Meeting in Madrid Page 19

  They brewed tea and coffee on the picnic stove in the boot of the car, sheltered by Teresa’s riding-mac as an awning, although gusts of wind-lashed rain found them from time to time, almost extinguishing their source of heat.

  Ramon came up with the empty flasks to have them refilled.

  ‘The coffee went like a bomb,’ he declared, dripping all over them. ‘If this doesn’t work I’ll never put another spade in the soil for the rest of my life!’

  In spite of his discomfort, he was really enjoying himself, using his initiative in the barranco while Jaime gave his undivided attention to the dam,

  ‘We may just do it,’ he said. ‘Jaime thinks we have got about an hour.’

  ‘Will it never go off?’ Teresa looked up at the relentless heavens. ‘El Teide is a monster I could never love again!’

  ‘You will,’ Ramon predicted, ‘as soon as he smiles on us again. You are like a woman in love, Teresa, all anger and frustration when you see the dark side of your lover’s face, but ready to embrace him as soon as he relents.’

  ‘What nonsense you talk!’ Teresa scowled at him. ‘I see that Manuel has returned,’ she observed. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘I didn’t. He came back of his own accord. He could see that he was needed at Soria in an emergency.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ said Teresa. ‘You had better get back to the barranco when we have filled your flasks.’

  ‘I’ll take one down to Jaime, or perhaps you could get as far as the dam?’ he suggested as an afterthought. ‘It isn’t very difficult.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Catherine offered. ‘I’ll take a lantern.’

  Once she was away from the car her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could see the path to the dam studded with lights from other hurricane lamps. It seemed, too, that the sky above El Teide had lightened a little, although the rain was still falling. There was no clear road along the terracing, only the one narrow path which had been carved out by the dam-builders while they worked. Picking her way carefully, she made out the vague outline of the little reservoir and the figures of the men still at work on it. Jaime was there, carrying sandbags with the rest, piling stones and shouting instructions as he went along. It was almost midnight and the dam still held.

  He saw her when she reached the end of the path and came angrily towards her.

  ‘Go back!’ he commanded. ‘This is no place for you, Cathy, however much you want to help.’

  ‘I brought you some coffee.’ She held out the flask. ‘Please drink it. You can’t go on being cold and wet for ever.’

  Their fingers touched as he took the flask.

  ‘Have you had anything to drink yourself?’ he asked roughly.

  ‘I’ll get something when I go back to the car. Ramon was up there a moment ago and he took another flask back to the barranco.’

  ‘I couldn’t have managed this on my own,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t think Ramon could work so well and I hope he realises that I appreciate the fact.’ He poured some coffee into the top of the flask, holding it out to her. ‘I insist that you drink this,’ he said. ‘You look like a forlorn ghost.’

  ‘You’re still worried about Soria,’ she said, sipping the hot liquid. ‘I wish the rain would stop.’

  He glanced over her shoulder.

  ‘So do I. We’ve done all we can up here. The wall will go, sooner or later, and everything now depends on Ramon at his end.’.

  ‘They’re digging like mad. Manuel is down there with him. He came to the car for the food, but he would not eat up there. He wanted to get back to the peons.’

  He refilled the top of the flask when she had finished and drank deeply.

  ‘That was good,’ he said. ‘You have put new life into me!’ Then, more seriously: ‘Cathy, I beg you to go back to the house and take Teresa with you. You are both in great danger.’

  She could see that he did not want her to stay and there was really nothing they could do to help except to return with another hot meal in the morning.

  ‘I’ll have to persuade Teresa,’ she said with a forced smile, ‘but I think I can.’

  ‘Hasta manana!’ he said, putting his hands gently on her shoulders to turn her back along the way she had come.

  Until tomorrow! But she could be seeing him for the last time. He had admitted to great danger for Teresa and herself, so it would be equally dangerous for him and Ramon and Manuel and all the estate labourers who had toiled half the night to save Soria.

  Standing on the high ground above the dam, she looked back for a fleeting glimpse of him, but there was nothing to be seen in the darkness but the glow-worm lights of the hurricane lamps strung out along the path.

  ‘Did you find Jaime?’ Teresa wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, I found him.’ Catherine got in behind the steering- wheel. ‘He wants us to go home, Teresa, and—come back later with more food. Hot soup, perhaps. I saw Eugenie preparing it before we left.’

  Teresa hesitated.

  ‘It’s no use pretending,’ she said. ‘The dam’s not going to hold and everything will be swept away. It will be the end of Soria as we know it, and Jaime will be up to his ears in debt again. Which means he’ll be completely in Lucia’s

  power, because she will offer him the money, as she did before. He has paid most of it back to her; this next harvest would have been the end of all his obligations to my stepmother.’

  Catherine gazed blankly through the windscreen.

  ‘We won’t talk about it,’ she said unsteadily. ‘He mustn’t fail.’

  ‘I think we are going to need a miracle, in that case,’ said Teresa, getting in beside her.

  ‘It may be wishful thinking,’ Catherine said when she had started the engine, ‘but it looks as if the rain is easing off a little.’

