Red Lotus (10 page)

Felicity did not know what to say. The atmosphere was already electric. Julio sat frowning in his chair, his hands clenched on the carved arm-rests, his brows drawn blackly above protesting eyes, and Conchita's red mouth was frankly rebellious.

With her limited knowledge of Spanish, Felicity had only been able to follow the official wording of the will at intervals, but she had heard Philip's name repeated, again and again, throughout the long text and had been aware of Julio scowling at him with increasing hatred in his eyes.

"So now," Señor Perez concluded, "we have the full knowledge of what Señor Hallam wanted at San Lozaro. `Stability' is the word he uses most often," he pointed out to his silent audience. "A solid background and a guiding hand in the affairs of the estate."

"Not only in the affairs of the estate," Julio burst out, "but in our personal affairs as well! In our lives! My father has made Philip our guardian—the real ruler of San Lozaro! He has taken away my birthright and given it to—a murderer!"

The dreadful word rang through the silent room, followed almost immediately by Conchita's swiftly indrawn cry.

"No, Julio! No!"

Felicity could not believe for a moment that Julio had really uttered the ugly accusation in Philip's presence, and the old lawyer looked dazed and unhappy as he
stood
fumbling with the document he had just read.

Only Philip remained calm and appeared to be unconcerned. He gave Julio a coldly calculating look before he said, with a brief shrug of dismissal which might have appeared callous in another man

"Your father did not hold that view, Julio, and now we have to carry out your father's will. You are not disinherited, nor are you deprived of your
birthright
in any way. San Lozaro is yours. The only condition that your father has imposed is that you are not to come into your full inheritance till you are twenty-one."

"Yes, that is so." Señor Perez was still a trifle flurried, although evidently relieved that the situation had not taken a more violent turn. He was taking his cue from Philip and ignoring Julio's impassioned outburst. "All that has been done is that your father has appointed a guardian for you till you come of age, and until Sisa is eighteen. Señor Arnold benefits only to the extent that your father has left Lozaro Alto to him as an outright gift."

Felicity drew in a deep breath. How could Julio object to that? How could he grudge Philip the return of his own land after ten years of faithful service to San Lozaro?

Yet she knew that Julio did object. His sullen face and restless eyes suggested that he would never allow himself to be reconciled to his father's will, but the most hurtful thorn in his flesh was not Lozaro Alto so much as the fact

that he was to remain answerable to Philip for the next three years.

Was it too harsh a decision? Looking at Philip and then back to Julio, she found herself unable to answer, but she did know that any peace there might have been in this lovely, hidden, sub-tropical valley had been irrevocably shattered by an old man's hope for the future.

Julio sat gnawing at his lower lip for a moment longer, and then he got to his feet and rushed from the room without saying goodbye to the lawyer. Conchita hesitated, her dark eyes full of tears.

"I must go after him," she said. "He may do something of folly—"

Philip let her go. Underlying the anger in his eyes, there was sympathy—for Conchita, no doubt.

"You will wait and take some food with us?" he asked the lawyer, but Señor Perez shook his head.

"I am to be at Santa Cruz before three o'clock," he informed them as he gathered his papers together and put them carefully into the black brief-case. "I have urgent business there, and so I must just snatch a meal on the way. At San Juan, perhaps, or with my sister at Tacoronte. Although we do not live far apart," he added with a smile, "we see increasingly less of each other as the years go by."

Philip went out to the terrace with him when he had wished Felicity goodbye, and she stood in the dimness of her uncle's study wondering if it were really fair that a dead man should direct other people's lives for them in such a way as this.

"Your uncle knew what was best for San Lozaro."

Philip had come back into the room. He was standing between her and the door, but even when she turned to look at him she could not guess what he was thinking. His face was a mask, made even more obscure by the dimmed light which filtered greenly into the room through the slatted blinds.

"Yes, I suppose so," she conceded uncertainly. "But was he also sure what was best for his children?"

"Julio is San Lozaro," he answered without hesitation. "That has not been changed by your uncle's will."

"No, I suppose not. Julio will come to his inheritance—in time."

She did not know why she had said that. It had been almost a question.

"Yes," he said, "in time."

"And what of Conchita?" she heard herself asking.

"Conchita will stay here, of course," he said. "She is under my guardianship. She will not question her father's wisdom in that respect. Certainly not openly. Conchita is Spanish at heart."

How sure he was! Felicity suddenly felt her cheeks burning. Was he sure of her, also?

"I had no idea that I should be mentioned in my uncle's will," she said. "I find it most generous of him "

"He was, on the whole, a generous man, although not an over-indulgent one. He has asked you to stay here. What are you going to do?"

He shot the question at her without any change of expression, and she found herself saying rather nervously:

"I suppose I shall stay. I had meant to stay for at least a year when I first came."

There was the suggestion of calculation in his blue eyes as he continued to look at her.

"Yet if it hadn't been for this dying request of Robert Hallam's you might quite conceivably have changed your mind?" he suggested.

"I don't know. I—if I had felt that I was really needed, I would have stayed in any case."

He accepted her decision with a brief nod.

"I'm sure your uncle expected it," he said. "He had judged you largely by the letters you wrote to him after his sister's death. He told me that your mother and he were very fond of each other as children, and that made him feel that you were very close to him. He believed, too, that you might be the right sort of person to bring up Sisa and have a restraining influence on Conchita."

"I feel that I have come to know Sisa very well, even after one short week," Felicity said.

"But not Conchita?"

