The Mountains of Spring Read online

  The windows, like the windows of almost every other room in the house, were shuttered, and only a limited amount of light penetrated to the small oblong room. High up, near the ceiling, an electric fan was in operation, emitting a low whining sound, like the whine of a swarm of mosquitoes, and somewhere a long way away someone was singing tunelessly in Spanish.

  Caroline sat down and stood up again, paced up and down and, finally, driven by the heat and a sudden overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, went to one of the windows and struggled to prise the shutters open. But she couldn’t manage it, and she began to feel desperate. The heat was intense, for the electric fan was having hardly any effect at all, and it seemed to her that there was very little air left in the room. She was being stifled…

  Then everything started to heave slightly, and a big desk littered with papers which had struck her as extremely ugly when she first came into the room grew indistinct and wavery, swelling to an enormous size and then shrinking again. The walls were bending inwards, and the ceiling was coming down on top of her…

  She tried to take hold of the back of a chair, but the chair didn’t seem to be in its place any more, and her hand grasped at empty space. The door opened, and somebody stood on the threshold, staring at her, but she didn’t even notice. She had tried to keep control of her senses, but it was no use—a misty blackness enveloped her, and everything else was blotted out.

  The man who had been standing in the doorway moved forward with the speed of lightning, and as he prevented her from falling he uttered an exclamation under his breath. It was an exclamation in Spanish, and it was one of pure vexation.

  When Caroline came to herself again she was seated in the room’s one and only reasonably comfortable chair, and all the windows had been thrown wide, to admit sunlight and fresh air and a delicious aroma which she recognized as the scent of bougainvillea. Diego Rivel was leafing through some of the papers on the desk, as if he were far too busy a man to waste time while waiting for her to recover, and she instantly felt unreasonably resentful. But as soon as she opened her eyes, rather as if he possessed some sort of sixth sense, he moved round to stand in front of her.

  ‘You are better, senorita?’

  She sat up very straight, and glanced around the; room, a little like a caged animal. ‘Oh, yes, thank you—I’m quite all right. I can’t think what happened…’

  ‘You fainted,’ he told her. ‘It was extremely hot in this room.’

  Some of her resentment deserted her, and she flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t usually faint!’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t suppose you do … but you have no need to apologize. It was very natural.’ In a faintly amused tone he added: ‘You have no need to blush, either. But when you do it so charmingly it would be a pity to check you!’

  Instantly her colour grew twice as vivid, and she stood up, avoiding his eyes. This situation was absurd. She couldn’t think why Diego Rivel should suddenly be paying her compliments, but she supposed he wanted to embarrass her. In which case he was succeeding, and she was behaving like a schoolgirl.

  ‘Why isn’t Peter here?’ she asked abruptly. ‘You said I should meet him here.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted smoothly. ‘And I owe you an apology. Your brother left early this morning to accompany one of my horses to the race-track near Mexico City. Unfortunately, the message I sent him in connection with yourself did not reach him before he left. But won’t you sit down again? You are a little pale, and—’

  ‘Thank you, I’m perfectly all right.’ Her eyes sparkled angrily. ‘You couldn’t have sent him a message—I don’t believe you even tried to get one to him! At least, I’m sure you did your best to see to it that he didn’t hear about me until after he had left this morning. You wanted him to take your horse to the races—you didn’t want anything to interfere with his work. You’re—you’re a monster!’ She really did feel quite herself again, for the sheer concentrated fury which he aroused in her had had an astonishingly restorative effect, and she no longer felt even slightly dizzy. With fingers that hardly trembled at all she gathered up her handbag and her spotless white gloves, which had been placed on a chair, and moved towards the door.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have put you to so much trouble, senor, but I shan’t put you to any more! I shall get in touch with my brother, and make my own arrangements with him. We can meet during his spare time—if he has any! And once he and I have had a really good talk I don’t think he’ll be with you very much longer!’

  She stretched out a hand to open the door, but the Mexican was there before her, and he placed his long fingers over the handle, preventing her from escaping.

