Dancing in the Shadows Page 3

  Rosita looked up at Dorcas, regarding her for an endless moment with her huge moon eyes. Her expression was very still and serious as she considered the situation. When you are that young it’s terrifying to have the world tip you upside down and then find yourself in a stranger’s arms. She gave Dorcas a look as if to say, ‘Oh, it’s you again’, and snuggled close. Dorcas felt justifiably smug and would have been content to continue rocking Rosita to and fro as she whispered indiscriminate soothing noises in her ear. Only:

  ‘Feli. Would you mind taking charge of your daughter. I think I’m going to faint.’

  * * *

  What happened next wasn’t very clear to Dorcas. In fact she remembered little of the next seven days. Someone told her it was seven days, otherwise she wouldn’t have known. To her it was a long, drugged hiatus. The only time things were clear was when she felt the pain. They gave her something and the pain went, and so did clarity.

  She knew she had hurt her leg. She knew she was in hospital. She thought Feli and Rosita were all right because every time she asked, a chin—not always the same chin—bobbed up and down. And there was a hand by the bed, and that was always the same hand. It stayed there day and night, ever constant, giving her all the assurance she needed. She had only to put her hand out to have her fingers gripped and held. It was a big hand. Her own disappeared into it with room to spare. She felt small and fragile and the hand was big and comforting. It protected and enclosed her in its strength. She never stopped to ask herself who the hand belonged to. That wasn’t important. The fact that it was there when she needed it was enough.

  And sometimes, when the world was wrapped in a night stillness, a pair of lips would brush her cheek, and her throat would close on tenderness. She was aware of talking a great deal. An urgency of words bubbled from her. She had no idea what she was saying and was too dazed to worry about whether she was being indiscreet. She gabbled on and on, encouraged by soft, male murmurs. And the hand did warm, intimate things to hers. It stroked the inside of her wrist and played with her fingers.

  Then she was better, sitting up and appreciating her visitors. Feli and Rosita were among the first. Feli stared at her with shiny, grateful eyes while Rosita scrambled all over her bed, and ate her chocolates and grapes.

  ‘I’m pleased to see the patient looking so much better,’ said Feli.

  ‘You mean you’ve been before?’

  Feli rolled her eyes. ‘Everybody’s been before. Carlos. Mama and Papa.’ And then a small, tearing sob came from her throat. ‘How can I ever thank you, Dorcas. You saved our lives.’ She scooped up Rosita and pressed her close, as though to blot out the horror. ‘If you hadn’t insisted we move, we would have been in the part of the railway carriage that was completely wrecked. And if you hadn’t bothered with us, you could have got clear yourself and you wouldn’t be lying in hospital now.’

  Dorcas pleated the bedspread. She hated praise and didn’t know how to deal with it. She protested that she had done no more than anybody would have done in the circumstances. But Feli wouldn’t have it.

  ‘That’s not true, Dorcas. You didn’t have one thought of self. Your only concern was for us. I feel so bad that you are having to pay so terribly for your kind deed.’

  Feli’s papa, Enrique Ruiz, came to see her next.

  He said: ‘Well, Dorcas,’ and smiled at her.

  He was not very tall. His chin sported a neatly trimmed, slightly imperious looking black beard, and his liquid black eyes contained a wily gleam. Easy to imagine him resorting to cunning and trickery and every stratagem in the book to get his own way. But at the same time there was something endearing about him so that one wouldn’t mind being inveigled by such a charming rogue. No wonder Carlos’s English mother had been won over.

  Dorcas felt at ease with him—another facet of his charm—and her shoulders relaxed perceptibly. There were so many questions she had to ask that it would be helpful to have a sympathetic ear. But first she looked at his hands. They were a gentleman’s hands with neatly clipped and manicured nails. His fingers were slim and he wore a wedding ring, in accordance with the Spanish custom, on his right hand. A hand that wasn’t much larger than her own.

  ‘Señor, while I was ill, someone stayed with me. Was it a member of the hospital staff?’

