I thought I saw jealousy as well as anger in his face. He didn’t seem to care how he was revealing himself. ‘It was his will, Juan. That is what the word means. He had his reasons ‒’
‘He could have left it in trust for me until I’m of age. But to leave it to a woman. He didn’t even like you!’ He added bitterly, ‘I thought he loved me, but now I know I was no more to him than any of Ignacio’s or Pedro’s tribe.’
‘He meant you to wait, Juan.’
‘Wait until that old woman dies? ‒ if she leaves me anything! Wait until Granny dies. Wait until you die. I have only women in my world, and now I have to dance attendance on all of them! My shares will amount to so little I won’t count as anything, unless the Marquesa …’
I recoiled from him. I thought I had already learned all the weaknesses in him, the things that could be expected, and forgiven in a young, good-looking, rather spoiled young man. But here was a streak I had not touched before. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘your grandfather intended patience to temper greed.’
He did not rise to the insult. I think he hardly heard it.
‘Now I shall have to go on paying court to that terrible old woman. I shall have to work like a dog at the university to please her. I shall have to do everything she says I must. I shall have to come and kiss her hand every day I’m in Jerez, and bring her flowers. I shall have to court her like a young woman. For how many years? How long do I have to live this charade? I’m better than all the others. Grandfather knew it. He must have known it. But he left all that to you! So I am pulled between you and that old toad, Tía Isabel. A world of women! Grandfather wouldn’t have stood for it himself. But he expects me to stand it.’
He was less than gentle as he handed me into the carriage. He sat brooding for a time, watching the familiar streets of Jerez, watching the long lines of bodegas with their strangely un-Spanish names lettered on them. At last he spoke as if he were talking to himself. ‘They say she married him on a whim. One day she married him just as if she had pointed a finger at the nearest man.’
‘That does less than honour to your grandfather.’
‘And to her, the damned old witch! Well, it was God’s curse on her that she didn’t have children of her own.’
‘If she had had children of her own, Juan, you wouldn’t even be considered.’
He looked at me, and nodded, his eyes wise, disillusioned, and now calculating. ‘Yes ‒ perfectly true, Mother. So I shall go and kiss her hand, and bring her flowers.’
Chapter Four
I
They were busy, useful years, but for me they had a curious hollowness at their core. The daily round of our lives went on, each hour was filled, and yet as each harvest came and went, I looked back on the year gone by and wondered what I had achieved in it, and often, with a sense of slight panic, wondered how the rest of the world and its events were shaping our futures, events which were totally out of our hands. I wrote for the year 1929: ‘Fairly plentiful crop, good quality’, but that was also the year of the Wall Street stock market collapse, and its almost endless shock waves which spread through the world. Our exports of sherry from Jerez were good, but we never knew how much more we might have sold in the following decade if times had been better. The Marquesa’s factories in Barcelona were hit with falling orders, and many workers lost their jobs. There were smaller dividends, not only from the bodega, but also the other shares Luis had left me, and those which came to me as part of Don Paulo’s estate. ‘Those with land need fear nothing,’ the Marquesa said, with the assurance of someone whose family had been piling up their wealth for so many generations, in so many diverse fields, that a spell of decreased dividends was only a small matter, which would correct itself in time. ‘The land,’ she added, ‘has always held its value.’
That was also the year the university of Madrid and other universities in Spain were closed because of agitation for more freedom from students and intellectuals, and so Juan had to agree to stay on another year at Cambridge. Martin joined him there ‒ he had never been as good a student as Juan, and only Edwin Fletcher’s extra coaching during the holiday got him there. He resented having to return home during the summer to work with Edwin. He would have preferred, I thought, to go to Clonmara. But nothing interested him as much as his guitar. Every hour he was not studying with Edwin, its plaintive but sensuous sound was heard in the house.