  ‘Where are you going, Miss Ashley?’

  She put back her head and looked up at him, and her eyes had the cold, brilliant blueness of northern seas on a clear winter’s day.

  ‘I’m going back to my hotel, senor. So please let me out … or do you intend to keep me here as a prisoner? I’ve heard that strange things happen in Mexico!’

  Firmly retaining his grip on the door-handle, he frowned. ‘Forgive me, senorita, but I think you are a little light-headed. The sun has indeed been too much for you! I shall not allow you to go back to your hotel in such a condition.’

  She stared at him in real alarm, and even backed away a little. ‘Please …’ Her expression indicated that she was beginning to think him dangerous. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Certainly—when you are recovered. I will drive you to your hotel myself. In the meantime, however, you will if you please come with me to another hotel, a little further away than the Vista de Oro, where we shall have lunch, and you will compose yourself.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said stiffly. ‘But I would prefer to go back to the Vista de Oro.’

  ‘I know you would.’ For the second time that morning, he smiled at her. ‘And of course I cannot really prevent you. If you are prepared to walk.’ He paused for a moment to allow this to sink in. ‘But I shall not place a car at your disposal, and I’m afraid I shall not allow you to telephone for a taxi, either.’

  Caroline swallowed. ‘Then I shall walk.’

  ‘The equivalent of five good English miles, senorita? And in the heat of the day?’ He shook his head at her. ‘We have just seen how you react to the heat!’

  She felt as if the violence of her resentment were choking her.

  ‘I could get a lift—’ she began.

  ‘In rural Mexico?’ His eyes gleamed. ‘You are a very pretty young woman, Miss Ashley. I would not advise it.’

  Despite all her efforts to prevent it, her lower lip began to tremble slightly. ‘This is barbarous…’ She bit into the offending lip ferociously. ‘I could complain to the police.’

  ‘But you will not do so.’ Once again, he smiled irritatingly. ‘After all, what I am doing is for your own good.’ He opened the door at last, and stood back to let her leave the room ahead of him. ‘Incidentally,’ he added, ‘if it is the thought of lunching alone with me that alarms you, you have no need to worry. We shall not be alone.’

  She paused and glanced at him, uncertain whether to feel relieved or otherwise. ‘Your … wife will be there?’ she suggested. Somehow it had not occurred to her before that he might be married.

  But he promptly shook his head, and disabused her of the idea. ‘No, senorita, I am an unhappy man,’ whimsically. ‘I have no wife … yet. But it is true that one of the two ladies with whom we shall be lunching today is of the greatest importance to me.’

  His white sports car was waiting outside the entrance to the patio, and in silence she allowed herself to be helped into it. She was feeling tired now, and a little limp, and she couldn’t summon the energy to argue or protest any further.

  They drove for about half an hour, climbing steadily into the mountains, and at the end of that time they swung into the carpark of what was evidently a luxury-class hotel. It looked as if it had been quite recently built, and had obviously been positi
oned in such a way as to command the most breathtaking view possible of both the lavender-blue mountains and the burning, red-gold dust of the plain far below them. But at the moment all its shutters were tightly closed, for it was past midday, and although there seemed to be quite a number of smart vehicles parked outside there wasn’t a single human figure in sight.

  Senor Rivel brought the car to rest in the scented shadow of an acacia tree, and they climbed out. The air was alive and quivering with heat, and the light blinding. Caroline was glad that she had a pair of dark glasses with her, and as they turned to walk across the scorching expanse of the carpark, towards the hotel itself, she put them on.

