The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  II

  Elena had not gone to Doñana either. She spent a good deal of time with the Marquesa; she seemed very confident of her position with the Marquesa, but at the same time she was careful. Like all the rest of the family she had her interests to protect. She had been the Marquesa’s protégée; she knew the rules.

  She was sitting alone by the fire in the great salon when I entered. We ‒ the Marquesa, Maria Luisa, and whoever else had stayed away from the hunting that day would gather here for the still elaborate ceremony of tea. Elena was smoking a cigarette, gazing into the flames; she nodded in a detached sort of fashion as I came nearer.

  ‘I’ll be glad when I’m out of here,’ she said, unexpectedly. Then she laughed. ‘Oh, don’t look so shocked. For a Blodmore, you know, at times you’re so deadly earnest! It isn’t usually their style. Sometimes I can hardly believe it when I hear you going on about your vineyards and your bodega, how many hectares of albariza, how many butts for export. It all bores me to death. All this family business. All pretending to be so united, when all we’re waiting for is for the old one to die to see how it’s all carved up. There’s so much more than a few butts of sherry to be parcelled out. We’re like the buzzards over there …’ She nodded in the direction of the river and Doñana. ‘The way we circle about the old woman. I wonder how many more years? She might live to be a hundred.’

  I sat down opposite her. I didn’t want the fact of standing over her to seem to give me an advantage. ‘Has it occurred to you that perhaps I like the vineyards ‒ like the bodega? And as for the Marquesa, as you well know, she and I haven’t always been friends. We are thrown together now because of the bodega business …’

  She flicked the butt of her cigarette into the fire. ‘Oh, rubbish! You’re no different from any of us. Your children know exactly how to play up to her. Your Juan has a head on his shoulders. He plays her like the matador with the cape.’

  ‘You both flatter him and insult him at the same time.’

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, don’t let’s get too intense about this. Sometimes you’re more Spanish than the Spanish. The real matriarch. Your only care is your children. That’s what you’d like everyone to think. But you’re still in love with Richard, aren’t you? And he’s bemused into thinking he wants you.’

  ‘I prefer not to discuss Richard.’

  ‘You prefer! Well, talk about it or not, as you like. It doesn’t make any difference to me. The situation’s quite safe. I know you won’t leave here. You won’t leave your children and your nice cosy little world to go to him. And he will stick at Clonmara for want of anything better to do. Oh, yes ‒ we have a nice accommodation, Richard and I. I’m the perfect wife in that hole in Ireland, and then there’s the flat in London, which is where I really begin to live. There, I do as I like. Richard doesn’t care. He hasn’t cared for a long time now. Almost from the beginning. Funny, isn’t it, the way you got yourself into my life? You got Carlos. I was half in love with Carlos, and probably would have been completely in love with him if my aunt had permitted it. But she chose Richard for me instead ‒ or rather she chose Clonmara. And then that cold fish, Richard, whom I thought couldn’t love anyone at all, fell head over heels for a silly little girl who didn’t know anything except how to sit a horse.’

  She smoothed the folds of her tweed skirt thoughtfully, and looked across then to me. ‘Still tight-lipped, aren’t you? Not saying anything. If you could just let yourself be honest. It’s Richard you want, but you also want everything that’s here, and anything the Marquesa cares to give your children. So you must wait for one before you can take the other. You’ve taken so much of this little world already, haven’t you? And to think you came here a penniless nothing! You got Luis’s money, and in some way no one can understand, you cheated the others of their share of Don Paulo’s estate.’

  ‘It is a well-known fact that Don Paulo never favoured me. In fact he not only didn’t favour me, he was actively hostile to me. I married his favourite son. He had looked for a much better marriage for him.’

  ‘Yes ‒ he hoped for me for Carlos, until Tía Isabel decided otherwise. Well, you won him over. He didn’t leave you a third of his estate because he hated you. You might say you won your way to him by producing a string of children. Well, that’s a gift only nature can give. I suppose you thank God every day for the gift of fertility, especially in a family where it’s been singularly lacking on both sides.’ She laughed crudely. ‘What a joke! All you had to do was lie back and enjoy it. And in the end everything came to you. Through Carlos ‒ through Luis. And now you wait for what will come through Tía Isabel.’ She leaned forward. ‘Well, let me tell you something. You will never have Richard. I will never give him up to you. I will stay married to him as long as I live. This last thing you’ll never get. And as for Tía Isabel … in the end, blood is thicker than water. She always meant to have Clonmara, though God only knows why. She wanted to dominate the Blodmores. Through me she can do both things. We will wait, both of us, and you will find that what I’m saying is true. Oh, yes, you’ll dominate the bodega, but who cares about that? I, of course, will have the title of Pontevedra and the estates, and Edward after me. The rest … all the rest of it, will be mine. If you’re honest you have to admit it ‒’

  ‘What must Carlota admit?’ The door had opened soundlessly at the far end of the long salon. The Marquesa stood there, leaning heavily on her cane, her face parchment-coloured above her black dress.

