The Japanese Screen Page 13

  The pool was overlooked by another balcony, and noticing the numerous shuttered windows here, Susannah decided that the greater part of the house was never used. It seemed a pity that so much beauty should be appreciated by so few people. And yet, perhaps, not everyone would consider such architectural austerity beautiful. But Susannah loved the simple lines, the predominance of geometric design, its regular symmetry. The pool was shielded by a row of cypress trees which formed a fourth side to the square.

  Marla was watching her companion’s reactions closely. ‘You find it appealing?’ she asked.

  Susannah nodded. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, beautiful,’ agreed Marla, with satisfaction, showing more enthusiasm than Susannah would have thought possible.

  Susannah’s fingers curved round one of the fluted pillars that supported the gallery. ‘Was it ever used? For bathing, I mean.’

  Marla shook her head. ‘I presume you mean in its original form.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Susannah’s nails encountered the hardness of marble.

  Marla frowned. ‘No, I imagine it was for ornamental purposes only. The Moors never immersed themselves in water. They had water poured over them. Besides, there were bathing quarters.’ She gesticulated across the courtyard. ‘They even had steam rooms, like the Romans.’ She smiled, ‘A Moor always followed a strict routine when it came to cleansing himself. First his mouth, then his hands, then his feet.’

  Susannah was intrigued. ‘Go on. Why?’

  Marla warmed to her subject. ‘It was intended to cleanse the soul before the body. You see, the mouth speaks evil, the hands can perform evil, and the feet can take a sinner where evil is.’

  Susannah smiled. ‘How fascinating! Do you know a lot about the history of your country?’

  Marla shrugged. ‘When one lives in a Moorish palace, one tends to become obsessed with one’s surroundings.’

  ‘This is a Moorish palace!’

  ‘It was—many years ago. Now it is simply La Casa d’Alvarez.’

  She began to walk along the tiled rim of the pool and after a moment’s hesitation Susannah followed her. They walked between the cypress trees and came upon formal gardens, smooth turf and borders of cream and red roses, and some trumpet-shaped flowers she could not identify. There were more of the fine cypresses, and low walls and trellises overhung with flowering vines. There was also a small pavilion which Marla explained had been built by her grandfather. Susannah wondered whether he had had it erected for Pilar, Fernando’s mother, whose name was engraved on the disc that Fernando wore about his neck.

  But thinking of Fernando unsettled her, and she was glad when they reached the high wall which provided an adequate barrier between the Casa d’Alvarez and the outside world and Marla suggested that they returned to the house for morning chocolate.

  The rather sweet chocolate drink was not particularly to Susannah’s taste, and was served in the same room they had occupied earlier. But now, much to her dismay, Susannah found the elderly Señora d’Alvarez already in residence. She looked up as they came in, and the hostility in her gaze as she looked at the older girl was very much in evidence.

  Marla, unaware of any undercurrents, greeted her great-aunt politely with a chaste kiss on her wrinkled cheek, and then the old señora turned her sharp eyes on Susannah.

  ‘So, señorita,’ she said, ‘you have persuaded my nephew to permit you to stay on.’

  Susannah subsided into her seat. ‘I—your nephew insisted I stayed until Señora d’Alvarez—Señora Monica d’Alvarez returned.’

  ‘And why should he insist upon such a thing? He was not informed of your imminent arrival until three days ago. Why should he wish to keep you here until his wife returns?’

  ‘Perhaps you should ask Don Fernando that, señora,’ replied Susannah quietly, and had the satisfaction of seeing the old woman’s lips purse impatiently.

  ‘I have been showing Miss King the grounds, Tia Amalia,’ put in Marla, unknowingly relieving the tension between them.

  Her aunt turned to her. ‘Have you? And what arrangements has your father made regarding your education while Señorita King is staying here?’

  Susannah refused to rise to the bait, but Marla looked surprised. ‘Miss King is to give me lessons, Tia Amalia. You know that.’

