The activity about the bodega was constant, though not noisy. The big vaulted rooms seemed to impose their own sense of quiet and order. Don Paulo, though, often seemed to walk the aisles of the bodega for the reason I did ‒ just for the pleasure it gave, or perhaps the reassurance of continuity it imparted. I liked to be with him when he worked and talked with the capataz, or another catador. I listened to the terms they used to describe the wine; limpio, clean, or sucio, dirty: verde, green, unripe, or maduro, ripe; delgado, thin, or gordo, stout; punzante, pungent, or apagado, dull. They could have been speaking of people, and it seemed to me that the wine was often regarded in that fashion. The wine had a way of its own, and could develop unexpectedly. Don Paulo or any of the catadores never spared the chalk in down-grading a wine if that was necessary, but there was also the pleasure of up-grading it if it showed more promise than expected. They worked with care, holding the glass always by the stem lest finger-marks obscure the colour, or warmth from the fingers change the bouquet. They did a great deal of chemical analysis in the cuarto de muestras; they talked knowingly and technically about the chemical composition of the wine, about the Baumé scale used for measuring the specific density of the wine, the degree of alcoholic strength it possessed; they could write a chemical formula for any of the wines they produced. But in the end it was the feel for the wine, the recognition of its taste, colour and bouquet which was vital for the continuance of its quality.
I talked once with Don Paulo as we sat at the little table in the sala de degustación after I had been with him during one such session. ‘Do you remember the talk we had the first day ‒ the talk about the members of the family all contributing each his own character, as the different wines do to the solera?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well … I’ve noticed that sometimes a certain wine will come along and develop qualities that are not expected ‒ sometimes strength and body, sometimes a lightness, a delicacy, and you blend these to produce the wine you need. But a family can’t work quite that way, can it?’ I shook my head, feeling for words. ‘We cannot say “take a little of Carlos and add the sympathetic nature of Martin”, say. Nor can I blend my shy and earnest little Francisco with Juan’s confidence and assurance. But if a family can only stand together, it still can represent the strength of the solera system. If we only could discard that which is frankly bad as you do the wine that is useless … What am I saying, Don Paulo? Do we mark our children too early in life, knowing that we cannot add one to the other in the way we do with the solera?’
He sipped his wine thoughtfully. ‘All my life I have thought in those terms, but a man is not a wine, nor is a woman. But in the blending of the two, in the development of what comes together one may hope for something that will combine the best qualities of both. I had little hope for you when I first knew you. I marked you a gridiron. At times, to this day, you have a taste on the tongue which I find like vinegar. And yet, when I view you through the glass, when I shake and smell, sometimes you seem to come through as a palma.’ I knew enough to know that this was the classification given to the finos of highest quality, those with a particularly clean and delicate aroma. I bowed my head a little. I had never expected to hear such words from Don Paulo.
‘Women,’ he added, ‘the best of them generally come through as an oloroso as they age and develop their quality. But you, if you carry out your duties properly, if you train your sons to what is right, and what is their duty, may yet develop as the best of all wine, an old fino, the rarest and purest. Think of the wine, Doña Carlota, whenever you make decisions that will affect our family. What you add, what you take away, will determine how the wine will grow. Women, unhappily, do not think enough in terms of the wine.’
He looked down at his glass, and the folds of the skin on his face and hands were very deep, and spotted with age. I wondered if at that moment the vision of all of us, the women, went before his inner gaze ‒ the Marquesa, born to be a palma, but how did he grade her? ‒ my mother, promising, but badly blended, myself, sometimes gridiron, sometimes palma. He had known bitterness from me, that taste of vinegar, and yet, in the children I had produced, he saw the hope of his old age.
