The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  She shrugged. ‘What have women to do in a place like this except to gossip? ‒ to pass on stories? Especially if one is plain and is always left in the corner talking to the old aunts. And don’t forget ‒ one of my names is Fernandez.’

  My mother nodded sympathetically, but being left in a corner gossiping was a situation she had never experienced.

  Maria Luisa continued: ‘So Don Paulo went on, putting as good a face on things as he could ‒ Spaniards would do anything rather than admit we are poor. We wear better clothes than we can afford, and never let anyone see the inside of our houses lest they discover we live off bean soup. Of course things weren’t too bad with Don Paulo, but still he was not a rich man. His treasure was in his vineyards, his nose for sherry, and his daughter, Mariana. Now I do remember her ‒ she was just a few years older than I, but even to me she looked like something from a fairy-tale. She was quite uncommonly beautiful, and accomplished. She was, and did, all the things that men find delightful in women. She was never one of your bland little beauties without a brain in their head or a word of sense to throw to anyone. A good musician, a rider, several languages. Oh, Don Paulo guessed early what her value would be, and he squeezed out money for her education. She was being groomed for a high place, and that could only come through marriage. She would not be permitted to give her heart away, as he had done. Or if she did, it would only be her heart, not herself, unless the two went together in the right place. I don’t know about her heart, but her hand was going in the right place when she was betrothed to the eldest son of the Duque de Burgos ‒ a grandee of Spain, with money to match his titles. The young man had come down here to hunt at Doñana in company with the King. He met Mariana, who was then only sixteen. But he would hear of marrying no one else but this angel. He was prepared to wait forever for her, he said. They say there was much discussion and dissent, because he had been expected to marry a royal princess. But he was a young man in love … In the end his father had to give his consent to the betrothal.’ Maria Luisa shrugged her thin shoulders, indicating that the ways of lovers were inexplicable.

  ‘And then the Marquesa de Pontevedra came to her estate at Sanlucar, which is just across the river from Doñana. She only came in the hunting season, and we in Jerez saw little of her. It was the first time she had visited here since the deaths of her brothers, and her inheritance of the titles and estates. Visiting all of them could have made a decent year’s pilgrimage, believe me. They say she came to please her English lover, who wanted to visit Cordoba and Seville, and to hunt at Doñana. At least we called him her English lover. He was, of course, Irish. Lord Blodmore.’

  My mother set down her glass. ‘And we called her the Spanish Woman. It was easier than remembering all the titles. She made an enormous impression in Ireland. They haven’t forgotten, to this day. I remember my father was counted the luckiest man in Ireland because it seemed she would marry him. She was rich …’

  ‘You well may say it, Lady Patricia. She was rich. I wouldn’t doubt that she is even richer now. Pontevedra was the only title she used, though there are others. She has Hapsburg blood in her, as well as Bourbon. The title has the right of descent through the female line, so she had it all. Oh, she had it all. Estates in Catalonia that the family had had for generations, and of course that led right into owning a large part of the industry of Barcelona. She owns whole avenues in Madrid, and a palace there. The estate in Galicia is said to be the size of a small kingdom. Her father bought heavily into Rio Tinto mines ‒ the family owned large parcels of land in Huelva Province, as well as their holdings around Sanlucar.’

  ‘She was not beautiful,’ my mother said musingly. ‘Handsome is a better word. Tall. Very regal. I remember being a little bit afraid of her when she was at Clonmara. What a funny, small place she must have thought Ireland. But she must have liked it. She stayed the whole summer …’

  Maria Luisa took up the telling. ‘So Lord Blodmore followed her to Madrid, and came with her to Sanlucar. People said she was in love, this woman who had so much money and a great deal of power. But she could not give herself easily. She could have had almost anyone, but she fell in love with the Irishman. It is hard to imagine a woman like that marrying for love. Money and power seem to marry each other. In her terms, Blodmore had little of either. She brought him here to parties in Jerez, and didn’t seem to care that people knew they were lovers. They visited everywhere together. All doors were open to them. She took an interest in the sherry business ‒ she had vineyards and bodegas of her own in Sanlucar. It was through her that Blodmore invested money with Don Paulo. Blodmore seemed at home here in Jerez. He seemed to enjoy himself. He issued many invitations for people to come to his place in Ireland. By then we here had begun to think that it would be yet another estate of the Marquesa de Pontevedra’s. We were used to her commanding everything. But Blodmore seemed to hold back from her just a little. He was used to his way too, and she wanted everything from him. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company so much, those two, but there were stories that they also quarrelled fiercely ‒ and then made it up again. Neither seemed quite willing to bend completely to the other. But still, we thought they would marry. Such talk it caused. I remember it all so well.’

