The House of Adriano (20 page)

“That’s just where we did go,” Aileen told her.

“Ah, it seems you have a most excellent guide.”

After Bart had gone, Dona Teresa was still talking about the Escorial Palace when Duarte came in. He had apparently caught something of what they said, but not everything, because he smiled and shook his head.

“Do not let talk of the forbidding exterior of El Escorial turn you away from a desire to see it. Some of its art treasures are unequalled anywhere els
e
in the world.” He smiled at Dona Teresa. “I have said that I will take Aileen out there very soon.”

Aileen’s
heart
gave a
little jump at his use
of her
Christian name,
but
at
the
same time she felt herself
tense.

“Then ... what is that slang saying - you have been beaten to it,” Dona Teresa said with her impish smile. “Senor Renfrew took her there this morning.”

Aileen shot a quick glance at him, but his expression did not seem to have changed.

“I didn’t know he was taking me there until we actually arrived,” she explained quickly.

He smiled again, but she thought she detected just a hint of disbelief in her explanation, something more felt than actually seen, perhaps because, remembering their former conversation, she did not expect him to believe her.

“There is no need to explain,” he said evenly. “You are quite at liberty to choose with whom you do your sightseeing.” He turned to Dona Teresa. “I go down to the Castillo tomorrow morning. There are things there that necessitate my attention. I shall be away perhaps two days.”

The conversation then concerned details of his departure and the journey. Nothing more was said about Bart taking her to El Escorial, and after a while Aileen made some excuse and took Peter out of the room with her.

It was not until the next morning that she saw Duarte alone, and that was on the way out to his car. She was crossing the
m
ain front vestibule at the same moment that he came into it.

She paused. “Senor...”

He turned, his attitude courteously enquiring. “There is something I can do for you?”

“No ... it’s about yesterday ...”

He smiled pleasantly, yet the smile was remote and almost indifferent. “You must not worry about it. I told you before that you are quite at liberty to choose your own companion for sightseeing.”

“But I didn’t mean to...”

He cut her off with a quickly upheld hand, still perfectly polite and courteous, but also still with that trace of remote indifference.

“There is no need to prevaricate. I also told you before that I would understand if you preferred Renfrew to take you.” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have a long drive. I wish to start early, before it gets too hot,” and with a little inclination of his dark head he was gone, and Aileen was standing there wondering why fate had chosen to inflict such a love on her. Life was far simpler when one disliked a person with as disturbing a personality as Duarte Adriano.

After that, even though Duarte returned in the two days he had stated and was always perfectly courteous and thoughtful when they met, it was Bart who always took her anywhere when she wanted to do any exploring. It was Bart who took her to visit the famous shop of Mariquita Perez, that fabulous store of dolls’ dresses, where everything that human beings wore was copied in miniature, even to a complete matador’s outfit. It was Bart who took her out to picturesque little towns and villages, and it was Bart who took her to the Prado, Madrid’s wonderful art gallery. One of the first pictures they saw in the vestibule, after they had passed through the turnstiles, was a painting of the Defence of Cadiz against the English.

Bart grinned slightly, nodding towards the picture. “Those two certainly knocked each other around in the past.”

“I don’t know quite how to take that,” she said with an answering smile. “I’m of English descent.”

Yet of all the wonderful paintings in the Prado, there was one which stood out in her memory more than the others - Velasquez’
Las Meninas,
depicting the Infanta Margarita playing with the ladies of the court and the dwarfs, her governess watching them and a dog lying contentedly in the foreground. At the left of the picture was Velasquez himself painting the king and queen, who were visible reflected in a mirror. It was so vividly real that it seemed almost possible that they might move or that you could step into the room with them. To increase the amazing sense of realism a mirror had apparently been provided at the opposite
corner
of the room, and when viewed in reflection the effect was almost third-dimensional.

Afterwards they stood at a
tabema
counter and had
vino conriente
with
champinones
, tiny mushrooms cooked in gravy and served in little dishes with a fork.