The bodega, on the insistence of the Marquesa and myself, bought more albariza land that year, and the next January we started our planting of big new vineyards. ‘Chicken-hearted,’ was the way the Marquesa dismissed the objections of Ignacio and Pedro. We were planting for the future, and yet the future seemed uncertain that January when Primo de Rivera resigned, his assembly dissolved, and local government restored. ‘The future has never been certain,’ the Marquesa remarked as we went ahead with our planting. All over Spain there were demands for a Republic; King Alfonso was denounced as being responsible for the errors of the dictatorship, and anything else that was wrong with the country. When the censorship of the press was removed, we were buffeted with wave after wave of demonstrations and criticism. I read the denunciation of the landowners and the wealthy in the newspapers and realised with a sense of shock, that they were talking about me and my family among the rest. My thoughts drifted to Clonmara when similar things had been said about our class, but then I had been young and heedless, every man and woman for miles around had a name and a history known to me, and everyone loved my grandfather. But Ireland since then had had a revolution and a civil war.
‘Fools!’ The Marquesa flung the newspaper across the desk at the bodega. ‘Don’t they know they’re going to cut their own throats?’ Her holdings in Barcelona were threatened by the demand for Catalan autonomy, and in the north, her estates and mines seemed threatened by the Basque separatist agitation. She didn’t hold with unions or with strikes, and yet the demands were all there, now uncensored. I wondered, as I looked at the faces of the bodega workers, at the faces of the vineyard workers, what were the thoughts now behind their impassive gazes. What did Mateo think? ‒ what were the thoughts of Miguel, and Jose, and Rodrigo, whom I had now known for years as they moved about the tasks in the bodega? They were as courteous as ever, as hard-working. ‘Have they stopped to think,’ the Marquesa demanded of me, ‘who will provide the capital to nurse along those new vineyards, who will keep the others in production if we do not? Who will buy the casks and pay their wages if we do not? Do they think they can run the place better by themselves?’
I had no answers for her. Edwin was philosophic. ‘Spain comes late to this, Carlota. She’s really not yet in the twentieth century.’
And the Marquesa and I pushed through the decision to start our own cooperage works to make the oak butts for the sherry, and to increase our distillation of brandy. Ignacio shuddered. ‘You will bankrupt us yet.’ But when the Marquesa and I voted together, we held the balance of power.
In December came news of the mutiny of the garrison at Jacca, and the demands for a Republic. The mutiny was suppressed with difficulty, and martial law was declared throughout the country. This didn’t last long, except in Madrid, but for us Madrid seemed a long way away. We were depressed, anxious, confused. The Marquesa reacted characteristically by declaring that all the family should come to Sanlucar to spend Christmas with her, and that we should have some shooting at Doñana.
We gathered reluctantly, I thought. Only the authority of the Marquesa now held us together. With Don Paulo’s going, there was not even the bond of blood between any of us. Ignacio was tense, as he always was in his dealings with the Marquesa; Pedro had not forgiven me for taking such a large part of his father’s estate. Our children all mixed together, much of an age, the oldest of them young men and women now, looking at each other with speculative eyes. The youngest, and the only carefree ones were Tomás and Luisa. Ignacio and Pedro now both had daughters of marriageable age, and they began to sum up my sons, their worth, their capabilit
ies, and most of all, their prospects.
The summons had also gone to the Blodmores, and Elena and Richard appeared, their sons with them. The young people seemed to perform an elaborate paseo before us, and the Marquesa watched them, her expression revealing nothing of her thoughts. She was over seventy now, arthritic, and leaning heavily on a stick. With the loss of that elegant, swaying walk, the last of her youth was gone, but the rings blazed on the age-spotted hands, as always, and with her gold-topped stick, she appeared more formidable than ever. Each evening she would summon one or another of the young ones to her side, and they would endure a sort of trial by questioning. It must have been agony for some of them, the shy and awkward ones, those just striving for maturity. For the girls it was particularly hard, I thought.
‘Say what you like,’ the Marquesa muttered to me. ‘Luisa has the most style of any of them, and she’s only a child. I like style. She knows who she is, that child, and yet she knows who she speaks to. She respects authority, but she will have her way.’
Luisa had recovered her sense of balance with the years. She no longer cried for her father, but she often talked of him. He was a beloved figure, growing into the realm of myth and legend in her mind. ‘Do you remember, Mama, when Papa and I …’ was often on her lips. Sometimes the memories were awry, and Luis was an idealised figure, the prince in the story where Luisa was always the princess. But he had lived long enough to give her the priceless sense of being treasured, which never now seemed to desert her, and which gave her the confidence to face such personages as the Marquesa without shyness or a sense of awe. The early promise of beauty was every year more fulfilled; she had a lovely, grave, delicate face which would suddenly break into a radiant smile which charmed whomever watched her; she had the complexion which had once been my mother’s but was made more translucent by contrast with her dark eyes.
