Red Lotus (8 page)

In spite of her tiredness, however, oblivion would not come. Somewhere in the now quiet house a clock struck the quarter-hours and she began to count them, automatically, aware that she was straining to catch every sound, no matter how small.

It was two o'clock before the clatter of horses' hooves sounded on the cobbles of the courtyard, and she was out of bed before she realized what she had done.

The moon was three-quarters full and the courtyard beneath her windows was almost as bright as day. Only where the high garden wall cast a black shadow was she unable to see clearly, and even there the white clusters of stephanotis cast an iridescent gleam as they hung down from the ornamental urns above the low stone seats in the alcoves or spilled over the archway of a door.

The door which she could see most clearly stood open and the horses had been halted beyond it. There was the sound of voices raised in argument, followed by an ominous silence which lasted for over a minute before a girl began to laugh.

A figure moved along the shadow of the wall and Felicity saw Sabino go quickly through the doorway to take the horses.

Almost immediately a girl made her appearance in the moonlit aperture. She was taller than Sisa, and fairer, and her vividly-red lips were still parted in a mocking smile. She looked far older than seventeen years of age, Felicity

thought irrelevantly, but she had no hesitation in deciding that this was Conchita, at last.

Philip Arnold stepped through the archway behind her, his dark face set and grim.

"Philip! why are you always angry with me?" Conchita demanded as they passed beneath the open window. "You know it will do no good. I will go my own way and you are powerless to prevent me!"

"Not quite powerless." Philip had stopped in his tracks and Felicity could see the harsh line of his mouth and the hands gripped tightly by his sides as he strove for control of a temper which was all but frayed. "I have made a promise to your father, Conchita, and I mean to keep it, whether you like it or not."

"But I am almost eighteen! I am already grown up," she protested. And then, her tone changing, she began to wheedle. "Was that the only reason why you came for me to-night?" she demanded, her voice as soft as silk. "Was it, Philip? Why will you not say?"

She was looking up into his eyes, her face and mocking red lips dangerously near his own, an errant, wilful creature playing with sex for her own enjoyment. Philip took her roughly by the arms and for a moment Felicity thought that he was about to crush his mouth against the tantalizing red one, but instead he shook Conchita as he might have done a tiresome, disobedient child.

"You know it is not," he said in a voice hoarsle with suppressed feeling which turned Felicity's blood to ice. "But you choose not to understand."

Conchita put her slim hands behind his dark head and drew it down until her lips all but touched his.

"You are hard, Philip!" she murmured. "But in some ways you are soft." She laughed gently, her white teeth gleaming in the moonlight, her dark eyes aglow. "Te quiero mucho, Philip!" she sighed before he put her from him and strode before her into the house.

"I love you very much," Conchita had said.

Pale and shaken, Felicity stood at her window above the moonlit courtyard, trying not to believe what she had just heard, trying to pretend that the words did not mean so much, coming from Conchita. Conchita was flippant and gay and she was also a tease. Sisa had said that she loved the gay life at Zamora, but suddenly she was remembering

Sisa and how much older her cousin had seemed for her years. It was as if she had heard Conchita say again, "But I am almost eighteen, Philip. I am already grown up!"

Was Conchita really in love with Philip? And had he repulsed her down there in the court only because he was so angry with her about Zamora?

What could it matter to her, she thought; what could it really matter? Except for the fact that she knew instinctively that Conchita was just one other problem she would have to face at San Lozaro, if Philip decided that she should stay.

IT was a full week before anyone knew the contents of Robert Hallam's will. In the ordinary way it would have been disclosed immediately after the funeral, which had brought people from far and near to La Orotava, where the service was held in the English Church.

Felicity had been bewildered by the crowds and the new faces and strange names, and it had seemed to her that both Julio and Conchita had done their best to keep out of her way.

She had not seen very much of Philip, either, so that she had been more than glad of Sisa's company. It was Sisa who had shown her over the entire hacienda and much of the surrounding estate, explaining how the banana trees went on producing fruit for most of the year and how difficult it would have been for her father to manage without Philip's help.

"Philip is absolutely indispensable," she had said once with the seriousness of a child endorsing an oft-repeated adult opinion, and that, more than anything else, made Felicity realize how much trust her uncle had in this man to whom he had offered a home in boyhood.

When Philip intimated that the family lawyer would be coming from La Laguna on the Wednesday morning, he did so the evening before when they were all gathered in the long, cool dining-room over the final meal of the day. It was the only meal they took together. The men were out in the plantation long before the first heat of the sun, and Conchita slept late, or at least remained confined to her room until she was ready for her morning ride into the hills. She did not appear to do very much about the house, but Felicity excused her because of her father's death. The family could not be expected to adjust itself immediately

to such a sudden loss, although neither Conchita nor Julio had shown any signs of deep unhappiness.

Julio looked at Philip with smouldering eyes when he made the announcement about the lawyer.

"Why is it that the reading of my father's will should be so long delayed?" he demanded. "Perhaps you have had it changed, Philip, to suit yourself?"

Philip's mouth tightened, but he managed to keep his temper.

"You must know that that is something I could not do," he answered briefly. "Señor Perez has had possession of the will for over a month. No doubt he will tell you that when he arrives, if you wish to ask him," he added dryly. "In the meantime, Julio, I think you should try to adjust yourself to the idea that it is your father's will you are going to hear, and not any personal dictate of mine."

Julio frowned, his dark brows drawn together in a heavy line above the suspicious black eyes.

