Indiscretion (44 page)

‘I'd be only too happy to help you send that slimy womanizer packing, although I'd like to have seen you turn him down to his face,' Ramón said wickedly.

‘Ramón, that's slightly unfair. He really hasn't done any harm,' she protested. ‘We both had a little too much to drink. But, still, it's probably better I don't see him.'

‘That's my girl,' he said, patting her shoulder lightly. ‘I'm only warning you for your own sake.'

‘Anyway, you'd better leave me to get on now or tomorrow will be here before I've started to pack. Would you mind giving me a lift to Jerez in the morning to book my passage? I'd like to be gone by the end of the week.'

‘Of course, but I do wish you'd change your mind … Has Spain been such a disappointment to you?'

‘It's El Pavón I need to get away from, not your beautiful country, Ramón. In fact, I may do some exploring on the way back to the coast. I've hardly seen anything of the rest of Spain.'

‘Well, maybe I'll come with you on the train. That way I can delay our goodbyes.'

‘We'll see.' She smiled and shooed him away playfully. ‘Now go!'

As soon as she was alone, Alexandra opened the envelope. It was quite a long letter. Don Felipe's writing was small and fine, reminding her of spiders' legs, with a marked tendency to flowery embellishment. The bullfighter wrote that he was not so badly injured as it might have seemed the evening of the fight but, because of two broken ribs, his doctors considered it advisable for him to rest for a time. He went on to say that, consequently, he was leaving for Granada, where he would convalesce, and was hoping that he would see Alexandra again soon. Maybe she would consider coming to stay? The family house was large, and both he and Doña Isabel would be delighted if she would agree to be their guest. Finally, he assured her yet again of the depth of his love and the honesty of his intentions.

Alexandra sighed, folded the letter, and placed it on the table. She went to the window and pressed her feverish brow against the cool pane before closing her eyes. This invitation was all she needed to complicate matters. However, if she and Salvador were doomed to find nothing but torture in each other's presence, she must pull herself together and move on, she knew that now. And she couldn't help but feel flattered by the undivided attention the bullfighter had showed her. It made such a contrast to her relationship with Salvador. Whether or not she was living out her displaced feelings for him through Don Felipe, she didn't know but after the exhausted emotional circles she had been following, it was such a temptation to allow herself to be courted and cherished.

Although she had always enjoyed more freedom than most of the unmarried girls of her age at home, her life up until now had been
quite uneventful. Circumstances being as they were, a trip to Granada would be most welcome and Don Felipe's company a remedy to her injured pride. And, she told herself, if the warning bells about him refused to be silenced, that was a good thing. It would help her keep a decorous distance between them. She reflected that the dashing
torero
had perhaps been misjudged by everyone and had only been guilty of a little arrogance. Perhaps it was just his intense nature, coupled with the potent alcohol, that had led him to lose control at his
bodega
when he'd forced a kiss upon her? Would he have been the first young man to make such a mistake? And, moreover, was she completely blameless?

The thought of him conjured up a strange mixture of excitement and unease. For a whole hour Alexandra paced up and down her room, trying to work out what to do. Finally, she resolved to leave matters as they were for the moment. It was probably unwise to think of putting herself in such a compromising position again. Even avant-garde young ladies such as she knew better than that. Though the
torero
had mentioned Doña Isabel's presence at the family house, Alexandra thought the situation was still unacceptable. In fact, the prospect of seeing the
Marquesa
again was unappealing in itself, to say the least.

Half an hour later, her note to Don Felipe had been written. She had tried to avoid the subject of his invitation as much as possible, without appearing to be evasive. ‘
I must go to England for some time to deal with the editing of my new novel
,' she wrote. ‘
I would be delighted at some point to spend some time in Granada, as an essential part of my novel is set there and it would be an excellent opportunity for me to familiarize myself with the city. Perhaps my aunt and I will do some travelling in the autumn, or after Christmas, which is always a miserable time in England. I promise to let you know of our plans
…'

She ended the letter by wishing the young man a safe journey, a rapid recovery and a pleasant stay in Granada.