  ‘You have been attentively looked after by the staff, but you may be referring to my son. Carlos was anxious about you, as we all were.’ Did he stress this point? ‘He chose to chart your progress himself.’

  So it had been Carlos. She lay back on her pillow. She almost wished Señor Ruiz would go so that she could capture again the sweetness of those moments. And yet, she was half afraid they had never happened. Oh, Carlos had sat with her all right. But could she be sure his fingers had traced her wrist and lovingly caressed each finger in turn? How could she know that aspect of the situation had not been drug induced?

  Enrique Ruiz was saying: ‘I am right, I think, in sensing that you are not the person to want speeches and bouquets. However, I cannot let the moment pass without mentioning the depth of our gratitude. Feli is our only daughter, little Rosita is precious beyond words. Thank you, Dorcas.’ His eyes were now liquid with tears. ‘We rejoice that you are now well. Laughter was scarce in our household while you were so ill. What more can I say? What can I give you? Is there anything you desire?’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Home? You mean England?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘In a big aeroplane?’ The eyes narrowed in tease, then in kindness. ‘It is not possible, even if we were content to let you go. You are not well enough to tackle the flight, even supposing you had someone to look after you at the other end.’ Answering the pained look in Dorcas’s eye, he explained: ‘I made it my business to look into your background.’

  ‘What did you find, señor?’

  ‘Your only relative is a brother who is at the moment somewhere in France. We are trying to locate him through the French police. He has a right to know what is happening to his sister.’

  As if he would care, thought Dorcas, her mouth sliding into hurt.

  ‘Meanwhile, arrangements have been made for you to convalesce at my home, the Villa Serena. I hope you will find—’ A pause; a smile ‘—serenity and happiness there. Certainly, I and my family will do everything possible to make your stay enjoyable.’

  ‘You are too kind, señor,’ said Dorcas, dismayed at her own meek acceptance. But what else could she do? She couldn’t walk away. Not on these legs.

  Following her glance, Enrique Ruiz became briskly practical. ‘It can be arranged for a local nurse to come to the villa to dress your leg. How is the leg, by the way?’

  ‘Stiff, señor. I’ve been told it will be at least twelve months before it can regain its normal strength.’

  She tried to say this as naturally as possible. She couldn’t be sure how deeply Señor Ruiz had probed into her background. If he knew she was a dancer, he would know damage to her leg was the worst possible blow that could befall her. If she was out of circulation for a year, she could consider her dancing career at an end. She would have to look to some other means of employment to earn her living. She didn’t want the señor and his family to know this. She didn’t want them to feel more beholden to her than they already did.

  ‘There is something bothering you that we haven’t touched on yet. Please tell me what it is,’ Enrique Ruiz demanded in crisp but kind enquiry.

  ‘You are very perceptive, señor. I won’t deny there is something. I’ve asked the doctors and nurses several times, but they sweep my enquiry aside as something of no consequence, which it is. I do not like to tell you in case you think me vain.’

  ‘A woman entirely without vanity is like a flower without a scent. For me, a flower without a scent has no appeal whatsoever. Tell me what is troubling you.’

  ‘I know it is trivial and small-minded of me, but . . . will I carry a scar on my leg? At the moment the skin is puckered and
it is very ugly. Will it always be like this?’

  ‘Ah!’ His mouth pursed. ‘If you were a man, it would not matter. But a pretty young woman cannot be content to hide her legs beneath long skirts for ever. It is true that you will carry the scar for a while. Time will fade it.’ His voice sounded far from convincing, and a tuck appeared between his eyebrows. ‘And if it doesn’t, no matter. Have you never heard of cosmetic surgery?’

  ‘I have heard of it, señor. I have heard it comes expensive.’

  ‘That is the least of your worries. You might have been foolhardy in flawing your skin to save my kin, but at least you had the good sense to put a wealthy family in your debt. That was meant as a joke,’ he said, as a stricken look came to Dorcas’s eyes.

