The Cazalet Bride

by Violet Winsper

  They came to a scattered village where a stream rushed over dark boulders, and where the women were washing clothes and spreading them in the hot sun to bleach. And they passed by an old threshing floor, and Don Arturo stopped the car so Ricki and Jaime could watch the corn being ground between stone mills which a blindfolded mule slowly turned. Dust hung on the air, and there was a sense of time standing still as the old ways went on in the new world.

  The brown-faced patron of the old farm began to approach the car. He was clad in the country smock and leggings, and Ricki thought how medieval he looked and how out, of place she, at least, must look in such surround ings as these. She was wearing her smart bronze-brown jacket and skirt with a chiffon blouse in a honey shade; since coming to the Granja and being out of touch with a city hairdresser, her hair had lengthened and grew in tawny scrolls at either side of her gamin face. The farmer spoke with Don Arturo in Andaluz, and Ricki was delighted to learn that the three of them had been invited to share a meal with the man and his family.

  'You would like this?' Don Arturo had turned round in his seat and was surveying Ricki with his grave smile. 'Ah, but of course you would! Strange how in some things we understand each other without words there is some simpatia, eh?'

  'You know I can't resist these old, lost-in-time places, she laughed back at him.

  'Quite so.' He directed his smile at his nephew. 'And how about you, picaro? Shall we join these good people for lunch, or are you eager to get to the ranch ?'

  I like to do whatever Rickee likes,' Jaime replied, so gallantly that Ricki all but hugged him, while the Don's left eyebrow described a quirk above eyes that held - for a fleeting moment - a flash of sheer love. Oh, Jaime, Ricki thought, this man could never have hurt your mother. I know it! I feel it!

  'We will be happy to accept your kind invitation, senor.' Don Arturo said to the farmer.

  'I will go at once and inform mi mujer that we have guests for lunch.' The farmer smiled and bowed at Ricki, and hurried away towards the big kitchen door of the whitewashed farmhouse. There were hens, chickens and small podgy pigs grubbing about in the yard, and a wall-tangle of morning glory added to the rustic charm of the place.

  Don Arturo got out of the car and opened the door be­side Ricki. She felt the lean strength of his fingers as he handed her out, and she stood watching as he lifted Jaime and with careful casualness swung the boy to his shoulder as if to make it less obvious to the children in the yard that this particular child could not run about as they did.

  They were dashing about after a piebald dog that kept filching their ball, and Jaime turned his head to watch them. All at once Ricki saw him break into a smilig. 'Can you swim ?' he called out in Andaluz to one of the boys.

  The boy slowly shook his head, and Jaime added importantly: 'I can - almost.'

  Ricki felt the side-glance which the Don shot at her, and as she met his eyes they shared a smile that was both amused and thankful.

  You see, Ricki wanted to say, the child will grow and flourish, and there was never any need for you, serior, to take for his sake a wife you could never love.

  They spent a couple of very pleasant hours at the Andalusian farm, and reached the ganaderia of Don Enri­que about an hour later.

  Don Arturo stayed for a glass of the manzanilla of the ranch, and long enough to exchange greetings with the twin aunts, then he prepared to leave and bade his nephew and Ricki enjoy themselves.

  'Amigo mio, ' cried Don Enrique in his deep voice, 'you must promise to attend my birthday party on the twenty-third. It will be an occasion to remember, with the young picaro here, and Senorita O'Neill, and flamenco dan­cers from Seville. It will be such a happy gathering, a real verbena. We will have wine, and song, and also the bull­fight dance for my friend Juanilo, the famous espada who comes to celebrate all the ears he has won in South America and Mexico. There will be Estepona on the menu - wild roast swan, a dish fit for Spanish kings!'

  'The twenty-third, you say.' Don Arturo wore a quirk of a smile. 'That will be Midsummer's Eve, the night when young girls see the faces of their future husbands.'

  'Arturo,' Tia Beatriz gave him her caustic smile, 'I never thought you a man of romantic beliefs.'

  'Al contrario,' his smile grew faintly wicked, c the pagan world has always intrigued me - and not me alone,' he added with a low-throated laugh that told Ricki he was. referring to the pomegranate wine they had shared, and his reference to Pluto, who snatched Persephone at her play and carried her away to his kingdom.