"But you know about it, all the same," he persisted with none of Philip's amazing coolness in the heat of argument. "You already know what we are about to hear!"

Philip rose and pushed back his chair. In the yellow light from the wall sconces his face looked grim and determined.

"Your father discussed the future with me—yes," he acknowledged.

Julio jumped to his feet, his eyes blazing, his sullen mouth drawn tight.

"Then I can guess what it is!" he declared passionately. "I shall still be subservient to you. I shall still have to answer to you for everything I do. I shall be treated like a child and you will be the overlord!"

"You will not be treated like a child, Julio," Philip said, "if you do not act like one."

"I am eighteen! I am of age!" Julio protested vigorously. "Some men are already married by this time."

"Not in England," Philip reminded him decisively.

The parallel seemed strangely incongruous to Felicity as she looked away from Julio's dark, angry face. He was all Latin, fiery, impulsive, given to fits of passion or depression and as sudden fits of gaiety. She had heard him play a guitar down in the patio by the light of the moon with all the impassioned awareness of beauty throbbing at his

finger-tips so that her heart had turned over in her breast as she had listened, but she had also seen him thrash an animal with a vindictive fury which had turned her blood to ice. It had been the fury of the thwarted child, so that it seemed as if Philip might be right, after all, about Julio's coming of age. Eighteen or twenty-one; what did a number or a date matter? Neither of them automatically brought maturity.

Conchita rose from her chair. Philip's intimation had left her silent and thoughtful, her black eyes apparently slumberous, but behind them Felicity detected watchfulness and the glimmer of suspicion.

"If you know, amigo," she asked gently, going behind Philip to twine slim brown arms about his neck, "why do you not tell us? Julio does not want you to leave San Lozaro." She shot a warning glance at her silent brother. "Of that I am sure. All he would wish for is a little more freedom."

Philip unclasped the clinging hands from beneath his chin and turned to look at her. His eyes were no longer guarded nor angry. He was smiling.

"You are wasting your wiles, Conchita," he said. "Nothing will be known until tomorrow. Nothing can be known. It is for Senor Perez to read your father's will."

Conchita flung away from him with an impatient stamp of her foot.

"There is no need for all this mystery!" she declared. "If we are to obey you, Philip, you must tell us now."

"I have told you," Philip repeated with what must have been maddening equanimity to Julio, at least, "that I do not know with any certainty what will be our position in the future."

Suddenly Conchita turned towards Felicity. It was the first time she had appeared to notice her, and Felicity smiled inwardly, knowing that she was about to be enlisted as Conchita's ally.

"What will you do," Conchita demanded, "supposing my father says that you must stay here?"

Felicity hesitated. She hadn't quite expected the question, such a direct challenge to her attitude in the future—to her whole future, in fact.

"Hadn't we better wait and see what Senor Perez has to

say tomorrow?" she suggested. "Everything might turn out quite differently from the way we imagine just now."

She had no idea what Conchita wanted from life—nor Julio either. All she ,knew was that she seemed to be sitting on top of some personal volcano which had all the destructive power of El Teide in full eruption.

It was an odd feeling to assail her in that quiet atmosphere of moon-filled night, with the stars calm and large, glittering like distant lanterns far above the tufted heads of the island palms. The sigh of the night wind came in from the Atlantic to stir that other green sea that was the banana fields and wander among the terraces, and all nature seemed to reflect only a benign sense of peace.

Then, from somewhere far in the hills, came the cry of a wild animal, sudden and piercing on the still air.

Felicity looked up, arrested and half frightened by the sound, but no one else seemed to be aware of it. Perhaps they were too accustomed to the predatory prowlings of those night creatures to care very much what became of one of them. Nature, in essence, was fundamentally cruel and they accepted the savageries with a shrug of resignation. They themselves often had to fight for what they wanted.

Philip rose, moved towards the door.

"I think we ought to leave our discussion there," he suggested. "Felicity has been most concise." He gave her a dry smile. "With the typical English desire for a peaceful atmosphere, she has advised us to wait and see what tomorrow brings."

There was hostility and disappointment in the eyes Conchita turned towards her cousin.

"Why do you side with Philip so easily?" she demanded. "You do not know him—how ruthless he can be when he so desires—and how cruel!"

Felicity had not wanted to take sides. She had no intention of ranging herself in either camp, if camps there were, and as far as Conchita was concerned she felt that her cousin wanted it both ways. She wanted Philip to stay because she believed herself in love with him, but she also wanted her freedom.

It was natural enough in a young girl to want to spread her wings, but in which direction did Conchita desire to fly?

"Shall we let Felicity discover these things about me for herself, if she decides to stay here?" Philip suggested with indifference. "She may not feel inclined to tackle us, you know."

Was there a very definite hope behind the observation, Felicity wondered, or was he really completely indifferent to whether she stayed or went away? That, too, of course, would depend on her uncle's will.

Suddenly she felt tired and drained of all her habitual energy, aware that nothing that any of them could say or do at this eleventh hour could alter the decision of tomorrow.

"I'm going to bed," Conchita announced with amazing alacrity considering that it was not yet midnight. "And I do not wish to see Señor Perez in the morning."

Philip was standing between her and the archway leading into the hall. He did not appear to block her way, but it seemed that Conchita could not pass him until she had heard what he had to say.

"I'm afraid that will be impossible, Conchita." His tone was clipped and decisive, refuting all argument. "Señor Perez is coming to see the family, and you are part of it. He will expect you to be there."