So I lost my friend, as well as all the rest.
I think I moved mechanically, with perfect decorum, through those months. I was ashamed at the relief Carlos’s absence brought to me, but within my own heart I did not deny it. I ached with fierce longing for the vineyard, which was now barred to me, since it belonged to Don Paulo. I missed Pepita almost in the way I missed my children, and I felt a vague shame in this also. Her love had been so uncritical, her big body had been ever-present at my side. Unlike the children, she made no demands. I had had her unexacting, unquestioning love, and I missed it.
I missed Luis, as I missed Amelia. In one last visit I had taken from Las Ventanas Verdes all the lovely, bright gifts she had made to the house; I took her chest full of treasures, and as yet had not the heart nor the energy to distribute them through the house in the Plaza de Asturias. They belonged to another place, another time.
I also missed Edwin Fletcher. I read the English newspapers diligently, read the news of the war, which did not grow better, and missed being able to question him on points I did not understand, on matters of policy which seemed meaningless to me. During those months when the heat had Andalucia in its grip, and the grapes ripened, the battle of the Somme raged. We read that it was the first time the British used tanks, and I tried to explain to my mother what a tank was, and what it could do that a horse could not, but I wasn’t sure myself. It wasn’t until November that the battle petered out in rain and mud, with the Allies having advanced only about seven miles along their front. The cost to the British was four hundred thousand lives. Inevitably some of those names in the casualty lists were known to us, others were those of friends. I took to hiding the newspapers from my mother, and making excuses when she wanted them read to her.
Most of all, in those months, I missed the vineyards. The harvest was meaningless to me, though no one in Jerez was not involved in some fashion. But none of my must was delivered to the bodegas; the nights when I would have laboured at the vineyard with the men who tramped the grapes in the lagar, I lay restlessly, uselessly, in bed.
The beginning of October brought the children back to me, and they were very nearly strangers. Juan seemed to have grown more than an inch, and Martin was not far behind him. Francisco was no longer a baby. They were full of tales of the marvellous times they had had with the Marquesa in Galicia, the other children they had met, the outings they had had. They all had a new wardrobe. ‘I expect they grew so much,’ Maria Luisa said, to soften the impact of receiving charity. ‘Miss Charlie,’ Nanny said, ‘they are spoiled entirely. They never listened to me a minute. They would just say “Tía Isabel said we could” and that was that. It’s well for the lady that she doesn’t have to deal with them all the time, as I have. Then she’d know that rules and regulations have to be obeyed. And now they’ll just turn up their noses at everything here, just see if they don’t.’
‘I’m glad to be back,’ Edwin Fletcher said. ‘The Marquesa lives in great state up there. She is the greatest landowner in the whole region, I’m told. There is the sort of castle that might be perched on the cliffs of Wales, and a garden that seems a thousand years old. Everything she looks at, she owns, and that seems to include the people as well. And they are poor. They’re different people from the Andalucian. They’re harder, leaner. If they have a little money to spend, they don’t spend it. They don’t seem to drink their wine with enjoyment, when they have it. Yes … I’m glad to be back …’
Later he talked, ruminating, almost, as he sat in the courtyard with a copita, speculating, knowing that I did not regard it as impertinent gossip, about the extent of the Marquesa’s wealth. ‘It isn’t just the estates. Spain has profited greatly by this war. The factories in Barcelona are booming. I learned she also owns coal mines in Asturias. Then there’s Rio Tinto …’ He had had a summer to observe her, and while he appeared to like her no better, he seemed to have a rather grudging respect for her abilities. ‘Not that she made me her confidant, of course. But I got the impression that she makes most of the important business decisions for herself. She really controls her own money ‒ and seems to do it well. I saw a lot of very respectful men coming and going, all taking their orders from her. She insists on personal supervision of her interests. The most important documents must have her signature. Yes ‒ in all, a very interesting summer. But I’m glad to be back,’ he repeated.
Sometimes I wondered if my children were glad to be back. A few complaints filtered through to us. Once, when Juan spoke sharply to Serafina, criticising the way the food was cooked, my mother suddenly wrenched herself out of her wine-fogged state and actually slapped him. ‘Serafina is a person, Juan, not a slave! She has feelings … she does her best.’
