by Joan Aiken
‘I came to the reading a bit late,’ he said apologetically. ‘Print I can master, but yon spiders’ scrawls have me beat!’
But he said that The Rose and Ring-Dove was a very well-spoken-of inn, just outside Bath, and that if my kinsfolk lived there, if they owned it, I would be in luck’s way.
I asked if he had ever been to Bath, but he said no, never; though he had heard it was a fine town. I read him a little from my father’s book Susan, by an English Lady of Quality, but he found it foolish stuff, and, as I had done, wondered what a captain in Old Hookey’s army should see in it, save that it reminded him of home.
Then he said that I had better rest again, or Juana would be a-scolding of him – ‘And she has a tongue like a rope’s end, when matters go amiss, I tell ye!’ he said, laughing – and that he had best sheer off, for he had some tasks he had promised to do for Senor Colomas. So he left me sitting and gazing down at the harbour, where the fishing-boats were beginning to come in and unload their silvery catch.
I sat thinking about Sam Pollard. How simple he was, and yet how shrewd; until he had pointed it out to me, I had never considered that Dona Isadora might have a reason for her hostility, her sharp remarks and her tale-bearings. Perhaps she really did wish to get rid of me, wanted me out of the way of her grandson Manuel. Perhaps she had hoped that if she made my life dismal enough, I would go … Oddly enough, though, having Sam there to laugh and sympathise made me view the Felix who had lived at Villaverde in a different light. And although Sam had agreed with me about Dona Isadora’s dealings, though he had said, ‘Well, by gob, what a shame … Proper mean trick that were, the owd harridan! …’ yet I had somehow been left with a much lower conceit of myself, and even, at this moment, thought that some of the pranks I had played were very childish …
While I had been setting fire to ricks, and letting snakes loose in the big saloon, Sam had been in the navy, or struggling to care for his wife and children. Still, he was quite a bit older than I, after all, six or seven years. – Then I wondered how I would have fared if I had been in Sam’s place, and that thought made me so uneasy that I picked up my father’s book and fell a-reading.
I had opened it at the place where Miss Susan, going to stay with her great friends in their abbey-residence, is terrified at night by a fearful storm and the discovery of a paper, hid in a closet in her bedroom, which she takes to be the confession of some wicked deed of blood – only to find, next day, that the mysterious paper is naught but a washing-bill! For the first time, this struck me as very comical; yet, reading it through again, I could see that the writer had represented the poor young lady’s terrors very skilfully; just such a nightmarish terror had I felt myself among those unchancy people in that heathen village – and yet, for all I knew, my fears were equally foolish and ill-founded! I began to see that this book was not such a simple tale as I had hitherto supposed, but must be attended to carefully; and I gave my father credit for better judgment than I had at first. This led me to wondering what kind of a man my father had been; and to hoping that some person in England would be able to tell me more about him.
How I wished that Sam were in a position to come with me to England. It seemed the most cruel bad luck that he was kept forever from his homeland.
As this wistful thought entered my head, I heard the voice of Sam himself, down below outside the forge entrance, uplifted in song as he scraped a horse’s hoof before fitting the shoe to it.
He was singing a mountain song of Asturias, in which the shepherd asks a bird of the hills to take a message down to his sweetheart in the valley; it was a song Bernie had been used to sing, and I leaned from one of the windows in the gallery and joined in.
Little Conchita ran out on to the quay, laughing and clapping; in five minutes, half the people of the town were outside, all carolling away as if it were a fiesta day; and Juana, coming out with a tub of washing, laughingly shook her fist at me and called,
‘If you can sing like that, my boy, I think it is time you left your sick chamber. No wonder my little sister calls you el canariO!’
6
How we helped the priest of Santillana remove Pepe’s Ox from the cave
I stayed three weeks, in all, with the family of Don Enrique Colomas. During the daytime, in spite of Juana’s objections, I soon began to help in the forge, blowing the bellows, fetching wood, taking a turn with the hammer when it was not something important that was being made; smith’s work had always seemed a good trade to me, and I was glad to have a chance of learning more about it. I had sometimes stolen into the smithy at Villaverde and done small tasks there, but Father Tomas had always been angry if he found out; he said it was not becoming to my station.