“The idea is to fork up the mushrooms and catch the drips of gravy with a piece of bread before they go all over you,” Bart informed her, and laughed at her efforts, which although somewhat desperate on occasion succeeded in saving her from a bath in gravy.

In a way Bart was a good antidote to Duarte. She could be at ease with him, knowing there was nothing serious in his friendship. It therefore came as even more of a shock to her when he suddenly proposed to her, stopping the car one afternoon on a quiet hillside.

Aileen could not comprehend for a moment what he had said, but it eventually did sink in, and she could not stop an expression of dismay crossing her face.

“Bart, you’re not serious?”

His face crinkled up in a rueful grin. “That’s the trouble with my kind of guy. Nobody expects you to be serious.”

“But...” She shook her head, hardly knowing what to say. That Bart - Bart of all people - should suddenly ask her to marry him, when she had thought all along that there was nothing but an easy friendship between them.

The expression on his face grew more wry. “That look doesn’t exactly make me feel hopeful. You hadn’t even thought about it, had you?”

“You seemed ... I mean ...” She did not know what she did mean, so she broke off once again, looking at him worriedly.

This time he smiled, leaning across to kiss her lightly. “Don’t look so worried, honey. It’s out now ... so maybe you’ll think about it.”

“Bart... I’m so sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I guess I just suddenly made up my mind that this big brother attitude wasn’t getting me anywhere. Just so long as you don’t get the idea of putting me out of your life now.”

“But, Bart, it wouldn’t be any good...”

He cut her off this time. “Maybe I’m egotistical enough to hope you’ll come around to my way of thinking now you know how I feel about you - just so long as there isn’t anyone else.” He paused, watching her closely. “There isn’t, is there?”

“No, of course not. Who could there be?”

But this was a new Bart, one who was almost a stranger to her, and something in her voice must have given her away. He whistled softly.

“So there is someone else.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s Duarte, isn’t it?”

Aileen bit her lip, looking away from him, trying to control her voice enough to be able to shrug and dismiss the matter.

“He’s the last person I’d fall in love with. I told you before, I don’t even like him very much.”

“But you were shaken up because I’d taken you to the Escorial Palace instead of him.”

“That was just because there had been a certain amount of ... of misunderstanding between us previously,” she said carefully.

Bart turned her gently to face him. “It doesn’t ring true, honey. When you’re in love yourself you get a sort of instinct about people, you know.” He shook his head. “You’ve sure bitten off a hunk of trouble there.”

Aileen gave a little shrug, more or less admitting the truth of what he said.

“I know it can’t ever come to anything.” She turned to him suddenly. “Oh, Bart, I’m sorry it happened to you this way
too. I... I know how much it
can hurt.”

Bart shook his head again, but smiling slightly this time. “These things just happen, honey. None of us can control them. Maybe though I don’t feel so bad about it now I know that it’s Duarte.”

“Because he’s going to marry Alesandra, you mean?” She gave a bitter little smile. “Even if he wasn’t, it still wouldn’t have worked out. I’m not the type of person he would have fallen in love with.”

“And he’s not really your type either,” Bart pointed out quietly. “Don’t forget that. Even if things had worked out differently, do you think you could have put up with the Spanish type of marriage?”

She looked down, gripping her hands together tightly. “When ... when you love anyone I think you would probably put up with anything just to be with the person you love ... like the Italian girl you mentioned before.” She looked up at him and managed a little shrug. “Anyway, nothing like that’s likely to happen, so the question doesn’t arise.”

He grinned suddenly, his old infectious grin. “You know, I have a feeling you’re going to marry me after all. He’ll announce his engagement soon now, so I’ll wait until then.”

Aileen shook her head. “It won’t make any difference. It’s something I’ve been... expecting myself for a long time.” She paused, and then could not help asking a little curiously, “Would you really take me on the rebound ... knowing I was in love with Duarte?”