  ‘And when are these lessons to begin? If you have spent the morning walking in the grounds you have not been attending to your studies, have you, Marla?’

  Marla flushed at this and Susannah felt annoyed. The tenuous relationship she was building with the girl would not be enhanced by Señora d’Alvarez’ barbed comments.

  ‘I think it is always easier to get to know the person one is going to teach before actual instruction begins, señora,’ she said. ‘Why, even in school a class uses the first period with a new mistress discovering the other’s attitudes and capabilities. Marla and I could not sit down to lessons together without learning a little about one another.’

  Amalia d’Alvarez bestowed her with a contemptuous stare. ‘And what have you learned about my niece, señorita?’

  Susannah sighed. ‘I’d rather not discuss my impressions, señora.’

  ‘Ah, I see. It is impressions we are discussing.’

  Susannah curbed the desire to tell the señora exactly what she thought of her at least, and Marla, who was looking somewhat discomfited, set about pouring her aunt’s chocolate from a tall china jug.

  As they drank the excessively sweet beverage Susannah looked around the room. The jade figurines in the lacquered cabinet attracted her attention but she was loath to make any comment about them that Señora d’Alvarez might deliberately misconstrue. So she contented herself with following the oriental design of the carpet until the fire-screen caught her eye.

  The scene depicted, and painstakingly worked, on its tapestry surface was that of two women and a man in the gardens of a pagoda-like dwelling. Below the curling eaves of the building there were tiny bridges over narrow streams, and arbors sheltered by cherry trees, their blossom so real, Susannah thought, that you could almost smell it. The figures in the foreground were real, too. Only their costume was outdated.

  Marla finished her chocolate and puting down her cup said: ‘Do you like Japanese art, too, Miss King?’

  Susannah turned to look at her. ‘I like beautiful things, Marla. And there are many beautiful things here.’

  Marla rose to her feet and walked over to the fireplace. ‘My father brought this screen back from Osaka many years ago. I believe it is very valuable. It is quite old, too. Perhaps three hundred years.’

  Susannah was impressed. ‘The colours are so rich!’

  Marla went on, ‘Of course it was restored here in Spain.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Susannah nodded.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘But do you know what it depicts? See—this is the Silver Pavilion, and can you see this figure hiding behind her parasol? The man is her lover. But it is a futile relationship. You see, he is married—to this woman here—the one who teases him with her fan, so?’

  Susannah felt a painful stirring of her emotions. In a few short sentences Marla had unknowingly described the association between Fernando, Monica and herself. The Japanese screen depicted faithfully the cruel twist of fate which had put her into the position of the other woman…

  CHAPTER NINE

  SUSANNAH ate a solitary lunch in her room.

  After taking morning chocolate with them, Amalia d’Alvarez had asked Marla to assist her to her apartments, and when after half an hour Marla had not come back, Susannah had made her own way along the corridor and up the winding staircase to her own sanctuary.

  When Maria came to take away her tray, she informed Susannah that the Señorita Marla always rested for a while after lunch, and that she should do likewise, ‘Dona Amalia takes tea on the patio at four o’clock, señorita, and Señorita Marla joins her there.’

  Susannah made a helpless gesture
. ‘Am I expected to do so?’

  ‘I do not know, señorita, I would think not.’

  Susannah gave an involuntary ejaculation. ‘Then when am I expected to spend time with Marla?’ she exclaimed.

  Maria looked scandalized at Susannah’s casual use of her charge’s given name, but she replied: ‘Señorita Marla does not take lessons in the afternoon, señorita.’

  Susannah was impatient. ‘And what am I expected to do for the rest of the day?’ she demanded. She could hardly be expected to stay in her room all the time. But on the other hand, would they permit her to go walking alone—outside the confining walls of the casa? If Monica d’Alvarez had been here she could have asked her. But then, if Monica d’Alvarez was here, she would not…

  Maria was looking most upset, and with a sense of contrition Susannah realized she ought not to be questioning the maid. It was nothing to do with her.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said now, shaking her head. ‘I’ll work something out. Thank you, Maria.’