I could see that Sam Pollard knew a considerable amount about the smith’s trade, and that Don Enrique was pleased with his ability; indeed by the end of the second week he asked Sam if he would care to stay on there and work for him regularly. Sam was mightily taken with this offer; he told me that Llanes put him in mind of Fowey, the port near which he had grown up in Cornwall. He told Don Enrique that he would turn the matter over in his mind a while, before coming to a decision, but I thought he would probably accept, and I was glad for him. I thought his reason for not immediately saying yes was that he wanted to be certain that he would be welcomed by the rest of the family as well as by Don Enrique.
Meanwhile Sam and I, at odd times, after work was over, in the evenings, or at siesta time, down on the shore or out on the quay, sang and played our instruments together and discovered more songs that were known to us both. I was able to teach him some that he had not heard – and he knew many, many more that were new to me. When it came to music and songs, he seemed to have a memory like a granite vault; once the words and melody were stowed away – or merely the melody, no matter how short and simple, or how long and difficult – he could at any time recall the whole thing with ease and certainty. And then, too, he could do such things with the tunes he knew! – turn them upside down, inside out, stretch them, double them up, as it were decorate them with ribbons of sound, then bring them forth again plain and neat, as they had been at the start. He taught me a little of this skill – a skill which he had found out for himself – he said that no other person had ever taught him his music – and soon, besides collecting a crowd around us whenever we sang and played together, we were being invited by the people of Llanes to come and play our music at their houses – they were even paying us for doing so! And, to tell truth, I found this so pleasant that, even when I was quite healed from my sickness and knew that I should set out once more on my journey, I still lingered and delayed from day to day, and made excuses to myself. The Colomas family urged me to wait yet awhile – I was making myself useful in the forge – I wanted to learn all the smith’s work I could, and all the tunes that Sammy could teach me – the mule would be the better for another day’s rest …
One evening we were invited to sing at a feast that was being given to celebrate the betrothal of the Mayor’s daughter to a wealthy farmer’s son. The whole town was invited, the Colomas family among the rest. The party was held, not in the Mayor’s house, but at the biggest posada, which was in the main street of the town, by the harbour. There was a large room downstairs which had at one time been used for a stable – now it was swept and clean but there were still racks and mangers round the walls, and although boards had been laid down over the brick floor, a dusty sweet smell of hay came up from between the cracks as the dancers stamped and twirled.
Between dances the young men kept to one side of the room, girls to the other, and the older people strolled in the middle. Sam and I perched on a platform that had been put up between two stalls to play our music, and we were assisted by the drums and tambourines and zambombas of a couple of travelling gipsies. At first while we played the betrothed girl (who was a cousin of Juana Colomas) walked round and round the room holding up an apple on the point of a knife, while all the guests tossed gifts to her, and her novio
, following a step behind, caught the things and bowed polite thanks.
Then, presently, a trough of water was brought in and set down in the middle of the floor. All the girls were giggling and pushing, as they struggled to get close to it. I asked Juana what they were doing, since she happened to be standing near us just then, looking very handsome, I thought, in a red-and-gold bodice, embroidered all over so that it was quite stiff, and yellow ribbons in her black curls.
‘Oh!’ she said laughing. ‘It is just a foolish game. There are pins in the water, you see; you dip your hand in and if, when you bring it out, there is a pin sticking to your skin, then that means that Saint Antony is going to send you a novio before the end of the year.’
Although she pretended to despise the game, I noticed that in a moment or two she strolled nearer to the group, looking carelessly about her – then contrived to slip in among the rest and worked her way through to the trough, where she plunged her arm into the water. Just then somebody moved between us and I lost sight of her, but later I observed her sticking a pin among the folds of her petticoat with a look of great satisfaction on her face. She thought she was unobserved, I daresay, but, glancing up, I saw that Sam, beside me, was watching her also; he looked grave, not precisely sad, but not too cheerful either.
