The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  So I struggled with Spanish genders, and with the complications of Spanish etiquette, the impossible conundrums of Spanish names. ‘It is simple,’ Maria Luisa said. ‘First the father’s name, and then the mother’s name, and then the father’s mother’s name ‒’

  ‘For heaven’s sake. That means you have to know who everyone’s mother was and who the father’s mother was, and who the mother’s father was …’

  ‘In good society,’ she answered, ‘one does know.’

  From somewhere she produced the legendary little seamstress who could turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. ‘Your clothes,’ Maria Luisa said, ‘are a disgrace. You are clothed like a girl in a schoolroom. Your mother has not noticed that you have grown up.’ The woman toiled late into the nights to produce dresses for me, dresses Maria Luisa said I would be fit to be seen in, simple dresses that cost little money but, with Maria Luisa’s eye for line and detail, were surprisingly effective. I was startled by the new being that emerged in the mirror, someone older, with an unfamiliar touch of style. Maria Luisa clung to her own eternal black. ‘I did not come to spend your money,’ she said. ‘There’s always someone to be in mourning for ‒ the father of a third cousin, one of the old aunts.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘A fresh ribbon now and again, a bit of lace. People have stopped looking at me a long time ago. It’s better that way. But for you ‒ this is your time to be looked at!’ So she sent to Seville for muslins and dimities and taffetas, and beautiful green cloth for a new riding habit.

  ‘Lord, Miss Charlie!’ Andy exclaimed. ‘I hardly knew you! A fine lady you’ve become!’

  My mother was pleased. ‘Why, darling, you’re going to be a beauty! What that colour does for your eyes ‒ and we must try a lemon rinse in your hair.’ Then she looked pleadingly at Maria Luisa. ‘When the señorita has finished with Charlie’s things, do you think I could have a dress or two? Nothing extravagant, of course … I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money. I had such terrible dressmaker bills in Dublin. Poor things ‒ I never have paid them. It’s wicked, isn’t it, how people like me go off and leave their bills unpaid? We should try to pay something on account. Perhaps Richard Blodmore …’ And then her expression stiffened. ‘No! We must not ask any more from Richard Blodmore. We are too much in his debt.’ Then she sighed, looking at my new finery.

  ‘A few dresses for the warm weather, Lady Patricia,’ Maria Luisa conceded.

  ‘But this is hot weather now!’

  ‘Wait until August,’ was the answer. ‘August is like a taste of hell.’

  So Maria Luisa polished and dressed me, like the crystal chandelier and the few ornaments the house contained; then she produced an ancient landau, hired cheaply from a livery stable, and two horses. Andy turned his nose up at all three, but he set to work to brush and groom and trim, to paint, and tack back the pieces of frayed upholstery. ‘You’ll never make beauties of those two,’ he said, eyeing the horses, ‘but with a bit of decent feeding, and a good rub down every day, they’ll not be such a disgrace.’ He worked eagerly and well, and the boys, Pepe and Jaime worked with him. I loved to hear the sound of his whistle in the stable-yard. It was like home. And then I would remind myself not to call it ‘home’ any more. I was never going home; I would never see Richard Blodmore again. I kept saying those two things to myself over and over, and still I didn’t believe them.

  The horses of Jerez excited our admiration and envy. It wasn’t just the riding horses, but the carriage horses as well. The Andalucian horseman had developed his own style which came out of the country itself, and the needs which the horses served. They used a much heavier, higher-backed saddle than we were accustomed to ‒ though we saw plenty of English saddles as well ‒ because the horse had been used on the Andalucian plains so long as a work animal among the cattle. ‘It is obviously easier to stay in a saddle like that all day,’ my mother said. ‘I must have a saddle like that for Balthasar. And I should get some trousers and ride astride. Just imagine, Charlie ‒ the blood lines of these horses go back to 1579, someone told me ‒ I don’t remember who …’ For all of us the sight of the carriage horses was a daily treat. They pulled every imaginable sort of vehicle; beautifully matched horses, two, four, in harness, and the style which until now we had never seen of five-in-hand, three horses leading, two behind. The drivers we thought were almost as magnificent as the horses. They knew themselves the sight they made in their Andalucian dress, the short jackets, the round hats, the high, tassled boots, and they enjoyed it. The harness for the carriage horses was often embellished with silver, and there was, to us, the delightful custom of adding small clusters of woollen balls, in different colours, to the harness, which bobbed with the horses’ every movement. The effect was one of gaiety and charm. ‘Oh, Charlie, aren’t they just beautiful! Have you ever seen anything like the way they turn, so smoothly. Oh, I’d love to have a go at driving a team like that. I see some ladies do …’ The last was said wistfully. We had seen ladies mounted on the box with their attendant coachman. My mother would drag her eyes reluctantly from that vision of splendid arrogance and beauty, to the sight of our rather poor little pair pulling our old landau. ‘Ah, well, we have Balthasar, and Half Moon, and I’ve not yet seen anything finer than Balthasar …’

