The Flesh and the Devil (88 page)

         
'Of coarse, my dear,' Miguel was parting Teresa's hand,
'you may have as long as you like to decide. The wedding cannot be until this
mourning of ours is past, you know that. I do not speak to harry you, but do
remember that your poor aunt is aching to set Carmelita to work on your
 
bridal gown! If I had know of all these cares
in choosing,' he added wryly, 'I should have become a silk merchant and
commissioned the wearing of the stuff myself-you would not consider being
married is a woollen gown?'

         
Teresa laughed. 'Truly, Father, I am too happy to care what
I wear. If only-'

         
She broke off with a stricken look and Miguel patted her
hand jerkily.

         
'Well, no more of that. Things are as they are, and you
would not be marrying at all if matters had fallen out any other way, perhaps.'

         
'No, Father-' Teresa looked crestfallen, her gaiety fading
into her old, subdued look, the look that Juana remembered.

         
Miguel glanced at the warehouse official at his side,
saying something that Juana could not hear, and the man bowed and fell back so
that father and daughter could walk alone while Miguel whispered something that
was evidently consoling into Teresa's ear.

         
A pace or two would bring them level with Juana now, and to
go out they would have to go by her, she had only to put back her hood and step
forward to be face to face with her father.

         
Scooping quickly, she pretended to be engrossed in picking
over some loose strands of unspun fleece that lay in heaps against the wall,
warm drifts as soft as gossamer that could never be spun; and as she knelt
there her father red-heeled shoes and her sister's braided skirts swept by her
without the slightest hesitation. To them she could have appeared only as a
huddled, anonymous figure in the shadows, while to her they were like figures
from the past, dear that unreal as the dream she had first thought them.

         
'Senor. She touched the official's arm as he passed and he
halted, his first indignation softening as he glimpsed her face. 'I once lived
at Zuccaro - is it true that the Senorita Teresa is going to be married?'

         
'I imagine you heard as much!' The man shook off her hand
selfimportantly, but she saw that he had noted her knowledge of Teresa's name
as he added, 'She is in the city to choose the materials for her wedding
clothes. Her marriage is due to take place next year, when the family comes out
of mourning for her elder sister, who died.'

         
'Senorita Juana? Is she dead, then?' Her voice shook.

        
The man nodded. 'It was a tragedy - She was to make a great
marriage, so the senor said, but she died of a fever only days before the
wedding. He himself did not even see her on her deathbed, she passed away so
quickly.'

         
So that was how they had chosen to remember her, Juana
thought; honourably, blamelessly dead, and her father's own blame laid to rest
with her. If she had indeed rushed into his arms - She broke off the thought,
and caught the man's arm again when he would have turned to follow her father
and Teresa.

         
'Senor, I beg you - who is the Senorita Teresa to marry?'

         
The answer came as no surprise to her. She even found
herself nodding, as if the name he snapped at her had confirmed her
expectation.

         
'Senor Jaime de Nueva - the son of one of the senor's
neighbours. Did you know him? You say you lived there?'

         
'Yes, but I did not know him well, nor he me.' She smiled
faintly. 'Thank you, senor.'

         
He grunted an acknowledgement and moved away, hurrying to
catch up with Miguel, and Juana leaned against the wall behind her, feeling
suddenly unbearably tired. All at once she could not face the task of
questioning any more people about the possibility of a ship; the shock of
hearing herself pronounced dead and knowing herself dead to her family had been
too great. And her death, she thought with bitter understanding, had brought
Teresa more joy than anything in her life had done. She must always have loved
Jaime in the depths of her quiet soul, and neither he nor she, Juana, had ever
seen it.

        
With a longing that felt like the shaft of a spear, she
thought of Tristan. She knew now that he was all shewanted, dearer than honour
or safety, more vital to her than memory or affection. She glanced quickly
round and saw the warehouse official call to one of the workers nearby and nod
towards her with a muttered instruction; she was about to be turned out, for a
vagrant had no place in the Arrelanos warehouse.