* * *

Lying on the bed that evening after dinner, her head propped against a large pillow, Alexandra tried in vain to fix her attention on the book she had bought that morning in Jerez. She had hoped it would take her mind off things but she was wrong. Salvador's face kept coming between her and the printed page, making the whole exercise pointless. Finally defeated, she gave up, closed the book and shut her eyes.

She remembered the look in Salvador's eyes all the times he had held her, the way he clung to her so desperately, his whole body trembling with the intensity of his passion; and then there were his kisses. Time and time again, he had given into his own needs, but then wasn't that what men were like? Was that not why he kept going back to Marujita? That bitter thought overshadowed her memories. She chided herself for plunging recklessly into a situation that her romantic mind had dreamt up, clinging to the tenuous strands of the hope that he cared for her the way she wanted him to.

The bedside lamp threw monster shadows on the great white walls. It was hot. Through the open window came the scents and furtive sounds of night approaching. It was one of those airless Spanish twilights that Alexandra had grown to love but which, this evening, she found unbearable. She sat up and flicked back the sheet, feeling stifled, tired but restless. Her skin and her mouth were dry so she staggered to the bathroom and splashed some cold water over her face and neck. The reflection that stared back at her in the mirror wasn't flattering: she was pale, her cheekbones too pronounced and her eyes disproportionately large in her face.

How lonely she suddenly felt. London, Aunt Geraldine, Grantley Hall and Ashley all seemed part of a life that had existed thousands of years ago. Overcome by a dry-eyed despair, she cradled her face in her hands. Despite the days spent in soul-searching and self-reproach, in dissecting and analysing every situation and every conversation she had ever had with Salvador, she was no nearer a solution to her problems.

Where was he now? Had he guessed that the letter she'd received earlier that day was from Don Felipe? Of course he had. He'd been
absent at dinner, which had taken place in almost total silence. A very disgruntled José had been forced to return whole dishes to the kitchen untouched. Alexandra sighed and went out on to the balcony. The night was dark now, with neither moon nor stars. In spite of the heat, she shivered. How many lonely hearts did this great house conceal? Her thoughts lingered a moment on the inhabitants of El Pavón. Don Alonso de Falla, her absentee father. Where was he tonight? She had found him witty and sparkling in London. The man she had rediscovered here was weak, taciturn, resigned to his lot. How great must have been his loneliness all these years, caught between a despotic mother and a dictatorial wife. Maybe that was why he was hardly ever at the hacienda.

What about Esmeralda? The beautiful, sensitive and fragile Esmeralda, who preferred scandal to the loneliness of her pretty gilded cage? At first, Alexandra had dismissed her as just another de Falla eccentric but now regretted that she had never had the opportunity to truly break through Esmeralda's defences. Despite their tentative confidences, her cousin remained essentially distant and aloof, seeming not to want or need the company of others.

Her thoughts returned inevitably to Salvador, her dear Salvador: passionate, tender, strong yet proud, irascible, inflexible; prey to his private terrors and his jealousies, and bound to a dismal future of his own making and, from which, apparently, he wasn't even trying to escape.

Finally, there was Doña María Dolores, the loneliest of all, an austere and tyrannical figure, but no less pathetic, holding on to outdated customs with the grim determination of a shipwrecked sailor clinging to pieces of his craft — traditions that represented a past she knew all too well was irrevocably lost.

‘I saw a light under your door. Do you need anything?' Startled at the voice, Alexandra turned round. Agustina was standing at the door.

‘Maybe you'd like a cup of tea or one of my special infusions?'

‘Oh, Agustina,' Alexandra sighed miserably, and came back into the room from the balcony. ‘I'm so mixed up. I've really made a mess of
things and I don't know what to do.' She choked on her words as she tried to fight back the tears clouding her sight.

Agustina took Alexandra gently by the hand and sat her on the bed. She poured her a glass of water. ‘Here, drink this,' she said. ‘It'll refresh you.'

