The solicitors departed to take their train back to Dublin from Wicklow Town, shaking their heads. I knew what they thought. The Blodmores had always been difficult, unpredictable clients, given to mad notions. They had been dealing with the firm of Siddons and Siddons for a hundred and thirty years. Siddons and Siddons should no longer be surprised at anything the Blodmores did.
So the announcement of my mother’s decision was made, and greeted with ill-disguised approval and relief by Elena, and silence by Richard Blodmore. My mother then set out on a round of farewell visits to her friends, leaving vague orders for packing to Nanny and Mary and me. She would return from these visits slightly tipsy to dinners at Clonmara that each day grew better as Elena started to come to grips with the cook and Farrell. No one had said anything about liking the new Lady Blodmore, but she was obeyed.
Richard made one last attempt to stop us going. He caught my mother one morning before she started on her day’s round, a time when her head was still clear, a time before Elena had yet appeared downstairs. He asked us both to come to the library. His face was tense as he made his plea, his words stiff as if he had difficulty in bringing them out. ‘For the last time, I beg you to think again. You don’t know what you’re going to …’
‘There is a house, there’s a vineyard, there’s the money from the shares in thisthis bodega place. My mind is made up. I’ll go where Charlie has a chance ‒’
‘A chance of what, Lady Pat? Of what? You are taking her into a situation you don’t understand.’
‘I’m taking her from a situation I understand all too well, Lord Blodmore. I’m taking my Charlie out of harm’s way.’
He did not reply directly to that. For a long time he stood staring at nothing, and the silence was heavy. My mother tapped her riding-crop impatiently against the desk. ‘If that’s all you have to say, Lord Blodmore …?’
He turned back to face us. ‘It’s a strange land, strange customs, a language you do not speak. It’s true that most of the educated people there speak English because of their long trade with England, but it’s peasants you’ll have to deal with finally. You have no man with you … that’s a disadvantage in Spain which you yet don’t understand. You’ll find the … the gentry there full of courtesy and good manners and grace ‒ and there still will be a streak of cruelty in them as ingrained as their pride. They will make you welcome, and still hold you at arm’s length. You’ll never understand the mind of a Spaniard, even if he speaks perfect English, and even bears an English name …’
‘We’ll take our chances, won’t we, Charlie? Those who went before us seem to have done quite well, and your wife has promised us introductions to everyone. Her aunt’s husband, this Don Paulo, is, I understand, a very important man in Jerez.’
‘He is that. And no doubt you’ll get all the introductions you need. But I think you may find Don Paulo less a friend than you suppose, despite what my wife says. The only time I ever mentioned the Blodmore connection to him, he was distinctly cool.’
‘Then we’ll manage without him. Now, I think we’ve talked enough.’
He slammed his fist on the desk, his face anguished. ‘It’s folly! It’s utter folly! Go to Galway. Go anywhere in Ireland. Take Charlie away from me. But stay among your own people. They understand people like you, Lady Pat. You understand them …’
‘I must do what I think best ‒ best for Charlie. For myself as you see, there’s not much hope, is there, Lord Blodmore? Oh, I don’t need you to say any more. What is it? ‒ can’t you bear the thought of Charlie in Jerez, and perhaps a suitable husband for her? You want her out there in the bogs where she’ll see no one. Or you want her in your own back lodge where she’s available ‒’
I didn’t hear any more; I turned and left the room. A few minutes later I heard the front door slam, and my mother’s brisk footsteps as she headed for the stables.
But she did accept, formally, Richard Blodmore’s offer of an annuity. ‘Conscience money,’ was how she described it. ‘The least he could do when it’s our home he’s taken.’
‘He didn’t have to, Mother,’ I reminded her.
‘A gentleman ‒’
‘I don’t think he claims to be a gentleman. That’s what makes him different.’
