The Shadow and the Sun Page 4

  “Perhaps there need be no necessity for that fact to be revealed. In any event, senorita, it is evident that your father would prefer your youthful duenna to accompany you during your convalescence, so to this effect I will issue instructions to the good Mercedes to make preparation.”

  He swung round upon Anna, and she was aware that, for some reason, a coolness had sprung up between them. His tone was courteous, but he was out of sympathy with her. She was certain of it, and oddly, found that the fact disturbed her even more than Cecily’s duplicity.

  “If you will be so good as to accompany me to my car, Miss Trent, I will provide you with some rugs with which to cover our invalid. You will stay beside her until I return with the senor medico. Be sure that you remain sensible if she should again lose consciousness, and give her comfort and support if her courage fails her even momentarily. It was unwise of you to panic at such a crucial moment back there, and you may now observe the result of your folly. But perhaps, after all, the fault lies not with you, but with the good parent who unwisely placed his trust in one so young and without experience.”

  With which scathing observation, Anna’s arm was grasped in a firm hold, and she was guided up the steep slope towards the cream car. For two pins she would have flung off that impersonal hand, but to tell the truth, she felt so wobbly at the knees that she might conceivably have fallen without its aid.

  There was nothing for it but to control her rebellious sentiments and allow herself to be propelled forward.

  Her face was stony and unrevealing as, wordless still, she accepted the rugs and turned back down the hill. Her heart, too, felt oddly cold and as hard as any stone, as if Cecily’s treachery had frozen it into ice.

  CHAPTER III

  The next hour had, for Anna, a dreamlike quality saved only from nightmarishness by the courtesy and forethought of their “Samaritan” and the doctor with whom he returned.

  The sun was sinking and a cool wind had risen by the time the men came. Anna had confused memories of rising stiffly from her cramped position close to Cecily. She had wrapped both rugs firmly about the injured girl and, as the temperature dropped, had added their own top-coats, which she had succeeded in unearthing from the overturned coupe. Cecily had remained silent, with eyes closed. Anna had not been sure whether she was genuinely asleep, or merely discouraging conversation between them.

  At any rate, Anna seemed to have been huddled there in miserable silence for an almost unendurable length of time, and she wasn’t sure herself whether her bout of shivering was due to a reaction of shock, the mounting coldness in the air, or relief at the men’s appearance.

  The doctor proceeded to attend to Cecily, and it was the Conde himself who forced Anna to drink a measure of neat, fiery spirit, after which he took off his own cream linen jacket and placed it about her shoulders. The warmth of his body still lingered in its folds, and the faint aroma of tobacco seemed to reach out and caress her, and for a little while she felt comforted and solaced. It was to the doctor’s car though, that he led her, after which he left her to supervise with great thoroughness the removal’ of Cecily to his own spacious limousine.

  Perhaps she may have seen him again when they reached the Castillo, but if so, she could not afterwards recall having done so. The brandy had made her feel languorous and confused, and she was left with a jumbled impression of huge oak doors, a dazzle of black and white tiles inside the portico, the sweeping magnificence of a heavily gilded wrought-iron balustrade as her weary feet ascended in the wake of a nameless, wrinkled-faced woman in long black skirts. Without her ministrations she was sure she would never have managed to slide, finally and thankfully, between scented white sheets, where she sank into almost immediate oblivion.

  When Anna woke up, she lay for some time gazing mindlessly at the high domed ceiling. Her eyes roved the shadowed heights, registered the beauty of the enamelled seraphim in a waft of rose-tinted clouds, the ornate frieze of fruit and flowers that bordered the pale, cool walls. Her fingers explored the exquisitely fine pleating of champagne silk on her coverlet, as full awareness of her situation returned.

  Cecily! Where was she? And, more important, how was she? Was she somewhere in this vast building, closeted alone in solitary grandeur as Anna was—perhaps feeling very ill, and almost certainly in pain with her fractured ankle. Surely she would be needing comfort and reassurance, and here was Anna, the only person with whom she was familiar and whose language she spoke, lying limply and listlessly in this enormous bed, as witless and disembodied as a piece of flotsam tossed up on a mound of sand.

