The Stars of San Cecilio (2 page)

English nannies! . . .

A dizzy thought leapt through her mind, and she watched the moon rise and climb slowly above the sea as if it was a huge golden lantern someone was swinging aloft. And then when the moon was no longer golden, but clear and pale and shedding a primrose light across the wide path of the ocean, she turned away, only to make the discovery that the high heel of one of her evening slippers had caught between the cobbles of the jetty.

She wrenched at it, but nothing happened. She removed her foot from the shoe and bent down to try to twist it free; but still nothing happened, and she was beginning to despair and wonder what it would feel like hobbling back up the drive to her hotel with only one shoe and a stockinged foot, when a man who had been sauntering along the waterfront and thoughtfully smoking a cigarette realized that she was in difficulties and crossed to her assistance.

‘Your pardon, senorita!’ he said, very quietly, and then bent and quickly released the shoe for her. He handed it back, looking at her with grave dark eyes. ‘ It would have been uncomfortable to walk without it,’ he added, but all she could do was stare at him.

‘Yes,’ she said—’Oh, yes!’ And then wondered whether this was an hallucination, or whether Fate had really relented at last.

‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea if you put it on?’ he suggested, and the smile on his beautifully cut lips was very slight.

But as she still stood with the shoe in her hands he removed it from her and himself bent and attached the pale satin sandal to, the slim foot to which it belonged. Then he straightened and looked down at her from a height that was several inches above her own, and there was something quizzical in his regard.

‘I should have done that in the beginning, shouldn’t I?’ he remarked. ‘ Although it was Cinderella who lost her slipper, and there is nothing about you that suggests a Cinderella!’

C H A P T E R T W O

Lisa was so convinced that this was all part of wishful thinking that for several seconds her brain refused to tick over normally, and she stood staring up at him with a look in her large, shadowy grey eyes that would have flattered him excessively if he had had any clue to what lay behind that look. But it was obvious that he hadn’t, and his eyebrows contracted suddenly in a puzzled fashion.

’’Haven’t I seen you before?’ he asked. ‘I feel sure that I have.’

Lisa swallowed something in her throat. It was a queer, excited dryness.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘We are staying at the same hotel. ’

‘The Carabela?’

‘Yes.’

This time his eyebrows ascended.

‘Then I must have noticed you in the restaurant. or on the terrace. I don’t frequent the hotel grounds very much, and I never visit the beach— at any rate, not in the daytime—so it was very probably the restaurant. You are staying in San Cecilio, senorita?’

‘I’ve just concluded a fortnight’s stay here,’ she admitted, her heart beating fast because, after all, he had noticed her. ‘And,’ she added, with infinite regret, ‘I go home tomorrow!’

He smiled.

‘You sound sad, senorita—is it because you have fallen in love with San Cecilio? Many English people find the Costa Brava attractive, and you are quite obviously very English. ’

‘Am I?’

His eyes flickered over her with that cool, faint smile in them.

‘Yes—very!’

He turned, and she found herself walking at his side along the moon-bathed waterfront. He was wearing a white dinner-jacket, and her charmed eyes had already observed that he had a flower stuck in the lapel, a wine-dark carnation that filled the air with a rich aroma even as they walked. There was also the choice aroma of cigar-smoke adhering to him, and the beautifully masculine odor of shaving-cream; and as she peeped at him sideways his face looked smooth and clear-cut as a plaque, and the night-darkness of his hair formed a slight Marie Stuart peak on his forehead.

‘There is always a certain sadness about the word adios—good-bye,’ he said, in his faultless but faintly accented English. ‘To say good-bye to a spot where one has been happy, if only for a short time, is disturbing because there is so much finality about it. One knows that one can never recapture an experience exactly as it was, however hard one might try in future. ’

‘Yes, but that applies to everything in life, doesn’t it?’ she suggested, talking up shyly, but with interest.

‘I think it was one of your own poets—no, it was a Frenchman—who said that in each farewell one dies a little death,’ he remarked moodily, as they moved almost noiselessly side by side. Then he looked down at the golden hair swinging close to his shoulder, the outline of a pensive brow and firm but demure chin, and he smiled more naturally. ‘But for me, I live only in Madrid, and there is no need to die the death when I say farewell to the Costa Brava.’

