanted to be alone.

  But it would have been impossible for anyone to swear to it that he wanted to be alone with Dona Beatriz. Lovely as the Spanish woman was

  — his own enchanting fellow-countrywoman! — exotic as she appeared in her black dress, and alluring as those brilliant dark eyes of her were, there was, at frequent intervals, a something in their relationship—just a touch, of ill-concealed impatience on his part, a quick, resentful look on hers, that could have given rise to doubts if anyone had been attempting to speculate.

  And Lisa found herself speculating frequently. She felt that it was all-important, even though it was no concern of hers whatsoever, that she should find out what their attitude to one another was. And whether that strange aloofness at time, that almost monastic withdrawal — as if women had no real place in Julio Fernandez’s scheme of things, because in spite of being rather more attractive physically than most men he had no real need of women, or the softer side of life — was merely a screen behind which he hid. Or whether there was nothing to hide.

  C H A P T E R S E V E N

  The next morning he and Dona Beatriz went off together in his big white car, and they didn’t return until lunchtime. Gia, as he had predicted, was quite herself again, but Lisa decided to run no risks with her, and they spent the morning extremely quiet
ly within the confines and the shade of the tangled garden by the sea.

  Just before lunch-time Peter Hamilton-Tracey made his appearance, and Lisa wished he hadn’t. He said he wanted to be sure she hadn’t been fired on the spot as the result of what had happened before breakfast the day before, and expressed his opinion that an enormous amount of fuss had been made about nothing at all.

  ‘If you need me to support you on any occasion just call upon me when, and at any time, you please, ’ he said, looking at her as if he found doing so a most pleasing occupation. ‘If you ask me, looking after other people’s children is a thankless task, and that goes for my brother’s offspring as well. You must have had a brute of a time with them, particularly as my sister-in-law isn’t the easiest type in the world to get on with. ’

  ‘Your brother was very kind,’ Lisa admitted, realizing at this distance of time that he had been extremely kind on occasion. ‘I never found him difficult to get on with. ’

  Peter smiled.

  ‘I shouldn’t think many men would find it possible to be anything other than kind in their dealings with you,’ he told her, thinking that she looked like a delicate sprite in her pastel-tinted sun-suit, the most modest sun-suit he had ever seen any young woman wear, and with her hair of palest wedding-ring gold, and her large, clear, slightly wistful eyes. Looking into them he decided that they were the grey of the fires that burned in English woodlands in the autumn, and her mouth was positively flower-like. He wondered why she had made so little impression on him when they had met before, and then came to the conclusion that it was because she had kept so skilfully out of his way. She was not the type to thrust herself on anybody’s vision. ‘ Even that doctor chappie you work for now looked the least little bit irritated when his lovely lady friend — and, by Jove, she is lovely, isn’t she? — kept sailing into you for neglecting your charge. And of course you weren’t neglecting your charge!’

  He repeated this when the others drove up, and Dona Beatrice looked at him with a peculiar kind of half-inviting smile in her eyes.

  ‘I came to inquire how Gia was doing today,’ he said, as Gia’s father looked at him without a suspicion of a smile in his eyes. ‘I understand she’s more or less fully recovered.’ And as Gia’s laughter reached them from the other side of the house, where she was helping Senora Cortina’s elderly husband sweep out the patio with a stiff birch broom, it was impossible for anyone to deny this.

  ‘Children recover quickly from upsets,’ was all the doctor

  remarked.

  ‘Stomach upsets, yes,’ Peter agreed. ‘But not frights like getting out of their depth, or anything of that sort,’ looking Fernandez straight in the eyes, as if he at least had not forgotten Lisa’s humiliation of the day before. ‘And as Gia can’t swim a foot without being supported there was never any question of her getting out of her depth, and certainly no question of Lisa neglecting her.’

  ‘We are reasonably convinced now that Gia had been eating too many chocolates of a rather too excellent quality,’ Dona Beatriz informed him, a little dryly.

  Peter looked relieved.

  ‘Well, that lets you out, Lisa!’ he exclaimed. ‘And, incidentally, me, as well! ’ he added. ‘I don’t like being accused of permitting a small kid to run into danger.’ He sounded the least little bit aggressive.

  Dona Beatriz smiled at him this time as if it was her particular aim to soothe him.

  ‘In the heat of the moment one is apt to be unjust, perhaps, ’ she admitted, ‘ and naturally Dr. Fernandez has a great deal of concern for an only child. It should not be too difficult to understand. ’

  But the Englishman didn’t look impressed.

  ‘I was just commiserating with Lisa on being forced continually to look after other people’s children,’ he confessed, ‘my own brother’s amongst them! It must be a pretty thankless task sometimes. ’

  ‘No doubt,’ Dona Beatriz agreed. ‘But, in that case, the answer surely is that Miss Waring must get married and have some of her own?’ with an archness that brought a flame of color to Lisa’s cheeks, and caused Peter to look amused. ‘If you are a friend of Miss Waring’s, Mr. Hamilton-Tracey,’ the Spanish woman went on, as if an idea had only just occurred to her, ‘you must come and have lunch with us sometimes, or perhaps dinner one night would suit you better? Don’t you agree with me, Julio, that if Miss Waring and Mr. Hamilton-Tracey are old friends they simply must see something of one another sometimes, apart from odd meetings on the beach?’