His cheeks grew flushed, and he pouted. ‘Well, the soup was terrible. All fatty … Tía Isabel ‒’
‘I see, John,’ my mother said, ‘it has taken only a very few months to turn you into a snob.’
‘What’s a snob?’ It was an English word he didn’t know.
‘It’s what you’ve become,’ my mother said, too weary for the effort of trying to explain.
‘At any rate,’ Juan said, ‘we were the ones taken to stay with Tía Isabel. She didn’t invite the children of Tío Ignacio or Tío Pedro.’ Those were the courtesy titles he gave to Carlos’s two half-brothers, since they were also the sons of Don Paulo. ‘We are the favourites. And I am the oldest son.’
I felt sick. He was so young, and yet he already knew the significance of the favour of the Marquesa de Pontevedra. He knew he was in competition, and he seemed to be winning. He knew whom he had to charm and beguile and please, and he had his father’s skill at the game. The first innocence was lost.
II
In November, 1916, the old Emperor, Franz Joseph died in Vienna. When she heard the news, my mother said, ‘I wonder if they are still breeding the Lipizzaner stallions for the Spanish Riding School? After the war, perhaps we will have to supply them again from here.’ She had strange moments of lucidity like that, and a knowledge of things I had not thought she knew. That winter we were invited to join several sewing circles among the ladies of Jerez, ladies who rolled bandages, knitted scarves, and a helmet-like thing called a balaclava, whose intricacies I could never master. These were little informal meetings in each other’s houses, and so did not seem to break our observation of the period of mourning. We took our own turn at inviting the ladies to the Plaza de Asturias, and served them tea from the Marquesa’s Crown Derby. She had also sent us some silver to replace that which had been returned to Don Paulo’s house. ‘It will be useful,’ she had said, ‘and in any case I would have been giving silver to each of my godchildren when he came to set up house for himself.’ So her presence was there, even at our little sewing circles.
My mother tried valiantly on those days. She drank very little wine, and worked with her needles, but Maria Luisa, like Penelope, unpicked at night the disastrous chaos my mother made even of a simple muffler, and reknitted it. There was a real sadness and concern among the Jerezanos about the war. Hardly a family there was untouched by the ravages among the men on the Western Front. Most of them had cousins of some degree or another who served, and there was almost the same proportion of casualties as any wholly British family suffered. One had only to go through the list of names so common in Jerez ‒ Gordon, Gilbey, Williams, Humbert, Harvey, Terry, O’Neale, Osborne, Mackenzie. There was hardly one of them who had not some such name tacked on to their Spanish names. Letters were read aloud at those quiet sewing circles, and there was a note of sadness in most of them.
We had our own particular worry about the events in Ireland. The execution of Casement and other leaders of the Easter Rising had left a bitter taste. England, brutally mauled in the war in France, and in her losses to the attacks of German submarines on her lifelines, also kept looking nervously over her shoulder, wondering if perhaps there could not be a back-door attack by Germany through Ireland, or if the Irish should get sufficient arms, a r
evolt might not engage them in a disastrous, debilitating struggle. I knew, listening to Edwin Fletcher talk, explaining to me things about my own country I had never realised before, that the old life in Ireland was gone forever. ‘Oh, there may be a semblance of it left,’ he said. ‘People cling to customs. But the Protestant Ascendancy is doomed, if not already gone. Finally Ireland will have her freedom, and that will be the beginning of the end for the whole Empire.’
I found it hard to believe, when so many of those in the British Army were Irish. And where had the Irish to turn for markets except to Britain? A total break between the two seemed unthinkable.
‘Not a total break,’ Edwin said. ‘But Britain has waited too long. Ireland won’t be content with Home Rule now. She will go for complete independence.’ Then he added something. ‘Is Lord Blodmore’s title in the Irish peerage or the English?’
How ignorant I was. ‘I … I don’t know.’