‘You come here often?’ she asked, a lump in her throat because every minute as it ticked away was bringing her nearer to her own moment of farewell, and by some irony these words he was uttering to her were being uttered on her last night. ‘Not so very often, but it is a pleasant escape from city life. And at that moment I am looking for a house.’

‘Oh—yes?’ she said.

‘A house for the summer—a villa where I can install my family. ’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said again, more faintly.

‘My daughter and her English nurse. ’

It was on the tip of Lisa’s tongue to ask: ‘And your wife?’ But she hadn’t the courage to let it pass her lips.

‘It becomes very hot in Madrid as the season advances,’ he explained, ‘and here on the coast there is usually some air, and always of course the tonic effect of the sea breezes. My daughter is not particularly strong; in fact, it is not long since she was seriously ill, and it behooves me to get her away for the summer. Then, in the autumn, she can go to school in England as planned. ’

‘In England?’ she echoed. ‘You believe in English schools?’

‘In this case, yes,’ he answered. ‘My wife was partly English. ’

Was partly English! ... Lisa stared away over the sea, and the iridescent shimmer dazzled her eyes. He was a widower, and Fate was permitting her to know him for a single night!

‘I think I saw your little girl the other day, ’ she told him. ‘She was having lunch with you.’ Suddenly he stopped, and his voice was full of apology.

‘Your pardon, senorita, but I am talking to you of my affairs, and I have not had the good manners to introduce myself! My name is Julio Fernandez. I am more than happy that I came along in time to rescue your slipper from the tenacious grip of the jetty cobbles! ’

If there was humor in his voice, there was also a smooth sincerity, and underneath the smoothness there was a touch of warmth that felt like warm fingers reaching and closing about Lisa’s heart. She turned her face up to him with an eagerness that made her look enchantingly attractive in the moonlight, and as she impulsively thrust back the bright wings of hair from her shoulders she responded:

‘And I am Lisa Waring—Elizabeth Waring. I’m sure I should have had to abandon my shoe if you hadn’t come along. ’

‘Instead of which it is once more safely attached to your foot. ’ He looked down at the foot as if its small size intrigued him. ‘ Are you in a hurry to get back to the hotel, Miss Waring? Or, since we have met, will you drink a glass of wine with me on this last night of yours in San Cecilio?’

For an instant Lisa could hardly believe her own ears, and then she almost gasped in pleasure.

‘That would be—lovely! ’

His eyes flickered over her once more, dark, inscrutable eyes that nevertheless had the lustre of pools hidden in the depths of a shadowy wood, into which two brilliant stars were peering.

‘Bueno!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am very happy! There is a bodega not far from here that will not be too crowded at this hour, and we will drink to your return to San Cecilio—if it is your wish that you should return here at some distant future date?’

‘Not too far distant, ’ she returned, a little shakily.

‘Then some future date that is perhaps nearer than you imagine.’

The bodega was not far from the quayside, and they had to retrace their steps to get to it. Inevitably music floated out through the open doorway, and a flood of mellow light fell across the rough wooden benches and tables set out on the cool stone floor. Trailing vines and pot plants gave the place atmosphere.

In spite of the crudeness of the seating accommodation the wine, when it was brought to the table, was the finest Lisa had so far tasted. She realized that she was hardly a connoisseur of wines, but even her inexperienced palate detected a quality in this sparkling beverage that sent a pleased look into her eyes as she looked across the table at her escort. It was golden and glowing like ripe apricots, and as clear as glass, and as she looked down at the bubbles that floated in it she felt a trifle bemused.

‘To your future happiness, Miss Waring,’ Julio Feranandez said formally. ‘ To a great deal of good fortune in your future — and a return to San Cecilio! ’

‘I am not in the least likely to return to San Cecilio,’ Lisa confessed forlornly when she set down her glass.

‘ Why not?’ he asked.