  Maria Luisa paused to sip her wine, savouring her next part of the tale. ‘Then ‒ suddenly ‒ everything was changed. Blodmore left the Pontevedra estate at Sanlucar. He came here to Jerez, stayed for a few days in an inn, refusing all invitations. The next thing we knew he had bought this house, and moved into it, all within a day or two. He lived in only a few rooms of it, employed few servants, and went nowhere, saw no one. He went riding ‒ alone. He seemed to us like a man gone mad, fallen into melancholy. We had thought him temperamental, excitable, but this behaviour was more than strange. It could have been a lovers’ quarrel, we said, more serious than any other. But the gossip was that the Marquesa had finally decided not to marry him, had cast him out as a lover. We guessed he would not accept the decision and was waiting here in Jerez with the hope that she would change her mind.

  ‘Then Don Paulo announced that he and the Marquesa had married ‒ married secretly somewhere about the time Blodmore had left Sanlucar. It caused a sensation. No one had any notion that the Marquesa paid any special attention to Don Paulo. He had been invited to Sanlucar to join the hunting parties which went over to Doñana from Sanlucar, but while Blodmore was about, the Marquesa had eyes for no one else. It seemed just possible that Don Paulo had caught her in the aftermath of a quarrel with Blodmore and she had chosen capriciously to show her power, to show that she could marry whenever and whomever she pleased. I will tell you Don Paulo was counted the luckiest man in Spain. All that money! ‒ and a woman whose titles exceeded his own. But there could have been little time for celebration ‒ for him to rejoice in his good fortune. The word came that the Marquesa had contracted smallpox. Don Paulo and his daughter Mariana were there at Sanlucar. No one can imagine why he did not send her away from Sanlucar immediately ‒ why he risked having her exposed to the infection. So careless … so careless of the Marquesa in the first place. It was possible to be vaccinated, though people were afraid of that still. But yet … when her beauty counted for so much. But Mariana stayed, and the news came that she had contracted the pox, and then very shortly afterwards, that she had died. There were so many confusing stories at the time … she was alive, she was dead … that she, in fact, had contracted smallpox first and infected the Marquesa.’ Maria Luisa shrugged. ‘When people like Don Paulo and the Marquesa do not wish to talk, few dare to question them. The triumph of Don Paulo was in ashes. They said he truly loved Mariana. No one could ever say with certainty that he had loved the Marquesa. His only child was dead, his beloved child ‒ and his marriage to the woman who was responsible for that death was only begun. What is that English proverb – marry in haste …?’

  ‘Repent at leisure,’ I finished for her, impatient.

  ‘Yes, that’s it. At leisure. It almost se
emed to us here that Don Paulo had no marriage at all beyond a contract. The Marquesa recovered, unmarked by the pox. She went to her castle at Arcos with Don Paulo, and no one saw them for some time. The tales were that she had left … that she was back again. No one knew the truth any more, so any rumour had credit. The bodega saw very little of Don Paulo in those days. It was the only time he had ever been known to neglect his business.’

  ‘And my grandfather?’

  ‘Still in Jerez. Shut up in this place like a recluse. Boxes of books coming, a few bits of furniture bought. What he hoped to achieve by staying, no one could imagine. It was as if he had had an illness, a terrible shock, and could not shake it off. But time passed, and one day we realised that he was gone. He had kept so much to himself he could have been gone for months before anyone noticed. A servant or two were left here. And the house just settled down to its dust and spiders, and has remained so all these years. To tell you the truth ‒ though no doubt you can deny it ‒ we thought him perhaps just a little mad.’