  Anna pushed the coverlet from her, and scrambled from beneath the sheets. On bare feet she padded across the velveteen softness of fringed carpet that covered at least a portion of the vast expanse of honey-coloured wooden floor, and drew aside shuttered doors that gave on to a narrow, paved balcony. Outside it was dark—a still, enveloping darkness, star-strewn and peaceful. She could just make out the blurred pattern of formal gardens beneath her, and the evening air was laden with the perfume of flowers.

  Surely she must have been asleep for a long time.

  She withdrew inside again, folded the shutters behind her, and gave a tentative tug at the tasselled bell-rope beyond the bed. Almost immediately her summons was answered by the same grey-haired woman who had conducted her to her room. This must be the good Mercedes to whom the Conde had referred—was it hours ago, or years?

  Anna spoke her name uncertainly, and was rewarded with a beaming smile which echoed itself in a twinkling of the woman’s beady eyes. She must have come from further north, for she addressed Anna in the Catalan tongue, but resorted to a thick and indistinct Spanish when she saw that she did not understand.

  She persuaded her to return to bed, shrouded her in a blue silk dressing-robe, and conveyed that she would bring a light repast on a tray, after which the Senor Conde had given instructions that he was to be summoned, as he wished to assure himself of Anna’s comfort and full return to health.

  Anna obeyed reluctantly. The fuss seemed extravagant and unnecessary in the extreme. She felt refreshed, and it was annoying to have to comply with this man’s arbitrary commands when she was gnawed by doubts and misgivings over poor Cecily. She found to her surprise that she was very hungry, and ate the meal appreciatively. It consisted of a delicious chilled soup, lightly baked eggs in a tiny cocotte, and a small square of soft white cheese, which she spread on the wafer-thin biscuits provided. She had declined the fruit which Mercedes proffered, and had poured her second cup of coffee from a quaint, squat silver urn, when there came a single peremptory rap at her door, and the Conde de Barientos entered.

  He was dressed immaculately in a black dinner jacket, with a colourful, swathed cummerbund at the waist. Anna took in his narrow-trousered elegance, and reflected that with rings in his ears and a knotted square at the throat, he could have passed for the master of a smuggling frigate such as once dealt in contraband and plunder on the old Spanish Main, save that his background showed clearly in his face. His features had the classic, timeless nobility of centuries of hidalgo breeding imprinted upon them, the cheekbones high and prominent, the eyes deep-set, the nose long and aristocratic, the mouth of the mobile sort that could be exquisitely tender or quickly cruel.

  Anna was aware that she had stared too long.

  “Buenas noches, Miss Trent. I trust my appearance causes you no alarm?” One black eyebrow quirked a little satirically at her blush of embarrassment. “It had escaped my mind for the moment that the last time those solemn grey eyes of yours contemplated me so candidly, I was attired somewhat differently, and perhaps untidily. Possibly you were of the idea that a stranger had entered your apartment unbidden, but I am able to assure you that such would not be possible with the worthy Mercedes thus guarding your threshold.”

  He gave a careless nod in the old woman’s direction, and a brief injunction to remove the senorita’s tray. Mercedes bobbed and hurried forward.

  The Conde’s at
tention had reverted to Anna once more. She felt at a distinct disadvantage, wishing she could match his elegance, and then perhaps she’d have felt more sure of herself in his presence. True, the borrowed robe was of singularly beautiful shade of peacock, and satisfactorily concealed her simple cotton pyjamas, but it was very much too large, and she had had to roll the sleeves back several times in order to deal more freely with the contents of her tray. If only she’d brushed her hair! She knew it was far from ordered, and her colour deepened.

  “I am happy to see you looking none the worse for your ordeal, Miss Trent,” he observed politely. “You have slept now for almost twenty-four hours, with obvious benefit. Doctor Lamas was concerned that you should not succumb to a chill, and was of the opinion that induced rest would succeed in warding off such a happening. You do not recall being roused to drink the dose he prescribed?”