  ‘Si, señorita.’ Maria hesitated by the door. ‘Perhaps you should discuss this with Don Fernando, señorita.’

  Susannah sighed. ‘Perhaps I should at that.’ Her nerves tautened at the mere thought of talking with him again. ‘Where is he? In his study?’

  Maria shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, no, señorita, Don Fernando is away today, at the vineyards—or perhaps at his office in Cadiz.’

  Susannah flung herself into a chair. ‘I see. Very well, I—I’ll speak to him later.’

  ‘Si, señorita.’

  After Maria had gone, Susannah got up again and paced about the room. It was very hot, and on impulse she took off the confining skirt and blouse and went to take another shower. Then she dressed in a simple shift of yellow cotton and fastening her hair with two elastic bands she went down the stairs to the lower corridor.

  In this siesta hour the house was very quiet, and even her sandalled feet seemed to echo on the tiles. She found a door that opened into the courtyard and keeping in the shade of the balcony walked towards the arched way which led into the other courtyard.

  With the sun almost completely overhead, the pool gleamed coolly, and she wished it was a swimming pool that she might immerse herself in its depths. But as she walked to the brink and looked down into the water she saw that it was barely two feet deep, and that although the water sparkled it was far from lucid.

  Sighing, she walked along the side and through the cypress trees into the gardens. Taking the path which led to the small pavilion, she halted before its fragile structure closely hedged about with climbing plants and shrubs. Then on impulse, she climbed the steps and entered its shadowy interior.

  Long creepers wound about the tall pillars which supported its domed roof, and there were stone seats and a central fountain which no longer shed its spray into the round stone basin. There was something rather melancholy about the neglected walls and crumbling stonework and when a lizard, disturbed by Susannah’s entrance, ran swiftly across the floor within inches of her bare toes she gasped and quickly emerged into the sunshine.

  She made her way back to her room eventually, and sat on her bed wondering whether she ought to make some attempt to speak to Fernando later. Surely he must know that she would feel lost and aimless without any set routine to adhere to, or didn’t he care? After all, it had not been his idea that she should come here, and Monica had made it sound much different from the reality. Or perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps it was simply that Susannah had wanted to come in the hope of meeting Fernando again, and everything connected with Spain had seemed that much larger than life.

  * * *

  In fact, it was two days before Susannah saw Fernando again, two days during which the pattern of her life so long as she remained at the Casa d’Alvarez was made apparent to her.

  In the mornings, she and Marla were expected to do lessons together in the large studio at the top of the stairs which Marla explained was used by her mother when she was at home. It was a light airy apartment, plain walls adorned only with colour prints which Monica herself had designed. There were canvases and easels, but Susannah and Marla sat at the wide table and worked from the comprehensive array of text books Monica had provided.

  Lunch was taken late, in the Spanish fashion, and afterwards she was expected to entertain herself and not intrude in any way upon the usual routine of the household.

  It was a most unsatisfactory arrangement, thought Susannah, not least because Marla herself was left almost entirely in the company of Señora Amalia d’Alvarez during the late afternoon after her siesta and in the evening before she went to bed. It was not healthy that a girl of Marla’s age should spend so much time with an elderly woman, and it was not surprising that she became quiet and subdued. Susannah was beginning to suspect that from Marla’s point of view the convent provided a better balance. At least that way she spent a part of the day with girls of her own age.

  But when Susannah accepted this post she had been unaware of the confined circumstances the girl lived under, and as each day passed she became more and more resentful on Marla’s behalf. The child was only half alive. What she needed wasn’t a governess, but a companion, someone with whom she could romp and play and behave as any normal fourteen-year-old ought to behave. Her childhood was slipping by, unnoticed, while she sat quietly with an old woman, sharing her reminiscences of the past.

