The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Look a gift horse in the mouth? Most impolite, I’d say.’ I managed a feeble laugh.

  He smiled rather bleakly. ‘That was my reasoning. I took what was offered, and asked no questions. Particularly I asked no questions about the huge dowry Elena brought with her. I had a fair idea of Clonmara’s finances, and Elena’s dowry weighed heavily there. I told you I was an opportunist, Charlie. I didn’t just take, I seized what came my way. I thought we were suited enough. The question of love didn’t occur to me. Why should it, since I didn’t really believe in it?’

  I nodded. I couldn’t agree with his description of his own character, but the facts of his life would seem to have made his actions inevitable. Why should he have done anything else? But I couldn’t stop myself saying ‘If only …’

  He knew at once what I had started to say. ‘Yes ‒ if only Blodmore had even once invited me here. Then I would have known what to do. That would have seemed right ‒ and inevitable. I, as his heir, and you as his only grandchild … If we’d married you and your mother could have stayed at Clonmara forever. Why didn’t he do it, Charlie? It was the perfect solution.’

  ‘Perhaps … perhaps that was why. Because it would have been too perfect.’ Now the growing light had reached the place over the mantel where my grandfather’s portrait hung. He had been painted, conventionally, in his pink hunting coat, with a couple of hounds at his feet. ‘He loved me, Richard. He would have wanted me to marry whomever I wanted, not where it was most convenient. Whatever he hoped for, he would never have pushed me into a marriage I didn’t want just because it provided a solution to our problem. He wouldn’t have wanted any pressure on me.’

  ‘Then he made a terrible mistake, Charlie. If he’d given you and me only half a chance … If I’d even come here just once …’

  I shook my head. ‘Grandfather thought of me as a child. After all, until he died, I still had a governess. Perhaps he’d had it in mind to invite you after I’d come out ‒ which was what I was going to do this summer. Perhaps then he thought I’d be old enough to make a choice. He wasn’t the sort to marry off a child, Richard, no matter how convenient.’

  He sighed. ‘Then he left it too late. He wasn’t a very practical man, was he?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think anyone would ever have said he was a practical man. It doesn’t seem to run in the family. When people around here talk about the “mad” Blodmores, it doesn’t just mean a little bit reckless. Look at my grandfather’s own marriage. No one could say it was prudent, or practical.’ I nodded towards my grandmother’s portrait on the wall. ‘But just look at her, Richard. I think my grandfather loved her madly. There would be no other reason why …’

  He gazed at it. ‘You look just a little like her ‒ but you have the Blodmore eyes, like your mother.’ He turned back to me. ‘Charlie, why didn’t I come sooner? My own selfishness and greed have caught up with me. I’m an old man, as these things go, to have fallen in love for the first time. I’m awkward and clumsy with my words. I’ve hurt you by my words, and I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  I laid my hand across his lips. ‘Let’s not talk about it any more. There are too many “ifs” and “whys” ‒ and no answers.’ I got up and took his hand. ‘I want to show you my grandmother’s rose garden. It’s a very special place at Clonmara. My grandfather had it made as a sort of wedding present for my grandmother. I want to be the one to show it to you …’ Leading him I crossed to one of the long windows that led to a flagged terrace. The cool morning-scented air met us as I opened it.

  ‘You’ve no slippers on,’ he said.

  I laughed. ‘As if that matters.’

  The flags were still wet with the night’s dew; I noticed that weeds had begun to appear in the cracks between the flags, and along the base of the balustrade. At the end of the terrace steps led down from this level to an elaborately wrought iron gate bearing the crest of the Blodmores. In contrast to the general state of the house, the gate gleamed with new paint, and it opened easily at my touch.