  My mother sighed, and reached for the port again. ‘You would not be the first to suggest that the Blodmores are just a little mad. Perhaps that was why the Spanish Woman ‒ the Marquesa … Oh, well, what does it matter? My father missed his chance, and Don Paulo took the prize.’

  ‘She took Don Paulo,’ Maria Luisa corrected. ‘We have never considered it much of a marriage. There have been no children. When they see each other it is like a formal engagement. When the Marquesa comes to this part of the world she generally stays at her palacio at Sanlucar, while Don Paulo remains here at his house, Las Fuentes, in Jerez. When it is required, he will go to Madrid to be with her if it is some great court occasion. He is at Sanlucar when she brings her guests for the hunting at Doñana. For the rest of the time she lives a life of complete freedom. Tales drift back. She travels. Paris for clothes, the London season, shooting in Scotland, gambling at Deauville. They say she still takes lovers ‒ at her age! That could be just talk, since she seems to live a quieter life now, to stay more often in Spain. Her private life has been the subject of scandal and the Church frowns on her ‒ and yet what can they do? She supports so many churches on her estates. She gives handsomely when asked for help. Most importantly, she has the tacit consent of her husband in whatever she does, so the Church shuts its eyes to the scandal, and takes the money.’

  ‘And Don Paulo permits it all …’ my mother mused.

  ‘He doesn’t care, I believe,’ Maria Luisa countered. ‘Apparently it was no love match right from the beginning. But Don Paulo has himself profited mightily.’ She tapped the table with a long finger. ‘From the Marquesa came the money with which he expanded his vineyards and his bodegas until he became the greatest of the sherry growers and shippers. With money borrowed from her he has expanded in many directions. He began to irrigate his farm land making it more fertile. He began to breed bulls, and experiment with new strains of cattle. He grows wheat, olives, sugar beet ‒ a hand in everything. He has ventured beyond Spain to make more money. He is said to be heavily involved in railways in South America. They even say he had profited from the opium trade in China. With the Marquesa’s money he had become a rich man in his own right ‒ and by doing this, has entirely reversed the history of the Fernandez family.’

  ‘The Marquesa lent him money ‒ or gave it? I thought a dowry was the husband’s to spend.’

  Maria Luisa gave a dry laugh. ‘I doubt the Marquesa would give money as well as herself. In fact, soon after their marriage Don Paulo accepted as his partner in the bodega a distant cousin of the Marquesa’s ‒ Don Luis Thompson de Villa ‒ who was living here in Jerez, and apart from his own sherry business, was managing the Marquesa’s estates at Sanlucar. I would say she imposed the partnership on Don Paulo to protect her own interests. And I would judge that every peseta borrowed from her has been repaid with interest by Don Paulo. She is lavish with her money, but no fool.’

  I was remembering the events of that morning, the walk through the bodega, the strangely yearning love Don Paulo had evidenced for his son. ‘Carlos …?’ I said. ‘Don Paulo himself told me he is illegitimate.’

  ‘All the world knows that. Not only Carlos, but his two half-brothers, Ignacio and Pedro, who have yet different mothers, one supposes. While the Marquesa was enjoying herself all over Europe was Don Paulo supposed to live like a monk? He has acknowledged his sons, given them his name, and the Marquesa has countenanced it. Perhaps because their mothers are unknown. The Marquesa has had no rivals in importance or position. Probably the mothers were peasant girls from one or other of the estates, grateful that their children should be brought up as gentlemen, and perhaps a small pension, or a few hectares of land for the family. There is even the story that the mother of Carlos was a gypsy, though gypsies do not readily give up their children. So … in spite of the barrenness of the Marquesa, Don Paulo has his sons. It is evident that Carlos is the favourite. Between them, Don Paulo and the Marquesa will arrange a good marriage for him, even if his mother is a gypsy ‒ or whomever she is. There was even some talk that the Marquesa’s niece, Elena … but I never believed that!’

  ‘Don Paulo has so much,’ I said, ‘and yet he still wants the small piece of the bodega my grandfather owned. What can it matter to him?’