  * *

  One of the first things Maria Luisa had done was to arrange our visit to the bank. Don Ramon Garda greeted us with grave courtesy and evident appreciation of my mother’s beauty. He held her hand an unduly long time. Me he looked over with interest and gave Maria Luisa hardly a glance. He had been seeing her all his life, and, as she said, people had almost ceased to see her. She didn’t mind; those who were invisible as well as clever could do almost anything.

  We drank copitas with Don Ramon, and talked anything but money for more than half an hour. We talked horses and hunting and how we did it in Ireland. He told us of the wild boar hunts at Doñana, the culling of the great deer herds in the autumn. He was not, he said, indicating his bulk, a great sportsman himself, but he had an eye for a horse ‒ and a woman too, I thought. He was a fair shot he said, and that started my mother talking about my grandfather’s guns, and how he himself had taught her how to use them. He remembered my grandfather. ‘Oh, I was very young. Just begun in the bank under my father. We do most of our business with the sherry shippers. A remarkably fine gentleman, Doña Patricia. A great horseman …’

  He would have gone on, and so would my mother, but Maria Luisa brought them to the point. ‘Don Ramon, the money situation, if you please. Lady Patricia cannot carry on here long if she has no money, can she? She must order her accounts ‒ know exactly how much she may spend.’

  For a banker he gave a marvellous impersonation of a man who has an aristocratic disdain for money. He could hardly bear to mention it. And I almost laughed aloud at the thought of my mother ordering her accounts. It was such a lovely little game we all played, and yet, as in everything, the money was of deadly importance.

  He rang and ordered the ledgers to be brought in, as if he had not known in advance that we were coming. Beautiful books, they were, bound in fine red Spanish leather, and tooled in gold. In such books, I thought, they would post, those clerks in the outer offices, whether one had assets or debts. I thought the debts should have been in black-bound books ‒ but debts were always posted in red ink. There had been a lot of red ink in the life of the Blodmores in the past twenty-odd years.

  Don Ramon turned the books on the desk for our scrutiny. My mother’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. ‘See, Doña Patricia, here in my own hand ‒ a young boy all those years ago. This is where Don Paulo makes his first payment of a percentage of the profits of what he shipped that year. Lord Blodmore was very fortunate he made that investment. It has not given him a great return, but it has been consistent, and steady ‒ growing a little each year ‒ except for the time of the phylloxera, and no one ‒ no one ‒ in Jerez earned money in those years.

  ‘However,’ and here his face creased, as if h
e didn’t like to give bad news, ‘Don Paulo might have needed money then, but he was, as ever, no fool. He gave your father, Lord Blodmore, only a small percentage of the bodega, and the produce of certain vineyards which he then owned. It did not include an interest in future development. In effect, the profit was to be paid to Lord Blodmore, and was not to be used to reinvest as more vineyards came into production, and more bodegas built and filled with wine. What Don Paulo has done is to organise his affairs so that there are several companies within the one organisation. If Lord Blodmore had been able to gain a percentage of the total, he might have made a good deal of money. No one ‒ least of all Don Paulo, I believe ‒ could have known that within a few weeks he, Don Paulo, would marry the richest woman in Spain, and have no need for partners such as Lord Blodmore. Don Paulo was glad to take your grandfather’s money then. In a very few weeks he had no need for it. After his marriage, with the loan of money from the Marquesa, Don Paulo began an enormous programme of planting vineyards and building bodegas. Lord Blodmore remained forever outside that great expansion. His share was limited to the then existing assets of Fernandez ‒ excellent, but small.’

