Perchance to Marry (18 page)

CHAPTER TEN

ON San Palos the Lilac Fiesta was recognized as the start of the summer season. It had an air of unrestrained gaiety but there was an almost gentle atmosphere about it compared with the rumbustious clamor of the Carnival of the Grapes which marked summer’s end. Not that any of the usual signs of
fiesta
were absent. There were the huge
papier-mâché
figures nodding on poles, grotesquely dressed clowns doing acrobatics, lovely
senoritas
in gay dress, masked men in velvet slacks and white silk shirts, and all the sideshows and food stalls, toy vendors and music-makers that could possibly be packed into five acres of pastureland. But in place of an abundance of wine and grapes, there was the plenitude of lilacs; and instead of the grilling heat of a late summer night there was the refreshing zephyr of ageing spring.

Marcus and Sally arrived at the field exactly five minutes to eight. They were met by Dona Isabel, who recovered from her ecstasies over the gown in time to escort Sally to the immense arbor of lilacs which had been prepared for her appearance at eight o’clock. Marcus remained near the car. He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the bonnet, watching Sally disappear into the mountain of lilacs. This was the back of the bower. She would go up half a dozen wooden steps and emerge on to the platform where her coracle-shaped throne was ready to receive her.

The custom of installing a queen for the Lilac Fiesta had never before struck him as childish. In fact, it had always been his privilege to escort whoever it was down from the bower and beg the first dance, and he’d rather enjoyed it. The islanders loved it, bless their romantic hearts. The trouble was, he felt out of tune with the whole business this year.

Crowds were clustered about the tower of lilacs. He could see their upturned faces, tanned and shining, the girls red-lipped and smiling their expectancy. Then the concerted, long-drawn “A ... ah!” as Sally appeared and took her place. Thunderous clapping and shouts of “
Ole
” and the time-worn “
Bellissima
!” They caught the little gifts Isabel had asked Sally to throw, cried their thanks and tossed flowers up to her; rosebuds, chiefly. A compliment because she was English.

Marcus ground out his cigarette, knew he should go forward and see how she looked up there in her billowing frame of lilac. Instead he turned away and strolled in the semi-darkness halfway round the field. Two men who had started their
fiesta
rather early were bickering amiably over a jar of wine. He’d promised Pedro he’d make sure the police were on duty. They weren’t really necessary, but Pedro felt their presence an insurance against failure.

Marcus found the official tent, guarded by a solitary policeman, who saluted him smartly.

“You have seen Don Pedro?” he asked him in Spanish.

“No, Don Marcus.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell him you’re on duty. How many of you, by the way?”

The man lowered his voice. “Only three,
senor.
We are all that could be spared. The others are on special duty.”

Marcus smiled. “Special? Is there a dance on in Naval Town?”

The man looked sheepish. “I do not know much about it,
senor,
but our police are co-operating with the authorities in Naval Town. They believe that those people will take advantage of the
fiesta.
The
senor
knows what I mean?”

“Yes, I know. It’s very wise to keep the police down there. I shall be somewhere around, if you need any help. Blow your whistle.”

“Thank you,
senor
.”

Marcus walked on. The noise was unbelievable, the blare of accordion music excruciating. On the dance floor, which was almost in the centre of the field, figures were whirling and strutting while onlookers clicked castanets and sang, ate
pastas
and sweetmeats and exhorted the musicians to greater efforts. The striped marquees bulged, and a perpetual crowd moved very slowly past the Lilac Queen, looking up, smiling and waving. At a distance of about a hundred feet she appeared small and a bit forlorn as she sat there, lifting her hand and nodding ten or fifteen feet above the people’s heads.

Marcus drew an angry breath and turned away again, looked at his watch and found it was only eight-fifteen. Automatically, because it was expected of him, he tried a couple of sideshows. And automatically he found himself back near his car and lighting another cigarette.

The tent next to the structure of lilacs was in darkness and he guessed it was the one in which he and Sally would be expected to eat a supper of some sort with the
fiesta
officials. In there tables would already be loaded with cold chicken and salads, savories, fruit and nuts and dozens of bottles of wine. From the summit of the long tent a flag flew, looking happy and uncaring in the breeze. There was always a breeze for the Lilac Fiesta.