  But the interior of the Hotel Cordillera was deliciously cool, and the blinds and shutters that at this hour of the day covered most of the windows made it also refreshingly dim. Caroline felt more than a little nervous and apprehensive as they entered the wide foyer, for apart from the fact that she was not looking forward to lunching in the company of Diego Rivel she had not forgotten that they were to meet two Mexican ladies, one of whom was a very particular friend of her companion, and she had little doubt that both women would turn out to be alarmingly elegant. Her own presence would probably surprise them a good deal, and it was even possible that they might resent it. She didn’t feel in the least like such a confrontation, and as she cautiously preceded her host into a huge circular cocktail lounge, where the whirring of the electric fans mingled harmoniously with the murmur of dozens of subdued voices, she felt for the second time in one day like a gauche, overgrown schoolgirl.

  But the two ladies—who were driving, apparently, all the way from Mexico City—had not yet arrived, and few people glanced up as they made their way to a quiet corner near one of the shaded windows. By the time she had been installed in a deep, comfortable armchair, and Senor Rivel had insisted that she accept a glass of sherry—in the normal way she rarely drank anything stronger than tomato juice or bitter lemon—some of her self-confidence was beginning to return to her, and as she had an opportunity to attend to her appearance in the powder-room, and she knew perfectly well that nothing could have suited her better than the crisp simplicity of her pink linen suit, she gradually began to hope that perhaps the lunch ahead of her might not be such a humiliating ordeal, after all. It was very restful in the cocktail lounge, for all the furnishings were in attractive shades of green, and the dense pile of the carpet seemed to cushion everything, absorbing all discordant sound.

  She still felt bitterly resentful of the man beside her, but he didn’t say a great deal—although once or twice she caught him looking at her—and after a time she began to relax. When he wasn’t watching her she found herself studying him … his arrogant Spanish profile and his satin-smooth black hair were, she reluctantly admitted to herself, extraordinarily striking, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she disliked him so intensely she might even have found him attractive.

  It was well after one o’clock when the ladies from Mexico City finally made their appearance. Most of the other people in the cocktail lounge had removed themselves to the dining-room, and everything was very quiet when Diego Rivel suddenly got to his feet and started to move towards the door. At first Caroline didn’t realize what was happening. And then, automatically, she turned her head to follow the movement of her host, and she received a slight shock.

  Two women had entered the room, and from the manner in which he was bowing over their hands it was fairly obvious that they were the guests awaited by Senor Rivel. They were both, as she had expected, clearly of Latin-American extraction, and they were both expensively dressed. But the elder of the two—a woman of about forty—was also plump and decidedly homely. And the younger, who seemed to be her daughter, was in a wheelchair.

  The older woman was beaming expansively and talking rapidly in Spanish, and Diego was smiling too. All at once he had relaxed, and it struck Caroline forcibly that whenever he looked at the girl in the wheelchair his whole face underwent a kind of transformation. This, undoubtedly, was the ‘particular friend’ he had mentioned; the woman who, if she was not yet actually engaged to him, very probably soon would be.

  Her chair had been wheeled into the room by one of the hotel’s porters, but at the door this duty was taken over by Diego, and it was he who, after the three had talked for a minute or two, pushed her over to the corner where Caroline had rather awkwardly got to her feet. As they drew nearer, she got the impression that he said something quietly, and in Spanish, which related to herself, and to her annoyance by the time the little group reached her she felt herself colouring brilliantly.

  With Latin formality, he made the necessary introductions, and two pairs of dark eyes flickered over Caroline with varying degrees of interest. The older woman studied her rather intently, and with a good deal of undisguised curiosity, but the younger merely glanced at her briefly before looking up again at the man beside her.

  ‘The Senora Dominguez,’ said Diego, ‘has a great fondness for England. She will be most interested to talk to you, Miss Ashley.’

  Caroline murmured something suitable, and the Senora, who evidently understood English, gave her a vague smile. They sat down next to one another, and embarked on a stilted conversation which lasted until it was time for them to make their way to the dining-room, while Diego devoted himself more or less exclusively to the Senorita Dominguez and in fact hovered about her with so much solicitude that Caroline, who wouldn’t have believed him capable of it, was staggered. As for the Senorita herself, she appeared to consider that the sun shone out of her host’s eyes, and she quite plainly had very little time for anybody else.