In the stillness of the bodega, within the mildewed walls, the flor rose on the wine twice yearly, renewing itself, or being renewed by mixing with a younger wine. The fermentation could be violent. It was something nature gave to the wine in this, our particular little piece of country, and could not be imitated or manufactured. So it was within the family. The solera worked so long as the sight and the nose was right, the markings definite, the bad unhesitatingly rejected, lest it destroy the quality of the rest. But how could one reject the bad, the weak, the acid, when they were people, not butts of must? I could see no way to do that; love affected the nose and the taste.
The old man before me had seen and smelled only the good in Carlos, had loved the clear, bright promise of him. He could never accept a lesser marking for Carlos.
II
Juan returned from his first year at school altered, as we had expected he would be, but with his attitudes fined down and sharpened by his experience. For the first time he had lived in a world where his name and position were not known; he had had to prove himself. He had had to prove himself academically and at games. The experience had given him a little humility, or at least the appearance of it, but with no lessening of his own innate confidence. For the first couple of weeks before he went with his brothers and Luisa to join the Marquesa in Galicia, he went daily to the bodega when I drove to pick up Luis. And daily he walked the aisles of the ‘cathedrals’ as I now quite openly called them, and always his grandfather walked with us. There was a great deal of sampling done ‒ the old man trying to give the young one a lifetime’s knowledge, but we all knew it was knowledge that could not be imparted in a few weeks, or even a few years. It was possible that Juan, like his father’s half-brother, Ignacio, would never develop it sufficiently. But each time they held a glass up to the light, shook the liquid a little, and smelled, I saw the hope grow brighter in the old man’s eyes.
Juan then joined us at our special little table at the sala de degustación; we would drink across the spectrum of the sherry, from the most mellow, the richest, the sweetest, to the light delicate fino. Don Paulo would call for the best wines, sometimes to be drawn directly from a particular butt; then occasionally he would slip in an inferior one to see if Juan’s nose and tongue wrinkled with displeasure.
‘What tricks you play on me, Grandfather. Did you think you could put this one over on me?’
Luis would join us for one copita, and we would drive home in one of the splendidly equipped and turned out carriages which it was Luis’s pride to maintain. I remembered how we had admired these carriages in the early days, envied their owners. The sight of them still stirred me; I loved the paint glistening in the sun, the splendidly matched horses, wearing their harness decorated with silver and the many-coloured woollen balls, the little bells that jingled with their movements. There was gaiety and brightness which was particularly Andalucian, and lifted the art of coaching away from the austerity that characterised it elsewhere. But the standards asked of the horses and driver were as rigorous, and demanded as much training and practice as anything connected with the horse always did.
That summer, for the first time, Juan was allowed to take the reins himself, but with Jose, the head coachman always at his side, ready to take over if anything beyond Juan’s capability occurred. Sometimes I would see them practising in that unusual coupling of three horses leading and two behind, and every ounce of concentration Juan had was required to manage and turn this splendid and rather awesome rig. My mother took particular pleasure and pride in the skill Juan developed. And it pleased me to see that Juan’s absence had made his fondness for his grandmother more marked. He was kind and gentle with her in a way he was with no one else. Very often, on his practice session with Jose, he would drive to the Plaza de Asturias and my mother co
uld ride in the carriage, a parasol to shade her, her hair tumbling out from a large hat, happy, even if just briefly, as only someone of her temperament could be. She loved all her grandchildren, but Juan, the first, was the favourite, and she couldn’t hide it.
‘We should have a motor,’ Juan said teasingly to Luis. ‘All the families of the fellows at school have them. Some of the fellows drive them themselves.’
‘What!’ Luis said in mock horror. ‘And break your grandmother’s heart! You bring those fellows at school down here to Jerez and let them see a way of life they can’t imagine. Let them see if horses are as easy to manage as motors. Let them drink sherry where it is born.’
