by Ann Bridge
Chapter 6
Gralheira in autumn is an idyllic place. The great grey baroque house, with the knot-garden of tiny clipped box hedges outlining its gravel paths extending all along the south front, stands at the foot of the pine-clad Serra in open agricultural country, stretching away to the south and west, where on clear days the horizon is the distant dim blue of the Atlantic ocean—a Virgilian landscape, then full of the country activities which Virgil loves to describe. When the Atherley party arrived the maize-harvest was just ending, and while the women sat in groups in open-fronted sheds tearing the enfolding husks off the maize-cobs, men heaped the latter in slatted wooden stores, set up on stone supports; rats could not climb out from under the stone, so the precious grain was safe. Yet other men were pulling up the maize-stalks, tearing off their leaves, and chopping the stalks into lengths to dry for winter fuel; the coarse stalk-leaves served as bedding for the oxen. Shepherds tended flocks of milk-white sheep, the ewes, newly sheared, even whiter than their nearly full-grown lambs, which still wore the thick woolly coats which gave them a curiously rounded look, faintly comical; great slow-moving oxen, their coats like burnished bronze, drew long narrow carts of manure out from the cattle-stalls, to be spread on the fields and ploughed in when all the maize-plants were lifted.
Through these tranquil scenes Hetta, Richard, and Luzia walked in the golden autumn weather, sometimes with the old Duke, when he was not occupied with his bailiff and estate matters. Inevitably Nick Heriot’s impending arrival was in everyone’s mind, though most of all in Luzia’s and the Duke’s; the possible engagement of his only child could not fail to be a matter of the deepest concern to him. He had taken to Hetta when she first came to Portugal, years ago; on her one or two recent visits to Gralheira his original liking had grown into warm admiration and respect; he was delighted by the friendship between her and Luzia. And one day before Nick’s arrival when they were out walking the thing most in his mind came out.
‘This young Heriot—do you know him yourself?’
‘No, I have never met him. But Mrs. Hathaway has known him and his family for years, and thinks highly of them all,’ Hetta replied; she was touched by his confidence, and anxious to reassure him, for Luzia’s sake, as well as his own. Her mention of Mrs. Hathaway struck just the right note.
‘Ah, Mrs. Hathaway! Such a penetrating person. Her opinion would always be valuable.’ He looked musingly up at the trees on the Serra. ‘We so much enjoyed her stay here. Imagine, she was interested in forestry! I wish she would return.’
Nick created a good impression even before his arrival by telegraphing to the Duke, mentioning that he was coming by car ‘if not inconvenient’, and that he proposed to arrive at 5 o’clock on Thursday; he could be caught with a telegram at the Grand hotel in Salamanca on Wednesday night, if there were any change of plan.
‘This is well-mannered,’ the Duke said to Hetta as he showed it to her. She looked at him with affectionate sympathy, remembering him on her first visit—now a little older, a little greyer, but still bearing his curious resemblance to a Scots laird, still wrapped up in his estate and the welfare of his people. She determined to do all she could to ease this meeting, so momentous to him, and exerted herself to distract his mind during the last hour or two, when the tension could be felt both in him and Luzia.
In fact Nick Heriot did everything exactly right. He arrived dead on time—he had purposely so arranged his 3-day drive from Pau that the last stretch should be a relatively short one. His car was a sensible saloon, not a sports-car—which the Duke had secretly dreaded; his light tweeds were perfectly correct, his London-made shoes the exact counterpart of the Duke’s own. (The Duke had dreaded suède shoes almost more than a sportscar.) Luzia, the only person he knew, introduced him to her Father, then to Hetta and Atherley—his manner of respectful ease was just right, neither too easy nor too respectful. He replied sensibly to enquiries about his drive, mentioning, almost casually, what a relief it was to get on to the Portuguese roads after the Spanish ones; he referred to the advanced state of the harvest—‘I see they have begun ploughing already. Is it an unusually early year, Sir?’ he asked his host—the Duke, pleased, replied that it was rather an early season. Nick mentioned, with admiration, the bronze-coloured oxen—‘I’m glad they still use them for ploughing here.’
