The Episode at Toledo

by Ann Bridge

  ‘So he did pay attention to what you said,’ Hetta observed later. ‘You were quite right.’

  ‘Yes, grace à Dieu! So now all is well.’

  ‘No, all is not well. For this particular occasion, yes; but when the Admiral is gone, we must do something. I think perhaps I speak to Sir Noël.’

  Admiral Luxworthy’s visit ran its course smoothly: the trip to Rota, then the official functions at high level, finally a polite call on the Caudillo. It emerged in the course of it—through Nell Parrott, of course—that the Admiral had hustled through his other European visits in order to see, and show his family, something of the ‘real old Spain’. Nell consulted Hetta. ‘He doesn’t want to see more of Madrid, and I guess Mrs. Lux worthy and Joy are getting sick of this town. What would you say?’

  ‘But certainly Toledo—it is quite near, and full of wonderful things: all the Grecos, and also the Alcazar.’

  Nell looked doubtful.

  ‘Yes—but where will we eat? That huge garden restaurant place outside the gates is so American now; you hear Kansas City at the very next table. And there’s not much in the town. Anyhow you’ll come along to show them round, won’t you?’

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘On Sunday.’

  ‘On Sunday I cannot—we are going out to lunch with the de la Torres at their cigarral.’

  ‘But that’s right at Toledo!’ Nell exclaimed. ‘Oh Hetta, couldn’t you get them to invite the Luxworthys’ too? That really would be something for them to see!— so few foreigners ever get inside one. I’ve never been to a cigarral myself; we barely know the de la Torres,’ the little American added wistfully. ‘I suppose you couldn’t coax them to let us come along?’

  ‘I must ask Richard,’ Hetta replied. She was always very scrupulous about consulting her husband’s feelings on such matters, arousing a certain envy in Walter Parrott. ‘I will let you know, Nell, if it can be done.’

  ‘Well I don’t see why not,’ Richard Atherley said, when she put the point to him at lunch-time. ‘It’s in the Spaniards’ interest to butter up the Americans, and the Admiral is quite a figure, after all. I like him; he’s very quick at the uptake. Ring up Pilar and see what she says.’

  The Marquesa de la Torre said Yes—she even displayed a certain enthusiasm for the idea. ‘Pepe will be very much interested to meet him. The wife and daughter come too, of course? Anyone else?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Hetta said, with her usual regrettable frankness—diplomatic life had not quite cured her of that yet. Pilar de la Torre laughed.

  ‘Well, how many?’

  ‘Certainly his Aide-de-Camp, Lieutenant Ellington; and I think also the American Naval Attaché, Captain Parrott, and his wife, should come; she has been looking after the daughter and Mrs. Luxworthy before the Admiral arrived, and indeed since.’

  ‘Yes, they cannot be omitted. Well, it may have to be a buffet luncheon, but that does not matter,’ Pilar said serenely. ‘Very well, ma chère—we shall expect you all at half-past two. Au revoir.’

  Walter Parrott was even more pleased than his wife when this plan was unfolded to him; he came round to the Atherleys to thank Hetta. ‘The Admiral’s delighted to be getting into a proper Spanish country house,’ he told her. Then, unlike his wife, he proceeded to discuss the practical details.

  ‘Now you say lunch is at 2.30. That will give us quite a long morning to look at the town—he’s all set on that. But you are to say what we’re to see, and where we’re to meet. How early can you start? They get up at all hours.’

  Hetta felt that this occasion demanded a special effort, and said she thought she could start at half-past nine. ‘Then we shall be there by eleven, or a little before—that will allow time to see a few things.’

  ‘Well you say what.’ Parrott took out a note book. ‘The Alcazar?’

  ‘I think not—not to go into. It is all so rebuilt since it was shelled in the Civil War; it no longer seems old. We could drive past, to see the exterior, and also just look into the old town, on foot—and then go on to the Cathedral; that is essential, it is such pure gothic. That is already on the way to San Tomé, which is essential also, and one can drive on to El Greco’s house and the little Museum. There it is not so far from the Puente San Martin, which we cross to go down to the cigarral.’

  Walter was writing busily.

  ‘Sure that’s enough? It’s really only three main things.’