Juan rather liked the idea; I could see that. He had a grand and privileged world to show off to his school-fellows. The Plaza de Asturias was only a shadow in the background, and Juan now knew enough to know that a rather mad old grandmother, if she were sufficiently aristocratic, and more especially if she had once been married to a war hero, was no great social liability. He was learning that eccentrics were something prized by the English. ‘Perhaps I shall,’ he said. ‘It would be a change for them. Perhaps we could visit Doñana …’ And then he added, ‘Did you know that Lady Blodmore had invited me ‒ and Martin and Francisco because they’ll be at school too by that time ‒ to Clonmara for next Easter?’
‘You’ll miss Holy Week here,’ Luis said. Holy Week was something very special, with its processions ‒ more pageant than solemnity, rivalling, in a small way, the processions in Seville that same week.
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh, well ‒ that doesn’t matter too much. All that carrying on, with statues and all that ‒ well, it’s a bit overdone, isn’t it?’
I remembered what Edwin Fletcher had said about schools turning out snobs and bullies. Juan always had had the makings of a snob in him, more especially since he had learned that his own father had been illegitimate. I prayed there would not be the makings of a bully also.
I sat silently through the rest of the drive, thinking about that invitation to Clonmara. I was almost certain that it had not come because Elena herself wished it. Had Richard been the one to suggest it, or had the Marquesa? Was this the first of many times my children would be invited to Clonmara, and would the connection grow closer? The Marquesa had an obsession with the Blodmores, and still, it seemed, the desire to control Clonmara itself, which had been denied to her once. But there also persisted the thought that Richard himself had looked into the future, the future which seemed to indicate that one day Tomás also would be sent to England, and one day Tomás would be invited to Clonmara.
Was it Richard reaching out to touch, perhaps to hold, his son? Turning to look at Luis I saw that he wore an expression of brooding gravity, and I wondered if the thought had come to him also.
III
The summer moved on and the heat took its iron grip on the land. It had been a dry winter, and the grapes lacked water; it would be a small yield at harvest time, though, with luck, a good quality. All over the region the earth had a brown and seared look, the animals were thin and listless, the grazing was sparse. Even the goats which wandered the verges of the road could find little to eat. Luis’s prize herds of bulls, and my mother’s mares and stallions were being hand-fed by August, an expensive procedure which would take the profit out of the whole year’s business. But with bulls and horses, as with the wine, one could not look at one year only. Don Paulo and I paced the bodega together, taking comfort from the feeling of continuity which the solera always imparted. We did not need to say to each other that endurance was not for one year only. The blood lines of the horses and the brave bulls, the life-blood of the solera which was the new must, would continue.
The house was very quiet, not only because the heat caused a lassitude, but because all the boys had gone to Galicia to the Marquesa, and Edwin Fletcher with them. Luisa remained. She had had a slight fever at the time they had been ready to leave, and Luis had refused to allow her to go. She did not seem to mind. She played quietly in the nursery with her dolls in the mornings, and I taught her the alphabet with building blocks. In the afternoons she rested in her shaded room; in the evenings Luis read stories to her. She moved quietly, always, and did not overexert herself. By now she had grown into a quite startling beauty with lovely delicate features which were an intense refinement of Luis’s own, pale skin, and dark eyes, fringed with thick black lashes.
I took her sometimes with me to the bodega. It was cool in the dim cathedrals, and she seemed to enjoy the place. Don Paulo looked down at her and said, ‘This one you will have to guard extremely well.’ And a ghost of a wintry smile crossed his face as he quoted the traditional proverb of the region which I had first heard on the lips of Maria Luisa. ‘Las niñas y las viñas son dificiles de guardar.’ Girls and vineyards take a lot of watching.
* *
The time of the harvest came. The whole town echoed to the sound of the wheels of the carts that brought the must to the bodegas, and that unmistakable, and to some people, unpleasant smell of the must in violent fermentation was everywhere. There was little time to talk in the sala de degustación, but there were always a few who found time to come for their copitas, and it was there I heard the first vague rumour.