His grin died and his expression became tight-lipped. “I’d take you on any terms. We get on well together, don’t we? Maybe in the end I would be able to make you stop thinking about him.”

Could anyone ever do that? She did not think they could. Sometimes fate seemed to be almost maliciously blind, with no consideration at all for human beings, throwing love at them and then preventing it ever coming to anything. First there was her own hopeless love for Duarte, and now Bart seemed to have been put in the same position. Much as she liked him she did not think she would turn to him on the rebound when Duarte actually announced his engagement, as Bart seemed to think
would happen, as if she was subconsciously waiting for a miracle to happen, and not until then would she give up all hope. There never had been any hope, and she had long ago made herself accept the fact.

CHAPTER X

The
days drew on, sometimes a little wearily, but always with a pretence that everything was quite happy and normal with her life. She had tried to make Bart understand that she could never make a marriage where she did not love her husband - and especially where she loved someone else-but he still insisted that he would go on hoping. When he telephoned to ask her out again, she tried to refuse, but his insistence wore her down in the end. He seemed to have meant it when he said he would wait until Duarte actually announced his engagement, because he made no other mention of wanting to marry her.

Sometimes his attitude was so much as it had been before he had made his amazing declaration that Aileen wondered if she might have imagined it, then she would suddenly see a flash of seriousness in his expression, a warmth in his eyes, although he never put anything into words since that time in the car when he had told her he loved her. He seemed to want her to treat the matter as if nothing had happened between them, on the surface at least, but knowing that, she could not help thinking about it. When a man tells her he loves her, a girl’s whole attitude towards him must instinctively change, however much she might try to keep things normal on the surface.

About a week after that a minor crisis occurred to take her mind off both Bart and herself, when she found Peter in a storm of tears in his room. Eventually she managed to get out of him that it was because he had just heard that there was no Santa Claus in Spain.

“Darling, there must be some mistake,” she insisted.” He goes everywhere
... doesn’t forget anyone at all.”

“He does ... he does!” Peter told her tearfully. “He doesn’t come anywhere near Spain. Vanetta told me so. A big black man comes instead and drives him away.”

Eventually she managed to get the full story out of him. Apparently he had said something to Vanetta about Santa Claus and she had said it was not that venerable gentleman who called
In Spain, adding something about a black man coming instead, which Peter had apparently construed to mean that poor Santa Claus was chased away. Convinced that it could not be the whole story and that Vanetta’s exceedingly poor English - almost non-existent - and Peter’s only primary Spanish phrases had somehow managed to muddle things, she decided to consult Dona Teresa.

The old lady laughed when she heard what had happened, but quickly sobered when she realised that Peter had taken it seriously.

“The poor child
!
It must be explained to him what really does happen.”

“Then there is a custom of Santa Claus here, after all?”

“No.”

“But I thought it was more or less world-wide.”

Dona
Teresa smiled. “Some version of the Christmas gift custom is world-wide, I suppose - but in Spain it is the Three Kings who call, and on the sixth of January, not Christmas Eve.”

She went on to explain that instead of hanging up stockings, the children always looked to find their presents on the balcony. First of all, though, when they awoke, they ran straight to the mirror to see if the sign was there on their face which meant the Three Kings had called while they slept. The three kings in question were called Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Balthazar, apparently, was a Negro, and it was there that Peter had picked up his muddled version of a black man in the story. Balthazar’s chief duty, it seemed, was to kiss the sleeping child, and to effect that little pretence it was traditional to dab a little charcoal on the child’s cheek.

“So you see, it’s not really so bad after all,” she said, in turn explaining to Peter. “It’s the Three Kings who call instead of Santa Claus.”

“I wonder why he doesn’t come here, though.”

“Well, it could be because he might be rather busy,” she invented. “After all, he does have rather a lot of countries to see to in such a short space of time. Maybe he deputed the Three Kings to take care of the Spanish children, or they offered to help out.”