  ‘If we see them properly we shall certainly not have more time than we need. And do you not imagine that Mrs. Luxworthy and Joy will want constantly to stop and look at shops, and to buy damascened paper-knives?’ Hetta asked, laughing. ‘Also this route takes one through most of the city.’

  Walter agreed.

  ‘Then where do we meet up?’

  ‘I think really best outside the city, at the Tavera—that large Church on the right, beside the main road. Then we will go ahead, and you can all follow us.’

  The most striking thing about Toledo, apart from its situation, is its colour. The river Tagus washes its foundations on three sides; within this green boundary the city is piled up on a hill, buildings above buildings, all of the sandy gold of a lion’s coat. A whole city the colour of a lion, rising from a lioncoloured countryside, is an astonishing spectacle; well did Shakespeare write of ‘tawny Spain’. Within, it has kept its mediaeval character to a surprising degree; the steep narrow streets, cobbled or paved with uneven flag-stones, are lined with ancient houses, their stone or plaster fronts of the prevailing sandy-golden tone. In fact the streets are so narrow that many are impassible for a large car; Hetta, who did not want to walk more than she could help, had carefully worked out their route so that they could drive most of the way.

  On the Sunday morning the three cars duly gathered under the high, rather gloomy walls of the Tavera Hospital; Captain Parrott, troubled by his inability to answer the Admiral’s innumerable questions about everything he saw from the windows, there suggested that Luzia should go in his car, and let Luxworthy ride with the Atherleys—this change-over made, they drove on into the town. Richard was driving; he had left his chauffeur at home, to impose a little less on the de la Torres. The Parrots had been less thoughtful—Luis was at the wheel of their Chrysler, an Embassy chauffeur drove the car provided for the Luxworthy party.

  The Admiral was delighted with this arrangement. Hetta showed him the old Arab walls on their left as they approached the Puerta de Bisagra; she could even give him dates—the Moors wresting the city from the Visigoths in 711 a.d., hence ‘Yes, the walls are eighth-century.’ They pottered a little on foot in the old city, with its curious arched doorways, giving on to courtyards with here a glimpse of greenery, there a fountain, or occupied by men who plied their various metallic trades: black-smiths, wheelwrights, workers in wrought-iron, and above all the damasquineros, inlaying bronzed steel with delicate threads of gold with exquisite skill—the visitors were entranced. The Admiral was a little disappointed not to go all over the Alcazar; to his mind its siege during the Civil War was of much greater interest than what was left of its Moorish architecture. But when Hetta said she would sit in the car and wait for them he contented himself with a hurried look round, and then obediently rejoined her.

  ‘Where now?’ Richard asked.

  ‘The Cathedral.’

  The problem which confronts all experienced visitors to the Cathedral at Toledo is how to find room to park in the shade.

  ‘Damn! It’s practically full up already,’ Richard said, slowing down in the open square, and looking round for a space; the other two cars pulled up behind him. A policeman, in one of those shiny broad-brimmed black hats turned up at the back which make the Spanish police so picturesque, approached; when he saw Richard Atherley he saluted smartly, and came up and greeted him through the window. ‘Let the Señor come with me—I find a place.’ Richard indicated the other two cars, also seeking shade; with calm authority the Spaniard walked over, shifted a market-cart, and told a bu
s-driver to move his machine; soon they were all accommodated. As they got out the man again saluted, and smiled at Hetta.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Luxworthy asked Richard.

  ‘Well he knows us. When he isn’t being a policeman here he’s the baker in the village near the de la Torres; he brings bread to the cigarral in a sort of wicker wheel-barrow,’ Richard said, grinning.

  The interior of the Cathedral at Toledo is much earlier than the façade, and as Hetta had said, of an astonishing purity, but her guests were too unfamiliar with gothic to be much impressed by this, so she led them to the sacristy to see the pictures, especially the Goyas and the El Grecos; Mrs. Luxworthy however preferred the alleged Bellini. Hetta had timed their visit carefully with a view to the Treasure being open to public view, and did at last score a real success with the Cross which surmounts Isabella the Catholic’s colossal monstrance—this, as she explained, is made out of the first gold brought back from the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

  ‘Well that is something to see!’ the Admiral exclaimed. ‘Now what else have you got for us, young lady?’