  Dr. Fernandez said formally that he understood that Miss Waring and Mr. Hamilton-Tracey scarcely knew one another, but no doubt when two people of the same nationality met abroad they experienced a desire to pursue the acquaintance. It was fairly easily understood. And then he added, even more formally, that he had no objection to Mr. Hamilton-Tracey lunching, or dining, at the villa; and Dona Beatriz seized upon this permission to issue an invitation to lunch for that very day.

  But because he could not possibly have failed to sense the cool and quite definite reluctance behind the doctor’s seconding of Dona Beatriz’s invitation, Peter declined — with thanks, however, and a particularly attractive smile for the Spanish woman, who said that in that case he simply must come to dinner one evening. And then she vanished into the house to prepare herself for lunch, and the doctor followed her, and Lisa made it clear, by means of a slightly agonized look, that she wished Peter to execute a prompt disappearance also. He smiled at her — a much more warm and understanding smile than the one he had directed at Dona Beatriz — and waved a hand, and turned on his heel.

  ‘But you’ll be seeing me!’ he promised. ‘For, after all, we are two people of the same nationality abroad, and I, for one, definitely wish to pursue the acquaintance! ’

  And with a still more impish smile he climbed into a decrepit sports car he had left outside the gate, and roared off in it.

  The following morning Dr. Fernandez drove Dona Beatriz, Gia, and Lisa into San Cecilio. Dona Beatriz slipped gracefully into the seat beside the driving-seat as if it was hers by right, and Gia and Lisa were relegated to the back. The outing was because Dona Beatriz had decided that Gia needed new sandals for the beach, and apparently it was a selfimposed task for her to see to it that the child’s wardrobe was constantly replenished. (Hence, Lisa thought, the lovely almost too-smart outfits the doctor’s plain little daughter possessed)!

  She herself had no idea of accompanying them until the doctor saw her waiting at the side of the white, dusty road, within a few yards of the villa, for the bus that would presently make its leisurely appearance and deposit her also in San Cecilio. The big white car drew in towards the verge and pulled up with rather a sudden application of brakes, and Julio Fernandez leaned frowningly from his window.

  ‘Why are you waiting there, Miss Waring?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m waiting for the bus,’ she explained. ‘I have some shopping to do for Senora Cortina— at least,’ she added, rather hurriedly, ‘ something was suddenly discovered to be in rather short supply, and I offered to fetch it. ’

  He reached in behind him and held open the rear door.

  ‘Get in,’ he said curtly.

  She hesitated, aware that Dona Beatriz was biting her scarlet lower lip, as if the temporary halt — or more probably the cause! — annoyed her.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ she said, with nervous diffidence.

  ‘ The bus will be along in a minute, and-- ‘

  ‘Get in! ’ the doctor repeated, his voice not merely curt this time, but impatient.

  Lisa clambered in, assisted by Gia’s eager hands, and the child’s shrill voice declared delightedly: ‘We’ll have ice creams at Antonio’s Parlour! I was simply hating not having you, and now it’s going to be fun! ’ Dr. Fernandez asked over his shoulder:

  ‘Do you normally do Senora Cortina’s shopping for her, Miss Waring?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she answered at once. ‘Only sometimes — if she runs out of something. Normally ev
erything’s delivered. ’

  ‘I see.’ But she thought that the ‘I see’ was sceptical, as if he doubted the smooth running of his holiday household while he was away, and surmised that there might be a considerable amount of wasted time — or, worse still, neglected duty! — when he was not there to keep an eye on things, with Senora Cortina making use of his highly-paid governess to fetch and carry for her, and the highly-paid governess, looking upon visits to the little local town as a respite from governing.

  She felt so guilty because she had involved Senora Cortina

  — it didn’t matter that she herself was to be so frequently suspect! — that she was very quiet and anxious to escape as quickly as possible when they reached the town, and Gia’s insistence that they should visit Antonio’s Parlour before they did anything else met with discouragement from her as well as Dona Beatriz.

  ‘No, darling, you’re going to have some new shoes bought for you, and Dona Beatriz is waiting to take you to the shoe-shop,’ she said hurriedly, before Dona Beatriz herself could interpose a few rather clipped remarks. ‘There’ll be heaps of other times when we can visit Antonio’s Parlour. ’

  ‘If you want ice cream, we’ll have it at the hotel,’ Dona Beatriz took her firmly by the hand, and started to lead her from the parking-place. Lisa remembered her shopping basket, and recovered it hastily from the back of the car, and Dr. Fernandez stood watching her with rather an odd — even a quizzical — expression on his face.

  ‘And now where exactly are you making for?’ he asked.

  She told him what it was she had to collect, and he slipped his ignition key into his pocket and turned to walk beside her.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘You might lose your way. Some of these narrow streets are not precisely the streets you ought to traverse, and I’ve no interest in children’s shoes, anyway. ’ He walked with an easy grace at her side — much as she remembered him walking on the first and only night they had been alone together — and although it was almost painfully pleasant to have him doing so, it also filled her with a great deal of agitation. She thought of Dona Beatriz, and the annoyance such an attention would undoubtedly fill her with, and the various ways in which she might seek to put Lisa in her place afterwards. She also felt concerned because, although it was probably true that he had no interest in children’s shoes, there were almost certainly other ways in which the doctor might have passed his morning, which would have been much more to his taste than making certain she didn’t get side-tracked down a wrong turning.