‘Yes, mechanisation drives the men off the land,’ the old gentleman said.
‘Doesn’t it take the heart out of the land too? I mean, if one uses tractors, where is the dung to come from?’ Nicholas asked bluntly—whereat the Duke beamed, and told his new guest about the lack of straw, since they did not grow enough wheat or barley for litter, and how the maize-leaves and the coarse outer husks from the cobs were used instead.
‘And the finer ones from the espigos, are used for filling pillows and mattresses,’ Luzia put in. ‘Papa, should we not take Nicholas to see an Esfolhada party?’
‘Yes. There will be one soon at the miller’s, him they call the Ferreiro—that is quite close,’ her Father replied.
‘What is an Esfolhada party?’
‘Stripping the husks from the cobs.’
‘But we saw some women doing that yesterday,’ Atherley said.
‘Ah yes, but that was not a party. When all the maize is gathered on one farm, the neighbours come in to help; all sit together and strip the cobs; they go on till the last one is done, and then have a huge supper, and dance till 3 in the morning!’ Luzia said with animation. ‘They have such fun.’
‘It is what they used to call a “shucking-bee” in America, I believe,’ the Duke put in unexpectedly; ‘the same system of going from farm to farm, and making what might be tedious work into a social occasion. But I never heard that they have our convention about the Espigo Rei.’
‘What is that, Sir?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Now and again someone comes on a cob which is all red, a sort of freak; that is the King Cob, the Espigo Rei. If a man finds one he can kiss all the girls—and if a girl finds one, she can kiss the man she prefers,’ the Duke said, looking a little sly.
‘I should expect the livelier lads to go to the party with a King Cob in their pockets,’ Atherley observed.
‘Oh, they do!’ Luzia replied, laughing. ‘But people are on the watch for this—if a boy has that reputation, they look in his pockets!’
When they went up to dress for dinner, Hetta asked Richard what he thought of Nicholas.
‘Oh, a thoroughly good type—as one would expect. Old Lord Heriot has done a lot for Pau; he’s immensely public-spirited, I’ve always heard. But I wonder if Luzia put the boy up to all this talk about agriculture? I thought Mrs. Hathaway said he was reading chemistry, or physics or something at the University, and meant to work at Lacq when he was through with Oxford or Cambridge, whichever it is.’
‘I believe he once had that idea. But since he fell in love with Luzia, I am sure he is serious about Gralheira, and looking after the place properly. You see it all comes to her, and she told Mrs. Jamieson, when they were in Pau, that she would never marry anyone who would not settle down here, and “help Papa”.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘She told me herself—Luzia, I mean, when we were here last time.’
‘H’m. I shouldn’t have thought a degree in chemistry would be much use in running Gralheira,’ Richard said, putting cufflinks in his shirt.
‘Yes, Richard, a great deal of use. Nicholas has very good ideas; he thinks they should use all this resin which comes from the forests, themselves, instead of selling it cheaply to other people: put up one or two small factories, down near the railway, and make varnishes and plastics and—and things you do make with resin,’ Hetta said with energy. ‘This would give employment on the spot, and be much more profitable, he told Luzia. And for such things to know chemistry would be necessary.’
‘Yes, well, that is quite an idea,’ Richard said. ‘Anyhow, I like him. Do you?’
‘So far,’ his wife
replied. ‘I think he seems quite as nice as Luzia says he is. Certainly he has very good manners—and tact.’
Nicholas continued to win good opinions all round. As they walked about the estate and the country outside he asked quite sensible questions, not only of the Duke, but of Luzia, or anyone else who could answer them, like a rather distant cousin, Gil de Castelo Branco, who had come up, as he often did, for the weekend from Lisbon, where he worked in the Ministry of External Affairs—a lively intelligent youth, who was a pleasant addition to their little group. He was there when they walked over the fields to the early stages of the esfolhada party at the miller’s farm, and gave immense satisfaction to the country-people when he produced a brilliant red Espigo Rei from his pocket, and kissed all the prettiest girls who sat round among the older women tearing the papery husks off the maize-cobs, ending up by giving the miller’s grey-haired wife a hearty buss, amid general applause.