‘If this monarchy isn’t stupid enough to run itself out of the country,’ the Marquesa declared, ‘she could be a wife for a prince.’ I listened and shivered. I dreaded the thought of the Marquesa beginning to manipulate Tomás’s and Luisa’s lives as she had done with my other three sons. These two young ones had a small measure of independence, and I realised I would have to teach them to use it.
Tomás, though, hardly needed to be taught how to assert himself among his cousins. He was almost eleven years old, but he, unlike Martin and Francisco, refused to follow where Juan chose to lead them. Perhaps it was the gap in ages, but more clearly it was shown to be his own idea of how he should go. He was tall for his age, and had the pronounced Blodmore features. I noticed the Marquesa’s eyes often upon him broodingly. ‘That is how Blodmore would have looked at his age,’ she said, and her stick beat an agitated little rap on the floor. I looked at the ageing face, the eyes sunken. I remembered the stories at Clonmara of the long-ago summer of the Spanish Woman, her style which had dazzled everyone, her wilful pride which had caused her to lead the man she had fallen in love with on a chase half across Europe, and then to witness him fall in love with Don Paulo’s daughter, who would have seemed to the Marquesa an unsophisticated child. I wondered if the old memories still hurt. The times when she called Tomás to her side she was particularly sharp with him, testing his humour and his good sense. But like Luisa he was not in awe of her; the potential power of her money had not yet touched him. It was a strange contrast to see how often and eagerly he sought out his grandmother’s company. ‘Granny, you’ll come on the shooting party tomorrow? Granny, you’ll come in my boat, won’t you?’ My mother had somehow retained her expertise with a gun. She still oiled and cleaned and used the guns, which Richard Blodmore had given her. Tomás was proud of her skill, and boasted of it to the Marquesa, who didn’t like to hear it because she herself had given up the trips to Doñana. I noticed the Marquesa strove to distract Tomás from my mother, strove to command his attention, but he would not be commanded. He bestowed his favours and presence quite unselfconsciously. He would bring the Marquesa a glass of wine, carry a cushion or book, see that she was comfortably placed wherever she was, but he did it as if he were unaware that every other young member of the party was trying to do the same thing. But when she wanted him, he was often not there; he was off on his own pursuits, or with his grandmother.
‘Blodmore!’ she said once in my hearing as she watched Tomás dancing with Lady Pat. They were a sight to watch, this tall child with his reddish-blond hair and green eyes, his cheeks still with the bloom of childhood on them, and the taller, ageing woman, in the unfashionable dress, her greying hair escaping from its knot, laughing together as they danced, enjoying each other’s company. ‘Blodmore …’ the Marquesa repeated. ‘Wilful, wayward.’ I think she meant the words only for herself.
The presence of Richard Blodmore there was painful to me. He still had the power to stir me. I seemed to know, without having to see him, when he entered a room. The sound of his voice made me tight with apprehension lest I betray myself. I dreaded him and Tomás being in the same room; whenever I saw them talking I wanted to go and break in, invent some errand for Tomás to send him away. And yet I could not. To interfere, in any way would have been to mark out Tomás, to turn eyes upon him, perhaps; questioning eyes. But his likeness to my mother and grandfather was more marked than the few Blodmore features he shared with Richard. Because of my concern over Tomás, the days at Sanlucar and Doñana dragged; because of my feeling for Richard, they went too swiftly. His effect on me was spontaneous and could not be controlled; it was the green shoots on the vine, the flor rising on the wine. I was renewed, but it still was a painful renewal.
I tried to avoid him without the avoidance becoming obvious, but one morning before breakfast, with the winter sun still unable to dispel the chill, he found me walking on the terrace above the Guadalquivir. The water was a frosty grey in the pale light. I had slept badly, and thought I would beg off the day’s shooting across the river in Doñana. I had thought a walk in the cold morning air would invigorate me, but I was sluggish, and only shivered.
‘Why are you out in the cold? ‒ have you had coffee?’