  'You must come for the party, Arturo.' Tia Rosina touched a bird-like hand to his sleeve. 'Promise before you go that you will come.'

  'I will see, Tia,' he replied. 'If I can spare the time I will come.'

  A few minutes later he said good-bye, and when the estate car had gone out of sight in a cloud of dust, Don Enrique hugged his grandson yet again. 'How good to have you here, my small picaro,' he said huskily.

  The boy wrapped his arms about his grandfather's neck and put his smooth young cheek against the rugged, sun-scorched one. Ricki couldn't help but smile at the two of them, though all at once she felt a little sad.

  'Come, we will show you to your room, Miss Oneeil.' Tia Beatriz spoke briskly. 'Leave my brother and the boy to themselves.'

  Ricki saw that Jaime had quite forgotten her for the present, and she had a confused impression of dark beams, massive furniture and iron carved as though it were wood as she went upstairs with the two aunts. Tia Rosina chatted away, but her sister had fallen silent and Ricki

  felt the jetty eyes upon her more than once. She wondered a little whether Beatriz had wanted her here.

  Her room, which adjoined the one Jaime was to sleep in, was large, with whitewashed walls, a casual scatter of rugs, a bedspread of bright squares, and dark, highly-polished Spanish furniture. It smelled of crushed rose­mary, and there hung on the wall a picture of the Madonna and Child.

  'We will now leave you to freshen up after that dusty drive, Miss Oneeil.' Tia Beatriz bustled her sister to the door.

  'I do wish you a pleasant and enjoyable stay with us Veronica,' Tia Rosina said shyly. 'I may call you by your name?'

  'I'd love you to!' Ricki flushed a little, and realized that her employer must have referred to her as Veronica in private conversation with these people.

  It was curiously disconcerting to think of her first name on his lips!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The ranch was big, stone-walled, with acres of pasturage stretching beyond its corrals, its feed-sheds, and the large bunk-house where the vaqueros lodged.

  Jaime was thrilled by these tough, sun-dark men, many of whom were scarred by their hazardous work among the bulls. Several of them were gipsies, sons of the stars, said Don Enrique, who had a stern but affectionate control over his band of bull herders. Jaime would watch them, fascinated, as they played a game in which flat pieces of stone were tossed on to explosive caps. Or when they drank wine from the red clay, jarras, which had a spout that shot the red wine down the throat from way above the mouth.

  They had about them a rough kind of courtesy, though there were times when Ricki caught one or two of the younger ones eyeing her with an interest that warned her to keep out of their way when she was not with the boy. She was inglesa and therefore different from their own plump, olive-skinned girls, and though their curiosity was probably quite harmless Ricki steered clear, when alone, of the yard where the men smoked their Rumbo cigarettes and played their various gambling games.

  One of them had a rather fine voice and at night Ricki often heard him singing and playing the guitar. It was a very Spanish sound, intensifying at times the curious sense of loneliness that had begun to steal over her since coming to the ranch.

  She began to wonder if she was getting homesick for England and her father, yet she and Tynan had not seen all that much of one another in the past few years, and she wrote regularly to him. He replied haphazardly to her letters, and was full of the work he had recently fo
und on Eire television, acting in a costume serial. Ricki was naturally pleased for him, but she couldn't help but feel anew that he had no real need of her, even if she decided, when no longer needed here, to find employment in a hospital in Ireland.

  Anyway, whatever her private misgivings, she found the Salvadori ranch a place of immense interest. Don En­rique was a man of great vitality despite his age, and there seemed no end to his delight in having Jaime under his roof. Toys from Seville filled the playroom that had once been Conquesta's, and Ricki could well see why her em­ployer had said that the boy would become spoilt if he lived at the ranch. Apart from the pony he had been given, he was also presented with a baby bull black as coal, with a dewy muzzle, a rough furry coat, and aggressive little horn buds which he butted against anyone who came near him. 'He will be a real demon when he grows up,' laughed Don Enrique as they watched the baby bull chasing a peoncito round one of the corrals. Jaime sat upon the shoulder of his grandfather, calling out: 'Huy, toro, take him for a ride on your horn!'

  Don Enrique laughed again, richly, and then he caught Ricki's eye and his mouth assumed a mocking slant. 'What is it, nina ? he asked indulgently. 'Do you fear that I am teaching the boy to like the terrible bullfight?'

