Meeting in Madrid (8 page)

‘Arranging the “schoolroom”. Teresa and I will begin work there tomorrow in earnest.’

‘Have you everything you need? If not, you must ask Lucia or Manuel.’

‘Teresa thought we might ride a short distance later in the afternoon,’ she said tentatively.

‘Why not? You can’t be expected to work all day. Teresa, for one, would not agree! Besides, when you are riding together you can be talking together, but I thought you told me that you did not ride very well.’

‘Teresa thinks I should learn.’

‘So you shall. I will speak to Manuel about a suitable mount for you, one that will not run away with you the very first time.’

He seemed to be faintly amused by the thought of someone who could not ride, but he had been brought up with all the privileges, she told herself angrily.

‘Perhaps I would be safer on a mule,’ she suggested.

‘Mules can prove much more difficult to ride if they have the proverbial stubborn streak in them,’ he assured her, dismounting from his magnificent white horse. ‘You may have to use one occasionally—if you go to Las Canadas, for instance, to climb El Teide in the traditional manner— but for the present I would stick to one of the ponies, if I were you. I will speak to Manuel.’

He paused, still looking up at her, his dark head uncovered, his deeply-tanned face thoughtful for a moment, and suddenly the scent of stephanotis was all about them, too strong for Catherine to bear. She drew back into the shelter of her room as he led the horse away.

Five minutes later, Teresa was calling to her from her own bedroom.

‘Come and try these on,’ she commanded when Catherine made her appearance at the adjacent door. ‘I haven’t worn them for a long time, so they should almost fit.’

She held out a pair of yellow jodhpurs made from very fine cavalry twill and patched on the inside of the leg with a pale skin as delicate as chamois, which possibly came from the local goats roaming in abundance among the hills.

‘Are you sure?’ Catherine asked, laughing as her eye caught the inscription blazoned in lipstick across Teresa’s dressing-table mirror.

‘CAKES ARE DANGEROUS’, the younger girl had printed in letters a foot high.

‘I have to be constantly reminded,’ she confessed. ‘Do you think I will ever slim?’

‘If you try hard enough you will soon be asking for those back.’ Catherine had slipped into the perfectly-fitting jodhpurs to survey herself in what was left of the mirror. ‘Thank you for being so kind, Teresa.’

They went downstairs and out to the courtyard to find Lucia there with Don Jaime.

‘But I shall need Manuel this afternoon,’ Lucia was saying. ‘I wish him to carry the flowerpots to the
patio
for me.’

‘You have Alfredo to fall back on,’ her brother-in-law pointed out. ‘I am sure he is quite as efficient as Manuel when it comes to carrying flowerpots.’

His suave rejoinder seemed to madden Lucia.

‘Manuel is my personal servant!’ she exclaimed furiously. ‘I will not have him used for—anyone else.’

It was evident that she meant Catherine, and suddenly the atmosphere became electric as Manuel led two well-groomed ponies into the courtyard. Catherine turned to look at him. He was small and dark and intense, with a magnetism about him which she found hard to describe as she gazed back into his coal-black eyes. He was the man in the
poncho
whom Lucia had met so clandestinely in the shadowed colonnades of the
patio
the evening before.

There could be no doubt about it. The small figure in the gaily-coloured blanket was unmistakable, although now Manuel stood back obediently, waiting for his mistress’s command.

‘You will go with the
senoritas
this afternoon, Manuel,’ Don Jaime told him, ‘and you will lead Vivo most of the way.’ He turned back to Catherine. ‘Vivo is one of our quieter ponies,’ he assured her. ‘His speed belies his name.’

‘I hope so,’ Catherine smiled. ‘I’ve only been on a horse once before and I don’t think he really took to me.’

He laughed.

‘Vivo will be your friend if you handle him properly.’ He cast an expert eye over her trim figure, obviously approving the borrowed jodhpurs.

‘Teresa lent them to me,’ she explained.

Manuel was standing beside the pony, waiting to help her into the saddle, but his master stepped forward to hold the stirrup for her. Suddenly the little animal seemed enormous, but she would not let Don Jaime see how nervous she was. Besides, Lucia was looking on with faint scorn in her eyes. I’ll do it as gracefully as I can, Catherine thought, glancing sideways at the ancient mounting-block which nobody seemed to use.

