Doctor at Villa Ronda (21 page)

When eventually he met the two girls at a cafe near the Plaza de
Cataluna, Patrick’s first reaction to Lisa was one
of complete astonishment. “Lisa! I would scarcely have known you.”

“
I can see I shall have to go back to my uninteresting dark hair and peaky little white face, or else my friends won’t know me,” Lisa returned with self-assurance.

O
ver the coffee and cognac Patrick asked questions and Lisa answered vaguely or parried his queries neatly with
irrelevant remarks.

“
And how did you enjoy your yachting holiday?
”
h
e
asked Nicola.

“
Fine. I liked San Fernando, too. The others aren
’
t back yet. I flew home with Dr. Montal, because he had to start work again. He can be away for only a very limited
time
.”

P
atrick smiled. “Well, you did right to pick a job like
that. Think of the
perks!”

“
I’m going on the next yachting trip,” declared Lisa.
“
It’ll just suit me.”

“Shouldn’t you wait until you’re asked?” teased Patrick.

“Oh, never fear! Nicola wouldn’t dare go without me. Would you dear?”

“Since the yacht belongs to Ramon, I suppose he can ask whom he likes,” Nicola said lightly.

On the way home to Orsola in the train, Lisa said idly, “Patrick finds you very attractive, doesn’t he?”

“
I just happen to be English—and someone to talk to,
”
Nicola answered non-committally.

L
isa shook her head. “Not so! I know that look in their eyes. You might do worse than marry him, Nicky. I
think
he has a reasonable job with prospects, and at least you’d be living in a lovely climate.”

N
icola laughed. “Don’t try to arrange my future for
me. Or even Patrick’s.”

F
or a few days Lisa behaved very well indeed, amusing herself down on the shore swimming or sunbathing when Nicola was busy with Sebastian’s secretarial work. Then the
Clorinda
returned with Ramon, Adrienne and Elena.

A
t first Adrienne was as cordial in her welcome as her uncle had been.

“
Oh, it is so good that Nicola has found her sister,” she said when she heard the news, and was introduced to Lisa.

D
ona Elena was far more restrained.

“
She looked at me,” complained Lisa afterwards, “as though I were a particularly nasty-smelling piece of fish.”

“That’s her usual manner,” soothed Nicola. “She doesn’t do it deliberately.”

“
I don’t like her,” said Lisa, and there was something ominous in
h
er tone. “It’s a blessing she doesn’t live here.”

“
You may be wrong in that. Dona Elena has shut up her house near by for a few weeks and she may stay here, so don’t go out of your way to offend her. She and Adrienne don’t hit it off very well together, so we don’t want the house in an uproar.” Nicola spoke firmly, knowing her sister’s capacity for stirring up indignation and resentment between people who were antipathetic to each other.

B
ut it was Nicola who first became indignant and Dona Elena who started the explosive series of situations that seemed to detonate each other.

“Is she in truth your sister?” Elena asked Nicola one evening. “You are not at all alike.”

“It’s not unusual for relations to be entirely opposite in looks,” answered Nicola mildly.

“It was very clever of you to insert this girl into Dr. Montal’s house,” continued Elena. “Naturally, by maintaining that you had lost touch with her, that she was missing and might be in deep trouble, you were assured that when the time was ready, you would have no difficulty in bringing her here for an indefinite stay.”

“Is that how it appears to you, Dona Elena?” asked Nicola. “I assure you that my sister was really missing. In fact, she has been ill with loss of memory.”

Elena gave an unbelieving smile. “That is always the excuse. Loss of memory. So easy. Who could prove otherwise?”

“I suppose Dr. Montal could tell whether Lisa were shamming or not?” Nicola said coldly.

“He would
know,
but he might not
tell
you. He would not want to hurt your feelings.”

“
I can always ask him to let me know the truth,” retorted Nicola, “and hope that my feelings can stand it.”