When a small flame licked up through the roof of the marquee Marcus couldn’t believe his eyes. For a moment he thought they’d started sending up the rockets earlier than usual. And then the flame snaked out against the dark sky and was whipped down over the roof towards the lilac-covered erection. In a split second it flashed through his mind: a wooden framework filled in with bamboos and woven grass, covered with a thin material to which the flowers were fastened with adhesive and pegs. God! It would go up like paper. He raced across the grass towards the flames.

Though Sally had remained sitting up on high, raising her hand and inclining her head in the expected fashion, during the last eight or ten minutes she had felt distinctly uneasy. For out on the edge of the crowd which moved past a figure had stood quite still, staring up at her. The man was thickly built and dressed in the traditional way, and like about half the men here he was masked. She had made a point of not looking at him, but he had stood his ground, and finally she had to allow her glance to slide over him as she turned her head. And in that moment when their glances met he had touched his shoulder to make himself known to her, and made a warning sign with his hand; an urgent, dismissive sign. When she had looked again he was gone.

The man at Josef’s cottage, she’d thought a little faintly. He hadn’t left the island, had even had the temerity to come here and mingle with the merry-makers. What had he been trying to convey—his thanks in devil-may-care style? No, he hadn’t been smiling, had looked grim in fact. Then what...?

It was at that point that Sally heard shrieks and saw a lurid light reflected in the horror-struck faces of the crowd. Then suddenly one side of her bower was a glaring mass of heat and Marcus was just below, yelling with all the power of his lungs.

“Don’t jump, Sally! I’m coming up!”

The policeman was frantically blowing his whistle, someone had already spurted away in a car to fetch firefighting gear ... and Sally was crouched in one corner of the flaming structure while Marcus leapt from strut to strut till he reached her. With a roar, the fire engulfed the rest of the thing. Arms tight about her, he jumped, and took the fall with his side. Men jumped across them to kill the flames; the hushed crowd pressed forward.

Marcus was up on his knees, with one arm under Sally while the other hand thrust her hair back from her brow. Almost savagely he tossed away the coronet of lilacs.

“Get Dr. Suarez,” he said thickly. “Quick!”

* * *

It was so peaceful at Las Vinas that the next three days passed almost without Sally’s being aware of the difference between night and day. The calf of her left leg had been blistered over a wide area and there were weals on her arms, but her face and hair had emerged unscathed—thanks to Marcus’s swift thinking and wide protective chest.

The first day she had said to Carlos, “Is Marcus all right? Not hurt at all?”

“A cracked rib. He’s fine otherwise.”

After that she hadn’t bothered about life very much. Marcus didn’t come to her room to see her, but Katarina came in, looking oddly as though she might have been weeping. Viola, donning her brightest bedside manner, stated that the
fiesta
had been spoilt, of course, but there would be some other kind of high jinks to make up for it as soon as Sally was fit.

“And they’re not sure that fire was an accident,” she said chattily. “Peculiar things happened elsewhere that night, but we shan’t know anything about it. That’s the worst of these places. The most exciting things happen under cover. Are you comfy, darling?”

Sally was relieved when her mother drifted away.

On Wednesday, Carlos said he thought she had rested away all risk of shock and could get up for lunch.

“But eat up here in your balcony,” he urged. “I predict that you will be very pleased to creep into bed occasionally for a rest.”

“I think you’re right. Has Dona Inez been told about all this?”

“Oh, yes. The second day, while you were sleeping, she came in here to see you.” He smiled. “She did it all alone, too, because she suspected that Katarina had told her you were suffering from a burn or two as a sort of preliminary to worse news. She was terribly afraid that you were badly injured. So she came to see for herself.”

Sally moistened pale lips. “I’ll return the compliment as soon as I can look normal.” She paused. “Is Marcus better?”

“Of course. There must have been pain in the rib for a while, but he said nothing. Each day I have reported to him about you.”

“Is he ... in bed?”

“But no! Yesterday he even drove his car.” Carlos sighed, and raised his shoulders. “I will not try to deceive you. He is not happy—Marcus. You also are not happy—I know that. I would like your permission to tell Marcus that you have asked for him and wish very much to see him.”

“Thank you, Carlos,” she said quickly, “but I’ll deal with it myself.”

He left it there. But the brief exchange with him had roused Sally from her lethargy. There was still the task she had set herself for last Sunday. She might steal a few more days, but in the long run they could do no more for her than had already been accomplished by the fire at the
fiesta
ground. Somehow that incident had estranged her completely from Marcus, and surely she had to be wise enough to take advantage of it. On the whole there was very little she had to say to him. Yes, the sooner it was said, the better.