  'He's Spanish,' she replied. 'It's natural, I suppose, that he respond to the impulses that are in his blood.'

  'Do you find Spanish impulses very unnerving?' he said jovially.

  'Not at all,' she rejoined. 'They're interesting in that they are less restrained than - ours.'

  'Those of the British, eh? Well, if in my turn I am some­what perplexed by your restraint in certain matters, I admire your patience and skill. The small picaro has be­come a new child in your care, senorita' He glanced up fondly at his young grandson, who wore a junior-size cordobes with silver neck-cords, and a gaucho belt encircling the waist of his jeans. The boy did indeed look hardier than ever before, and last night he had got out of bed unaided and used the vase de nuit. He had announced this proudly at breakfast, to the vast pleasure of his grand­father and the fluttering amusement of Tia Rosina. Tia Beatriz, who supervised things in the kitchen, had not been present. She was a taciturn woman at times, and Ricki got along much better with Rosina.

  The little aunts had their own private sala, where they did lacework and made delightful theatre purses, pet-dog collars, lamp-shades and jet-jewellery that were sent to Seville to be sold at a boutique where all the proceeds were devoted to charity.

  Ricki often joined them in their sala, where they sat working at a circular table, using vivid embroidery silks, sewing hundreds of glittering sequins on purses, and painting flamenco scenes on lampshades. Ricki couldn't resist lending a helping hand, though she was much slower at the intricate work than they, and Tia Rosina some­times mentioned the past in a soft, troubled voice. Tia Beatriz would frown, then, until her sister took the hint and changed the subject. But one afternoon Tia Beatriz opened a drawer of the mahogany bureau and took from the very back of it an old cigar box with a picture of a flamenco dancer on it. She came back to the table, sat down and opened the box to reveal quite a hoard of family photographs. One by one, frowning in that way of hers, she passed them to Ricki. Tia Rosina, her eyes soft with memories, pointed out who the various people were. Ah, yes, that was herself when a girl of Ricki's age. And that was her brother at the time of his betrothal to Conquesta's mother yes, they did make a handsome pair, did they not? It was, of course, a pity about the patch over Enrique's eye, but always a wild one he had lost the eye when a boy, fighting with the young bulls. 'The old gaucho,' muttered Tia Beatriz, passing to Ricki a photograph on which her fingers abruptly clenched until the tips of them showed white.

  'Yes, that was Conquesta,' murmured Tia Rosina. ' La fiamma e bell!'

  'No matter how beautiful a flame, it burns!' snapped Tia Beatriz. 'Far better a warm, abiding glow.'

  'I do not argue with you, sister.' Tia Rosina looked dis­tressed, while Ricki gazed for long moments at the faceof the girl who had defied her father, denied Arturo, and eloped with Leandro. The photograph showed her in the Andalusian riding-habit, which took on an added charm on her slenderly curving figure. The tilted cordobes, the strap dark against her creamy skin, gave her an attraction beyond words. She smiled down from the saddle of a horse, and there was a masculine hand on the bridle -someone had cut off the rest of that male figure.

  'That photograph was taken before Conquesta's mar­riage,' said Tia Rosina.

  'At the time of her betrothal to Arturo,' put in Tia Beatriz sharply. 'Arturo was with her in the photograph, and it must have been her hand that cut him off. The photograph, you see, was found among her private papers after - the accident.'

  There was a sudden brooding silence which, after a minute or so, Ricki felt compelled to break. 'Why,' she blurted, 'does everyone mention the accident in such meaning tones? It was an accident.'

  Tia Beatriz raised her eyebrows at this outburst. 'It is hoped it was only that,' she rejoined. 'There was doubt and speculation, but the Cazalet name is a much respec­ted one and so the business was hushed up.'

  'It is unfair to use that term,' gasped her sister. 'It im­plies that there was something sinister about the way those poor children died.'

  'I believe there was,' Beatriz said deliberately. 'I have always thought so.'

  'Oh, how can you say such a thing, Beatriz?'

  'I have said it, little sister.' Beatriz shrugged and packed the photographs back in the cigar box.

  Ricki watched the deft movements of her hands, and felt the trembling of her own. Beatriz rose and returned the box to its hiding place at the back of the bureau drawer. 'The wound that bleeds inwardly is the most dangerous,' she said, without turning round. 'And now shall I ring for some refreshment?'