He regarded her quizzically for a moment and then he smiled.

"That is not surprising," he said. "I don't think you will ever really understand Conchita."

"I can try," she said with spirit. "I have no intention of

turning Conchita into a prim English miss, if that is what you fear!"

"It would be impossible," he said with a deepening smile. "Conchita was born a tigress."

She met his eyes uncertainly, not able to believe that this was the sort of woman he would want. A girl with spirit, perhaps, but not a teenage spitfire who didn't know her own mind and only wanted to play at being in love.

"I shall appeal to you for help," she found herself saying, "if Conchita gets out of hand."

He shrugged almost indifferently.

"I am more concerned with Julio," he confessed unexpectedly. "No one walking about with an outsize chip on his shoulder as Julio does can be really happy."

"He's too young to have such deeply-rooted prejudices," she agreed. "Perhaps he will forget his—resentment in time."

"About San Lozaro? I hope so." He seemed to be thinking about something quite different, and Maria's name sprang instantly to Felicity's mind. "Julio is too intense," was all he said, however, as Sisa came rushing in through the sun-warmed patio to greet them.

"Philip! Philip!" she cried, "I can play right through Poet and Peasant without one single mistake! You must hear me," she declared, "because it is your favourite piece!"

Oddly surprised by the revelation, Felicity looked at Philip, but he did not seem to be at all embarrassed by Sisa's enthusiasm.

"We must play it together, then," he suggested, "when I can find the time. You must remind me, querida!"

"When you have made a promise you will keep it," Sisa acknowledged briefly. "Now, tell me what is to become of us, Philip. Are we to stay at San Lozaro?"

"Indeed you are!" He smiled down into her small, flushed face with genuine affection in his eyes. "And I am to stay and look after you."

"I am so happy!" Sisa said, swinging on his arm. "Are you to look after Julio and Conchita, too?"

"To the best of my ability," he told her gravely.

"And Felicity?" Sisa swung round to regard her cousin with wide, contemplative eyes. "Are you to be her guardian, Philip?"

Philip's mouth twisted in a wry smile.

"I think not. You see," he explained when Sisa would have protested in disappointment, "Felicity is of age. She is already her own mistress."

Felicity could feel the colour rising in her cheeks as he continued to look at her.

"But she will stay here?" Sisa probed.

"Yes," Philip said, "she has promised to stay."

"That makes everything wonderfully simple!" Sisa declared, clasping her hands ecstatically. "It means that none of us need leave San Lozaro, nor the valley, nor Zamora, nor the de Barrios, nor anything!"

Mention of the de Barrios swept all the indulgence from Philip's eyes.

"Did you call at Zamora on your way back?" he asked almost peremptorily.

"Of course! Andrea and I came back together. Don Rafael picked up their car at La Orotava to drive to Santa Cruz for the afternoon and I gave Andrea a lift home. But I generally do stop at Zamora, Philip."

"Yes," he agreed distantly, "so you do."

His thoughts were obviously elsewhere, but Sisa ran on without seeming to notice his preoccupation.

"We are invited to the fiesta," she announced. "We must go, Philip. Promise that we may go!"

"There is plenty of time for that." It surprised Felicity to realize that he was avoiding the issue for the present. "It is several weeks ahead yet."

"But if we are to take part in it," Sisa pointed out, "Isabella must know our decision. She will have other guests, Andrea says."

"We will not be staying at Zamora," Philip told her with some decision.

Sisa looked disappointed, but did not argue. Perhaps she thought that she might be able to approach Philip later with better results.

"Felicity ought
to see the fiesta," she added as a parting shot before she ran off to change her silk suit for a cotton dress.

"There are many fiestas on the island," Philip said without looking in Felicity's direction. "We are rarely without one in some town or another during the summer months."

It would appear, then, that it was only the fiesta at Zamora which was to be officially banned. Felicity was

already half rebellious at the thought. If it was still some weeks away, as Philip himself had just pointed out, her uncle's death and their period of mourning would have nothing to do with it.

No, this was something personal, hinged to the dislike—the enmity even—which she had surprised in this man's eyes when he had first seen her coming off the plane at La Laguna with Rafael de Barrios by her side.

Although it was a full week since her arrival at San Lozaro, there had been no further word from the Marques. He had come to her uncle's funeral, but he had bowed gravely over her hand when they had met, saying nothing because Philip had been standing by her side at the time, and he had not come back to the hacienda afterwards with the other mourners.

His presence had been a neighbourly gesture which even Philip could not resent, but he had paid his respects and gone, a tall, distinguished-looking figure in that motley company of labourers and estate employees and business men, with only Philip matching him for height and proud arrogance of bearing as they stood for the conventional moment together on the terrace steps.

And now it seemed that Philip would have been better pleased if Sisa had not gone to Zamora on her way back from her music lesson. That, of course, was ridiculous! The girl must have her friends, and especially company of her own age.

Wondering if this was to be the first difference of opinion to crop up between them, Felicity tried to adjust herself to her new position at San Lozaro without coming into conflict with anyone.

For several days she saw nothing of Julio and very little of Conchita, a situation which she was forced to accept because Conchita did come in to the evening meal, and Sisa declared that Julio was "safely concealed" in one of the bothies at the far side of the plantation.

He was evidently living among the estate labourers, indulging himself in the belief that he really belonged there since his father had so little faith in his ability to manage San Lozaro. It was a mood, Sisa said, that would pass in time, but the fact did not make it any more acceptable to Felicity at the present moment. She wished