Elena shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Surely it would be better now that you two sisters are reunited if you found work where you could be together?”

“I am still employed by Dr. Montal,” Nicola reminded her, but did not add that she was bound by her promise to stay a year. “My sister will certainly find work as soon as she has had a short rest.”

“But then you will still be separated, and if your sister is not in good health, it is your duty to look after her.”

Nicola realised that it was hopeless to try to argue with Elena. “I agree with part of what you say, Dona Elena, but in all matters I must take instructions from Dr. Montal.”

N
icola thought with a certain touch of mild savagery that Elena would lose no time in pouring her troubles direct into Dr. Montal’s ear.

A
few days later Adrienne was at war with Lisa. It appeared from Adrienne’s impassioned outburst that she had caught Lisa snooping about in the upstairs rooms of one wing of the Villa Ronda.

“She had no right to be there!” declared Adrienne hotly. “Those rooms belonged to my parents. My father wanted my mother’s suite kept exactly as it was when she died. When he went away, we also kept his rooms as they were. They are not for strangers to roam about.”

N
icola could well understand Adrienne’s indignation. “But how could Lisa get into that wing?”

“Naturally the rooms must be cleaned sometimes. Possibly Lisa followed one of the maids. I don’t know. I went there myself because today is my father’s birthday anniversary and I wanted to be in his room. Lisa was there, picking over the papers on his desk.”

“I’m very sorry,” Nicola said quietly. “I’ll speak to Lisa about it and see that it never happens again.”

Adrienne, whose grey eyes were full of unshed tears, seemed pacified by Nicola’s gentle understanding, but there were other bones of contention.

“Also I do not like the way she is always making journeys to the yacht to see Ramon. Almost every day she is down at
the
harbour signalling for the dinghy to fetch her.”

Nicola smiled. “A yacht is rather a novelty to Lisa. It was to me. I’d never been aboard one like Ramon’s before.”

“Then perhaps she can explore other yachts instead of the
Clorinda
.”

At this moment, with Adrienne in a state of furious excitability, Nicola was too tactful to say what she thought, but in her opinion it might benefit Adrienne if Lisa provided some real or imagined competition for Ramon.

Nicola again promised to do what she could to prevent Lisa from becoming too friendly with Ramon. There was no opportunity that day, for Lisa stayed out all day and telephoned that she would not be at the Villa for dinner. In one way Nicola was only too glad of Lisa’s absence, but she could not help worrying in case some new mischief were brewing.

Ramon was here at dinner, so obviously Lisa could not be in his company, but Nicola guessed that Lisa would not be spending the evening alone. Patrick, perhaps? Or the faithful spy, Ruben?

When Lisa appeared about mid-morning the next day, Nicola knew that she had to move warily.

“Did you have a good time yesterday?” she asked.

Lisa, still looking sleepy, nodded.

“You must have come home pretty late,” continued Nicola. “I wasn’t in bed until after one and I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Does it matter what time I come in? This place is like a rest home for old ladies. I must have some gaiety somewhere.”

“All right. As long as you remember that the Villa is not a hotel with a night porter. Someone has to get up and let you in.”

“That’s what they’re paid for, isn’t it?” said Lisa sulkily.

Obviously this was not the moment to reproach Lisa with causing upsets in the Montal household. Nicola thought it wiser to choose a more propitious moment. The delay did not help for when the mail was delivered usually just before midday, Nicola took Sebastian’s letters to his study, opened the circulars and then glanced at several letters addressed to herself.

She turned the envelopes over. “Senorita Brettell, Villa Ronda ...” She had given her address to so few people. Perhaps these were for Lisa.

She opened them. Bills for dresses, coats, shoes, all from expensive shops.

Nicola raged, fury in her heart. No wonder Lisa had been so modest in her initial demands on Nicola’s purse! She had now gone in for a real shopping spree.