  Dorcas had no wish to take from these good people. Already she had tasted generously of the Ruiz wealth. Her own suitcase had not been located in the wreckage and she was coming to terms with the fact that it might never be reclaimed. The nightgown she was wearing wasn’t a charity garment provided by the hospital, but an exquisite thing, lavishly embroidered, with its own matching bed jacket. She had been given a private room, the staff couldn’t be more attentive had she been royalty, and every day gifts of fruit and flowers arrived.

  Enrique Ruiz told her that Carlos would be collecting her to bring her home the day after tomorrow. She felt like a cat on a ledge. Trapped.

  * * *

  She was roused and given the clothes she would need for the journey. Her own suitcase had still not come to light in the wreckage. Her conversation with the señor had been heeded because, sensitive to her needs, instead of the leg-revealing dress she anticipated, here was a trouser suit in a clear bright orange. Lovely uplifting colour! Someone had a pretty good eye for size, she thought, pleased with the fit. But best of all, the trousers hid the hideous bandage on her leg.

  She walked out to meet Carlos with a pronounced limp and averted eyes. He took both her hands and said how wonderful she looked. The matron, Dorcas’s special doctor and favourite nurse came to the car to wave them off.

  They drove in silence for a while. Dorcas was too shy to do anything but look straight ahead. She pretended total absorption in the scenery, which was indeed compelling. The blue mountains stretched to sombre and lonely heights; in the distance she could see the sea.

  ‘I warned you not to cross fate,’ Carlos told her.

  ‘So you did.’

  ‘I hope you have learnt your lesson?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I have. I accept only that I am to be a temporary guest in your house,’ Dorcas replied in as cool a tone as her runaway heartbeat would allow. ‘It will be a pleasant diversion to idle in luxury for a while.’

  Her words were chosen as a form of self-protection and not to annoy him. Nevertheless, he looked intensely annoyed.

  ‘Is that all it means to you?’

  Rounding a bend at a speed conducive to heightening temper, but faster than caution permitted, Carlos had to swerve violently to avoid an old man, a campesino, sitting on top of a cart drawn by a slow, fat donkey. Gathering speed again, mercifully he seemed to have forgotten asking that difficult question.

  ‘Did you eat any breakfast?’

  ‘No.’ She had been too tense to eat.

  ‘In that case, we’ll stop for something. The drive might prove tiring for you. We mustn’t forget this is your first full day out of bed. A breakfast stop will split the journey.’

  ‘Lovely. I’m hungry now.’

  Dorcas assumed that Carlos meant to stop at some roadside eating place that happened to be on their way. He proved her assumption wrong by twisting sharply off the main highway. The powerful car began to climb a hazardous mountain road. She felt no qualms, but admired Carlos’s prowess behind the wheel. She was content to put her life in his strong, competent hands. Memory overwhelmed her and she was back in hospital again as she remembered reaching out her fingers and having her tentative search met with an answering and reassuring grip.

  ‘That is our quarry,’ said Carlos, pointing to a house perched like an eyrie on the edge of a gigantic cliff rising sheer from the sea.

  ‘Who on earth chooses to live there?’ she said, pulling out of her reverie to gasp in astonishment.

  ‘My grandmother,’ he said. And then with laughing indulgence: ‘That isn’t the signal to fuss your fingers through your hair. You look charmingly wind blown.’

  ‘Charming!’

  Hurriedly she reached into her handbag for her comb. Her handbag had been looped over her arm and had escaped with a scruffed strap and minor scratches. Providence had been on her side in that it was large enough to contain, besides her money and travellers’ cheques, make-up and such, her grandmother’s bible. Sliding her comb back, her fingers brushed against the bible in comfort.

  The road continued to climb and wind, giving occasional breathtaking glimpses of the sea directly below. Dorcas was spellbound by it all. So much so that she lost some of her fear of meeting Carlos’s grandmother.

  She got out of the car to the realization that she had never touched such heights or feasted her eyes on such peace and beauty. Mountains swept like soaring eagles down to bays of fine white sand; or rounded, less fiercely, to merge with sea and sky. Carlos had to take her arm and drag her away.

  ‘It won’t go away. It will be here for you to look at later. Right now, I am impatient for you to meet my grandmother.’