‘Gil, where did you get it?’ Luzia asked as they were strolling home.
‘From Elidio. When you told me last night where we were going today I asked him to get me one,’ the boy replied cheerfully. Atherley burst out laughing.
‘Elidio is the perfect butler! You ought really to call him Jeeves!’ Gil had read P. G. Wodehouse, and like Nicholas laughed too; the others had to have the joke explained to them.
Next day, at Luzia’s suggestion, they drove up into the Serra; she wanted Nicholas to see the source of the resin, about which he had these novel ideas. The autumn tapping—the trees are usually tapped twice a year, in spring and autumn—was in full swing, and Hetta and Richard, as well as Nicholas, saw with interest the ingenious methods by which this important crop is harvested. Below each white scar on the trunks of the trees were fastened small earthen-ware cups, into which the sticky sap slowly oozed; here and there men with curious long-bladed axes went from tree to tree, re-opening the wound in the wood.
‘Yes, they have to do that three times during the tapping, or the resin coagulates in the air, and stops the flow,’ the Duke said, as they moved further up the slope into the wood, between the white-scarred trees, each with a pile of creamy chips at its foot. ‘See,’—he went to a tree where a man was about to use his axe, and lifted a small wooden bat with a short handle from the top of the cup—‘this is to keep the chips from falling into the resin.’
‘Neat,’ Atherley commented.
Further on, where the tapping had been begun earlier, it was now over; girls were going from tree to tree removing the cups and with a sharp-edged tool scraping out their sticky contents into large tin cans; as these were filled they were carried down to the edge of the wood nearest the rough track, where the resin was poured into large metal barrels, which lay about under the trees. Nick asked some questions about what became of the resin?
Most of it was exported, the Duque told him; ‘It is quite an important export.’
‘I never knew that,’ Atherley said. ‘Roughly how much a year, Duke?’
‘I can give you the precise figure at home,’ the old gentleman said. ‘I do not want to exaggerate, but it runs into tens of thousands of tons.’
‘Good Lord!’ Richard ejaculated.
‘You did not learn this when you were in the Embassy in Lisbon?’ the Duque asked a little quizzically.
‘No—I wasn’t on the Commercial side,’ Richard said.
‘We produce between eight and nine thousand tons from Gralheira alone, as a rule,’ the Duke observed.
‘Is it a valuable crop?’ Richard asked.
‘To the country, yes, but to the actual producer less so; it is bulky and heavy, and the freight charges to the ports eat up much of the profit.’
Hetta looked at Nicholas at this; he said nothing. Tactful creature, she thought, smiling a little; he knows better than to rush things. He did however presently ask why all the branches were cut off the trees almost to the top?—for fuel, his host explained. ‘Practically all the bread in Portugal is baked with pine-boughs, even in the towns. Since we have to import coal, this also is of value to the economy, but does not greatly enrich the producer,’ he added, smiling. ‘Fortunately the railway to São Pedro do Sul runs right through the estate, and I have arranged to have one or two sidings built, so that the wagons can be loaded on the place.’
Early the following week Richard Atherley had to go back to Madrid. He left quite easy in his mind about Hetta—the bruise on her forehead had gone down, the surgeon from Oporto had been to examine her wrist, and was coming over presently to remove the plaster and strap it up; she was eating and sleeping well, and was happy and in good spirits. After he had gone the others continued in their tranquil routine of walks and drives, but now as often as possible Hetta stayed with her host, so as to leave Nick and Luzia together.
‘I get a good impression of this young man,’ the Duke said one day, watching the young couple walking ahead of them.
‘Oh, I am very glad. I like him so much.’
‘You do? I too am glad of that—I rather wanted to hear your opinion of him. He is undoubtedly intelligent, and well-bred; I find his manners perfect, in what cannot be the easiest of situations for him,’ the Duke said, with a fine small smile. ‘Also I understand that his family are well off,’ he added.
‘I believe so—Richard says that they have a large and valuable property in Pau, and there are only the two boys to inherit it.’