  “No. Yes. That is, now you mention it. I—I do remember something like that. But—twenty-four hours! Senor Conde, I must go to Cecily at once. She will be sure I’ve neglected her. Is she any better? What of her ankle? What did the doctor say? Will it be long in mending?”

  “Smoothly, senorita. There is no need to distress yourself. Miss de Manard is progressing more than favourably. She passed a not uncomfortable night, and this very afternoon has had the ankle placed in a mould of plaster. She is now entirely at ease, and the good doctor is of the idea that no serious damage has been done. Perhaps, in a week, she may be permitted to set the limb upon the ground, and essay a small walk. I wish I could give you a similarly satisfactory report of Senorita de Manard’s sporting car, but in truth I am unable to do so,” he added dryly.

  Anna clasped the voluminous folds of the blue dressing-gown a little closer together. Heavens, the car! She had forgotten about that in her preoccupation with Cecily’s injury.

  “Is it badly smashed?” she asked anxiously. “We’d better know the worst, Senor Conde.”

  His firm mouth twisted wryly.

  “Senor suffices, senorita. The worst, as you put it, is as bad as it is possible to be. I regret that the small car is what an inglesa might describe as a write-off, no.” He clicked a lean thumb and forefinger together eloquently. “Finis!”

  “Oh, no! Is it really as bad as that? Oh dear, and we were planning to travel to Italy after this. Have you told my cousin? Is she very angry?”

  He considered a moment.

  “Angry? No. Upset? Possibly to a small degree, because she feels that the carelessness was not her own, you understand, and you will doubtless be called upon to eat the humble tart for a few days in order to make reparation for your unthinking action.” He softened his words by giving her a sudden, amused smile. Anna could see that his teeth were strong and white and a little crooked, and that there were little short, clipped grey hairs glinting fugitively amongst the black at his temples.

  She found she couldn’t share his apparent amusement.

  She was tempted to give way to the resentment she was feeling at being held to blame, but what was the use? She was totally dependent on Cecily at the present time, and it would be senseless to invite her further wrath by making a denial now. In any case he probably would not believe her.

  “Please do not appear so miserable about the matter, Miss Trent. I cannot resist to tease when the grey eyes hold so much of gravity. To be serious once more, I have instructed that the car be removed to a garage to await an insurance claim, and when I conveyed Miss de Manard to Barcelona today for the encasement of her foot in plaster, I handed the necessary papers to my lawyer. The senor abogado will make the proper contacts on her behalf. She is a young lady of much spirit, this Cecily, and already views her enforced incarceration at the Castillo Barientos as a not altogether unpleasant adventure.”

  Anna could well imagine that. Already, it appeared, she had invited him to use her name, and he had done so with an unconsciously charming inflection on the first syllable.

  Anna felt herself possessed of a sudden unaccountable pang at the difficulty of her own ill-defined position in this foreign household. She hoped Cecily would not make things too awkward for her, but past experience told her it was a forlorn hope.

  “I should like to see Cecily, if that is possible, Senor Conde.”

  “Assuredly, Miss Trent. Lamas has said that you may rise if you feel entirely recovered, in any event. I will instruct Mercedes to conduct you to the apartment, after which my aunt and I shall be honoured if you will join us for a short time in the sala below. We have dined, but my aunt is anxious to encounter you, and would like to assure you that your presence is indeed as welcome as I have already proclaimed. Hasta luego!”

  With a small bow, he took his leave. Anna was left with the slightly helpless feeling that every movement she made during her sojourn beneath his roof was to be ordered and supervised by none other than himself.

  “Silly,” she chided herself with a returning sense of humour. “You’ve fended for yourself for so long, Anna my girl, that you just can’t give in gracefully over even the smallest attention.”