  ‘It won’t make any difference to the reservoir,’ Teresa pointed out. ‘The weight of water will still be there, pressing against the dam.’

  Catherine drove even more carefully than she had done on the way up, taking each bend at no more than walking pace, but suddenly, on a sloped curve, the back wheels slid away and the car went into an uncontrollable skid. Nothing she could do would right it, and in a split second which seemed more like an eternity they were sliding into the wet scrub and down a bank into oblivion.

  The car stopped with a sudden jerk, but all the lights had gone out and it was impossible to see what had broken their fall. On one side a group of stunted trees clung to the mountainside; on the other there was nothing.

  ‘Teresa,’ Catherine called in a shaken voice, ‘where are you?’

  ‘Out here!’ The car was tilted at an angle and Teresa’s head appeared at the open door. ‘I was thrown out. How about you?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Catherine hastened to assure her. ‘We’ll have a bruise or two in the morning, I expect, but that’s nothing.’ Her voice was not quite steady. ‘Oh, why had this to happen? I lost control completely. There was absolutely nothing I could do.’

  Teresa was peering into the darkness.

  ‘At least it’s stopped raining,’ she said laconically.

  ‘I wonder where we are.’

  ‘Halfway down the mountain, by the look of things, and certainly not on the road. Do you often come this way?’

  ‘Teresa, don’t joke! I’ve damaged Jaime’s car and got us into an awful predicament,’ Catherine sighed. ‘Do you think we can climb back on to the road?’

  ‘Once we’ve got our bearings we’ll have to try,’ Teresa decided. ‘Nobody will have the time to come in search of us. Watching the dam is far more important.’

  For ten minutes they sat where they were to get their breath back.

  ‘I wonder why disasters never happen singly,’ Teresa mused. ‘This wasn’t on the cards at all. We were only trying to help. Don’t worry too much about the car,’ she added impulsively. ‘Jaime will understand that it was an accident. He isn’t really an ogre, you know.’

  ‘I—never thought he was.’ Ca
therine held her breath. ‘I thought him overbearing and proud and arrogant at first, but that has all changed now.’

  ‘Because you’re in love with him?’

  Catherine’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Yes.’

  Teresa sat in silence, digesting her confession.

  ‘That explains everything,’ she said, sliding out of the car again. ‘We’d better go.’

  Catherine eased herself from behind the steering-wheel. In the darkness sounds came down to them clearly: the running of the water in the gullies; a distant roar of thunder beyond El Teide; the whine of the wind in the branches of the nearby trees, and then, suddenly, the sound of a man’s voice above them on the road.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ it commanded. ‘I’ll go down on my own. You look after the horses.’

  ‘Jaime!’ Teresa yelled with all her might. ‘We’re here. Down here beside the trees.’

  Stones rattled towards them as he clambered down the slope and presently they saw him scrambling towards them. It looked as if he had seen the car from some vantage-point above the trees, but he was not concerned about it. He grasped Catherine by the arms.

  Thank God you’re safe!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you hurt?’ He turned towards Teresa.

  ‘Not so much as your car,’ she returned. ‘We’re shaken, of course, and Cathy has lost the power of speech!’

  For a moment Catherine clung to Jaime’s arms.

  ‘I couldn’t stop it,’ she confessed. ‘The wheels just slid away.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the car,’ he said, breathing deeply. ‘I knew something like this must have happened when I didn’t see your headlights at the hairpin bend.’

  ‘You left the dam?’ Catherine said. ‘Oh, Jaime, I’m sorry! This was such a little thing.’

  ‘It could have cost you your life,’ he returned harshly. ‘With a lot of luck the dam might hold till I get back.’

  ‘He took a chance to save us,’ Teresa murmured. ‘How like Jaime!’

  They heard the dam give way as they reached the top of the bank. The awful slide of the water, an insidious, stealthy sound, seemed to fill the whole world as they stood there utterly incapable of doing anything about it, and Jaime turned his face towards El Teide as if cursing the mountain that had brought such disaster upon them. In the next moment, however, he was the man of action.

  ‘Wait here, on the road,’ he commanded. ‘I’ll send a waggon for you and then you can go back to Soria and bring more food. No matter what has happened at the reservoir we’ll be here for the rest of the day.’

  ‘What about Ramon—and Manuel?’ Teresa asked.

  ‘We must hope that they were ready for the water.’ His face in the pale lantern-light was grim. ‘Stay here,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t try to follow me.’

  The peon who had held his horse in readiness on the road helped him to mount, climbing on to the back of his own pony to lead the way.

  ‘Remember,’ Jaime called, ‘go straight back to Soria. You can do nothing up here.’

  They waited in the darkness for the estate waggon, reluctant to discuss what he might have found on his return to the dam.

  ‘If anything terrible has happened to Ramon, Alex Bonnington will never forgive herself,’ Teresa declared.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Oh, they were in love for a time and then Ramon broke it off. He told Alex he wanted to be free. “And free he shall be until he comes to his senses,” Alex said. “For ever free if he likes!” Wasn’t that typical of Alex? Then, when Ramon wanted her to go back to him she told him that he couldn’t blow hot and cold with her.’ Teresa sighed. ‘She said he would have to have more to show for his life than a Don Juan image and a wish to be a reporter. Naturally, Ramon went off in a huff, but I think he has stuck it out at Soria just to prove to Alex that he could.’

