Red Lotus (17 page)

"That won't be necessary," Philip said, coming up behind them. "I shall take Felicity direct to Orotava from here."

"It's too long a journey," Rafael warned, but he shrugged, as if it no longer concerned him, and turned to where Conchita was waiting.

She had been standing behind Felicity, willing Rafael to notice her, one small foot tapping impatiently, her dark

eyes star-bright as she watched the Marques' every movement and hung on his every word. Convention had demanded that he should enquire about Felicity's accident, of course, but there was no need to enlarge upon it, her impatience seemed to say, and certainly no need to consider the necessity for a doctor's attention. That was surely Philip's job!

"We must not delay you if you wish to go to Orotava." Isabella said. One long, understanding look had passed between her and Philip when they had met, but that was all. Now Isabella appeared calm and serene as ever, with only the hint of a shadow in her eyes. "I hope your ankle will not pain you too much, Felicity," she added sincerely. "And, most of all, I hope it will not keep you from coming to our fiesta."

"It will be mended long before that," Philip said abruptly. "If there is anything you want us to do for you, Isabella, you will let me know?"

Isabella looked at him again, steadily, affectionately.

"I will let you know," she said. "I have Rafael back with us, of course," she added slowly. "He tells me he will stay, at least till the fiesta is over."

There had been no hint of complaint in her pleasant voice, no suggestion that her husband might have spent more of his time in his own home, yet it was not an abject acceptance of her fate that shone in those clear dark eyes. There was acceptance, but it was of a kind that transcended defeat—an inner calm, a rising above the unhappiness and frustrations of life, which set a strange glow upon this woman who had married without knowing the true meaning of love.

"We will need Sisa and Conchita with us the day before," Rafael suggested lazily. "There is a lot to do."

Sisa glanced at Andrea and smiled. They had already made their youthful plans. It was Conchita who took the invitation as a purely personal one.

"I shall come whenever you say, Rafael," she agreed eagerly. "Philip must not be allowed to refuse when it is in so good a cause!"

"Why should Philip wish to refuse?" Rafael de Barrios looked amused. "He is only your guardian."

"Which is most important!" Isabella retorted with a

small flash of anger. "Sisa will come, and Conchita, too. I shall promise Philip to look after them both."

Rafael laughed, but there was uneasiness in the atmosphere now and he made a movement towards the rest-house and its acceptable patch of shade.

Philip helped Felicity into the car, in front, this time, where he could watch her as they drove along. Her face looked white and strangely pinched about the mouth, as if she smiled under strain, and when she said goodbye to Isabella she did it hurriedly.

Isabella did not look at Philip again. She stood back between her sisters-in-law, waving as he turned the car in a wide circle on the beaten sand, and when Felicity looked back before they plunged down the mountain road, Isabella was already seated in the shade of the wall unpacking the picnic hamper which Rafael had produced from the Mercedes' capacious boot.

On the way down the trees gave them shade, but there was no wind, and the heat began to affect Felicity—the heat and the increasing pain in her ankle whenever she moved. Over and above all these physical discomforts, too, she could feel the pain in her heart like a deep, dull ache that must remain with her all her life from now on.

She loved Philip. She loved him madly, and he had nothing to offer her in return except, perhaps, his friendship in the end.

"Felicity," Sisa asked anxiously from the back seat, "are you feeling faint? You look so pale."

"No. No—I'm all right!"

The words had been a tremendous effort and Philip slowed down the car to look at her.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Quite sure. Please don't stop, Philip! I'm not going to faint or do anything silly like that."

"We are near Lozaro Alto," Conchita pointed out. "Could we not go there, Philip, so that Felicity can rest? The road is only a little way ahead."

Philip's mouth tightened and his jaw had the cut of granite as a fury of indecision struggled in his eyes.

"No!" Felicity decided sharply. "You must not, Philip. There is no need."

He did not want to take her to Lozaro Alto and she did

not want to go. She did not want to travel with him over that road where another car had plunged to destruction, bearing his love and his future happiness with it down into some desolate barranco where only the stark rocks and the soaring eagle had been dumb witnesses to its fate. It was his own personal tragedy, to be shared by no one. Ever since, he had gone to the valley alone.

"I don't think it would really help," he returned,
tight-lipped
. "If there was any point in taking you there, I would, but it will only put added time on to our journey to Orotava."

"Need we go to Orotava?" Felicity asked. "If I rest when we get back to San Lozaro it may be all right by the morning."

He shook his head.

"I'm not taking any risks," he said decisively.

They reached Orotava by late afternoon and the little Spanish doctor they consulted there reassured them immediately.

"A severe sprain," he said. "That is all. Nothing broken, but it must be very painful. It has been strapped up so well by Don Philip that it will soon be useful again!" he smiled. "He is a most reliable person, you know!" he added encouragingly.

Felicity bit her lip, aware that it had trembled. Here was someone who evidently knew Philip well, who liked and admired him in spite of all the rumours. She looked at the little doctor and felt the tears stinging behind her eyes. If only there could be nothing but kindness in the world, she thought weakly—no pain, no intrigue, nobody playing at love!

Philip took her arm and led her gently out towards the waiting car. He had ordered tea at the Hotel Taoro, a large, white edifice standing high on the cliff above the waving banana fields and looking down on Puerto de la Cruz. It formed three sides of a great square and they found a table on the sheltered verandah looking towards The Peak, but very soon Philip was looking at the sky beyond the giant mountain, as if he were impatient to be on their homeward way.