‘This is not the most important thing, of course,’ the old man went on. ‘But to be the father of an heiress is a responsibility!—and the more so when the inheritance is in land; the human factor becomes so important. One would not be greatly distressed if stocks and shares were not properly looked after!’
Hetta laughed.
‘I believe old Lord Heriot would be exceedingly distressed if stocks and shares were ill-treated,’ she said. ‘He is Scotch, you know.’
‘Yes. And prudence over any form of wealth is a good thing—I agree with his Lordship there,’ the Duke said, smiling. ‘But I cannot help hoping that this boy may take a real interest in the place and the people—there is still so much to be done,’ he ended with a little sigh.
Hetta wondered if she should pass on what Luzia had told her about Nick’s ideas for light industries at Gralheira, but decided that it would probably be better if the young man himself spoke more openly about his genuine interest in the management of the estate, now that Luzia’s Father seemed to take the engagement for granted. Later she mentioned this conversation to Luzia. ‘Nick has been very tactful so far, but I think that now he might express his interest in everything more openly.’
Luzia threw her arms round her friend’s neck.
‘Oh, you are good! You are a help,’ she said.
Hetta was amused to notice, during the next couple of days, that Nick Heriot was acting on her advice. They drove out once or twice to visit friends in the neighbourhood; in every village large wine-casks stood about in front of the houses in preparation for the vintage, some new, cream-coloured, others streaked in brown and beige, old ones which had been trimmed for the new season. Here and there young men were rocking these last to and fro, with a loud jangling metallic sound. Nick asked his host what they were doing?
‘Cleaning the inside of the casks. They half-fill them with old chains, and any odd bits of metal, along with the water, and rock them about—it cleanses the wood much better than scrubbing, and much more quickly, though it is quite hard work.’
‘That water looks as though the old iron had been rather rusty,’ Nick observed, as they passed some youths emptying a cask.
‘Oh yes, the rustier the better! Rust has a very purifying effect. But some of the colour is from the lees of last year’s wine, which the chains have dislodged.’
Nick was amused at the ingenuity of this method of cleaning barrels. He asked the Duke when his own vintage would begin?
‘On the lower slopes, in a few days, now. Tomorrow I must go with the bailiff to inspect the adega and see that all is ready for the ran
chos. Would you care to come too?’
‘I should like to very much indeed. What are ranchos?’ the young man asked.
‘The wine-treaders. We have not enough man-power on the place to deal with all our own grapes, especially as many are busy just then with their own vintage; so the ranchos come from places where the vintage is earlier or later than ours, or where they grow little wine. The same people come year after year.’
‘All men?’
‘Oh no—the women come with them, for the cutting. The men do the carrying to the lagares, and then the treading.’
‘I must see this,’ the young man said.
‘They love coming,’ Luzia put in. ‘They look upon it as a sort of holiday. They bring their guitars and tambourines, and dance in the evenings in the adega, while the men tread the grapes.’
Next day the whole party walked out to the adega. It was a large airy shed with a cement floor on which were installed three square granite troughs about 10 feet across, with sides some two and a half feet high, the actual lagares; the last of these was being scoured out, and the water run off through a pipe on to a sort of roofed terrace below—here the barrels would stand to receive the wine, the Duke explained. Outside the shed some shallow troughs, quite small and also freshly scoured, were propped up to dry in the sun; in these the men washed their feet before they began the treading. The Duke held one or two up and examined them carefully—‘Yes, they are clean,’ he said to the bailiff, who was in attendance. Then he went to inspect the quarters which were being prepared for the ranchos in a building close by. The ground floor consisted of a large room with long wooden tables and benches at one end; at the other was a big cooking stove, two yellow marble sinks with taps, and shelves full of gay country pottery—plates, bowls, and mugs; cupboards for the bread, and a perforated zinc larder for the eatables. Having examined everything minutely, and told the bailiff that the big copper cooking-pot for the soup must be more thoroughly polished, he led the party up an outside staircase to the two sleeping-rooms above, where mattresses in tartan cotton covers lay on beds of fresh hay, a pillow at the head of each mattress, two blankets neatly folded at the foot. The Duke picked up several of these, and sniffed them—two he put on one side.