  Elena turned smoothly, apparently not in the least perturbed, though neither of us knew how long the Marquesa had been there, or how keen her hearing still was.

  ‘Bull-fighting, Tía Isabel. Carlota and I were talking about the bulls she sells for the corrida, and still she will not admit she hates bull-fighting. I was asking her to be honest, just for once.’

  III

  It happened that night, our last night at Sanlucar. They had all returned from the hunting at Doñana flushed with the exhilaration of their sport, from a day in the crisp air, hungry and pleasantly tired. Dinner had been unusually festive. We all had the sense of an occasion, the eve of a dispersal, and at the same time a chilling foreboding that we would never gather here in this same fashion again. Don Paulo was missing, but his spirit remained; the Marquesa as usual dominated the gathering, but she appeared old and tired. The last night no outsiders were invited; it was an ingathering of the family, although of all of us there, only Elena and her two sons were tied to the Marquesa by blood. But we were Don Paulo’s family, and so hers.

  To mark the occasion even Luisa and Tomás were allowed to stay up for the late dinner. There were many courses; the wine was drunk freely. In the salon after dinner when the coffee and brandy were passed around, and the men had come to join us, Martin produced his guitar. This was the one gift he had which made him different from the others. All of them were excellent horsemen, all of them, from time to time, plucked a guitar. But for Martin it had now become a serious undertaking. He hardly ever played flamenco, though when he did it was with a far greater understanding of the art than any of the others possessed. His passion was the classical guitar, and he and Edwin Fletcher spent much time transposing the works of the great masters into a literature for his instrument. I had a feeling that most of the young ones would have preferred flamenco, but they were forced into silence as Martin played Bach.

  ‘You’d never imagine, would you,’ I heard Ignacio say to Pedro, ‘that he is the grandson of a gypsy.’ I was meant to hear it.

  The Marquesa, however, approved, and called for more. We listened to de Falla and Granados and Albéniz. At the end the Marquesa beckoned Martin to her. ‘You are much more accomplished than I supposed. Find out the best teachers. You shall go to them.’

  Her words caused a little stir through the room. Young men might play an instrument as a hobby, an entertainment. They were not expected to study it seriously. Where, everyone was wondering, did this fit in with Martin’s future in the bodega, or did the M
arquesa mean to make him independent in order to study further? On the faces of Pedro and Ignacio I read the two opposite reactions of pleasure at the thought that Martin might be kept out of the bodega and give their own sons more chance for advancement, and concern that his unexpected gift made him stand too large in the Marquesa’s esteem. It was the usual family situation, a step forward, a step back. The only thing that united us was the jostling for the Marquesa’s favour, and watching her as she looked around after her announcement, I knew she was perfectly aware of this.

  Martin then made a gesture to the preference of his audience with a popular seguidilla, all the young ones joining in to sing the coplas, the verses, swaying and tapping their feet to the rhythm. It all finished on a lively, good-humoured note, all of us going to bid the Marquesa good-night, and good-bye, as we would be gone in the morning before she was downstairs. There were a few more bursts of song as we left the salon and started upstairs. My mother was one of the first, her body still moving a little to the remembered rhythm; Tomás’s arm was under hers as they climbed the great wide staircase together. Then, who knew whether from too much brandy, or because she was still half-dancing, the ancient satin shoe caught in a ruffle of frayed lace at the hem of her long dress, we heard her give a little cry, and then she was crashing down the stairs. Tomás, who tried to prevent the fall, was pulled with her. They ended in a tangle at the bottom.

  For a moment there was dead silence through the hall. Tomás stirred, and tried to move against the weight of my mother on top of him. Then everyone was about them, lifting. Tomás was on his feet his face deadly white. ‘Granny ‒ Granny!’ For a while her eyes remained closed. Then she opened them, blinked several times, and said, ‘I seem to have been unseated.’ Very gingerly she began to sit up. I didn’t want her to move, but she resisted me. ‘Oh, Charlie, stop fussing! What’s a little tumble now and again? Just so long as you don’t hurt the horse. Did I hurt you, Tomás? Sorry, old boy. I’ll try to be more careful next time. Try to fall clear.’

  A servant was offering her brandy, which she didn’t need, but which she still drank. By now she was sitting on the bottom step, her dress torn, her hair tumbled about her shoulders. But the colour had returned to her face, and to Tomás’s also. He was even starting to laugh, thinking it all a joke.

  Elena’s voice came clearly. ‘That old fool. She’s quite mad ‒ and drunk. She shouldn’t be allowed near the children. She’s a danger to herself and everyone else. Probably set the house on fire one night. She really ought to be locked up for her own good ‒’

  ‘Elena!’ Richard tried to silence her.

  She shrugged off his protest. ‘Well, everyone knows she’s been out of her mind since that accident with Carlos. She should be locked up, I tell you!’

  The group around my mother fell back a little, not knowing how to cover the words. She had heard it all, and her face, which had been warming with colour, went white again. Shaking away the hands that sought to help her, she grasped the newel post and pulled herself to her feet; she gazed at Elena with a pitiable look of fear and unbelief. Her first words were incomprehensible, a sort of gibberish. Then she managed to make sense. ‘You’d shut me up! You’d put me in that place ‒ that awful place. I’d rather die than go into that place … I knew what she was talking about; the memory of the inmates of the asylum of Nuestra Señora de Mercedes she had once seen returned to her.