She got up for several hours that day, but did not leave her room. On Friday, though, she half-dressed after breakfast and slipped on a flowered housecoat. At about ten-thirty, she decided, she would put on a dress and go downstairs. And she would stay down there till she had seen Marcus.

For something to do, because she could not relax, she varnished her nails and walked into the balcony to dry them thoroughly. Someone had set the fountain playing in the centre of the pool; she could hear its cool rain and see a faint dampness where the wind had blown it. Idly she leaned out, and as she did so Marcus came up the steps from the drive and saw her. He stopped, just below. He looked a bit pale, but otherwise normal.

“How are you this morning?” he asked.

“Quite recovered, thank you,” she said, and felt a new surge of fright. It was going to be terribly difficult.

“And the leg?”

“It’s pretty good.” She swallowed to dispel the huskiness from her tones, leaned forward. “Marcus, I want to speak to you.”

“I’m glad,” he said, and walked straight into the house.

Involuntarily, a fist came up and pressed hard against the base of her throat. What had he meant? That she should go down now and...

But he was there behind her in the bedroom, had come to the balcony doorway and was pushing one of the deep armchairs in front of him.

“Sit down,” he said. “Carlos told me you were well, but you don’t look it.”

“You don’t look quite ... yourself, either.”

“I’m all right.” He saw her seated and himself sat on one of the balcony chairs. “I’ve just been down to the town. Several people sent their regards and best wishes.”

“Thank you.” Never in her life had she found it so difficult to articulate. “Carlos told me about your injury. Is it ... mending nicely?”

“So well that I can’t feel it.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t burned at all.”

He smiled faintly. “My hair was singed and I’ll never be able to wear that suit again. Perhaps it was a good thing I hadn’t been drinking whisky.”

Sally tried to smile back, but couldn’t. “Do they know how the fire began?”

“It was arson—not to sabotage the
fiesta,
apparently, but to draw the police away from the coast. It seems that...”

“Before you go any further,” she said in flat tones, “I’d better tell you something that ... that happened ... it must be a fortnight ago. You’re going to dislike this, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but...” her shoulders moved sadly, with resignation. “One morning—it was hardly light—Josef came here for me. He wakened me by tossing pebbles up here into the balcony, and begged me to go down to his house and help someone who was injured.”

Marcus leaned forward, his eyes dark and narrow. “You went with him?”

She nodded. “We ran over the hill and the dunes. I found that the injury was a gunshot wound. As soon as it was dressed the man cleared off in a launch. I half thought it was a naval launch, but heard there were none missing.”

“That was strategy. Two were missing.” Marcus looked strained as he said, “You shouldn’t have gone with Josef; you know that. It was dangerous and very foolish.”

“I do know it now. Josef was tremendously relieved to get rid of the man and begged me to say nothing about him. I didn’t make any promise, except that I did say I’d speak to him first if I felt it necessary to tell anyone; I’ve a feeling it’s too late to bother with that now. I want you to know that if there’d been any enquiries I’d have told all I knew; as there was nothing said, I decided I’d been mistaken about the launch and that it must have been a poacher in the fishing grounds—something like that.”

“You actually did it for Josef,” he said. “Dressed the wound, kept silent about it, and so on?”

Something in his voice warned Sally to be a little careful. “I’d have done it for anyone in a fix. The point I wanted to make was that the man with the wound was at the
fiesta.
He made some kind of sign to me and then disappeared. Since I’ve had time to think about it, I’ve felt he was warning me to get away from that spot. He knew the marquee was going to be set alight.”

Marcus said tautly, “You’ve been near to great danger, and not only from the fire. Through Josef too. You’d better realize that.”

She looked at him then for a moment, and what she saw turned her heart. Averting her gaze, she said, “It must have been ghastly for you, seeing it all and having to act. I was dazed with the suddenness of it, and Carlos kept me under sedation for a couple of days, so it all seems a bit unreal now. Can you tell me what was at the back of it all?”

“It won’t be made public, but I feel you should know. From the time when the first launch was missing the Navy had a committee looking into things. I represented the island on that committee, and knew all the moves they were making. It was decided that as Josef was the newest arrival on San Palos he should be watched.” Marcus paused. “He didn’t want the ceramics factory, you know. He wanted a cottage near ,the sea and a good reason for staying there; it was something he’d never done before, so it had to have an obvious explanation—like ceramics.”