With the bills in her hand, Nicola rushed out to the patio where she had left Lisa, but her sister had disappeared. Lisa was not in her room and Nicola snatched open the wardrobe door. Half a dozen new dresses, two coats hung there. A pile of cardboard boxes and tissue paper had been tidied into one
corner
by the maid who attended to Lisa’s room.

“Did the young Senorita Brettell say where she was going?” Nicola asked several of the staff. No one had seen her.

Nicola spent a little time searching the gardens, but there was no sign of Lisa. Adrienne was on the ‘Mediterranean balcony’ with the binoculars glued to her eyes.

“I suppose you haven’t seen my sister Lisa?” Nicola enquired as calmly as she could.

“I’m looking for her!” snapped Adrienne wrathfully. “If I see her step on the
Clorinda,
I shall go down and wait for her and then I shall throw her into the harbour. I hope she cannot swim!”

Nicola controlled her smiles. “Luckily—or unluckily —she’s a very good swimmer.”

By lunchtime, Adrienne, too, had disappeared. Whether she was bent on throwing Lisa into the harbour Nicola did not know, but Nicola was relieved to lunch alone and be spared the necessity of making normal conversation. She could only pick over the food, anyway, for anger and worry robbed her of appetite. She was too keyed up to bother about a siesta and worked on Sebastian’s book all afternoon.

Lisa did not put in an appearance until almost dinnertime and then Nicola had no opportunity of a private talk. Lisa was wearing a gold lame dress, her hair was newly set and long pendant earrings added a sparkle.

As soon as the meal was over, Lisa excused herself. Nicola rose, too, determined not to let Lisa escape so easily. She murmured her excuses to Sebastian and caught Adrienne’s enquiring gaze. But there was more to discuss with Lisa than snooping in private rooms or trying to flirt with Ramon.

Nicola hurried after her sister. “Lisa! I want to talk to you for a few moments.”

“Not now, please. I have an appointment.” Lisa gave her sister a disarming smile.

“Your appointment can wait! I expect he will,” Nicola added. “We’ll go to your room.”

“As bad as that? You’re going to shout at me and you don’t want half the servants to hear you. They might be surprised.”

At the foot of the staircase Lisa turned, for once irresolute and half inclined to make a dash for it and get away from Nicola’s scoldings, but Nicola’s determined face decided against that.

“I can give you only two or three minutes, Nicky,” she said, mounting the stairs. “I have to get a stole and then I’m off.”

In Lisa’s bedroom, Nicola shut the door and stood with her back against it. Lisa began to dab her nose with powder, touch up her lipstick.

“Today I had a new batch of bills sent to me,” Nicola announced.

“Oh, yes?”

“
Bills for the dresses and coats in that wardrobe. Your bills, Lisa. I hope you’re going to pay them.”

“Give me a chance! I haven’t said I’m not going to pay them.”

“
I haven’t finished paying off the other lot,” Nicola said harshly.
“
D’you think you’re going to saddle me with this new collection?”

Lisa turned from the dressing-table mirror. “What are you making a fuss about? Nobody’s asked you to pay them yet.”

“Then why didn’t you have the bills addressed to yourself? You were careful not to give your own name or initial, so that you knew I’d open them.”

“Well, I must have clothes. It may not be as important for you. After all, you don’t have much chance to wear them here in this quiet little place. Besides, you’re only a secretary-companion, if that’s the correct style, and it would be out of place for you to wear fashionable or impressive models.”

Nicola stared disbelievingly at her sister. “And you? What are you in this house?”

“A guest, of course. I have far more freedom of action than you, my dear Nicola.”

“Including freedom to spend my money? D’you realise that all the time I’ve been working for Dr. Montal a large part of my salary has had to be set aside to clear your debts?”

“I didn’t ask you to pay them, and I told you before, you were a fool. Anyway, you really enjoy being a martyr, don’t you?”

“Not enough to go on propping you up, Lisa, all your life. Some of these clothes you haven’t worn. You can have them packed up and sent back to the shops.”