  His finger traced once more the columns of figures, which now I strained to see and understand. My mother leaned back in her usual attitude of belief that someone would do the understanding for her. ‘For reasons he never chose to explain, Lord Blodmore made no withdrawals from this account in all these years, except to authorise payments to the people who took care of his house here, and the one at the vineyard. They were very modest sums. He spent no money on repairs … And, of course, the interest on the capital sum we had added each year.’

  ‘Just as well he made no withdrawals.’ My mother suddenly woke from the sort of dream, like a spell, which the memories of the Spanish Woman seemed to cast on her. ‘It would have followed everything else to the money-men in London. It would have been spent. It would have bought a few more horses …’ She gestured swiftly, impatiently. ‘Don Ramon, please show the figures to Doña Maria Luisa. She has our complete confidence.’

  The ledger was turned towards her. The black eyes studied the figures for a few minutes while we waited in total silence. Finally she raised her head, looking questioningly at my mother.

  ‘Can we live on it, Maria Luisa?’

  An almost imperceptible nod. ‘With prudence ‒ touching the capital sum hardly at all, since it is one of your few assets, Lady Patricia ‒ with prudence, we may live off the profits paid in annually.’ Don Ramon was already nodding his head. I knew my mother would be sorely tempted to put her hand on the accumulated sum, and there would be a short burst of fine horses, and new dresses. But she had been frightened. Or perhaps the weight of both Maria Luisa and Don Ramon were too much for her. She did not protest.

  She rose to her feet. Don Ramon sprang to his. ‘Don Ramon, I thank you for your gracious hospitality and your time. You have kept my father’s trust faithfully. For that my daughter and I owe you double thanks.’

  He bowed low, and actually allowed his lips to touch her hand. ‘Forever at your service, Doña Patricia. If there is the smallest way I can be of assistance …’ He, like so many others, had almost literally been swept off his feet by her beauty, her wonderful presence. He rushed to open the door. While he was bowing my mother through the bank’s outer offices, I glanced at Maria Luisa’s face. It was thoughtful, as if she were already planning how best the money could be used, and how far Don Ramon’s offer of help could be extended. ‘It depends, of course …’ she said in a low tone to me, as if thinking aloud, and as if I were the natural companion of her thoughts. ‘It depends on how well the money continues to come from Fernandez, Thompson. We had better start lighting a few more candles for good harvests …’

  We were escorted to the newly painted landau, which put on a brave show but would deceive no one. I suppose it was about then I began to think our life in Jerez had begun.

  * *

  We attended Mass at the church across the plaza, Santa Maria de la Asunción, and at the Collegiate church. Maria Luisa bowed to everyone, and the bows were returned, along with stares. We were inspected and appraised. Among the ‘old aunts’ of Maria Luisa’s acquaintanceship, and among some of the elderly gentlemen, the name of Blodmore was murmured, and old memories revived. They enquired where we lived, and the address also stirred half-forgotten thoughts ‒ the old questions about why Blodmore had so precipitately bought the place, and so swiftly left it to take care of itself, were revived.

  They came to call, the old aunts and the elderly gentlemen, some young matrons and the young girls they chaperoned. Maria Luisa’s sisters came. There were eager questions about Clonmara, and how did Doña Elena like her new home? Among the young ones there were questions about Richard Blodmore, whom they had known as Richard Selwin. The answers to these questions came painfully and stiffly to my lips. I could often feel my mother’s eyes upon me as I answered, and she was herself unusually restrained. The talk of Clonmara hurt her; even to think of Richard hurt me. So the eagerly gossiping ladies and the elderly gentlemen of Jerez got little enough information on either subject.

  In our turn we repaid the calls. Some of the houses could truly be described as ‘palacios’; others were smaller. Some were richly maintained with great, wonderful gardens; others showed the kind of benign neglect and lack of money which our own house betrayed. We visited old ladies in mansions behind half-closed shutters and high walls, and others in suites of rooms built around small courtyards in the middle of the town. They were all, I thought, gracious and hospitable, eager to practise or show off their English, glad of new faces in their society, anxious to know every small thing about us, barely concealing their curiosity and asking questions that probed as deeply as politeness allowed. There was much speculation, I guessed, about my mother. To be married and living apart from one’s husband was unusual in that society where women often seemed the chattels of their husbands. Her beauty was commented on, admired, and her impetuous nature gave promise of more delicious gossip to come. As women do everywhere, they licked their lips and waited.