         
Without waiting for the man's approach, she hurried to the
door and slipped unobtrusively out on to the sunlit quay, back towards Mother
Salsa's lodginghouse.

         
CHAPTER 20

         
Tristan was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to the
door, when Juana entered the room. She saw the quick, almost defensive turn of
his head, the rapid motion of his hand as he gathered something up, and as he
swung round to face her he held something tightly in his clenched fingers.
'Well? What news?' The curtness of the question made her breath catch.

         
Shutting the door behind her, she stood facing him with her
back to it like a malefactor on trial under his accusing, unrevealing gaze.

         
'Nothing - for us, no ship, but I -' She controlled her
stumbling tongue with a mighty effort. 'I have seen my father and my sister.
They are here, visiting Cadiz.'

         
In the silence she saw a muscle move in Tristan's cheek,
but otherwise his face might have been carved from stone. After what seemed
like an eternity he said tonelessly, 'Where did you see them? '

         
'My father trades in wool - he has a warehouse down by the
harbour, halfan-hour's walk from here and they had gone there to choose
samples. I went to the place by chance - my father took me there once when I
was a child, but I had forgotten - The building seemed so familiar. . . . '

         
Her voice faded as she saw the sudden, corroding flare of
cynicism in his eyes.

         
'And you came all the way back here, only to bid me
farewell? I am honoured.'

         
She shook her head. It seemed impossible that he did not
know why she had rushed back to him, that she had to explain. Her soft mouth
tremulous, she said, 'I said I saw them, Felipe, they did not see me. I was
going to speak to them, but I - hid from them instead.'

         
'Jesu' The word was so quiet that she could hardly hear it,
and his eyes were suddenly full of anger as he continued, level and biting, 'Is
it come to that? Were you so ashamed of what you have done that you did not
even dare to ask pardon for it?'

         
Her hands had gripped across her belly beneath her cloak
before she realized that he meant their marriage and not the child; then her
grasp relaxed and she shook her head. 'No-it was because I knew before I spoke
that I had nothing to say to them. I do not belong to them any longer, and to
try to go back to them would have been folly. I learned that I am dead to my
family — they have given it out that I died, and Jaime is to marry Teresa. So I
hid and let them go without seeing me.'

         
She spoke jerkily, watching the cold, forbidding look that
he used to mask his thoughts settle over his face as he rose to bis feet to
confront her. He could not stand quite erect in this room, she noticed
irrelevantly; the back of his head touched the ceiling as he looked down at
her.

         
'And so? Am I to play the gentleman and offer to release
you from your vows to me, so that you can appear and claim your loved one back
from his bride without impediment?'

         
'
No!
' The exclamation choked in her throat. 'I
wanted to tell you that I had seen them, that was all - and to explain -'

         
She stopped short, afraid of where her tongue was leading
her. She had never seen him in such a mood as this, so coldly, terrifyingly
quiet.

         
The knuckles of Tristan's hand were white on the thing he
held crushed in his palm as he spoke, but his voice was devoid of all
inflection. 'You can find them again if you go back now, it will be simple
enough. Even if they have left the warehouse, someone there will know where
they are to be found - you can say you have a message for them, anything. Even
if they have disowned you, they will not deny you when they see you again face
to face. It is impossible.'

         
All the blood seemed to drain from her body as she realized
the implication of the words, and she stared at him, wide-eyed. 'Do you want to
be rid of me now?' she demanded raggedly. 'Is the game over for you?'

         
He shrugged briefly. 'I acquit you. It is a waste of time
to tell the scores.'

         
Her eyes fell from his. It was like staring into a depth of
illimitable ice, and she could not endure it. She stood before him entirely
deprived of strength, of the will to hide her heart from him; she felt as though
the brief, unemotional dismissal had been a sentence of death.

         
The tears were rising in her throat and threatening to
spill from her lowered lashes when he said suddenly, in a tone that cut like a
whiplash, 'Why did you come back, Juana?'