His back was to the rising sun, and as it had been the day I saw him first in England, at the Colonel’s house, I could not readily see the disfigurement. Then he turned and stood directly in the sun’s rays, and the broken and twisted features were shown up harshly.
‘No, I thought I’d walk ‒ get some air. I … I didn’t sleep well.’ He was brutally blunt. ‘You slept well with me ‒ once.’
I turned on him in a kind of fury of frustration and love. ‘God, Richard ‒ don’t! It’s past. It’s gone.’
‘Are you saying you wish it hadn’t happened?’
‘No. I’ll never say that. Or believe it. I’m grateful for loving you. For being loved. But we can do nothing about it. Ever. Why do you torment me? Can’t I have peace? In God’s name can I never have peace from you?’
‘While we’re apart there’ll be no peace, Charlie. I still wait for you. I wait for you on the shore ‒ in the rose garden. Everywhere I look at Clonmara I see you. I wish I were rid of you. I wish I had peace. But there is none. I just keep on. I love. That’s all. I live with some sort of wild hope that someday we’ll be together. But when I see you here like this, with your children, I know it’s only that. Just a wild, unfounded hope. A wish. A want. A terrible wanting.’
That was it ‒ a terrible wanting. Nothing had come to take its place. ‘We can’t ever be together, Richard. Things like that don’t happen. Only when one dreams. So we must just go on … wanting.’
‘I still wait for the day you send me a message to come to you. I still wait, Charlie.’
‘That won’t ever come, Richard. Each year there is more and more I must do for my children. The trust Luis placed in me has to be discharged. By the time they no longer need my help, you and I will have outgrown the wanting. It will be a memory.’
‘You deceive yourself about them needing you. Children grow up. Outgrow you … leave you behind.’
‘But now they need me. The young ones need me. When they are ready to do without me, I’ll face what I must.’
‘Have you thought that I might need them, as well as you? One of them is my son, Charlie. Did you suppose I didn’t know that?’
I denied it without an instant’s hesitation. ‘No! ‒ that’s not true. It is not true.’ I had given my promise to Luis. Not even for Richard would I break it. ‘Tomás is Luis’s son.’
‘I’ll never believe that, Charlie. Never.’
‘Believe what you like! Imagine what you like. That doesn’t make it true.’
I turned from him, and walked swiftly along the terrace. As I fumbled with the handle of the door he called after me. His voice was clear, sharp, loud in the crisp morning air, as if he wanted the world to know what he said. ‘I’ll wait, Charlie. I’ll wait ’til hell freezes over.’
* *
I didn’t go to Doñana that day. ‘I’m just tired, Juan,’ I said to him. ‘All women get tired now and again, and unlike men we’re privileged to say so.’
He gave me the faintly patronising smile of the superior male. ‘I’ll take care of everything, Mother. And I’ll see that Tomás doesn’t get underfoot.’
‘I shouldn’t worry, Juan. Tomás always does what the guides tell him.’
‘He shouldn’t need to be told by the guides. He’s in danger of being spoiled, Mother. You realise that, don’t you?’ Then he shrugged. ‘Well, school will knock all that out of him.’
I nodded, wearily. ‘I suppose it will. A pity …’ I didn’t want school knocking anything out of him. He was far from perfect, but I wanted him left alone. I watched the boats cross the river. The sun was warmer now. They were setting out for a day’s hunting as it had always been done at Doñana. Over the years I had been to Doñana many times ‒ Luis had loved it as much as I did. We had explored it together at all seasons, sometimes staying at Sanlucar, sometimes at the Palacio de Doñana itself. After his death I had continued to go there whenever I could. My children were still privileged to use this wild kingdom as their own, its beauty theirs, its animals theirs. They were the privileged few. For hundreds of years they and their kind had entered Doñana and taken what it gave. But they had also preserved it. Wealth had created it, and wealth kept it. The wild life fought out their life cycle safe from the encroachment of many, protected from poachers, because these few who could afford it preserved it. The birds came in their hundreds of thousands, because it was a wilderness, and they feared only their own kind, their natural enemies. Those who came with guns obeyed strict laws of preservation. But all around the edges of Doñana there was poverty and hunger, and some looked on the deer herds with angry, resentful eyes. I had known these forces at work before, in Ireland. It wasn’t any easier to weigh them in the balance now.
The Summer of the Spanish Woman Page 49