  Ricki jumped to her feet. 'I - I have to go and see if Jaime is awake from his siesta,' she said, and her legs felt drained of all strength as she hastened out of the sola and crossed the big, shadowy hall to the staircase. It wasn't true! It couldn't be true! Tia Beatriz was old and her mind was not as it had been - that was the explanation.

  Ricki's face must have been white when she entered Jaime's room, for as he roused out of his nap he gazed at her with questioning eyes. 'Are you not feeling very well, Rickee?' he asked.

  'I'm all right, my pet,' she assured him, forcing her lips into a smile. 'Come, I'll dress you and then we'll go down­stairs and see your pony. Have you decided yet on a name for him?'

  'Yes.' Jaime gave her a smile of mischief as she un­buttoned his pyjama jacket. 'I am going to call him Paddy Fair.'

  'To remind you of me ?' she joked.

  He looked away then, his eyebrows pulling together above eyes that had sobered. 'I know you will go away when I am quite better,' he said, 'and it makes me sad to think of it.'

  'Ah, but soon you will be going away to school,' she said bracingly. 'You will be with other boys and that will be great fun.'

  He nodded, then pressed his forehead against her shoulder. 'I shall miss you,' he whispered. I shall miss all your stories, and the way you laugh.'

  She pressed a hand to the back of his head and felt a lump in her throat. 'I shall miss you, my poppet, but your uncle needs you, you know. He's a lonely man and he has much love for you, chico. You must believe that he was in no way - no way,' her voice grew firmer, as though fed by some inner belief that could not be shaken, 'to blame for the accident that hurt you and - killed your mother and father. Jaime, was it Serlor Andres who told you – those lies?'.

  He nodded against her, then drew back quickly. 'He was my father's friend, and he - he said Tio Arturo was jealous of my father.'

  'I think your Tio Arturo is too big a man to stoop to the smallness of envy, chico. Can't you see that for your­self? Don't you feel it?'

  'He is a proud man,' Jaime admitted.

  'A man to look up to - oh, so you want to put your own pants on, do you?' She gave a laugh that was husky and yet triumphant. The past and its fetters were breaking
their hold on.the child - if only the same could happen soon for the man!

  A few days later there was a lot of excitement at the ranch owing to the arrival of Juanilo Esteban. He came in a great, glistening car, accompanied by much luggage and several servants. He swept off his cordobes with a flourish and bowed with lithe-bodied grace to the twin aunts, and then to Ricki. He had the thin-lipped, glitter­ing smile of a tamer, and there were flashing diamond links at the cuffs of the frilled shirt under the short Andalu-sian jacket that fitted him as though pasted on. He was everything Ricki had expected an espada to be, and she could well imagine the dashing figure he must cut in his traje de luces, pointing his curved sword at the bull when the moment came for the kill.

  The moment of truth, he told her that evening, when they all sat out on the lamplit patio after dinner. He and Don Enrique were drinking Soberano, a strong Spanish brandy, and smoking long dark cigars.

  'Our young inglesa does not care for the bullfight,' laughed Don Enrique.

  'That is understandable, I think.' Juanilo gave her a steady look; he was not as young as his lithe figure sugges­ted, but here in the tawny light of the patio lamps the lines were less noticeable in his dark, gipsy face. 'To see beauty in the paganism of the bullring, one must be of Latin blood, and Senorita Oneeil is a flower of the north.'

  She smiled, unable to resist the poetry that seemed in­born in these men of Andalusia. 'We of the north aren't angels,' she conceded. 'We chase foxes and deer with hounds, hook roach out of our streams, and trap the play­ful otter. Man the world over is a fundamental hunter, I suppose.'

  'You have expressed it very shrewdly, nina.' Juanilo tapped a finger against the side of his hawk nose. 'Needle and thread for the woman, we say here in Spain; horse and lash for the man. While in America I could not help but notice the aggressiveness of the women there. How they can talk, as though wound up, but they have not the sal of Latin women. Perhaps only here in the south do women remain content to be primeval, warm, the centre of the home.'

  He waved cigar ash off the end of the dark brown cylin­der, and his eyes glittered in a narrow smile as they held Ricki's. Her wide, tilting eyes were a deeper green in the lamplight. 'Are you like the women of America, senorita? All for education and the career? Does your heart not yearn for a hearth of your own, and many small ones to make your husband proud?