‘Up you go!’ said Don Jaime, supporting her until she was safely in the saddle.

She sat there holding her breath for a moment after that initial effort, but whether it was at the touch of his hand or from nervousness of a new experience was difficult to say. Teresa leapt on to the back of the other pony, urging him across the cobbles with a disdainful look in Manuel’s direction which dared him to suggest a leading-rein, but Catherine was glad of the young Spaniard’s quiet assurance as he led Vivo slowly away.

Looking back as they rounded the gable end of the house, she saw Lucia turn angrily along the
patio,
but Don Jaime stood watching their progress until they were finally out of sight.

Manuel, mounted on his own shaggy pony, kept the leading-rein firmly in his hand, a fact for which she was grateful as Teresa took off at some speed in the direction of the door through which they had entered the afternoon before. Waiting for Manuel to open it, she looked down at him with some scorn.

‘You have no need to be silent, Manuel,’ she said. ‘I know you can speak English quite well and will listen to everything we say.’

A quick flush stained the young Spaniard’s brow.

‘I do not come to spy,
senorita,
’
he returned with some spirit, ‘even if that is what you think of me. Always I perform my duties as I am supposed to do, and I am not your servant.’

The quiet dignity of the man spoke volumes. He had been more or less accused of being Lucia’s informer, but he would have none of it. There was injured pride in the dark eyes as they looked back into Teresa’s and a certain amount of boldness which Catherine found strangely disquieting. He was young, he was handsome, and he had a fiery temper which only seemed to be subdued in Lucia’s presence. He was her personal servant, but there was something more than that between them. In public Lucia treated him with a haughtiness relevant to their respective stations, but the evening before they had stood close in the garden beside the fountain, half hidden in the shadows of the colonnade, half revealed as the moon fled across the sky.

For an hour they rode along the narrow dirt road which skirted the
hacienda
wall, passing tiny
adobe
houses smothered in vines and great packing-sheds where the estate workers were busy in the cool dimness of the cavern-like interiors packing a consignment of bananas for the journey to Santa Cruz in the morning. Several lorries with the Madroza name on their sides waited, ready to be loaded, the drivers sleeping soundly beneath them, out of the sun. Teresa flicked her riding-whip.

‘If Jaime came along they would think of something better to do,’ she declared. ‘Ramon will not tell them to work harder. He is too eager to be one of them and drive on a lorry to Santa Cruz.’

They halted where the road began to climb out of the valley, sitting in the shade of a young dragon tree to survey the vast panorama of terraced vines and bananas spread out beneath them. It was a whole kingdom, Catherine thought, bounded on the north by that high brick wall which must have taken years of patient labour to build and by the distant sea in the south. Until now, she had had no idea how vast the Madroza possessions were, and even her untrained eye could see that the irrigation dykes had been newly maintained so that a regular flow of water would enrich the land. If all this had been Don Jaime’s doing he had every reason to feel satisfied.

‘My father did much to enhance the estate,’ Teresa said proudly, ‘but Jaime has also worked very hard. At one time Soria was badly neglected; there was no money to put back into the land.’ Her voice hardened. ‘The necessary money came with Lucia. Her father was a rich merchant and she was his only daughter.’

So Soria owed much to Lucia in a material way and Don Jaime, if not Teresa, would be grateful.

As they reached the high road and were approaching the first of the packing-stations a cloud of red dust ahead of them announced the presence of a horse and rider travelling at speed.

‘It’s Ramon,’ said Teresa, ‘making up time.’

The rider emerged from the red cloud into the sunlight of the dirt road as they reached the sheds, drawing up abruptly when he saw them.

‘Where have you been?’ Teresa demanded. ‘To the Gran Hotel los Dogos, I suppose.’

‘You suppose wrongly, but I did go to the
Puerto
,’ Ramon admitted, obviously looking for someone else. ‘Has Jaime been around?’ he asked casually.

‘Luckily for you, he hasn’t,’ Teresa returned. ‘It’s a working day, or hadn’t you noticed?’

Ramon gave her a disparaging look.