  She was infected by his mood. This was important to him. Why? Because . . . ? But the answer she provided for herself was one step beyond belief.

  Nothing was quite real. Even the view had an illusory quality about it. It was too dramatically drawn to be real.

  Then Dorcas was being guided through a door that was far too stout to be an illusion. The hall was wood-panelled, but not sombre. The mellowed simplicity of the dark furniture blended well with the softly-hued fabrics of the pretty patchwork cushions and throw-over covers.

  A Spanish woman came forward to greet them. Carlos introduced her as Inez, his grandmother’s maid-companion. Inez went to inform her mistress; Carlos sent Dorcas a look that was meant to inspire confidence. It did. But this given courage was immediately lost in awe of meeting his grandmother.

  Doña Madelena was a tiny, graceful, imperious figure, despite the fact that the tapping, silver-topped stick was a necessary walking aid, and not for effect. Her face was like a cameo; silver hair peeped from beneath an exquisite lace shawl. Eyes, undimmed by age, rested on Carlos first, as if there was a great hunger in her to see her beloved grandson. Satisfied that he was in fine health and humour, she turned to Dorcas.

  She held out both her hands. ‘So this is the young lady I have been hearing so much about. Quite the heroine, aren’t you?’

  Dorcas didn’t dare take her hands away until she felt the gentle dismissal in the old señora’s fingers. And then she put her hands demurely to her sides and tried not to look embarrassed or coy. Very difficult in view of her tingling fingertips and warm cheeks.

  ‘Dorcas doesn’t like talking about it,’ Carlos said drily.

  ‘And quite right, too,’ applauded his grandmother. ‘Can’t abide people who make capital of a moment’s glory. Not that I’m minimizing yours, child. It was a brave thing you did, and now we will forget about it.’ Turning to Carlos she said briskly: ‘How long are you here for?’

  ‘For breakfast, abuela. Dorcas didn’t eat any at the hospital and she’s fading away.’

  ‘And I suppose you will eat merely to keep Dorcas company?’

  ‘Of course. I have been brought up to be polite.’

  Breakfast consisted of fruit juice, morning baked rolls, honey, a peach preserve, and endless cups of coffee with a taste that lived up to its heavenly aroma.

  Doña Madelena scraped back her chair and braced herself for the slow and difficult task of forcing her rheumaticky legs to rise. Carlos stepped forward, diffidently offering assistance which was accepted with alacrity.

  ‘I am not as fierc
ely independent these days. The infirmities of age have an oddly humbling effect.’

  The thought of anything humbling this wonderful old lady brought a lump to Dorcas’s throat.

  ‘And now, Carlos, you may disappear for the next hour. I am going to conduct Dorcas on a tour of the house. I know she is only just out of hospital—’ Answering her grandson’s look—‘I promise not to overtax her strength. A snail could keep up with my pace.’ Her chin swept autocratically high. ‘Dorcas, your arm!’

  Dorcas gave it. She thought they must look a comical pair as they limped off together.

  Doña Madelena’s desire to show Dorcas the house was an excuse. She wanted to talk to Dorcas without her grandson’s hampering presence, and it was easier to do that while ostensibly otherwise occupied.

  Dorcas was absently fingering a beautiful tapestry, when a voice said in her ear: ‘All this will be my grandson’s one day. This house is too big for me and I shall welcome moving into a smaller establishment. When Carlos marries he will bring his bride to this eagle flighted fortress.’

  Dorcas countered: ‘Isabel will be a very lucky girl. I will think of her in her mountainside home, surrounded by so many beautiful things, when I am back in cold, rain splashed England.’

  ‘So you know about Isabel! I like you, Dorcas. I like the polite way you put an interfering old woman in her place. I’ve always spoken my mind, and few have dared to answer back. Isabel Roca is not right for my grandson. I can reduce Isabel to a shivering heap with just one look.’

  ‘How barbarous!’ said Dorcas, forgetting herself.

  Her rash reply did not cause offence, and even tempted a slight smile.

  ‘It is our heritage. We have been captured by barbarians so many times that this streak of cruelty runs in our blood. Do you like my grandson?’