After a little reflection he agreed that it was quite logical, and in the end became quite intrigued by the idea, wishing that Christmas - or rather January the sixth - was nearer, but the next morning it seemed that one of the kings might have paid a mid-year visit.

She was sleeping peacefully when Peter bounced on to the bed and awakened her with rude abruptness, following it with a hug that almost strangled her. At the same time a damp, pink tongue endeavoured to lick the exposed portions of her face.

“Thank you ... oh, thank you, Auntie Aileen!” he gasped breathlessly. “It was such a marvellous surprise!’

Aileen with a mighty effort managed to untangle herself from bedclothes, small boy and
one diminutive but excited puppy who seemed to have appeared out of thin air. She restrained him from his attentions to her face, looking at him with amused surprise.

“Well - where did you come from?”

Peter grinned impishly. “I know you put him there. You needn’t try to pretend.” He hugged her again, threatening to choke her for the second time, while the puppy wriggled down and transferred his attentions to a slipper. “I’d always wanted one.”

With another effort she disengaged herself from Peter, rescued her maltreated slipper and scooped up the exuberant puppy. He was a shiny golden brown, with sad eyes that were belied by his disposition, and long silky ears, a thoroughbred spaniel by the look of him.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looked from one to the other of them. “I didn’t put him there, I’m afraid, pet.”

“Oh?” He regarded her with large dark eyes - the dark eyes that were so much like Duarte’s. “Who did, then?”

“Perhaps your uncle did,” she suggested gently.

His eyes widened even more at that. “Gosh, do you really think he did?” He turned in a flurry of pyjamas and puppy. “I must go and thank him.”

Aileen caught him by a handful of pyjamas. “Better wait until you’re dressed,” she advised. She did not think that Duarte would be too pleased by the sight of Peter running around the house in pyjamas, even if a dressing gown was added
to them.

A little later, Peter now decorously dressed and with his black curls brushed as tidily as they would ever go, they went together to find Duarte, Peter clutching the puppy in his small, strong arms. They found Duarte in his study, a room that was furnished with the same unobtrusive luxury as the rest of the house, but more austere, doubtless because it was a solely masculine domain.

Peter thanked him breathlessly, to which he replied with the smile that could be so breathtakingly attractive, nothing like the aloof, distant one Aileen noticed he had been reserving for her lately. She actually felt jealousy of Peter receiving such a smile while all she received was a species of distant courtesy, immediately feeling ashamed of herself for such a thing.

She endured the situation for two more days and then, whether or not it had been pride holding her back before, she knew she had to make another attempt to get him to understand what had happened.

Vanetta had already told her he was still in, not having left immediately after breakfast as he sometimes did, so she somehow or other rallied her courage and went downstairs to his study, paused at the door, her hand raised, then knocked firmly.

His voice called to her to enter, and as she came in he rose to his feet with the courtesy that was so natural to him.

“Could ... I speak to you for a moment ... if you’re not too busy?” In spite of herself her voice faltered slightly.

“But of course.”

He drew a chair out for her to sit down. The dark eyes flicked over her with hardly any expression, but his manner, as always, was perfectly courteous. He did not sit down himself behind the large polished desk, but took up a position by the window, looking down at her with an inscrutable expression.

“I wanted to explain about Bart taking me to El Escorial,” It came out in a rush, with no preliminaries. “I honestly didn’t know he was going to.”

“I told you before - it was of no account,” he returned evenly, still without much sign of expression on his dark face. “You are quite at liberty to choose your own companions.”

“But you still don’t believe me, do you?” She bit her lip,
wondering how she could make him believe her.

“It is best to forget the matter. After all, no harm has been done.”

“Hasn’t it?” She lifted her head a little defiantly there. “You’re in effect accusing me of lying.”

She was surprised to hear her voice sounded quite crisp, but after all nobody liked to be accused of lying, especially when the accusation was not true. It was probably entirely the wrong way of going about it, but it was too late to alter her tone now. No doubt a Spanish girl in her place would have made a great play of fluttering eyelashes and even shed a few tears, but she realised, with a stiffening of inner pride, that she could not act like that. She was still
h
erself, however much she might love him.

