The Island Villa_The perfect feel good summer read
Page 19
‘I was sad to see him go,’ said Maria as we got started on making a lemon cake for her grandchild’s birthday.
‘I know, but he’ll be back soon.’
‘That’s good, I want to get to know him better.’
I nodded. ‘He wants that, too.’
I was showing her how to make a classic lemon drizzle.
‘Now this is something the English can brag about – much better than those muffins with jam and cream.’
I laughed. ‘It’s scones.’
‘Ai carai. Those things. Like little balls of bread with jam.’
I snorted. ‘Hardly! Have you had them before?’
‘Ai, no,’ she admitted.
I looked at her. ‘Then don’t knock it.’
She grinned. ‘Okay.’
‘Maria,’ I asked, as the windows steamed up and I stepped over the sleeping cat, who was always lodged in front of the warming drawer, ‘what was my gran like when she was little?’
‘Alba?’ she said, wiping her hands on an apron. ‘She was a big joker. She was always pulling practical jokes on us.’
‘Gran? Really? Like what?’
‘Well,’ she said, then started to laugh as she remembered. ‘There was this one time when she came home and she told my father that she’d spent all her money on a rare, purebred dog, a border collie. He was really cross, as it was all the money she’d saved. But she said it didn’t matter – she had to have this prize beast and we had to come and see him for ourselves to understand. So we came outside, only see that she’d put a wig on one of the pigs!’
I laughed. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. She was always doing things like that.’
I liked to think of that, this younger, more carefree version of the serious woman I’d known.
As if she was reading my thoughts, Maria sobered and said, ‘Nothing changes a person more than tragedy and she faced a lot of it with the war.’
I thought of the tragedies in my own life – losing her, my father and James. I couldn’t deny how true that was.
Chapter Forty-Three
Formentera, 1718
‘I think that Benito and I should marry,’ Esperanza told Cesca when the two of them were sitting on their mother’s bed a few days later. Cesca had been brushing her mother’s hair, but at Esperanza’s words the brush fell from her grasp to clatter on the floor. She shared a startled look with her mother.
‘What?’
Esperanza nodded. Her eyes were shining and she couldn’t contain the burst of happiness that the idea brought her – or how much she cared for him. She bit her lip. ‘It makes sense. I mean he is living here, people will ask questions… Riba has already started asking if we will marry soon after you and Señor Garcia as planned, and well, with things the way they are… with Don Santiago, well, maybe it would be for the best. Besides, he’s a wonderful man, so good and kind. I’d be happy to be his wife, truly, and well, I think that it would be good for us both.’
Cesca blinked. Esperanza marry Benito?
She felt her heart stop completely at the thought.
‘I- I’m not sure that’s the best idea,’ she stammered.
‘Why not? I know you don’t like him. I’m not sure what changed between you – I mean you two used to get on so well, always chatting in the mornings, and laughing, and now since Mare got sick it’s like you blame him for it or something—’
Cesca’s face blanched. ‘I don’t blame him!’
Esperanza sighed. ‘Well, maybe you think he’s made it harder being here – with people looking for him, creating more stress – but he can’t help that. He’s even offered to leave. We’re the ones who took him in, it was our choice, and besides, he’s a good man, a kind man.’
‘I know that – it’s not that, Esperanza, it’s not that at all.’ She opened her mouth, trying to find the right words. But she couldn’t find any. She stared at her sister in anguish, not wanting to shout out the truth: Esperanza couldn’t marry Benito because she was in love with him.
Her mother touched Esperanza’s hand. ‘I don’t know, my love… I’m not sure it is a good idea.’
‘Why not? I was meant to marry Rafael – it makes sense for us.’
‘Things don’t have to always make sense for it to work.’
‘You don’t want me to marry him?’
‘I just want you to be happy.’
Esperanza kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘This would make me happy, Mare. I know we would be poor, I know I’ve always said that I wanted a different kind of life, but now I understand what you meant when you said with the right person it wouldn’t matter, and it doesn’t, not at all. I mean he doesn’t have any money or a career, but I don’t care. I want to be with him.’
Cesca blanched at her sister’s words.
‘And Benito – does he feel the same way?’ asked their mother, looking at Cesca, noting her stricken expression.
‘I don’t know. He has only ever been a gentleman. But Mare, when you’re gone people will wonder at him living here with us… It wouldn’t be right. Maybe this would be the best solution all round.’
Her mother looked at her, then squeezed her hand. ‘I see, but I think there might be another solution,’ she said, giving Cesca a meaningful look.
When Esperanza left, her mother looked at her, ‘My child. There’s something you should know.’
Cesca frowned. ‘What is it?’
‘You know your father never had a formal agreement with Señor Garcia about the marriage, don’t you? It was just a general conversation between them – your father didn’t actually agree.’
‘What do you mean?’ Cesca asked with a frown.