  In a way, it must be pleasant to be one of these cosseted, protected Spanish women, though. Admittedly, Anna’s independent spirit rebelled at the thought of having one’s marriage arranged for one, as she had often heard was the accepted custom. To her, there could be only one reason for marriage, and that was love. And how could you love to order, just because your partner had been prudently chosen for you by doting but remote parents, or worse still, by an overbearing relative such as she could well imagine the Conde de Barientos to be, for instance. No, such arrangements were not for her. There was a certain security about the whole idea of masculine protection and domination, but she’s rather be ,a humble social worker, tramping the muddy streets and dingy tenement stairs down near the London docks, than caught up in the net of matrimony with a man she didn’t love. At least, that way, she was of service to humanity, instead of leading an idle, useless, decorative life to suit the whim and please the senses of some arrogant, overbearing master.

  She gave a little giggle at the trend of her thoughts, and wondered what Basil would think if he could see her now!

  Anna drew her only remaining pair of nylons carefully over her slender brown legs and did her best not to think about Basil at all as she made herself ready. Someone had placed her dresses in a gigantic carved oak wardrobe almost twice as high as herself. The top section was stored with fluffy blankets faintly redolent of lavender and camphor. Below hung her few clothes, neatly pressed.

  She pondered a moment, and then selected the only possible dress for this evening’s introduction to their host’s aunt. She possessed nothing of sufficient formality to do justice to the occasion, but the brown shantung would have to do. It was high-necked and slim-skirted, with a narrow black belt and three-quarter sleeves. It had a look of plain and expensive datelessness, and had in fact cost as much as Anna could possibly afford of her ungenerous assistant’s salary. She could spend so little upon clothes after paying for rent, food and coal, that she had to choose dresses that were discreet and adaptable. This one was undoubtedly both, and she had picked it out because its simplicity was less offensive to her intuitive good taste than the frillier and fussier offerings within the same price bracket.

  The brown colour did little for her, save to lighten her soft grey eyes so that they appeared even more pensive and luminous than usual. Her tanned cheeks were flushed with apprehension, but the general effect when she applied a hint of pale rose lipstick was not as drab as she had feared, although it could hardly have been described as exciting.

  Well, at least she felt as correct as her limited wardrobe allowed.

  Anna smoothed her skirt and pulled the thick cord beside the bed, and Mercedes reappeared almost at once.

  Cecily’s bedroom was in a different wing, and was, if anything, even more lavish. Or perhaps it was simply that Cecily herself added an atmosphere of luxury and sophistication to her surroundings, wherever they might be. Her purple quilted
dressing-gown lying over the foot of the bed blended with the richness of the draperies about her.

  She beckoned Anna over with a composed gesture. “Hullo, Anna. I was wondering when you’d put in an appearance.”

  There was the faintest hint of censure in her tone.

  “I’ve only just woken up,” Anna confessed, slightly ashamed to think that she had slept through all the hurly-burly while poor Cecily was having her leg attended to. “How do you feel now, Cecily? The Senor Conde told me he had taken you to the city to have a plaster put on. Does it feel easier now?”

  “Oh, did Nicolas tell you, then?” Cecily’s reply was offhand. “Yes, we had a marvellous time, except for my ankle, of course, but once the plaster was on, I hardly felt a twinge. It’s only a slight injury, as it turns out, just one small bone chipped a bit, but, as Nicolas says, it would be a pity to spoil the shape of my leg through not seeking adequate attention. He absolutely insists on our staying until it’s as strong as the other one, and he has ordered the doctor to come every single day to see me.” Cecily lay back on her mountain of frothy white pillows and sighed contentedly. “I must say I think I’m going to enjoy being here, Anna. You can’t conceive how lovely the place is until you’ve seen it in the daylight, and he’s been so sweet to me already, and made such a fuss. I’ve just been down to have dinner with Tia Olivia. I felt so lonely and a little bit churned-up after all those foreign doctors bending over my leg, and Nicolas absolutely insisted. He and Ignacio made a chair of their hands to carry me down, and he even brought a tapestry cushion for my leg. His aunt was delighted to have me, and made me feel quite one of the family.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Anna rejoined uncertainly. “I’ve to go down now to meet her too, and I’m feeling awfully nervous.”