  Pepita was with us wherever we went. When we drove she walked beside us. ‘Big as she is,’ Andy said, ‘she’s still a young one, and she needs the exercise to develop properly.’ She waited, like a lady, in the landau while we paid our visits. Nanny regarded her with repugnance, Maria Luisa with tolerance tinged with dismay at the amount of money it cost to feed her; my mother adored her, as she adored most animals and young things. For me, she had become a sort of companion of my heart. She was always at my side, slept by my bed, listened to my whispered longings for times that were past and things that were gone. Her beautiful, sad face regarded mine in a patent effort to understand what I said. Even in the short time she had been with us she seemed to have grown still bigger, until at times she appeared to me like a young lioness. She gave me something on which to focus my love. I knew this, and knew I asked too much from a mere animal. But she gave, and wanted to give. And I took, and tried to give back.

  * *

  We grew used to the rhythm of life ‒ the strangely late meal times, the siesta. As the days passed the younger men began to present themselves in my mother’s drawing-room. As the hot days gave place to the warm evenings, they came, either singly or in pairs, escorting a sister or a cousin who had already visited us. ‘I don’t know whether they come for you or your mother,’ Maria Luisa said to me, ‘but neither of you is eligible. Lady Patricia is married … impossible. You have no money. A young man in Spain may fall in love, but he rarely marries for love only. The families see to that.’

  It was very hot; no breeze stirred the warm night air. The visitors and the late supper had made me tired and irritable. I was tired of the exhausting dance we, my mother and I, tried to perform to a strange music. I snapped at Maria Luisa. ‘You think it’s only in Spain that happens? It is all wrong ‒ and cruel. Everywhere. Without money, a girl doesn’t have a chance.’

  Her sharp eyes s
eemed to soften, a thing almost impossible to imagine in Maria Luisa. ‘And you think I don’t know that? Who better than I?’ She patted my hand lightly. ‘Try not to think too much of it. Sometimes … who knows? Who knows what may happen? Go to bed now, querida … Be fresh for what tomorrow brings.’

  I watched as she went to blow out the candles that remained. For her, the time for hoping was past.

  * *

  Protestingly, Maria Luisa took us to visit the house at the vineyard. ‘There is nothing there. The vineyard houses are not places to live. They are for the foremen, the managers. Oh, yes, there are some rooms for when the owner takes a fancy to visit, but no one lives there. And in the case of the Blodmore place …’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows what we will find? Paco has had a cousin living there for these past twenty years. Merely to keep the gypsies out. There are no vines. He tends a few patches of vegetables, keeps a few goats, a cow, some chickens. They live rent free, with a tiny sum provided from Don Ramon at Lord Blodmore’s bidding all these years ago. And the roof leaks.’

  But we went. Andy drove the landau with Maria Luisa and Nanny in it; my mother rode Balthasar, and I Half Moon. Pepita walked beside us. Word had been sent ahead by Paco, but still we carried food and wine with us. ‘A picnic in the country,’ Maria Luisa said. ‘Better to treat it that way, and you will not embarrass Paco’s cousin and his wife.’ She had odd kindnesses in her, as well as great practicality.

  I was growing used to the countryside around Jerez ‒ the low sweeping plain of Andalucia that rose in gentle slopes where the vines were spread in long straight rows, and hid the ripening grapes with the thick roughness of their leaves. Where the soil was not suitable for grapes, there were olive groves, and sometimes cork trees, red where their bark had been stripped. The unrelenting sun always seemed to cast a spell over me, so that it was a sort of dream landscape, at once gentle and fierce. I would turn my eyes away from the slopes where the vines grew, and there, somewhere off in the distance, I would catch the black outlines of the sierra breaking the haze of heat. Sometimes the dark wings of a buzzard stooped and hovered, and then the bird sped off to its mountain eyrie. The tinkle of the goat bells rose on the air; the goatherd would lift the ragged brim of a wide hat to us. And out of the dust a fine carriage would appear with liveried driver and footman; polite hands would be waved to us, a few words called to Maria Luisa. The contrasts were so sharp, and cruel. Great wealth and poverty dwelt side by side. And when I was sometimes critical, I would remember Ireland. I remembered what I had said to Mara Luisa. ‘It is all wrong ‒ cruel. Everywhere.’