‘Different, is it? Oh, he’s different, all right. A bride of only a month at his side, but he wants you as well. But it’ll all come to an end. You must believe me, Charlie. These mad flashes of romantic love are only that ‒ flashes. I’ve experienced one or two of them in my time, and I know. How many times I’ve imagined myself in love, and then seen the man on the hunting-field the next season and wondered what it had all been about. Be careful, Charlie. Don’t be like your foolish mother. It isn’t only Richard Blodmore who will hurt you ‒ even if he doesn’t mean to. His little Elena has a fine streak of jealousy in her. Be careful. Be very careful, my darling.’ And then she would be gone on her horse, refusing the offer of the Blodmore carriage, and I would be left to see to the packing, and ponder her words.
But I did more than see to the packing in those very few days when it was all arranged. Once I knew we were going, and nothing would change my mother’s mind, I made my own plans and kept quiet about them. I avoided ever being alone again with Richard; I seldom spoke at meals, and kept my eyes on my plate. I left the exercising of Half Moon to Andy ‒ and why not, since Half Moon belonged to Clonmara, and not to me. I was determined there would be no chance meetings with Richard on the shore, no gallops in the wet sand. I was always available when callers came to meet the new Lady Blodmore, and to make the introductions. I was quiet, and self-effacing, and revolt and anguish raged in my heart.
And all the time, during the hours of the morning when the household still slept but the early summer sunrise gave me light to work by, I was carrying out a plan of my own. Before the keys of the household had been officially passed to Elena some of the best pieces were gone from the silver pantry – pieces Elena had never seen. In this I had the help, and approval of Farrell. ‘Sure, wasn’t it your grandmother’s silver, anyway,’ he rationalised for me, sublimely indifferent to the fact that it had been in the silver pantry at Clonmara since it had been made in the reign of George the Third. Also gone from the dust in the top kitchen cupboards where it had sat unused since the great entertainments my grandfather had given for his guest, the legendary Spanish Woman, was the three hundred and twenty piece Meissen dinner service. Systematically I went through all the rooms in this way, taking small items which seemed to me might have some value ‒ pictures I had to leave because of their tell-tale marks on the walls. The main rooms I dared not touch, because Elena had sharp eyes, and would remember, even though, in those early days, and until we should leave forever, she obviously struggled to control her impatience with us, her contempt for the chaos and mess into which we had allowed our affairs to slide. She knew she must make her life among the people who had known the Blodmores, and after a fashion, displayed an affection for us. It would not do to seem to be pushing us out. Her manner implied perfectly that she not only had all the time in the world in which to re-order Clonmara, but there was all the money too. She made it clear that she would neither pry nor interfere, and I played upon this, taking full advantage of it to add to the store of things I was gathering in the attic to be taken away and sold. I agonised for a long time over the books in the library. I knew some of them were valuable ‒ my grandfather had made reference to that ‒ but which? Once again I breathed little sighs of remorse for the wasted years when I had learned nothing.
I hesitated also over the locked gun-rack in the passage that led to the small sitting-room. My mother was a well-known markswoman; my grandfather in better times had had several guns made in London just for her use. There were his own guns also, hand-made and expensive. I wanted to take them, since they really could be said to be personal property, but that would mean asking for them, and I would not let Elena Blodmore hear me ask for anything from Clonmara; the request stuck in my
throat. My mother would have demanded them, but she seemed to have forgotten them. She was making a play of grandly renouncing everything at Clonmara. ‘We’ve just got the clothes on our backs,’ she would say to the company gathered in the little sitting-room. She seemed perfectly indifferent to the enmity she earned from Elena with such words.
Farrell not only kept watch for me when I was on these missions, but he helped pack the boxes and said he would arrange for a cart to take them discreetly to Dublin. He expected a little share of the proceeds, of course, but this wasn’t discussed. Hadn’t he a cousin with the very vehicle, and didn’t he know a man … I didn’t know how much money I could realise from the sale of these things, and I felt I would probably be cheated, as thieves deserved to be, but I kept telling myself that whatever I got, a few pounds or a few hundred, they really belonged to my mother and me. I was fighting my own battle against what I considered the injustice of those hated words in the dictionary: Primogeniture and Entail.