  It was the only place at Clonmara, besides the stables, which had never lacked care. It was a formal garden with high walls of mellow brick, on which climbing roses were trained. It had never needed my grandfather’s urging to keep its beds weeded, its paths immaculate, its grassy spaces trimmed. Here the cultivation of roses had reached a high art, but now only the very earliest roses, those along the warm, south-facing wall, were beginning to bloom. ‘My grandfather,’ I told him, ‘brought a man, an expert, from England to lay out the garden, and to teach the gardeners about roses. He taught them everything about pruning and grafting, so to this day the same root stock of those first roses is still here. He wrote it all down, and illustrated it, and the book is still in the library. But the men he taught … well, most of them couldn’t read easily, so they passed it on by word of mouth, one to the other. The man who came from England ‒ his name was Mr Goodbody, which seems very right ‒ never went back. He just stayed on here until he died. He died just a little after my grandmother. He was an old man when he came, but they say he died of a broken heart because he loved her. I wonder if that’s true. A sort of legend grew up around it ‒ but then the Irish love to make legends, don’t they? They called it a garden made for love of my grandmother, and they seem to think it will bring bad luck on the family if anything dies here. So they look after it very carefully.’ The central grass walk led to another wrought-iron gate, and a path beyond it was lined with dark Irish cypresses, their shapes rising formally and rigid from the forest of rhododendron and laurel which threatened to engulf them. We walked between the budding green of the roses. The sun was beginning to touch the top of the brick wall. We reached the further gate, and stopped.

  Then we were in each other’s arms. I thought too late that it had been a mistake to bring him here. But I had so craved his touch, to feel his mouth once more on mine. In a future that looked so bleakly empty, I had to have some memories.

  ‘This is our own place, Richard,’ I said. ‘I will always think of you here ‒ and on the shore. And you will never open the gate of this garden without thinking of me. That way we will always have some part of each other.’

  ‘Some day I’ll be with you, Charlie,’ he said.

  I shook my head in some newly acquired wisdom. ‘Let’s make no promises for the future, Richard. This time yesterday we knew nothing about each other. Today everything is changed. We can’t call back the time when we didn’t know each other. I don’t want to look into the time when we’ll be apart.’

  ‘I’ll be with you always, Charlie,’ he protested. But it was no good. We couldn’t pretend, even for a few minutes. I wanted to weep, but I didn’t. Instead I took his arm and turned and we walked back along the grassy path to the gate near the house, conscious that the sun was slipping further down the wall, and that sounds were coming from the stables; the hounds had begun their early-morning keening cry. The grass was wet and soft beneath my feet. At the gate we embraced once more, and kissed, not caring that each time it was more painful, and that the bond grew stronger; I believed that we both thought, but did not say, that we were due this seemingly small thing, the simple contact of our bodies, to carry us through the empty time ahead. We didn’t seem to recognise then that it was a need that would feed upon itself.

  The well-oiled gate opened silently at my touch. We went up the steps together, our hands touching now only lightly. The hem of my thin gown and robe were wet and bedraggled. I looked along the length of the house, the grey stone warmed now by the touch of the sun. Directly above us I caught a movement, as if a lace curtain had fallen closed behind a window. A breeze, perhaps ‒ but the morning was windless. I said nothing to Richard.

  It had been one of the windows of my grandfather’s room, the room now occupied by Richard and Elena.

  * *

  We went back through the open window of the library. The forgotten candle had now burned down close to its stump. I went to the desk, the joy of being wi
th Richard now giving place to a sadness I knew I must not let him see. I blew out the candle.

  I made my voice as firm and practical as Siddons, the solicitor’s.

  ‘Richard, you speak Spanish, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What does this mean? It is Spanish, isn’t it?’

  His face tightened as he looked at the heading, Jerez, and the signature. His fingers flipped swiftly through the pages as he counted the dates.

  ‘Tell me!’ I demanded.

  ‘It means, simply, “She lives”. It means “She is alive”.’

  ‘ “She lives …” ’ I repeated. ‘She lives.’

  ‘What does it mean, Charlie? Who is alive? Surely Don Paulo can’t have written all these years to taunt Blodmore about the Marquesa. It wouldn’t be like him …’

  I shook my head. ‘What does it matter? My grandfather’s dead now, and a lot died with him. Whatever it means, it probably doesn’t matter any more.’ Suddenly I felt a terrible weariness, as if I were very old. A whole lifetime of loving and experiencing seemed to have washed over me since yesterday, and I wasn’t used to it. I heard the familiar sounds of the house. A door banged somewhere in the kitchen regions. Clonmara was coming to life. I locked the papers again in the drawer, closed the dictionary. This time I took the keys with me. Even this small habit had changed.