And how little it seemed to matter now. The title meant nothing; his life was all that counted. Every batch of newspapers that reached Jerez brought a new nightmare until I had read every name in every casualty list. The heartbreak of finding the names of those we knew, was clouded by the dreadful suspense until, by reading each list twice, I was certain his name was not there. And then began the long wait until the next batch of newspapers arrived, and the agony began all over again. I told myself that somehow I would know if he were dead ‒ the part of me that belonged to him would die also. But still I read the lists with fear and hope. Nothing seemed to happen. There were no victories, but defeat was unthinkable. And then in April, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.
In a rush of uncharacteristically wild enthusiasm, Edwin Fletcher asked my mother if he might borrow the drawing-room for a small evening reception. Where he found the champagne, I never knew. But more than a few of his friends and acquaintances turned up to drink it, and although the year of mourning was not yet completed, Maria Luisa said it would be quite proper for me to wear white lace on my dress. My mother, delighted at the thought of a party, happily put on a dress of brilliant green. It was sad to think of her as she had been the last time she wore it, at the height of her beauty. Those who gathered at our house that evening perhaps were reminded also, and also remembered the reason why my mother was as she was now. The spectre of Carlos haunted us, even though we did not admit it.
We exchanged toasts, and we said the war would soon be over now, and we would sell more sherry than ever to England. Edwin, was happily explaining the almost unrecognised economic might of America, the power that would now be available to throw at the Germans. The room buzzed with talk. My mother laughed happily, though she didn’t quite understand why. Juan, who had been permitted to stay up, was correctly polite and unobtrusive. In the soft light, even the drawing-room didn’t look quite so shabby as usual. We seemed lighted with hope, and it cast a soft glow. I told myself Richard Blodmore, having survived so much, would survive until the end of this brutal business. He would live, I told myself, and so would I.
In another month, I told myself, the blossom would be on the vines. What did it matter if they were no longer my vines? It was a symbol of the eternal cycle of nature, the force of life itself. I had won back land to give to the vines. I had three children. I had made my contribution to the force of life. For a few hours I was almost happy.
An extraordinary thing happened that evening. It was nearly time for the guests to go. Edwin had made it clear that it was a very informal occasion, and there was no entertainment ‒ just a few friends raising a glass to the hope that soon Europe would be at peace. As the first of the guests began to come to say good-night, suddenly Maria Luisa nudged me. ‘Look …!’
Don Paulo stood in the doorway only momentarily, his glance searching for my mother. Serafina, who carried a tray with glasses of champagne, offered it, and he accepted it. Then he went to my mother. ‘A small celebration, Lady Patricia, Mr Fletcher’s note said. I am happy to see you looking so well.’ Then he turned away, caught sight of Juan, and bent to receive his grandson’s embrace. With his hand in Juan’s, he came to me. It was the first time we had looked on each other since the night at Las Ventanas Verdes. He raised his glass. ‘I hope we may soon have a true celebration of peace.’
‘To peace,’ I said, also raising my glass.
He drained his drink, embraced Juan once more, and left. It took a few minutes before the talk in the room started once again. I looked at Edwin Fletcher in puzzlement. ‘Of course I left a note at the bodega,’ he said, ‘but I never imagined he’d come. It seemed only polite, but I hardly know him.’
‘Peace,’ I said slowly. ‘Perhaps one day there truly will be peace.’ And Edwin Fletcher knew I wasn’t talking about the end of the war, not the war between the great powers. I looked at Juan, and knew again the power that rested in my children.
* *
Our sewing circles continued ‒ a year had passed since Carlos’s death, and it was now permissible for me to accept invitations. They came slowly. Almost shyly I made my appearance at a few parties, and found that my status had changed. I was still young, but I was widowed, and the widow of Don Paulo’s son. So young men would take my hand, bow over it, and pass on. The feeling, never spoken, but still tangibly there, that the Blodmores carried bad luck with them, seemed to grow. People were kind, but they did not want to come too close to us. It was as if Don Paulo and the Marquesa had wrought some sort of screen between us and other families. There was no telling what plans the Marquesa might have for me and for my children, and in the meantime it was better not to get too involved.