Soon everybody was dancing again, and then there came the feast – smoked pork and peas, bream and anchovies, roast chestnuts and butter-cakes, a salad with sippets of bread in the oil, dried cherries, fried semolina balls in syrup, almonds and fritters and marzipan, membrillo – a conserve of quinces, very sweet and sticky – and wine and cider to drink. The girls, perched on boxes and barrels, were signalling to the boys in fan-language – a slow, disdainful movement meaning ‘Go away, I don’t care if I never set eyes on you again,’ while a nervous lively quivering movement meant, ‘Ola! I like your looks and would be pleased to talk to you if my parents would permit it.’
Juana, though, had laid aside her fan, and was talking to her cousin, the engaged girl; their heads were earnestly close together.
When the dancing began again, and Sam and I were back on our perch, playing away, Juana threaded her way round the sides of the room until she reached us, and said to Sam,
‘Why do you not dance, sometimes, Senor Polyard? You surely do not have to play all the time? The gipsies can make music on their own for a while.’
‘Thank you, senorita,’ he said, ‘but I am too lame to dance. My limping leg prevents me. I am happier playing for your cousin’s guests. And I am very happy watching you! You dance so beautifully.’
‘Oh!’ she said, blushing, half-disappointed, half-pleased with his praise. ‘Well – but dancing is really very stupid. I am tired – I think I will sit down for a while.’
‘No, you should not do that at your cousin’s party,’ said Sam. ‘Besides, that would deprive me of the pleasure of watching you. Why don’t you dance with Felix, here?’
‘No, no!’ I began to protest, feeling very foolish – for Juana was a good head taller than I – but she said,
‘Yes! I will dance with Felix,’ and, seizing me by the hand, obliged me to drop my pipe and follow her into the centre of the room.
I had danced sometimes at Villaverde when the servants had a feast – danced with the maids in the kitchens, so I knew how to do it – but that was another thing forbidden by my grandfather; he said that it was vulgar to share in the amusements of servants, and also that, considering the sad state of the country and our family in particular, there was no occasion for merrymaking. I had done it sometimes, nonetheless – just to defy him – but I never really cared for the pastime, being so short, and therefore feeling that I looked ridiculous.
But this evening, since there was no escape from it, and feeling that, in a way, I was dancing in place of my friend Sam – dancing for him, as it were – I resolved to do my very best. Juana was a fine dancer: moving with tremendous spirit and assurance, her arms and head drawn up, her neck as straight as a pillar, she stamped and swung and swirled, clicked her heels together and flicked her fan, with wrists like running water and eyes that flashed, daring me not to equal her her vigour. So I, too, danced as if my life depended on it, thumping my feet on the dusty boards, spinning around her, bending my knees, bounding off the floor, snapping my fingers together, and wondering how long I could manage to keep going like this! The speed made my head whirl. By degrees all the other dancers dropped out to watch us, people began clapping their hands in time to Sam’s music and shouting Ole! And Sam’s music went faster and faster, until the room around us was nothing but a dizzy blur.
At last Juana consented to stop – only just in time, for I was ready to fall to the floor from exhaustion – and, laughing, she said to me, ‘Bravo, Don Felix! If your friend could dance as well as that – if he danced as well as he plays – he would be very nearly perfect!’
‘He is perfect without the dancing!’ I panted. ‘I think he is the best person I have ever met.’
Her eyes brightened at that, and she gave me a very friendly look.
‘What do you know of him?’ she asked, handing me a cup of cider. ‘Tell me his story, if you please.’
So I told her Sam’s story, repeating just what he had told to me. At the sorrowful part her eyes misted over as if she were suffering his trouble herself, and when I told her about the uncle who had taken Sam’s farm away, she could hardly contain her indignation.