  III

  ‘He has offered me the back gate lodge!’ My mother whispered it to me as if she were in some sort of agony. ‘The gate lodge of my own home! Charlie, have you ever really noticed the size of the place? ‒ have you ever been inside it? It’s like a dog kennel ‒ for a small dog!’ Her voice had been rising, and finally she broke into one of her wild, intense laughs. ‘Well, I can be thankful he had the tact not to offer the front lodge. Just imagine watching the carriages go by on the way to the house. Well, the man’s no gentleman. I always knew it!’

  ‘What did you say, Mother? Did he offer anything else with it?’

  ‘A pittance. A tiny annuity. Use of the horses and stables. A girl to come from the house to do some cleaning and cooking.’

  ‘It’s not nothing …’ Already the tug of unreason was there, the hopeful thought that at least I would see him sometimes, we might ride on the shore, the rose garden could still be entered. ‘What did you say, Mother?’ I repeated.

  ‘Say? Nothing! What could I say? Insult the man as he had insulted me?’ She shook her head; her tone changed. ‘To tell you the truth, Charlie … I didn’t know what to say. For one second I was tempted to take it. Say “yes” quickly ‒ before he could change his mind. Or before that clever little wife of his could change it for him. She wouldn’t like us here, you know. She’s Lady Blodmore, and she intends to be mistress of her house. No carry-overs from the old days. No ‒ she wouldn’t like our friends calling at the back lodge, and forgetting to come to the house …’

  ‘You see, Mother,’ I said, ‘already you’re beginning to think you could stay. You always said he owed something to you. The back lodge wouldn’t be so bad. It’s not really a kennel ‒ it’s a sort of doll’s house. We’d be comfortable, you and I.’

  ‘He said he’d refurbish it, of course. And we could have furniture from here …’ The back lodge had not had occupants for some years, since the last of the family who kept it had emigrated and my grandfather hadn’t bothered to replace them. The gates were never closed, so they didn’t need a keeper.

  ‘Think of the horses,’ I continued. ‘And the stabling ‒ all for nothing. A girl to come and cook and lay the fires. Your friends would always come. You know they’d come. You’d hunt, just as you’ve always done. People would still invite you to things. It wouldn’t change very much. Not all that much. We’d still be at Clonmara.’

  My mother’s face grew twisted with yearning. ‘Do you really think so, Charlie? Do you think so? Just not to have to leave. Not to have to go to the place out west. Not even to have to move, really. A fresh coat of paint and a few tiles mended. Running water he said he’d put in. All we’d have to do is move over our clothes, and a few boxes of things. It could be cosy, Charlie ‒ just you and me. Do you think he’d give me some decent mounts, Charlie? Not just the poor old things we’d be ready to put out to pasture? If he’d do that …’

  I caught her arm, trying to emphasise what I wanted to say. ‘I think he’d give you anything you wanted, Mother. He admires you. I think he’s generous and kind and ‒’

  My mother now looked at me sharply, as if trying to drag her thoughts out of a future that seemed suddenly not so dark or strange. ‘And you, Charlie? What about you? You don’t say anything about what he might do for you.’

  I tried to turn my face away to hide from her both my hope and my misery. ‘I don’t need much. I wouldn’t ask anything of him.’ I tried to drop my mother’s arm, and found that surprisingly strong hand holding my own in place. She had come out of her dream to a sharp reality.

  ‘No, don’t look away! Look at me, Charlie. It’s he, isn’t it? It’s Richard Blodmore you want. And he wants you. All these things he’s suddenly offering me. They’re not for me at all. They’re for you. They’re to keep me here, and you with me. Isn’t that what it is?’