  What Hetta had got next for them was Greco’s enormous masterpiece, the Burial of Count Orgaz; they drove on to Santo Tomé to see it, ‘Here in Toledo one must concentrate on El Greco,’ she said to the Admiral; ‘he lived and worked here so much that he and the city always seem to me to be inseparable; and here one sees him as nowhere else. And one must see much of his work to appreciate it.’

  This theory is sound enough, but probably a single morning is too short for the wholly uninitiated to come to an appreciation of this strange genius—El Greco left the Luxworthys relatively cold. ‘I don’t see why all his faces have to be lengthened out that way,’ Joy said frankly, staring at the enormous canvas, rising almost to the roof above the Count’s tomb. ‘They look hardly human to me.’

  Richard laughed.

  ‘He’s rather an acquired taste, like caviare, Miss Luxworthy. But you couldn’t go home and say you’d been to Toledo without seeing that picture—and the others. Where now, Hetta?’

  ‘I had thought his house, and the little museum by it,’ Hetta replied. She looked at her watch. ‘But should we perhaps go and have coffee at that place in the Square? We have plenty of time.’

  Everyone liked this idea, and they went and sat in front of the shop which serves not only coffee, but curious twisted cakes of ground almonds and honey.

  ‘They’re terribly sweet,’ Joy observed.

  ‘Yes—but here one must eat them,’ Luzia said firmly. ‘They are a feature of Toledo. They have them also in Morocco; there they call them Cornes de Gazelles.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that, Luzia?’ Atherley asked.

  ‘Miss Probyn—Mrs. Jamieson—told me; she ate them in Marrakesh, and heard there that they have them here also.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ Admiral Luxworthy said, taking another bite at his rather sickly sweetmeat. ‘Moors in both places, of course.’

  ‘Yes, that is what Torrens told her; he knew Spain also.’

  Refreshed by the coffee, and the comfort of sitting down, Hetta persevered with her plan of completing the Greco cycle, in spite of the Luxworthys’ lack of enthusiasm; she saw to it, however, that the two ladies bought some damascened objects on their way. She was getting tired, and felt rather unwell; it was very hot. But once in El Greco’s actual house, so small and simple and contemporary, her enthusiasm revived, and communicated itself to her hearers; it has in fact been re-arranged with the utmost skill to show what a 16th-century Toledan residence was like.

  ‘And he loved the cat—come and see how often he painted it, and his pretty wife,’ she said, and led them to the small Museum. Indeed it is difficult to escape the feeling of coming very close to the great painter in those two small buildings; even Joy bought several postcards of the cat and its young and pretty mistress, still so alive and vivid, as El Greco painted them nearly three hundred years ago. Then they got into the cars again, and, Richard still leading, drove across the Puente San Martin and out along the road leading to the cigarral.

  Chapter 4

  The cigarrals of the environs of Toledo derive their pretty name not, as one might suppose, from the ceaseless shrilling of the cicadas, or cigales, in the olive-groves whose silver foliage diversifies the tawny landscape, but from the groves themselves—‘cigarral’ is an Arabic word meaning ‘the place of trees’. Some are large, some quite small, but an essential feature for all of them is a certain simplicity, within as without; people go to them to enjoy the country, and refuse an elaboration which would contrast too strongly with the peaceful austerity of the countryside and its life. The cigarral belonging to the de la Torres lay right on the Tagus, a couple of miles down-stream from Toledo; from its terraces, overhanging the steep cliffy banks of the river, one looked back at the golden city on its hill against the fierce blue of the sky—the sound of the water contended with the whirring of the cicadas in the olive-trees on the landward side. Once a convent, it had long stood empty and derelict, the chapel at one end—dedicated to the Holy Archangels—bare and deserted, doorless and with broken windows; this, like the house itself had been devoutly restored by the de la Torres when they bought the place, and now served the small village for Mass on Sundays, saving the country-people, including the baker-policeman, the hot trudge into the city. A few old trees still shaded, here and there, the terraces at both ends of the long building; the new owners had planted shrubs and a few modest flower-beds among the stone benches on which nuns had once sat; a denser screen of shrubs shut off the garage, a new addition, from the wide open space beyond the chapel.