  She was a slim, fragile-looking girl of about twenty, with a translucently pale skin, and great, beautiful dark eyes. If it had not been for the look of fretfulness that lay across her small, regular features like an unhappy mask she might, Caroline decided, have been extremely attractive. But as it was, the fretfulness never really seemed to lift, even on the occasions when something Diego said brought a sudden eager smile to her lips, and her lovely pansy-like eyes had something almost frighteningly lack-lustre about them at times. Caroline wondered why she was confined to a wheelchair, for no rug covered her knees, and to all appearances she was perfectly normal, but she supposed some sort of spinal weakness was the problem, and she felt an uprush of genuine sympathy, for she had a feeling that Isabel Dominguez had suffered a good deal.

  By the time they finally moved into the dining room for lunch all the blinds had been raised and the shutters thrown back, and the room, which was half-lined with huge picture windows, was bathed in clear golden sunlight. Caroline was a little relieved, for the mossy green twilight of the cocktail lounge had been getting on her nerves, and at least it was a change to be dazzled. The conversation of the Senora Dominguez had also been getting on her nerves—just a little—for it centred largely around the Mexican woman’s recollections of a visit which she had paid to England more than twenty years earlier, and as the Senora’s understanding of spoken English was decidedly faulty awkward silences had begun to fall.

  Waiters gathered around them in deferential droves as they took their places around the flower-decked table which had been reserved for them, and several came forward to offer Diego assistance as he tenderly wheeled the Senorita Dominguez into her appointed position between her mother and Caroline, but he seemed anxious to attend to her comfort alone and unaided, and when, as she was finally settled, she smiled up at him gratefully it occurred to Caroline that he looked quite absurdly gratified.

  As lunch began, he turned politely to talk to the Senora Dominguez, and after a minute or two, with a suggestion of reluctance Isabel recollected her social duty and addressed herself to Caroline.

  ‘You have not been in Mexico very long, Miss Ashley?’

  ‘No, only two days.’

  ‘Do you like it? Do you think it is beautiful?’

  The question was purely formal, but Caroline answered warmly and immediately. ‘Yes … I think
it’s incredibly beautiful. I haven’t seen a great deal of it, but I’m sure it’s a wonderful country.’ She paused, and then added: ‘I think the distant mountain ranges are the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  Isabel looked bored, and allowed her slim, pale fingers to toy with the stem of her wine glass. ‘I live in Mexico City,’ she said slowly. ‘Near the Bosque de Chapultepec … the great park, you know? All my windows look across to the cordillera. They are very dull, those mountains. I hate them, sometimes.’

  She seemed to fall into a kind of reverie, staring out through the huge window in front of them, and Caroline felt vaguely embarrassed. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she ventured, ‘we ever really appreciate the things that are very familiar to us. I live in London, but I can’t remember the time when I last looked at the Thames properly. It’s silly, but it happens … doesn’t it?’

  Senorita Dominguez dragged herself back into reality with an obvious effort, and glanced at Caroline with a faint, glimmering smile. ‘Yes, you are right. I live in Mexico, but I don’t see it. Places you know are boring.’

  Apparently Diego had been following their conversation, for he looked round with a sudden smile.

  ‘You don’t find the Casa de la Luz boring, Isa? You’ve never said so.’

  Instantly her remarkable eyes, dark as sloes, came alive with enthusiasm. ‘The Casa de la Luz is like a house in a fairy-tale,’ she told him. ‘No one could be bored there.’

  ‘I am glad you think so, chiquita mia.’ Across the table, his eyes smiled dazzlingly into hers. ‘For a moment I was worried. I should not like to think that you have been bored under my roof!’

  They lingered a long time over lunch, and by the time they finally left their corner of the sunlit dining room it was nearly three o’clock. Caroline, who for the better part of the time had been politely ignored, was glad of the opportunity to stand up and stretch her legs. The resentment which she felt in connection with her host, and which had been smouldering throughout the meal, was beginning to flare up again.