  ‘What about the reporting?’ Catherine asked, her thoughts elsewhere.

  ‘He could do that and help at Soria, too,’ Teresa said. ‘He’s been writing up local events for years, but if he really wanted to make a full time career of it he could go to Madrid or Barcelona or somewhere like that.’

  ‘Would Alex go with him?’

  Teresa shrugged.

  ‘I think she would, if he really wanted her to go.’

  The waggon drew up beside them. It was one of the covered type used for transporting the packers from one station to another in the heat of the sun.

  ‘Get in!’ Teresa said. ‘I’ll sit up in front beside Manuel.’ Catherine hadn’t recognised the driver, but now she saw that it was indeed Manuel, bereft of the ridiculously large sombrero and wearing a waterproof cape instead of the gaily-coloured poncho. He laid his whip across the horse’s back and they plunged on down the road, taking the treacherous bends with ease. Experienced horses didn’t slip in the mud, Catherine thought, like temperamental cars! No one used a car at the hacienda when a horse was more readily available, yet they would need the car for long distances and she had successfully wrecked it. Lucia would be the first to miss it for her periodic jaunts to the puerto or in to Santa Cruz.

  It seemed an eternity since they had last seen Lucia, but she would be waiting for them at Soria. Catherine looked out through the gap in the tarpaulin where she could just see Manuel’s back, and he seemed to have shrunk in size since their last encounter at the dam.

  When they came to the house he halted the waggon just short of the patio, waiting for them to get out.

  ‘Have something hot to drink before you return, Manuel,’ Catherine suggested as Teresa made her way towards the kitchens.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I am needed up there. Much work is still to be done.’

  ‘Well, at least take some soup back with you.’

  ‘I will wait,’ he agreed.

  Catherine turned away.

  ‘Senorita!’ He came up behind her. ‘You have much to forgive me for. I knew that the senora was going to accuse you, but I kept quiet because I did not know what to do.’

  Catherine swung round in astonishment.

  ‘Manuel, are you talking about Dona Lucia’s ruby?’

  He nodded.

  ‘She did not want me here, although we had been lovers,’ he said, his dark eyes suddenly lit with passion. ‘But that is true no longer,’ he declared. ‘I have been a fool. I allow her to play with my affections and I care too much when she is suddenly cold. Now I care no longer. I will marry a senorita of my own station in life instead and live peacefully.’ He raised his head disdainfully. ‘She tried to buy me off with the ruby, but I returned it to her, and that is when she put it into your room. This I watched,’ he declared. ‘She is full of spite, that one, although once I loved her much.’

  ‘Manuel!’ Catherine gasped incredulously, although all the pieces seemed to be fitting together like a jigsaw. ‘You’re quite sure about this?’

  ‘Why would I say it if it was not true?’ he demanded, grievously affronted that she should doubt his word.

  ‘No, I’m sure you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I have told all this to Don Jaime,’ Manuel went on, ‘and he is very angry. He will punish Dona Lucia in his own way. She would like to marry him, but I don’t think that could ever be.’

  ‘What a mess we’ve made of everything!’ Catherine exclaimed.

  ‘This I agree,’ he returned, flicking his whip against his muddy riding-boots. ‘But Don Jaime will speak to you about it on his return.’

  And meanwhile there was Lucia, Catherine thought, her heart pounding like a sledgehammer. It was difficult to believe that anyone could have proved so treacherous, but the evidence of the ruby lying in her drawer was too clear to refute. No one else but Lucia would have done such a thing, because Lucia had been fighting for her life. All she had ever wanted was to remain at Soria as mistress of the hacienda and she would have married Jaime without love to achieve her goal.

  And Jaime? What did he really think of his sister-in-law now that he knew the truth? Even with the
evidence of Manuel’s statement, would he still marry Lucia to save Soria from ruin?

  She could not believe that he would, and the very fact that he had left Soria to its fate up there in the mountains to rescue them seemed to underline her faith in him. Her safety and Teresa’s had meant more to him even than the hacienda, which was his birthright.

  Lamps were burning in the kitchens and Eugenie was ladling soup into two large containers while Teresa looked on. There was no sign of Lucia.

  ‘She has gone to the mountains,’ Eugenie said when they asked. ‘Riding that mad black horse which is more like a devil than a natural animal! She will be too late if the dam is already down, and men do not trust a woman who is always poking her nose into what is their business!

  Catherine helped to carry the soup out to the covered waggon.

  ‘Better keep our noses to ourselves!’ Teresa said with a grin. ‘Manuel, can you manage on your own?’

  ‘Si, senorita, I will manage very well.’ Manuel cracked the long whip and rode away.

  ‘Lie down for a while,’ Teresa suggested, ‘and Eugenie will waken us at five o’clock. Then it will be time to go back to the reservoir with some more soup. You look very tired. I’m dropping,’ she added. ‘I’ll be asleep before my head touches the pillow!’