There was no cloud to be seen. The sky looked blue and innocent, but above The Peak a faint haziness had ap-

peared and the breathless atmosphere suggested thunder. They were, it seemed, due for a storm, and Philip was impatient about getting back before it broke.

They followed the road by which he had first brought her to San Lozaro, the geranium-bordered highway hanging between El Teide and the sea, and the beauty of it caught at Felicity's throat like a hurt, urging the tears to her eyes again. This land—this happy land which was Philip's home seemed to be holding out eager arms to her, but she could not accept their comfort. Its beauty stirred all that was lonely in her and all that was sublime. She could have stayed here
forever
, if
forever
could have given her Philip's love.

But how could she stay, loving him without return? Could she remain beside him, seeing him day by day, knowing herself necessary to him, perhaps, in time, but not in the way she wanted to be necessary? He had promised to keep her uncle's home intact and she had made a similar promise, if not in so many words. She could not run away. She was sure of that, even if to stay must mean heartbreak.

Even Sisa was tired by the time they reached San Lozaro and they went early to bed. Julio came home at nights now instead of remaining sulkily attached to the workers' quarters surrounding the packing sheds, and Felicity was genuinely relieved at his return. It did not mean, of course, that he would not go off when the mood took him once more, but at least the family were together and that was what Robert Hallam had wanted.

Unable to sleep because the night was hot and sticky and her foot ached at every movement, she sat for a long time before her window listening to the approach of the storm. It came at first as a barely-perceptible movement among the palms, a stirring frond, a rustle and a stillness which suggested tension, and she found herself straining to catch the ordinary, accepted little sounds of the night. They appeared to be silenced, however, before the stealthy whisperings of the palms. There was no moon and the sky had become rapidly overcast, making the night as black as jet.

Then, suddenly, beyond the palms and the leaning tamarisks which fringed the cliffs, she could hear the sea.

The voice of the waves had risen to a crescendo of angry sound as the wind rose and freshened, and somewhere nearer at hand a neglected shutter slapped endlessly against the stable wall. A horse whinnied twice, a dismayed, anxious protest rising above the others, and she heard the sound of feet walking away towards the stables across the patio tiles.

Someone—either Philip or Julio—had been sitting down there in the darkness for a very long time contemplating the storm-racked sky, feeling the impact of what was to come with a sense of the inevitable, perhaps.

She felt the unseen presence of the man as if he had suddenly stepped close on to the balcony by her side, and instinctively she drew back, half afraid, half guilty about being caught out there when she had promised Philip to rest.

The first flash of lightning lit up the sky, showing her the rugged outline of El Teide. The great mountain stood revealed for a moment in all his awful majesty, only to be hidden again more completely as the thunder of his wrath rolled among the lesser peaks and out to sea.

Again and again the shattering peals shook the night, vibrating against space only to return with demoniacal fury in the wake of another piercing shaft of light which seemed to reveal every contour of the dark hillsides and each detail of the garden at her feet.

The paths and the flower-crowded poyos were starkly white under the fierce light and there were no shadows. The recurring flashes illuminated everything, so that she was instantly aware of the returning figure of the man who came up from the stables.

He walked straight towards the house, standing in the shelter of the patio as the rain broke, and the gleam of his white shirt told her that it was Philip.

There was release in that first surging downpour of rain. It was as if the heavens had opened and let out all their wrath. The pent-up emotion in her own heart surged to meet it, loosening tension, and it was only after a minute or two that she became aware of another, more sinister sound.

At first she thought that it must be the wind, and then she was aware of rushing water, of a cascading avalanche

hurtling over the parched earth, leaping exultantly towards the sea. It filled the arid barrancos and terrified the night. The palms which had quivered in the wind now trembled and lay down before it, their feathery heads bent almost to the earth, and the chestnuts and the ancient dragon trees sighed in their troubled sleep.

It seemed to Felicity that the whole island would soon be swamped by that relentless, rushing tide, and then, suddenly, the rain ceased. It was like the swift turning off of a tap, and a little rush of cool air came up to find her where she stood.

She seemed to be arrested there. She could not move, and somehow she knew that she was waiting for the man in the patio to come to her.

He came slowly, as if he had known for some time that she was standing there.

"You could not sleep?" he guessed. "Was it your foot?"

"No." She held on to the balcony rail, her knuckles showing up white against her flesh. "No, it wasn't that."

"You must not mind the storm," he said, coming to stand beneath her on the wet tiles of the path. "The rain is necessary to us here. It clears the atmosphere and gives us the moisture we, need for growth. We gather the rain in reservoirs on the hillsides. What you can hear is the gulleypipes running down the sides of the barrancos to irrigate the valley below."

"I confess to being frightened at first," she said, "but once you know about the water it doesn't seem so bad. If I had been wakened up by the storm I expect I would have been more afraid."

She could just distinguish his dark profile, upturned towards her, and she thought that he smiled.

"I wondered," he said, "when I saw you out here."

How long had he been sitting in the patio, then? He had sensed her presence as she had sensed his, because he could not have seen her except in the illuminating flashes of the lightning. She had stood on the balcony long before the storm had broken. Had he been down there as long?

"Go to bed," he said at last, softly, almost tenderly. "There will be no more thunder. Only perhaps a little rain."

The kindness—the pity—in his voice all but unnerved

her. The new-found love in her heart was a stark and lonely thing, stretching out eager hands towards him, but how could he see? How could he ever see when his eyes were fixed so firmly on a distant star?