Life went on at its draggingly slow pace, and the agony in Europe did not end quickly, as we had hoped it would. Edwin Fletcher was almost at a loss to explain it, as were all the generals who actually made and executed the plans. ‘It will end through attrition, finally,’ he said. ‘From sheer exhaustion.’
He had moved out of the house of his Fletcher cousins. ‘It is too much of a good thing,’ he said. ‘I would like to remain friends with them, but an eternal guest is no friend.’ So he took rooms in the town with two of the maiden ladies of a sherry family badly hit by the phylloxera whose fortune had never recovered. It was, of course, Maria Luisa who found the place for him. ‘The sisters Nina and Catalina Hernanos Delgado are kindly souls. They will dote on Mr Fletcher, and take good care of him. Besides, they need the money, little as it is.’
Books came for Edwin as often as the unreliable mail would permit, books he had stored at his parents’ home in England. He brought them to the Plaza de Asturias, ostensibly for him to read when he was free of tutoring Juan and Martin, but he often left them behind, and I knew he did it for me. I must have seemed shockingly ignorant to him, but he was too kind to point out the fact. I began to read. There was so much time, and so little to do. I noticed that most of the books were not of the level which would interest a scholar, and yet were too advanced for Juan so he must have sent for his old schoolbooks especially for me. In a backhanded sort of way he was attempting to make up for the education I had not had. I tried; for his sake I tried.
‘Things will change for women, too,’ he said, ‘when the war is over. They’ll have the vote. They’ve proved what they can do during this war, and it has been promised … So, yes, there will be changes.’ He seemed to be, through these books, trying to prepare me for them.
‘Things may change for women in England,’ Maria Luisa said, and shrugged. ‘But in Spain it will be as it’s always been. Women will only have power when they have money and position. If they are like the Marquesa de Pontevedra, they already have their power and need nothing else. Or they have power through their men, the back-door way. They won’t seek to change that. The Maria Luisas of the world will get along as best they can.’
Edwin Fletcher had no answer to that.
Occasionally, at small gatherings I met Luis. Less frequently he called at the Plaza de Asturias. We tried not to let our looks convey the feelings the
sight of each other aroused. The memories of that terrible night were still sharp and vivid. We were locked in a conspiracy of silence, to which we both had agreed. I missed his close friendship, as I missed the vineyards.
‘You are lonely, Carlota,’ he said to me once when we met at a party, and talked for a few moments when the music drowned our conversation to others.
I shook my head. ‘Not lonely, Luis. Alone. I miss you, my friend.’
He smiled his gentle smile. ‘Some young man will pluck up courage soon ‒’
I shook my head again. ‘No young man, no man, young or old, will take on a penniless widow with three young children. Everyone knows Carlos made a mistake in marrying me. It will not be repeated.’
‘Time, Carlota … time. All things change with time.’
Time was what I dreaded. It stretched before me, emptily. I only saw my children growing up under the dictates of the Marquesa. I saw us spinning out the days at the Plaza de Asturias, trying to make every penny do the work of two, trying to keep what little social position we had in the town, the position which, in truth, was dependant on the goodwill of Don Paulo and the Marquesa. I toyed with the thought of returning to Ireland when the war was over, and knew at once it could not be done. To do that would be to remove my children from the influence of the Marquesa and Don Paulo, and they would do everything they could to prevent it. I knew Don Paulo would welcome the departure of my mother and me, but he clung to his grandchildren. And if I should manage to get us all to Ireland ‒ what then? Where would the money for the children’s education come from? What would I do with my mother, bereft of her tiny, but promising stud? We were back at the same place we had been when my grandfather died, but with three children to provide for as well, and my mother needing now as much care as a child. Whichever direction I looked I could see only the need for money, and our growing dependence on the Marquesa. I even looked far enough into the future to wonder what would become of me when my children were grown, their careers, interests, marriages taking them away from me. The Marquesa would direct all of that as well. I would try to shake the thoughts away when they crowded in. Life could only be lived, borne, if I did not try to look too far ahead. A day at a time. Mañana could be met when it arrived.
The Summer of the Spanish Woman Page 35