  Susannah would have liked to have discussed the matter with Fernando, but he was never around. Maria, her only contact apart from Marla herself, explained that Don Fernando left the casa quite early in the morning and recently had taken to returning late in the evenings. Susannah couldn’t help but wonder whether this was to avoid any chance of their meeting one another, but she was appalled to consider that the only time Marla saw her father was at dinner, and never without the company of Amalia d’Alvarez.

  On Saturday of that week, Marla told Susannah that on Sunday morning there would be no lessons. She was to attend mass at the church in the village with Tia Amalia and her father, and therefore Susannah was free for the day.

  Free! Susannah could have laughed. How could she be free when as yet she had not even put a foot outside the walls of the Casa d’Alvarez!

  But she was glad for Marla’s sake that this was to be an outing with her father. She had gauged from the girl’s attitude throughout the last couple of days that Marla thought a great deal of her father, much more, apparently, than of her mother. Not wanting to probe, Susannah had not asked her about her association with Monica, but it was impossible not to notice that she did not figure very frequently in Marla’s conversation.

  Susannah washed her hair on Sunday morning. She sat on her balcony while the rest of the family was out and dried it in the hot sunshine. Already she was acquiring a light tan and she thought longingly of a beach somewhere and the cooling surge of the surf.

  After lunch, she dragged her chair back into the bedroom and settled down with a book. But she was restless, and she knew it was because she was conscious of Fernando’s presence. During the past few days his constant absence had served as a kind of salve to her spirit, but now, knowing he was about somewhere, made it impossible for her to relax. Sooner or later she would have to speak to him—alone, and he must know that as well as she did.

  Towards half past three she brushed her hair, secured it with the hairpins on her nape, and examined her appearance in the mirror. She was not wearing her usual skirt and blouse today, but the cream cotton tunic was reasonably smart and it was impossible to wear tights in this heat. She looked as businesslike as dark-fringed eyes, silver-blonde hair and a wide attractive mouth would allow, and in any case Fernando was not likely to pay a great deal of attention to her appearance when he heard what she had to say.

  She went quietly down the stairs to the lower corridor and stopped before the door to Fernando’s study. Raising her hand she hesitated a moment and then knocked, rather loudly. There was no immediate response and her heart sank. Of course, he pr
obably adhered to the siesta habit, too. She turned away, and as she did so she heard footsteps coming along the corridor. She glanced round, her heart thumping, and encountered the gaze of the man who had been occupying her thoughts.

  Fernando was looking curiously alien this afternoon in a black suit, the jacket of which reached only to his waist. He wore a while silk shirt and there were ruffles of lace at his throat. His boots were knee-length and highly polished, and she wondered whether he intended going riding.

  ‘Buenas tardes, señorita,’ he greeted her, without expression. ‘You wished to see me?’

  ‘Yes—yes, señor.’

  Fernando’s lips curled. ‘I regret I do not have time to speak with you now, señorita. I am just on my way out. My aunt and Marla are waiting in the car.’

  ‘You’re going out?’ Susannah felt a ridiculous pang of desolation. ‘But—’ She paused. ‘I never seem able to get in touch with you.’

  Fernando frowned. ‘I did not think we had anything to say to one another, señorita. I understand from Marla that your lessons are going well—’

  Susannah turned away. ‘Yes. Yes, they are,’ she said shortly. ‘We spend at least three hours every day in each other’s company. I—I find it all most hectic!’

  The bitterness in her tones got through to him. ‘You are bored, señorita?’

  Susannah faced him. ‘And if I am?’

  ‘I regret, we do not have a great deal to offer in the way of entertainment, señorita.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t understand,’ she exclaimed, making a futile gesture. ‘Look, I want to talk to you. What have I to do? Make an appointment?’

  Fernando scowled. ‘Do not be impertinent, señorita. I am available every evening.’

  ‘Are you?’ Susannah was fast losing the desire to remain calm. She was angry with him and she wanted to show it. ‘I thought you were avoiding me!’

  Fernando glanced over his shoulder as though afraid someone might come upon them unexpectedly. ‘I must go,’ he insisted briefly. ‘But you may come to my study at nine-thirty this evening, if that is suitable to you.’