‘Ah sure and aren’t they yours by right, Miss Charlie,’ Farrell kept saying, soothing my and his own conscience. ‘And hasn’t yer new man plenty of money, that’s his wife’s, to buy more. Sure, wouldn’t he be turning it out in any case, and buying new stuff in its place. Everything new, that’s what m’lady says. New curtains and carpets and beds and the Lord knows what. There’s even talk that she’s thinking of one of those new motor cars. And isn’t there a butler coming from London, says she, and I’m to be under him ‒ me, that’s taken care of everything in this house since your grandfather was a boy. If I were younger, I’d be off, but I’m too old to be looking for a new place. And there’s to be a French chef coming from London as well, and Cook is leaving. She’ll be no scullery maid to a French chef, says she. Ah, well, ’twas bound to change when your grandfather went. So take what you can, Miss Charlie, and good luck to you. They’ll never miss it. What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Well, if I were a younger man I’d be coming with you on this great journey to Spain … the Earl, God rest his soul, would have wanted that. He’d know you’d be safe with me …’
It was Nanny who refused to be left behind. ‘Lady Blodmore tells me that in Spain every young lady like Miss Charlotte has someone to be with her all the time. A du … a duenna, it’s called,’ she added triumphantly. ‘I’ll be that. I’m still useful for something. Besides, hasn’t Himself, Lord Blodmore, paid me five years’ wages and the price of some new clothes.’
‘To be rid of you, no doubt,’ I snapped. I was feeling the strain of what I was doing, and the worry and uncertainty of what we were about to undertake. For the moment I was unable to bear the thought that Nanny must come too, unable to bear more than the burden of my mother, who was alternatively sharply decisive, then completely passive, willing to listen to the latest suggestion and act on it, or plunging headlong on her own way. Once the interview with the solicitors was over, the decision to go taken, the arguments with Richard Blodmore finished, my mother let herself slip into a mood of gentle melancholy. Rarely had I seen her so beautiful as in those few days that were left to us at Clonmara, her eyes misting constantly with tears, and then her mouth parting in a bittersweet smile. While my mother played her farewell scenes to the hilt, I did the packing, and through the solicitors made the hasty arrangements for the passage to Gibraltar. ‘Let’s get the heartbreak over and done with,’ my mother would say to friends who came to call. It couldn’t have been easy for Elena Blodmore to listen to such talk, but my mother didn’t seem to realise or care that she could be making our path in Jerez a lot more difficult because of it.
In the stables the atmosphere was different. The new Spanish horses were still a wonder and a source of pride to all the lads, especially to Andy. There was reflected pride also in the fact that Lord Blodmore was a rider, a skilful rider with a knowledge and interest in horses that might be said to equal the dead Earl’s. He would be a worthy successor as Master of Hounds. There was bustle and whistling in the stables, and the horses were groomed with an ardent desire to please the new master and stay in his employ. So it was all the more of a shock when Andy came to me and asked if he might go to Spain with us.
‘It’ll be strange for you and Lady Pat without a man around, Miss Charlie. To tell you the truth I’ve had a notion to travel this long time now, and indeed I was thinking of America … but with the horses they have in this Spanish place, it seems I might do just as well there.’
I looked at him for a long time. ‘You’re lying to me, Andy. You no more want to go than we do ‒ especially not now when there’s a bit of money at Clonmara, and you’ll have good horses to look after. Tell me, Andy ‒ he’s done it, hasn’t he? Lord Blodmore?’
I got it all out of him. Andy was thirty years old and he had never been able to afford to marry. He was very fond of me and my mother, and it would be a pleasure to accompany us, and see us settled in. He had Lord Blodmore’s promise that once that settling in had been accomplished, he might return to Clonmara, with a secure job and increased wages. When that time would be Lord Blodmore hadn’t exactly specified, but it gave Andy a dream to hold on to. His wages would be paid for as long as he was away. More than that, there was the promise of a cottage to be built on the edge of the estate where his mother might live with his two brothers and one sister ‒ a cottage and a few acres to go with it to grow vegetables and keep a cow. There was to be work on the estate for his two brothers, and for his sister in the house. The cottage and the acres were to be his own, free and clear. It was an unbelievable gift to a landless Irish peasant, who had heard too many tales of the time of the Great Hunger, who feared its return and the dispossessing landlord. He had it in writing from Richard Blodmore, along with the promise that it should be legally cloaked so that none of his fellow workers would know that it was an outright gift from Blodmore; it was to be an unexpected ‘legacy’ from some relative in America. It ensured that his own family would not have to emigrate. It had needed all of this to make him commit himself to the exile he dreaded. I knew that Richard had selected Andy with great care, and possibly at a sacrifice to himself, because Andy was the best there was at Clonmara. Another bond was forged between me and Richard in the gift of Andy’s patience, endurance and devotion.