‘I was up at the crack of dawn,’ he informed her, ‘long before you were even awake.’ Brushing some of the dust from his clothes, he dismounted, coming to stand beside Catherine. ‘Did my brother approve the pony?’ he enquired, looking up at her with one dark eye closed against the sunlight. ‘Vivo is very tame.’

Catherine glanced sideways at the powerful horse he had been riding. It was the colour of sand and would be hardly noticeable in the high reaches of the mountains, a spirited animal now pawing the ground restlessly as he waited.

‘I’m a very indifferent horsewoman, so Vivo suits me very well,’ she said. ‘You must have ridden most of your life.’

‘My father used to say I was practically born in the saddle,’ Ramon acknowledged. ‘My mother was a fearless horsewoman, although most women rode behind their husbands in those days. Teresa takes after her,’ he added. ‘She is her true
nieta,
full of spirit and wilfulness which my brother does his best to curb.’

Teresa got down from her pony to stretch her legs.

‘Why is it always a girl who must be subdued?’ she demanded. ‘You are not exactly placid, Ramon, but you have a very good way of hiding it which is perhaps what I need.’

‘I wouldn’t try anything on with Jaime, if I were you,’ he warned her with a half-smile. ‘He is not easily deceived.’ He turned to help Catherine from the saddle. ‘You must need a rest,’ he suggested.

‘If I get down I’m never going to be able to mount again,’ Catherine declared. ‘As it is, I feel permanently bent in the middle!’

He was standing close beneath her, one hand on the pony’s glossy flank, the other on the stirrup, and there was a small flame of anticipation in his eyes as he looked up at her.

‘Come with me to the
puerto
this evening,’ he begged. ‘I will show you what life on this remote little island can really be like.’

‘The
puerto
is no longer Tenerife,’ Teresa declared with amazing candour. ‘You would not be showing her the true island, only a few sophisticated hotels.’

‘You’re jealous,’ Ramon shot back, ‘because it is out of bounds as far as you are concerned. But perhaps we can all go,’ he added. ‘I ran into Alex Bonnington while I was down there this morning and she was greatly impressed by Cathy. She would like us to visit her. Lucia, too, of course,’ he added. ‘Alex is nothing if not polite.’

Catherine had liked Alex Bonnington on sight, feeling that the advice and friendship of a fellow-countrywoman might not come amiss during her stay at Soria. She had been vaguely troubled by Alex’s warning, however, but since she was not going to stay at the
hacienda
for the rest of her life it didn’t seem to matter very much.

‘Perhaps we could learn to paint,’ Teresa suggested. ‘At least that would be something different to do. Oh, here comes Jaime,’ she added. ‘In a bit of a hurry, by the looks of things.’

Ramon did not move. When his brother rode up he was still standing with his hand on Catherine’s stirrup, looking up at her, something insolent in his manner now that he was discovered idling away his time in conversation.

Wondering why she should also feel guilty, Catherine looked over the pony’s shaggy head into Don Jaime’s hostile eyes, and for a moment he held her gaze before he rode into the shade of the packing sheds to dismount.

There are four lorries at San Bartolome waiting to start for Santa Cruz,’ he said to Ramon. ‘None of them have the necessary bills of lading. Can you advise me what has happened to them, or is that too much to ask on a pleasant afternoon when you have other distractions to take up your time?’

‘Heavens, I forgot!’ Ramon looked truly contrite. ‘I meant to see to the bills yesterday, but it slipped my mind.’ He vaulted on to his horse. ‘It won’t take me long to get them. They’re back at the house.’

He turned on a tight rein to gallop off by the way he had come and something about the sharp, contrary movement seemed to disturb Catherine’s pony. The docile little animal shivered where he stood and then, without warning, he took to his heels and flew off in the wake of Ramon and his spirited steed.

Taken completely by surprise and sickeningly aware that Manuel had let go of the leading-rein while they had stood talking, she flung her arms around the pony’s neck and clung on like grim death, praying that the little animal would stop of his own accord before final disaster overtook them. The narrow road with its fringe of palms and scrub flashed past her as the thunder of heavier hooves came up behind them.

Don Jaime spoke sharply in his own language and the pony slackened its pace and was soon standing still by the roadside. Catherine turned her head sideways to look at her rescuer.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed because it always seemed necessary to apologise for her actions. ‘I couldn’t stop him once he got going.’