  I didn’t answer. Her hand went to my chin, forcing my face around, forcing me to look into the sea-green eyes. They were no longer vague, far-off. I felt as if those eyes had witnessed every moment on the shore, had recorded every second in the rose garden. Then, as I looked, they grew misty with the tears that could come as readily as the wild laughter. All at once her hold was released, and her arms were about me, holding me, rocking me like a child.

  ‘Oh, my poor darling … my poor little Charlie. Here I’ve been carrying on like a fool, feeling sorry for myself, and not noticing … not noticing that my little girl had grown up, and fallen in love. And to think I was actually urging you before he came … He can never be yours, you know. Has he said he loves you, Charlie? It’s no good, you know. It can’t work out. He’s married, and she’ll never let him go. Has he said anything to you, Charlie?’ she repeated, and still got no answer.

  ‘Oh, Charlie, you want to stay, don’t you? Darling, you can’t imagine the hell it would be. Trying to cover up, trying to hide it. It wouldn’t stay hidden, you know. You’re not made for scheming and conniving, my darling. And I’ll not have your heart broken, if I can help it. You’ll give all your young life to loving him, and one day you’ll wake up to find you’re too old to marry anyone else, and you’ll find it’s all gone into a stale, sour routine. Love doesn’t stay the way it begins, you know. In the beginning everything is beautiful and bright and wonderful. Everything seems possible. It will all work out, you tell yourself. Darling … darling, trust me. I know. I’ve been down that road. And look at me now, a foolish woman with no husband and no future, who takes a drop too much. I’m thirty-six, Charlie. Thirty-six years old ‒ and I’ve got nothing. Nothing except you. You’re the only treasure I’ve got laid up. Oh, Charlie, dear, I’ve been so careless and neglectful. Not a real mother at all. But as long as Father was alive, you were never lonely, or wanted anything. Wasn’t that so? He was father and mother to you. Now I have to try … and I’ve not much practice.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ I said dully. I didn’t attempt to deny anything my mother had said. I didn’t argue that my case was different, special ‒ that it would turn out any differently than she predicted. The knowledge had already begun that morning in the library.

  ‘We must go,’ she said. ‘We must leave at once.’

  ‘You mean, go out to Galway.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, not to Galway. There’s no future for us in Galway, and we’d be forever thinking of coming back here. No, we’ll cut our losses, Charlie. We’ll go further than Galway. We’ll cut our losses on this one, and gamble on the next throw. A sporting chance, Charlie, the way Father always played it. What’s there to lose now? We’ll go to that place he left me in Spain. We’ll go to Jerez.’

  I
V

  It was all done, more quickly, it seemed to me, than anything had ever been done at Clonmara. It had the swiftness and brutal pain of my grandfather’s death, and the finality.

  My mother summoned the solicitors, Siddons and his junior, Taylor, from Dublin to Clonmara. They came with a slightly reproving air, wanting to know why my mother never answered their letters. ‘What letters? There were hundreds after my father died. They’re all piled up there. How am I supposed to know what’s important …?’ They looked at each other, sighed, shrugged, and decided not to argue. Siddons turned to me.

  ‘I sent a letter, precisely thirty-five days ago, Miss Charlotte, outlining what we had learned of the situation in Jerez, concerning your grandfather’s properties there. There had been a small income from his shares in the sherry business of Fernandez, Thompson over the years, all paid into a bank in Jerez. We are at a loss to understand …’

  ‘Then, that’s settled,’ my mother said. ‘There is an income, a house, the annuity Lord Blodmore has suggested to me. It will suffice. We will be very economical, Charlie and I. We will live quietly. And we will go.’

  For two hours they tried to persuade her against it, pointing out that she could rent a small house nearby until the property in Jerez had been sold. Then she might buy something, something modest, of course … The Marqués de Santander was interested in purchasing the shares held in the sherry shipping firm. No, he had not made a definite offer, but surely Lady Patricia would rather remain in Ireland … It did no good. ‘Charlie and I will try it,’ she said. ‘We can do worse than to try it. In the end perhaps we will sell and come back, but I’m willing to take a chance. The fact is we cannot stay much longer in this house. We cannot accept charity.’ She clearly didn’t see Richard Blodmore settling an annuity on her in that light.