‘What a wretch. He ought to be hung up by his thumbs! He ought to have all his goods taken away.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, for I had been thinking much about it, ‘if, when I reach England I can find my family – and if they are people of substance, as Sammy thinks they might be, if they keep a big posada at Bath – they might be able to bring the uncle to justice, or pay off the debt, and then Sam could go back to his own home.’
But with this Juana did not agree.
‘No, no, he is much better off in Spain! England sounds to me a hateful country. I wonder that you wish to go there!
‘But still,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘if the uncle could be made to give back what he has stolen from your friend, that would be good, too.’
And she gave Sam another very thoughtful look.
At last the party came to an end and we all went home to bed.
Next day I announced that I must be off. I hated to leave Llanes, which was one of the handsomest towns I ever was in, with its rocky river, and harbour full of brightly coloured boats, its timbered houses and sandy shore, and the mountains rising behind – but still I had the urge to go on and search for my father’s family. The things, that Sammy had told me about England increased my wish to go – he said that Bath was a famous town, with grand streets and handsome houses and many stores; that famous people, including the king of England himself, came there to take the waters, for there was a hot spring with minerals in it which cured many ailments; and that it was a wonderful place for music too, he had heard, where you could listen to the finest singers and players in the country.
The Colomas family seemed truly sorry when I announced my intention – little Conchita, for whom I had carved many potato-dolls, clung to my leg, and wailed,
‘No, no! Don’t go, don’t go!’
But they looked even graver when Sam announced that he would go with me. Their faces brightened, however, when he added,
‘I will travel with Felix as far as Santander. I have many friends on the waterfront there; I daresay I shall be able to discover some ship on which he can sail to England without having to lay out all his savings.’
(For, from the profits of our music, I had been able to amass almost as much as from the sale of the Andalusian horse.)
‘And then you will come back here?’ said Juana to Sam, while little Conchita, clapping her hands, cried,
‘Yes, come back, come back, Senor Sam!’
‘If Don Enrique will have me,’ said Sam, laughing, and Don Enrique, with his grave smile, said,
‘I have al
ready told you that I shall be glad to have you, my friend.’
So, that settled, everybody was happy: the Colomas family rejoiced that Sam had decided to remain in Llanes, and I was glad that I did not have to say goodbye to my friend quite so soon.
Don Enrique offered to let us have a burro for the journey.
‘Really, senor, you are too trusting,’ Sam reproved him. ‘Suppose we sold your burro with the mule in Santander and never came back?’
‘My boy,’ said the smith, ‘when you reach my age you learn how to distinguish between honest men and thieves.’
However we said we did not need the burro. We would take turns riding the mule (privately I resolved that Sam should have all the turns); then Sam would bring her back to Llanes and the Colomas family would keep her. Indeed, this was another part of the plan that made me glad, for I was greatly attached to my hardy and untiring, if bad-tempered companion, and had hated the notion of selling her to a stranger. Don Enrique wanted to give me money for her, but I said that I would prefer him to take her in requital for three weeks’ lodging and Juana’s kind nursing while I was sick; when he protested that anybody would have done as much, I pointed out how much it would comfort my heart, when in England, to know she had such a good home. At this he agreed, but said they would continue to think of her as mine, so that I could always come back and claim her; thus the matter was left, and later, as events turned out, how glad I was that I had not taken his money.
Our parting, therefore, was not so sorrowful as it might have been, though I was melancholy enough at leaving yet another set of kind friends and such a pleasant place.
As I travelled farther and farther out into the world, it amazed me to discover how many friendly people it contained – which had not been at all my expectation when I left Villaverde.
We left at first light on the second day after the Mayor’s party. The journey to Santander would take us two or three days, depending on the weather, and our adventures along the way. Juana gave us a bag of food to take with us, and Don Enrique recommended us to a cousin of his who owned a posada at Santillana, which was one of the towns we must pass through. The whole family (indeed, half the town) turned out to say goodbye to us; and so we went on our way, Sam taking first turn at riding the mule, who seemed quite pleased to be on the road again; she snuffed the air and went loping along at a good speed, while I ran with a hand on the stirrup.