‘Your father told the doctor when he asked for your hand in marriage that he would think about it. He told him that it was a good match and that it was an honour, but he had his reservations, he thought it wouldn’t be fair to wish an old man on a young bride. Your father loved you very much, and the two men were great friends, so this didn’t offend Señor Garcia, of course. He agreed to give your father time to think it over.’
Cesca was confused. She thought, the way everyone else had always spoken about it, that it was a matter that had long been decided. ‘Well, he must have gone back to him and told him that he agreed,’ she said with a frown. ‘Because we’ve been betrothed ever since.’
Her mother shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t. He never got the chance. He died that week.’
Cesca gasped. ‘What does that mean? Why are you telling me this now?’
‘Because you deserve to know that if, for whatever reason, you break your engagement, no one would be able to hold it against you as you were not officially promised. Señor Garcia knows this, and he can be reminded if need be.’
Cesca blinked at her mother. ‘What are you saying, Mare? You don’t want us to get married?’
Her mother clutched her hand. ‘No, Cesca, I want you to be happy, is all I am saying, and if for some other reason you choose not to marry the doctor, know that it is a choice you can make, in clear conscience.’
Cesca squeezed her mother’s hands. ‘Thank you for telling me, but I have become accustomed to the idea of marrying him. I’m not sure that I could’ – she swallowed – ‘that I could step aside now. So much has already been promised. It wouldn’t be right. Even if – even if I wanted to step away,’ she admitted.
Her mother touched her cheek. ‘My daughter, always so good, but happiness is not always about being “good”. Take your sister for example.’
Cesca stared at her mother in confusion. She’d never been told to look to her sister for guidance before.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, let’s just say that there is something to be admired about following your own heart sometimes. Don’t be afraid to do the same – before it’s too late.’
Tears filled Cesca’s eyes, but she nodded, then kissed her mother’s cheek.
Cesca would have to tell Benito that he would have to leave. It
was the only real solution – she couldn’t face the idea of him being betrothed to her sister, and Esperanza was right; everyone would begin to ask questions about why she wasn’t getting married to him when he was living there.
But when she found him in the garden, sitting on a tree stump and staring out to sea, she couldn’t find the right words.
‘My sister has fallen for you – I believe that she wants to marry you,’ she blurted out.
He turned to look at her. Even under the cover of darkness she could see the blue of his eyes.
He said nothing and she felt herself growing angry. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘I heard you.’
His voice was soft, and despite herself she stepped closer.
‘She wants to marry you.’
He gave a small sigh.
‘So you’d give me to your sister, rather than face what was inside your own heart?’
Cesca blinked. ‘No – that’s not what I’m trying to tell you.’
‘What then?’ he said, standing up and clutching her shoulder. ‘What do you want to tell me? Just say it.’
‘Forget it,’ she said, making to leave.
He made an angry noise. ‘Fine, go then… run away, as usual.’
She turned on her heel. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that at least your sister knows when to stand up for what she wants.’
She bristled at that. It was so like what her mother had told her. ‘Oh, so you admire her then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then maybe you should marry her!’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not – if you admire her so?’
‘Because I’m in love with her sister, and call me old-fashioned but I think that would just make things much harder than they already are.’
She sucked in air, felt her heart soar at his words. ‘You love me?’
‘Yes,’ he said, coming closer to her. ‘I think I’ve been falling for you since the first day we met.’
She swallowed, looked up into his eyes. She was tired of fighting it, tired of feeling miserable. ‘Me too.’
She sank into his kiss. If the sky fell, at least they’d be together.
Esperanza stared at the couple clasped together in the moonlight, and felt something inside her break.
Benito was the first man she’d ever fallen for, the first person who’d seemed to like her for who she was, and now he was wrapped up in the arms of her sister. Was there nothing Cesca didn’t take from her? She’d never felt more betrayed in her life.
She left the finca and walked all night, till finally the tears came, and with them a decision that she would later regret.
Chapter Forty-Four
Formentera, 1718
The storm had come in from the sea and the windows were rattling violently when Don Santiago opened the door to find Esperanza outside, shivering with cold, a fierce expression in her dark eyes.
She looked frozen through, her hair in wet tendrils down her back, her dress plastered to her body.
‘You’re frozen!’ he cried, stepping forward to touch her ice-cold skin. ‘What are you doing here – is everything all right?’
She shook her head.
‘Come with me,’ he said, taking her by her arm and leading her inside, where she stood dripping onto the cool tile of the hallway.
He went to fetch her a towel, shouting for one of the servants, a young girl, who came running and then stared at them with large eyes till he barked at her to make some tea and to find something for the señorita to wear. ‘Go now,’ he snapped and she ran to do his bidding.
He wrapped the towel round Esperanza’s shoulders, rubbing it against her skin, noting that her lips were blue. Her teeth chattered as she stared at him.
‘I will marry you,’ she said.
He blinked. ‘What?’
She nodded. ‘If you still want to.’