It sent me at once to Don Paulo’s office, but he was not there. It was hardly surprising. As the carts with the casks of must arrived at the bodega, it would have taken a great deal to keep Don Paulo away from the scene. I found him at the entrance to one of the bodegas, the frantic activity of the harvest all about him, the sounds, the cries, the occasional arguments. The heat and the necessary tempo of the work frayed everyone’s tempers. Don Paulo demanded to be consulted about almost everything, and I had to wait my turn. In fact there was no need for him to be there at all. There were plenty of men to take his place, younger men, but he seemed unable to sit quietly in his office while other men presided over some of the most exciting and difficult hours in the bodega’s year.
‘Momentito, Don Paulo.’
He turned to me. ‘What is it?’ he answered sharply. ‘You can see this is no time for gossip.’
‘I hope it is only gossip. But there is talk of typhoid in Arcos.’
‘Who says so? I have heard nothing.’
‘A man in the sala de degustación. He came directly from there this morning. A few cases, he says.’
‘Probably just a few people with bad stomachs.’ But his face grew pinched. He waved away a man who came to him bearing a tally sheet. ‘In any case, they have their own wells in the castle. They need have no contact with the rest of the town.’
‘It is carried on food, remember.’
‘I will enquire.’
And so I was dismissed. I returned to the sala de degustación to wait for Luis.
* *
I did not go to the bodega for the next two days, and so did not see Don Paulo. But the story of typhoid at Arcos was confirmed. Luis was in a panic about his daughter. ‘Should we send her north ‒ to Galicia? You should go with her, Carlota.’
‘But they are all about to come back. The boys must leave for school in a week’s time. Their passages are booked, remember?’
‘Yes … yes …’ He was twisting his hands together. The harvest was always a busy and anxious time. It wasn’t surprising he had forgotten the exact date they would leave. This time all three would go. He thought for a while longer. ‘We will get passages for you all. You will go with them, and take Luisa and Tomás. You will stay in England until the danger has passed.’
‘That surely is a little extreme, Luis. There are no cases reported in Jerez or Puerto ‒’
For once he was sharp and peremptory with me. ‘That is what I have decided. You will obey me in this, Carlota.’ Then his face seemed to crumple; suddenly he looked very old in his fear. ‘I’m sorry, Carlota. I did not mean …’ He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘If I should lose her through negligence, it would kill me also. I have to send her away, Ca
rlota. You must understand that.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I understand. And I will go. I will have everything ready. I will telephone to the Marquesa in Galicia to send the boys at once ‒ as soon as I’m certain we can get on a ship. We will go straight to Gibraltar when they get here.’
‘If there isn’t a ship available from Gibraltar at an earlier time, then you could take one of the sherry ships from Cadiz. Not so comfortable, but it will do. I shall begin arrangements at once.’
I thought all unnecessary, but it would have been cruel to deny him. He would be in a fever of apprehension until he knew that Luisa was safely away from the danger. He was already on the telephone, asking for the shipping agents in Gibraltar. I went to Nanny and gave her instructions to start the packing. Her face puckered with anxiety.
‘Typhoid … it used to run through the poor in Ireland every so often, and sometimes be carried to the gentry. And here … the heat, the flies … and shortage of water to wash properly.’ She glanced over to the end of the long room where Luisa was absorbed in rearranging the furniture in her dolls house. ‘And that wee thing there just couldn’t stand such an illness.’
* *
A day later it was all arranged. We were booked on a sherry ship which was leaving Cadiz at the end of the week. I had sat by the telephone for hours waiting for the connection through all the hundreds of miles to Galicia. The Marquesa had offered no resistance to the new plans. ‘Sensible,’ she had said. And then cautiously, ‘And what do you hear of the situation at Arcos?’
‘I have not seen Don Paulo since the news first came, but he said he would see to … to it.’ We were careful what we said on the telephone, with, no doubt, the operators listening all along the line.
‘Then everything is in good hands,’ the Marquesa said, and hung up. A few hours later we had a telegram from her to say that the boys and Edwin Fletcher would start the long train journey south the next day.
The Summer of the Spanish Woman Page 44