  ‘To a man like Don Paulo the fact that an outsider, Blodmore, who almost succeeded in winning the Marquesa, should own even a tiny fraction of his business must be like a burr under the saddle. Don Luis he must tolerate because it is a family arrangement, and advantageous. But Blodmore … Think of it! Rivals all those years ago, and Blodmore was permitted to buy shares in the bodega at a time when Don Paulo must have been desperate for money. Blodmore was probably only the first of those Don Paulo was searching for to invest with him ‒ invest but have no say in running the bodega. And only a few weeks later, by marriage to the Marquesa, all the money he needed and more was available. Yes, it must rankle. A burr under the saddle. I think perhaps he would like to wipe out the memory of Blodmore.’

  ‘But he will not succeed,’ I said. ‘The Marquesa has married her niece to Richard Blodmore. So the Blodmores are with Don Paulo however he dislikes the fact.’

  My mother drained the glass, and did not reach to refill it. ‘Yes ‒ he has the Blodmores with him still. Are we burrs under the saddle to him, do you think? Then perhaps I shall hang on here a while yet. The longer we stay, the higher he will push his price. We might come well out of it yet, Charlie. Yes, we will wait. We will take our time … Perhaps what happened twenty-five years ago will serve us very well. Perhaps this is precisely what my father had meant to happen. All these years he had held on, when he must have been tempted so often to sell. So we also will bide our time … It’s pleasant enough here, isn’t it, Charlie? And now that we have Maria Luisa …’ By now she was almost talking to herself. ‘Perhaps for once in my foolish, rash life I will do the wise thing. Don Paulo may learn that the Blodmores are not quite as mad as we seem …’

  And I was thinking of the enmity that had been revived each year between the two men. In my thoughts I was back in the library at Clonmara with Richard Blodmore’s low voice translating the words that kept it alive. ‘Ella está viva.’ There were some things even Maria Luisa could not explain.

  III

  It is possible that we would have managed, somehow, without Maria Luisa, but at times I didn’t know how. Her sharp eyes were on everything, missed nothing; those thin fingers poked and pried and fixed and manipulated; her tongue, even in the mellifluous Spanish which I didn’t yet understand, made acid and biting comments, gave orders to Serafina and Paco which they obeyed without question. Yes, it is possible we would have managed, but not nearly so well.

  In short, we were organised by her. I tried to learn the way she did it, but it was a skill born of age and experience, and a lifetime spent, as she put it, ‘talking with the old aunts’. If there was anything she didn’t know, she would soon make it her business to know; if there was a cheap
er way to do something, she would find it. How she worked, that woman. For her, the Spanish siesta hardly existed. She was impatient with the requisite hour or so when everyone rested in the heat of the day, and she would spend her time writing notes to herself, juggling strings of figures, making lists of things to do. It was from Maria Luisa that I began to feel that I might learn to do more than ride a horse.

  First of all we made the dining-room and the room where we had first met Don Paulo immaculate. ‘Leave the rest to the dust and spiders until we need them,’ Maria Luisa counselled as she waxed the furniture with her own hands. ‘We must have somewhere to receive.’ She had the supreme assurance of a born lady who did not fear to soil her hands ‒ but equally she would have died before letting any other than members of the household see her so engaged. Together she and I combed the house for what little in ornamentation it would yield. The bedrooms were stripped of their pieces of china so that they might make a show for visitors downstairs. A crystal chandelier was moved from the principal bedroom where my mother slept, washed with great care, and hung in the drawing-room. ‘What a pity Lord Blodmore did not buy more once he started,’ Maria Luisa commented. ‘To set up house here was madness, but at least he might have finished his lunacy.’

  Daily there were Spanish lessons. At first she tried to insist on my mother’s presence, but even Maria Luisa’s determination faltered in the face of my mother’s good-natured sloth. Maria Luisa shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ she admitted to me, ‘what does it matter, after all? A woman as beautiful as that … the men will forgive her anything, and the women will be jealous in any case. So they will all practise their English on her, and she will pick up a little Spanish, a few words. She soon enough learned how to ask Paco to bring the wine …’ Then she pointed her sharp finger at me. ‘But you, Carlota, you must learn. You are young. You don’t have a bad mind, but a lazy one. I think this Ireland of yours must be a very relaxed place. Oh, I know what everyone says about the Spaniards ‒ “mañana, mañana …” But for most of us, if we want to eat, we must work. And so must you ‒ for different reasons.’