He stared at her, hardly daring to believe it was true. ‘I do.’
Chapter Forty-Five
Formentera, present day
The name Marisal, I learned, came from the Catalan for sea and salt. The two forces that had shaped the lives of the Alvarez family on this tiny slip of an island for so many years.
I’d been thinking of it a lot since Maria had told me about the two sisters, Cesca and Esperanza. I thought of them often, especially now.
‘So Cesca was my great-great-grandmother,’ I said. ‘It was because of her that we are here now, because she and her family took in Benito, no?’
She looked at me, then frowned. ‘Cesca? No.’
‘What?’
‘No, well, your great-great-grandmother wasn’t Cesca… it was Esperanza. I thought you knew that?’
I looked at her and gasped. ‘But I thought…’
‘No, you come from the other one – the one who almost ruined it all.’
I blinked.
Maria touched my arm. ‘The key word here is almost – she learned from what she did. She learned how to put her life back together again.’
Later that day, she told me that on the island it was tradition to have the coastal land pass to the youngest child, then divide up the rest of the land between the other children. ‘So this house would have gone to your grandmother, not our brother, Stefan, but with the war I left, and went to mainland Spain for a few years,’ she said. ‘So I didn’t know what happened to it, till it was too late.’
‘You left?’ I was surprised. Somehow, I’d got the impression that she had stayed.
‘Only until the end of the Second World War.’
‘When I came back my brother was gone. He’d sold the house to pay off some gambling debts, then he died – there was an accident, at the salt pans where he was working.
‘I married my husband Bernabè, who was also from the island, and we moved back to his family home. It was sad to see my house in the hands of strangers and I tried to fight the sale – but we couldn’t prove the ownership, there hadn’t been a deed, so for many years I avoided the house, even looking at it, because of what it reminded me of – all that we had lost. But you know how it is – every so often I couldn’t help walking past… trying to look for ghosts, I suppose.’ She sighed.
I’d told her about why James had bought it for me, and the story had touched her deeply. ‘He sounds like a man I would have been honoured to have met.’
There were tears in both of our eyes when she said that.
I think James would have liked her, too.
‘I’m happy your husband bought it for you, and that it is where it belongs,’ she said, touching my shoulder. ‘Glad I got a chance to meet you.’
‘Would you like to come and see it?’ I asked.
Her eyes grew dark and sad. She didn’t say anything for a while and then she nodded. ‘Yes, I’d like that, very much.’
She was a tiny figure in her brown house dress, hugging her arms to herself, her grey-dark hair wispy around her face, when she stepped inside the kitchen in Marisal. There was an old brown kerchief over her hair; a few of the island’s older women still wore their hair that way.
Despite her size, she felt like a big presence in the small room.
Her dark eyes seemed to drink everything in. I hung back. I knew enough about leaving people alone with their ghosts.
A mottled brown hand ran around the whitewashed stone. ‘There used to be a painting here.’ She laughed softly as she remembered. ‘A silly thing someone painted of a little goat.’
She walked further into the kitchen, and said, ‘There used to be a big table here, in the centre’, and when I looked, trying to picture it, I could see the scuff marks on the floors from the chairs.
‘And here,’ she said, lifting up one of the loose flagstone tiles. ‘We kept our treasures.’
My eyes widened. ‘Treasures?’
‘Simple things. Things we put there as children.’
She put the flagstone back. ‘Empty now, of course.’
‘My parents slept in here,’ she said, going into the room I’d made for myself, the old bed fitted with the new sheets I’d bought from the market, the day I met my new friend Isla. ‘They had one of those big four-poster beds, and this hard mattress that made even sitting on it a trial – but no matter what my mother said, my father wouldn’t be persuaded to change it. He said it helped him to start the day early – and there was no rest on fincas like ours.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘He was a hard-worker, my pare.’
‘What was it like here when you were a child?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it was a simple, but happy time,’ she said readily. ‘We had no idea about the threat that was looming ahead, I suppose, so maybe I look back at it fondly, more honey-coloured than I should.’ She shrugged.
That was normal, I guessed, and I knew having a happy childhood was something to cherish.
‘We kept chickens, cows, a few goats. They gave us cheese and milk. We lived a lot off the land. I’m not sure I knew that we were poor, it’s just how it was, you know? My father was one of the last of the Alvarez men who worked for the salt trade – by then it had really started to flounder. The Bourbons never took much of an interest in the salt trade after they took it over during the War of Succession in the eighteenth century, and the demand for salt, as you know, had died down a lot by the end of the century with the invention of tinned food.’
I hadn’t known that, to be honest, but I nodded anyway. ‘After he died, that’s when we knew what poor was. At one time Formentera was called Woman Island – there were no men left. The ones who survived the wars left to find work elsewhere. Some never returned home and some came home only every few months or even just once a year. They got work in America or elsewhere, wherever they could. But… back when my parents lived here, this was home, and we were happy here.’