Doctor at Villa Ronda (10 page)

A
member of Ramon’s crew was waiting at the h
arbour w
ith the
Clorinda’s
dinghy and took the doctor and two girls out to the moored yacht where Ramon welcomed his guests aboard. He looked particularly smart in his white dinner jacket, but then, Nicola reflected, so did Dr. Montal, who was considerably taller and slimmer than Ramon.

Dona Elena was waiting to greet the others in the small cocktail cabin leading off the main dining saloon. She seemed surprised to find that Nicola was aboard, but immediately recovered her poise and good manners.

While she sipped her sherry and left most of the conversation to the others, Nicola’s gaze wandered around the luxurious furnishings of the yacht. On that first hasty inspection tour a few days ago she had not had time to notice the magnificence of interior design. No space wasted, yet an air of complete comfort everywhere.

The dinner was long and leisurely and darkness had fallen by the time the coffee stage was reached. Ramon suggested that he might take Adrienne and Nicola on his next trip to San Fernando in about a fortnight’s time.

“I’ve been there many times,” Adrienne replied casually, “but Nicola has not visited the island. Have you, Nicola?”

“No.”

Dona Elena rewarded Nicola with a hostile glance.

“Possibly you will have found your sister by then,” she said smoothly, “and you will both have other plans.”

“I don’t know,” muttered Nicola non-committally, not daring to look at Sebastian. Evidently Elena still did not know that Nicola was expected to remain for a year, but it was not Nicola’s responsibility to disclose that fact.

Ramon insisted on taking Nicola for a more thorough tour of the yacht. “Last time you were in such a hurry. Now you must allow me to show you my treasure in detail.”

She was slightly apprehensive that Ramon’s suggestion might not meet with the doctor’s approval, but although he looked at Nicola, he gave no indication of agreement or otherwise.

Ramon showed her the well-furnished cabins with elegant beds instead of bunks, the galley that was as up
-
to-date and efficiently arranged as the kitchen of a first class hotel. He took her into the skipper’s cabin. “I do not always pilot the yacht myself. If I am captain, then I have no time to spend with my guests on board,” he explained. Finally he brought Nicola up a stairway to the upper deck and for a few moments she stood by the taffrail and gazed at the scene about her. Harbour lights twinkled in almost a complete circle except for the entrance, but there were few sounds except an occasional shout, the puttering of a motor dinghy. Once or twice in the stillness Nicola was convinced that she could hear nightingales in the pines on shore.

“Are there nightingales here?” she queried.

“Oh yes.” Ramon lifted her hand and held it closely under his own on the polished wood rail. “We must plan many amusements for you. Fiestas in Barcelona, of course, and a trip to Tibidabo, but there is also sardine-fishing at night. Now that is a wonderful sight.”

Nicola turned towards him, a gentle smile on her lips. “Fishing for sardines? But you can buy all the sardines you want, surely?”

“We go for the fun. When I was a young boy, I slipped out at nights to join the fishermen. Sebastian used to come, too. Eduardo was too old at that time. Now we take our guests to enjoy the spectacle.”

Nicola was digesting the information that Sebastian had joined these simple pastimes when he was younger. Now he was so dignified, usually so withdrawn, that it was difficult to imagine he had ever enjoyed the natural pleasures and escapades of a boy.

Ramon added, “You will come to San Fernando with us, I hope? I have a house there in the north part of the island.”

“I must wait until Dr. Montal gives me permission,” she answered cautiously.

“
Sebastian! Oh, you simply must not let him dictate to you. He always wants to rule people like an emperor.”

“Ramon!” Dona Elena’
s voice cut sharply on the air.

Neither Nicola nor Ramon had noticed her approach, but now they saw that Sebastian accompanied her.

“Adrienne is looking for you,” Elena continued to her brother.

Ramon gave her a fiery scowl, then with deliberate slowness he raised Nicola’s hand to his lips and bowed. He turned and marched swiftly along the deck, annoyance and indignation evident in every step.

Sebastian leaned his back against the rail and remained silent.

“I hope my brother has not been boring you,” Elena said to Nicola. “You must forgive him. This yacht is his new one and he likes to show it off as though it were a toy.”

“No, Dona Elena,” Nicola answered hastily.
“I’ve enjoyed being taken around.” She was uncertain whether to remain on deck or go below, but Sebastian solved that problem by sauntering slowly out of sight.

“Senorita Brettell,” began Elena in a low, but precise voice, “I think I must explain to you some of our traditional customs. When someone comes to our house and admires a picture or ornament or a piece of furniture, it is our courteous habit to say, ‘Take it. It is yours.’ But we do not expect our guest to wrap it up and take it away. Similarly, when invitations are tossed about, we do not always expect them to be accepted.”

“I understand,
se
n
ora.
But how is the foreigner to know which invitations to accept and which to refuse discreetly?”

Elena smiled. “I can see that you are a sensible girl. In this case it is Ramon who has been to blame. When we go to San Fernando, I shall be on board to be companion to Adrienne. You understand it will not be necessary for you to be with us?”

“Yes,
se
n
ora,
but I have to take my instructions from Dr. Montal,” Nicola said coldly.

“Naturally,” agreed Elena, and Nicola knew by her tone that she meant to persuade the doctor to exclude Nicola. “Of course, I do not wish to deprive you of the opportunity to visit San Fernando, but no doubt you will
find your own chances. When you have found your sister, perhaps?”

“That would be something pleasant to hope for,” replied Nicola, “but at present I have no news.”

“So I understand from Sebastian, who took you on an unsuccessful search. But I am sure you will find her sooner or later—if that is possible.”