  Inside, the long cool rooms seemed rather bare, the pieces of fine furniture stood so far apart on the tiled floors; such rugs as there were were concentrated in front of the open hearths, now filled with pots of flowering plants; the chairs and settees were mostly of wood, and rather severely upright, a few cushions offering the only concession to comfort—except in Pepe’s study and Pilar’s own little sitting-room, where there were some easy-chairs. The few pictures were all of religious subjects, so were the small pieces of polychrome sculpture which stood here and there in the big bare rooms; the conventual atmosphere was almost completely preserved, in all its tranquillising restfulness. There were all the modern requirements in the way of bathrooms and so on, but mostly upstairs, and even there carefully kept away out of sight—a nun’s cell, Pilar often explained to strangers, was just the right size for a lavatory, while two knocked into one made a small bath-room very nicely.

  To this unusual place the Atherleys, on that hot Sunday, brought their party, who looked about them in surprise as they were being introduced, in the first of the series of rooms, to their host and hostess. Pilar de la Torre was tall, with the auburn-russet hair that some Spanish women possess, and a pale, matte complexion; she was not exactly beautiful, but her fine, rather mediaeval-looking features, and a certain stillness about her, made her very striking; Pepe, her husband, was a short, dark little man, rather rotund, with a merry face and an endless flow of spirits—the greatest possible contrast to his stately wife, who promptly led her women guests upstairs to that concealed plumbing, leaving Pepe to look after the men. Then they all went out to have drinks on the terrace, where some canvas garden-chairs were disposed in rather scanty patches of shade; the de la Torres eschewed the vulgarity of gaudy sun-umbrellas. Hetta sat down at once; she felt tired and rather unwell, after the early start, and all the trailing round sight-seeing; but the Parrotts, the Luxworthys, and Ellington, drinks in hand, went over with their host to the low parapet, looking down on the swift river below them, looking up at Toledo, lion-gold cubes of buildings piled up against the sky. The Admiral soon came back to where Pilar sat with Hetta.

  ‘I do just hope you aren’t too tired,’ he enquired anxiously. ‘Mrs. Atherley has been marvellous, Marquesa,’ he said to his hostess. ‘She seems to know everything, and she worked out a wonderful round for us, showing a
ll the most important things in such a short time. I’m afraid some of us were pretty dumb about a lot of it—El Greco takes a bit of getting used to.’ Pilar agreed politely about El Greco; Hetta said what was necessary about never seeing too much of Toledo.

  Ellington was seizing the chance of talking to Luzia; they moved a little away from the others, and leant on the stone parapet.

  ‘Oh, see!’ the girl exclaimed suddenly—‘there are people walking along below us. Can there be a path?’

  ‘Must be, if people are walking! I’d have thought it was too steep,’ the young man said, leaning far out and peering over. Indeed he too could catch glimpses of figures moving along between the growth of bushes which clothed the face of the cliff.

  ‘I wonder where they are going?—and how they get down to it?’ Luzia speculated. De la Torre heard her, and came over.

  ‘They are people from further down the river,’ he said. ‘They have been to Mass in the chapel this morning, and they will have gone to the village afterwards, to drink wine and see their friends. They like the river path; it is shady, and not so hot as the road.’

  ‘But how does one get down to it?’ Luzia asked.

  ‘There is a path down, nearer the village, and we have made some steps near the garage also,’ he said. ‘It is a pleasant walk, so close to the water.’

  Pilar de la Torre now summoned them all to come and eat. ‘You must be starving,’ she said to Mrs. Luxworthy. ‘Alas, we have only rather a picnic for you.’

  The picnic was in fact an ample buffet luncheon, set out in one of the further rooms nearer the chapel end of the house; enough chairs had been mustered for everyone to sit down if they wished, with little tables near them, but except for Hetta—and Mrs. Luxworthy, whose feet ached—most of the company obstinately remained on their feet; the men helped the women, and then themselves, Pepe went round with a large flagon of chilled white wine, filling glasses. The food, though cold, was rather rich; Hetta, offered chicken, accepted, only to find that it was coated in a thick white sauce, and that a very oily Russian salad covered the rest of her plate. She did her best, but she felt increasingly sick; she signed to Ellington to take away the unfinished plate. Pepe noticed him, and came over to her. Refilling her glass—‘You do not like this? Let me bring you one of our specialities. Lieutenant Ellington, would you bring another plate?’ Eager as a boy, he went across to one of the long trestle tables, and returned with a dish which he set down beside her. ‘Sucking pig in aspic!’ he said, triumphantly, and proceeded to carve a slice.