When I learned this from Andy I went and sought Richard Blodmore out. ‘Come,’ I said. ‘I have something to show you.’ And I led him, wordlessly, to the attic where Farrell and I had packed the boxes ready to be taken away. ‘Don’t blame Farrell,’ I said. ‘He only did it because he couldn’t refuse me. You see, this is what I am. A thief! ‒ and you give me Andy! Look here ‒ the Blodmore silver, even with the crest on it. We tried, Farrell and I, to pretend that it belonged to my grandmother, but it’s been here since Clonmara was built. It belongs here, and I was going to sell it for whatever I’d get. The china, ornaments ‒ they all belong at Clonmara. And I have become a thief.
‘You see, you’ve wasted your feelings on someone who isn’t worth them. And you give us Andy! What have I got to give you? ‒ not even honesty. But I’ve been honest in one thing. I do love you. I would have stayed if I could. If it were possible. But for once I think my mother’s right. We might have ended up hating each other, or worse, becoming indifferent. I couldn’t risk it. You … you couldn’t still love a thief, could you?’
‘I love you, Charlie,’ was what he said.
He slumped in misery against the wall, surveying the rather pathetic assortment of boxes. Suddenly Farrell and I seemed very amateurish thieves. ‘If I had money you’d have had that, and a good deal more. I’ve managed the few arrangements I’ve been able to make ‒ your mother’s bit of money, Andy, the rest ‒ by going very carefully over the estate books and seeing where we can be more economical and efficient. I’ve borrowed to do what’s been arranged so far. It has to come out of the estate eventually. The money to be spent on improvements at Clonmara is, of course, Elena’s. There are strings attached to it. The Marquesa saw to a very scrupulously worked-out marriage contract. Sh
e wasn’t going to give any man a completely free hand with her niece’s money. The Marquesa is very knowledgeable about money. So, you see, Charlie, while Elena is rich, and Clonmara will benefit, I’m still a poor man ‒ will be until the estate begins to throw off good profits again. I have to see you and your mother go like beggars, and I can do nothing about it.’
‘You’ve done more than you know.’
Then, over Farrell’s protests, I put back everything I had taken in the place it belonged. No part of Clonmara was ours any more ‒ and I was no longer a thief.
So it was Andy who was saddled up and waiting behind the Blodmore coach on the morning we left. We were to get the mail boat from Kingstown, and at Liverpool connect with the P&O steamer to Gibraltar. It had all happened in barely more than two weeks, and now that the moment had come I felt a sweat of panic upon me, a fear clutching at me. My mother and Nanny were already helplessly in tears.
Elena had risen early ‒ a difficult thing for a Spaniard who infinitely preferred staying up late ‒ to say good-bye. The letters of introduction were thrust into my mother’s hand. There was no sign of Richard.
‘He has gone riding, I believe,’ Elena said. She strove to, but could not quite keep a trace of satisfaction out of her voice. I guessed what she might be thinking. Her husband was not present to bid good-bye to this unruly little hoyden he had appeared to admire, and the keys of Clonmara were firmly in her hands at last. There would be no more drunken scenes in the little sitting-room. In a very short time every trace of the scandalous reign of Lady Patricia at Clonmara would be erased. If she believed that, I thought, she would learn that legends die hard in Ireland ‒ she, who should know that her own aunt was still a legend here.
The Summer of the Spanish Woman Page 7