To her surprise he smiled slightly. “It seems that I should apologise ... and I do so most sincerely.” He came nearer to her, so that her heart leapt alarmingly. “You will accept my apology?”

“Of course,” she said quickly and just a little breathlessly. It was just as well he did not know she would have forgiven him anything.

“We had an unfortunate beginning,” he went on. “It is perhaps natural that there should be more misunderstandings.”

“I suppose it is,” she agreed more slowly. She looked up at him suddenly. “I’ve sometimes wondered ... if I hadn’t acted so precipitously ... would you have asked me
r
ight at the beginning to come out here with Peter?”

The dark head nodded. “I had that in mind.”

Aileen bit her lip, looking down at her clasped hands. “I’m sorry.”

She was a little surprised when a thin, strong finger under her chin suddenly tipped her head up.

“I think perhaps the past should be forgotten. A new beginning is always a wise thing.”

“Yes ... yes, it is.”

He smiled again, more fully this time. “Then our armistice might perhaps be renewed?”

She nodded almost shyly. “I don’t really like being bad friends with anyone.”

There was a little pause, almost an enigmatic pause, then he smiled again.

“Perhaps then we shall become good friends.”

“I hope so. Senor
...”

“I have a name,” he suggested gently.

“I never know quite how to address people out here,” she said a little apologetically.

“So?” He shrugged. “You will become used to our customs. What was it you wished to say?”

“I was going to ask if it might be possible for Peter to have some friends of his own age. He is used to it, you see ... and to going to school. He doesn’t say anything, but I think he misses his former friends.”

He frowned slightly at that, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse outright, without even considering the matter. Apparently he read her expression, because he shook his head.

“Do not misunderstand me even before I speak. I was trying to think of some way in which your request might be met. Unfortunately, he might find children of his own age too different in outlook.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.” She frowned slightly herself, remembering that what Spanish children she had met had been rather prim and unchildishly polite, probably not the type to be able to appreciate or join in with Peter’s sometimes boisterous games.

He was watching her expression closely again. “A difference in background can cause strain between children as well as adults.”

“Yes, I suppose it can.”

He frowned again, thoughtfully. “I have an acquaintance with several English and American families who live in Madrid. We shall be going to the Castillo very shortly. When we return perhaps we shall find him some new friends. I do not want to surround him with too many restrictions. That was done before and caused too much trouble and sadness.”

“Eric, you mean?”

He nodded, then asked abruptly, “Did my cousin dislike me also? Is that why you were prejudiced against me even before we met?”

So he had, as she had suspected, felt her antagonism when Marius Jenton had introduced them, before he had even given her cause to dislike him. She could not let him think that Eric had disliked him though, so she shook her head quickly.

“No, he didn’t dislike you. I think it was more a question of not being able to understand you. You are very different from him,” she added frankly. “He was far more Irish than Spanish.”

“I realised that long ago.” His face set a little grimly. “Dona Luana apparently did not.”

Aileen did not say anything, reflecting silently that she was glad she had never met Dona Luana.

“The background one knows as a child is never quite lost,” he went on, almost as if he had forgotten she was there. “Something is instilled so deeply that it can never quite be escaped from ... however much one may try.”

It seemed such a strange thing to say that she looked at him with quick curiosity. Surely he had never tried to escape from his background? He seemed so ideally suited to it.

He noticed her expression and smiled a little mockingly, but she did not mind it this time.

“Perhaps you, like Eric, also find Duarte Adriano hard to understand?”

“I suppose so,” she said slowly. “You said yourself ... different backgrounds...”

“But perhaps one day we also shall find our common meeting ground.” That odd, enigmatic expression was back in his eyes. “You will perhaps understand me ... and I perhaps shall become more used to that so very infuriating independence of yours.”

What could be their common meeting ground, though? People said that love was a common meeting ground - yet how could they ever meet there?