‘Thank you, you've always been so good to me,' Alexandra said hoarsely. She sipped the water slowly. ‘I really don't want to go, you know …' At that, the flood of tears she had held back for so long flowed in an uncontrollable stream down her cheeks.

The old servant gently took the glass from Alexandra's hand and sat down next to her on the bed. She put an arm around the young woman's shoulders.

‘I love him but he wants nothing to do with me. He doesn't really love me. I thought he did … but now I don't know anything any more.'

‘Has he told you he doesn't love you?' asked the old woman.

‘I didn't need him to tell me that, I could read it in his eyes. Oh, Agustina, if you had seen the look in his eyes! So cold, so hard …' She broke off again, her whole body shaking with sobs.

‘Ah,
niña
, if you knew how eyes can be made to lie,' replied the
duenna
, sadly shaking her head.

‘Sometimes,' Alexandra went on, ‘he seems to care about me and then suddenly this shadow passes over his face. He becomes this uncaring stranger again, distant and disdainful. He thinks we can't be together because he's haunted by superstitions that have nothing to do with reality.'

‘Don Salvador
es un hombre de honor
, a man of honour,' Agustina tried to explain. ‘He can promise you nothing before he has settled his own problems.'

‘What problems?' Alexandra cried out passionately. ‘Why can't Marujita and her family be paid off? Doña Eugenia herself, not so very long ago, said that the only way to solve such problems was with money.'

The old servant made a face, clearly expressing her opinion of Doña Eugenia's ideas. It was the first time Alexandra had seen her express disrespect towards a member of the family.

‘
La venganza de Calés
is never settled with money,' she went on, her eyes grave. ‘It is a tradition as old as the Sierras. Many men have scoffed at it, chosen to ignore it. Then,
ay
! Alas, they've discovered that the revenge of the gypsies knows no frontiers. It can be carried beyond oceans, over mountains; it can even reach the other side of the world. Believe me,
niña
,
la venganza de Calés
can only be satisfied by one thing:
que es la sangre
, and that is blood.'

‘You want me to believe that the only way out of this is
death
?' Alexandra exclaimed, horrified.

Agustina waved her hand. ‘No,
no
! There's another solution to the problem, but it's a long, painful and uncertain path,' she said, emphasizing each word. ‘His Grace is well aware of it.' The
duenna
moved to the chair next to the bed, lowering herself into it with a sigh.

‘And what is this path?' Alexandra asked, sarcasm in her voice.

‘
La paciencia
, patience, my child,' the servant replied, looking her directly in the eye. Her tone was calm, but insistent: the voice of wisdom.

‘Patience?' Alexandra asked again.

‘As they say:
No por mucho madrugar, amanece más temprano
, no matter how early you get up, you cannot make the sun rise any sooner. The only person who can put a stop to this war is the offended party,' explained Agustina, ‘in this case, Marujita herself. If Don Salvador plays his cards shrewdly, she will soon tire of him, reject him in favour of fresher pastures, and he'll be a free man again. At that point, he'll be able to offer a certain amount of money — as an encouragement, you understand — allowing her to live comfortably for the rest of her life. It's a tricky situation that requires self-control, patience and unshakable willpower. Already she is showing signs of boredom. There are rumours that her eye is already roving.'

An image came into Alexandra's mind of Marujita and the aristocratic man, with whom she'd danced so provocatively at the horse fair. Was he a serious rival or just the means of ensnaring Salvador all the more tightly?

‘Supposing she doesn't tire of him, what then?' Alexandra asked.

‘That's a risk His Grace considers he has no right to expose you to. All the more so since, if this business is not settled, your life, as well as his, would be in danger.'

‘Put my life in danger? Why?' she cried out. ‘I would have thought if anybody's life were in danger it would be Doña Isabel's. He spends much more time with her, and they were engaged once.'

Agustina let out a deep breath. ‘The
gitanos
have a way of perceiving things about people. Perhaps it's down to the seers among them. Added to that, our world has no power over them. The gypsy lives by his book of rules and traditions, which is closed to all
gajos
, so who knows what goes on inside their heads?'