“But what
was
he doing in the cottage?”

“Making easy money. In his travels he’d met up with a man who handled the transport of displaced persons who had no passports. Their biggest problem was crossing the Mediterranean, and they solved it by picking on an island here and there and using some secluded bay till they were suspected, after which they cleared off. Josef had only been on the fringe of it, earning pin-money, but he was hard up, and when they needed a new base he recommended San Palos—which he knew intimately. Everything was done under cover of darkness; during the day, Josef tinkered with clay.”

“Good heavens,” she said soberly. “Who were these displaced people?”

“There are still a good many refugees about in Europe. Poorish, honest folk, most of them, though some of them do have enough money to buy a passage to a country where they could be swallowed up, unnoticed.”

“But aren’t there societies that help them?”

“They’re long-winded, I suppose, and when a man hears that money will buy him something he’s waited for for years, he gets hold of the cash somehow. This gang who have been handling the smuggling of men across different frontiers aren’t fundamentally bad. To them it’s an adventurous way of earning big money. When they let Josef team up with them, though, they showed a lamentable lack of judgment.”

“Josef!” she whispered. “That wound on his head! And yet you can’t imagine him doing desperate deeds for money.”

“Exactly,” said Marcus with irony. “He tried it, and failed. First he inadvertently holed the motor boat belonging to his companions and had to replace it. So, foolishly, he bribed someone to let him use a naval launch for one night. The launch was returned next day, and Josef, because, there was no outcry, blissfully considered himself quite a chap. But the man he was working with—a stranger on the island—had rather more about him. He could see that San Palos wasn’t going to be the sinecure he’d thought, so he arranged a grand coup for the night of the Lilac Fiesta. While everyone was drawn by the
fiesta
and the fire to the east of the island, the west coast could be used for the landing of about a dozen people without passports.”

“Are they here?”

“Not now. They’ve been sent to the mainland.”

“You knew all about the plans?”

He nodded. “Josef’s companions depended on him too much. He was picked up early that day and was frightened into confessing everything. After that it was easy to trap the others.”

“And that man who’d been shot?”

Marcus shrugged. “He considered himself the swashbuckling hero type. He wanted money, but without harming anyone. That was why he set fire to an empty tent. It was only after all the plans were laid and he daren’t back out that he realized how close you were to the blaze. That’s why he tried to warn you.”

“You’ve ... spoken to him?”

Marcus’s mouth was a straight line and his jaw muscles very prominent as he answered, “Yes. He was behind bars, or I’d have choked him.” He touched her hand, just for a second. “Their game is up—let’s forget them.”

“But ... but what’s happened to Josef?”

“You still care what happens to him?” he asked abruptly. “All right, then, you’d better hear the rest. He’s in custody, but he’ll probably get away with a heavy fine. As you know, he detests me, and it’s not likely he’ll come back to the island. Don’t feel sorry for him, for heaven’s sake!”

She shook her head. “It’s unhappiness that makes a man of his kind take to shady projects. He doesn’t seem to belong anywhere. Is this his home—San Palos?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“He claimed you as a distant connection, but you said there’s no relationship between you at all. Was he born here?”

He hesitated. “He’s Katarina’s son.”

Sally felt her skin go cold and a little clammy as she took in the implications of his unembellished statement. “Poor Katarina,” she murmured. “That explains such a lot. How is she taking this?”

He sat back abruptly. “She’s had to do a bit of explaining, too. She was half aware of all that was going on, but daren’t do anything about it. At first she tried to get Josef to give it up, but there were things he wanted, things she could never have given him herself—and the money was attractive. Against her will, she was persuaded to do some pretty low things.”

“Such as ... searching my room?”

“I’m afraid so; she told me about it herself. And you remember her telling me that she’d heard you and Josef conversing in the early hours one morning? Well, he and she arranged that between them.”

“It’s incredible,” she said thinly. “She actually told you all this, without being asked?”

“I insisted that she tell me everything, and I think she did.”

“But did she say
why
she and Josef went to so much trouble? Why should he want to do so much against me?”

“It was more against me than you,” Marcus said tersely. “The thing has quite a history. Josef is younger than I, but as boys we saw a good deal of each other. My grandmother had helped Katarina and she paid for Josef’s education. It was Katarina herself who, when he was ten, insisted on his being told that she was his mother; before that, he’d imagined himself more or less adopted by our family. The truth must have been quite a blow, because almost at once he started going wild.”