And although she couldn’t understand afterwards why she decided all at once to be quite truthful and uninhibited about her affairs, she found herself telling him how she had saved up for this holiday, and about the disaster that had happened literally on the eve of it. When she got back to England She would be jobless, and she was feeling anxious in case she was going to be jobless for very long. Having been wantonly extravagant and refused to cancel this holiday, she couldn’t afford to be without a practical means of support for many weeks.

Fernandez looked surprised, and then his black brows drew together in a frown. Being Spanish he also felt rather shocked, which was given away by his expression.

‘But your parents?’ he asked. ‘Have you no parents? Are you alone in the world?’

She admitted that she had been without parents since her last year at school, but there had been a little money left for her to train, and she had taken a course in child welfare. She had had two jobs as nursery-governess, one as governess to an older child, and the job that had just come to an end in such a unfortunate manner had combined so many duties that she had been more or less a maid-of-all-work. She wasn’t ashamed of confessing this to the man across the table—perhaps because she was so sure she would never see him again after tonight, and in any case there was little point in departing from the truth—and she saw him looking at her in an inexplicable fashion, as if she was something he had never met before.

‘Then although I said you don’t look like Cinderella, ’ he remarked, ‘ your future is really as uncertain as Cinderella’s.’

‘Yes.’ She stared down at the bubbles that were expanding and contracting in her wineglass. ‘Except that from the moment Cinderella lost her slipper things started to work out well for her! ’

‘That is true. It is a pity we cannot think of something that would enable things to work out well for you.’

She looked across at him without speaking.

‘Tell me,’ he requested, ‘what, exactly, are your qualifications — your accomplishments? You said that you have acted as governess to an older child. Presumably that was not as easy as looking after little ones? Were you a success when you undertook that particular task? Or was it, seeing that you are rather young yourself, just a little beyond you?’ smiling to soften the inference in his words.

‘No; I was quite a success. The child was at home from school for a year, owing to illness, and I think I helped her quite a lot. At any rate,’ with a reminiscent look of affection in her clear grey eyes, ‘we grew fond of one another, and it was quite a wrench for both of us when school loomed up once more on the curriculum. ’

‘You mean when you had to part? ’

‘Yes. And as a matter of fact we still correspond—not only I and the child, but the child’s parents. They were very good to me. ’

He studied her reflectively.

‘Possibly it would be easy to be good to you if you were doing what you English call ‘pulling your weight’.’ Once again she was silent, but her heart seemed to be bounding more quickly than normal—which no doubt was the effect of the wine, which was rather heady.

‘Let me tell you something, Miss Waring,’ he said suddenly. ‘I am a doctor—what you call a ‘consultant’ doctor—in Madrid, and my home is, of course, in Madrid also. I have a motherless daughter of nine who was critically ill for several months, and now that she is on the mend I have explained that I wish her to live for a time on the coast. Here on the Costa Brava. I think I have found a suitable villa, or cottage, and Gianetta will be in the charge of her English nurse. But the nurse is not quite up to coping with Gia — perhaps for the reason that Gia is something of a monkey,’ smiling with a magical softening of his dark eyes, ‘and it seems to me that what is really needed is a governess. Someone young, and alive, and understanding—perhaps like yourself! ’

‘You mean--------?’

Lisa felt her heart stop beating, and then rush on again wildly.

‘ I mean that it might solve your problem, and mine, if you stayed on here in San Cecilio, and accepted a position with a Spanish family. That is to say, if you would allow me to become your employer. ’

Lisa was quite certain that it was the wine that had got up into her head — that she ought to have stuck to only one glass, instead of accepting another half glass as well, and that being extremely potent it was already having a disastrous effect! She was imagining that she heard things

—    imagining that he, of all men, was offering her a job!

He regarded her quizzically as she appeared to be

trying to take in his suggestion — groping for words to answer him.

‘Perhaps you do not feel that you could take very easily to the Spanish way of life?’ he suggested. ‘It is pleasant for a holiday, but how would it work out if you had to remain here in this country for a period of several months

—    at any rate until the autumn? Is that what you are asking yourself?’