Nicola barely caught that last whispered phrase, but now she understood clearly why Dona Elena so often referred to the missing sister.

“Do you believe, Dona Elena, that I have invented
a
missing sister? What purpose would I have?”

Elena shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Sebastian is kind-hearted and a sympathetic doctor. He is easily taken in.”

Nicola could have laughed aloud, but the moment was too tensely dramatic for her to indulge in laughter about Sebastian’s gullibility.

“I am not staying in the doctor’s house just so that he can help
m
e search for Lisa,” Nicola said firmly. “I am there to work for him as a secretary and sometimes act as a young companion to Adrienne.”

“Exactly. Let us say no more about it. I think you understand the position.”

Elena gave Nicola one of her most gracious smiles and turned away to walk to the stairway.

Nicola was seething with fury. It had not occurred to her that anyone would think that searching for Lisa was a fiction to enable her to stay in a comfortable villa and be well paid for a moderate amount of work. Did Sebastian think that too? At a more opportune moment she would certainly ask him point blank.

It was nearly midnight when Ramon took his guests ashore in the motor dinghy. Nicola pretended that she was tired, although she had never felt more wide awake, but it gave her the excuse of keeping quiet on the car drive up to the Villa Ronda, where Sebastian dropped the two girls, then took Dona Elena on to her own house farther up the hill.

Adrienne, too, was rather silent, for her, and as they went to their respective rooms, she said, “Nicola, you must watch carefully for Elena. She is hatching something very bad.”

“Oh, never mind,” returned Nicola carelessly. “Let’s go to bed. I’m sleepy after that luscious dinner and all that wine.” She yawned exaggeratedly.

She was just as certain as Adrienne, though, that Dona Elena was out to manipulate matters to suit her own purposes.

During the next few days, Nicola spent a great deal of her time working for the doctor on his book. Adrienne divided her days between painting, mostly in her studio, and arranging the forthcoming party on the beach.

“How lucky you are in this country,” sighed Nicola, “to be able to invite people to an evening outdoor party and not have to worry about the weather. In England, we should have a week’s beautiful summer before the party and on the night a thunderstorm would wreck everything.”

“No thunderstorms until end of September,” remarked Adrienne. “That is when they come, so we do not make arrangements.”

Nicola had diplomatically suggested that while she was engaged on her secretarial work, Adrienne could perhaps not visit the Gallitos’ house or go out of her way to see Barto, and without actually mentioning the family, Adrienne had tacitly agreed.

“This young man, Patrick,” Adrienne said, consulting her list of guests. “What is his address?”

“I’ve no idea where he lives,” confessed Nicola. “I know only his office address. Perhaps I could telephone and ask him to the party?”

Adrienne wrote down his name. “Patrick Holton,” she murmured. “I am longing to meet him. Make sure, Nicola, that I do not snatch him from you.”

“I thought you said that was the object—to snatch each other’s men,” Nicola reminded her.

A
drienne giggled. “I will see that you have a wide assortment to choose from. There is Ramon, of course, and Felipe, Isidro and Vicente, Pablo and many others.”

On the day of the party Sebastian gave Nicola more work than usual, and because she was anxious to finish quickly she made more mistakes and had to re-type pages. There were queries for which she had to leave blank spaces and footnotes indicated too late to go on the appropriate page. When he came into the study at six o’clock and found her still hard at work, he seemed surprised.

“Aren’t you attending Adrienne’s party?” he asked.

“Of course. But I haven’t finished the work yet.”

H
e came to stand close by her side. “But I didn’t intend you to finish the whole chapter. Have you no sense of proportion?”

A fine time to tell her now what his intentions were or were not when she had slaved all day long!

“My training as a secretary has made me conscientious,” she said stiffly, “but I’ll leave the rest if I may.”

H
e smiled. “I’m sorry.” Then he added, “Adrienne tells me you have invited your English friend from Barcelona.”

“Yes. She suggested that I should ask Patrick.” As the doctor made no reply, she continued hurriedly, “Perhaps I should have asked your permission, too?”

“Certainly not. You’re quite free to invite anyone you choose.”

Yet she still had the impression that he resented her friendship with Patrick, or perhaps he wanted all her interests concentrated within the Villa Ronda so that she would never neglect her various duties.

She took extra trouble with her appearance tonight and put on the
sardana
costume lent her by Adrienne, a full-skirted dress of blue and white cotton, with a small fringed shawl in deep violet, an apron and flowing headdress to match, the latter secured with two pink roses on a velvet band. Rope-soled espadrilles tied with criss-cross ribbons round the ankles completed the outfit, and Nicola looked in the mirror well pleased with herself. The fact that she had as yet not the slightest knowledge of the
sardana,
Catalonia’s own regional dance, did not matter, she thought. She would pick up the steps when she saw it being performed.

Adrienne had considerately fixed eight o’clock as the approximate time for guests to start arriving so that they could descend the rough path to the beach while it was still daylight.

Nicola decided to go down to the main patio in case Patrick had already arrived. On the way she remembered a further query in the current chapter of Dr. Montal’s book and hurried to the study to make a note before she forgot the point. The doctor entered as she scribbled a note on the pad next to the typewriter.

“Oh!
Sardana
costume,” he commented. “It suits you very well. D’you know our local dance?”

“Not yet, but I shall learn.”

He stood facing her, his eyes showing a half-veiled, unwilling admiration, but his mouth was a taut line.

“Perhaps I should show you some of the steps now?”

She was aware that Patrick might be outside, alone, not knowing a soul, but she could not refuse Dr. Montal’s offer.

He took her hand and began to hum a tune. She followed his intricate tip-toe pointings, occasionally making mistakes.