  ‘Mother … it’s all right. Let’s go up to bed now.’

  As if through a fog she seemed to recognise my voice. ‘Charlie, you promised! You promised you’d never let me be put in that place.’

  ‘You never shall. I promise. Now ‒’

  Elena broke in again. ‘Well, that’s your risk, Carlota. Personally, I wouldn’t want to have what she might do on my conscience.’ My mother looked at her, her eyes widening, the look of fear fading from them. ‘You! I remember you! You’re the one who came and took Clonmara. You took everything! Stole it! And now you want to shut me up in that terrible place. Shut me away from everyone. Bury me! Well, you won’t. I’ll die before I’ll be shut away, but I’ll kill you first ‒’

  She lurched towards Elena. The movement was so quick and unexpected that none of us were able to restrain her in time. Her hand tore at Elena’s face, and when Elena staggered back, her cheek was marked with a long, bloody scratch. She recovered herself quickly, and retaliated with a sharp blow with her open hand across my mother’s face. ‘You old maniac! You should be locked up!’

  Richard interposed himself between them. ‘Elena! ‒ you shouldn’t have touched her. Can’t you see she’s ‒’

  ‘I can see she’s mad, and dangerous. Now get her away from me ‒’

  ‘What is this?’ The Marquesa was standing in the doorway of the salon. ‘Have you descended to some sort of brawling now?’ A dozen explanations reached her at once. I didn’t try to give any. I took my mother’s arm, and with Maria Luisa on the other side we went slowly up the stairs. By the time we reached the top, silence had fallen on the group below once more. They stood motionless, gazing up at us. All that could be heard were my mother’s words, repeated over and over, amid her strangled sobs. ‘You promised, Charlie. You promised …’

  Chapter Five

  I

  Perhaps, in many ways, that was the last gathering of the family. We would be together at other times, the same faces, the same people, but never again would we do it with the old sense that our little world was tight and immutable … Forces which we had long thrust to the background of our minds broke through. We carried on ‒ we took in our harvests, we saw the musts turn into wine, the solera was renewed; we watched our children grow up, some were married and more children born, but never again did we have the old certainty that this generation and the next would inherit the Spain of their fathers. All that was changed.

  The new year, 1931, brought the King’s announcement of the restoration of the constitution, and fixed the date for parliamentary elections in March. There was a popular demand for a constituent assembly, and in April the municipal elections brought an overwhelming victory for the Republicans. Their leader Zamora demanded the King’s abdication. Two days later, on April 14th, King Alfonso XIII left Spain, but without abdicating. Zamora set up a provisional government, with himself as president. When in June the elections came, the Republican-Socialist party had a huge majority. By November a committee of the Assembly declared the King guilty of high treason and forbade his return to Spain. The royal property was confiscated.

  The only certainty we had then was that no matter what happened, our world was changed, and we could never return to the old certainties. I remembered the King at Doñana in that informal gathering who had come to hunt with him. I remembered the chair he had used, his signed photograph on the wall. We could not turn back the clock, undo the resentments and the injustices that had brought this about. Spain had moved too slowly; no one could make up the centuries in a few years.

  We woke one morning in December that year to read that we were a democracy. Everyone would have the vote to determine who would go to the single-chamber parliament, the Cortes, which would sit for four years. The president was to be chosen by an electoral college, and no army officer, or member of the clergy was to be eligible for this office. The constitution proclaimed complete religious freedom, and separated Church and State. The Church was no longer to run the schools. Church property was to be nationalised. We were told that the government would have the power to take over private property, and to nationalise large estates.

  That day I walked the bodega in a daze of disbelief. I even went out to the vineyard house and looked down the long, orderly rows of well-tended vines. The workers were there just the same. Mateo came to greet me, and said nothing about what was happening. I walked over to Las Ventanas Verdes and only there did I see fear and concern in the faces of Conceptión and Antonio. In their way, they had as much to lose as any of the vineyard owners and the bodega owners. They had the jobs of their
sons, the security of their old age. Conceptión wept a little as we shared a copita in the sun in the courtyard. ‘They say it is for the people, but how will the people just come in and run the vineyards, the bodegas? I don’t understand. Does this ‒’ she gestured to the house about her, the glimpse of the slopes beyond, ‘does this belong to the government now? And who will pay the wages?’

  I had, of course, no answer. Nor did the Marquesa when I sat with her in the office at the bodega which had been Don Paulo’s.

  ‘Who indeed will pay the wages?’ she demanded, tossing the newspaper down on the desk. She, of course, had more to lose than any of us. How many of Barcelona’s factories did she own, or partly own? ‒ and Barcelona was the capital of Catalonia, which had been given a measure of autonomy. And what of the estates in Galicia, which was known to be heavily Republican? ‒ would they be taken away from her? How much of the output of the Rio Tinto mines and the mines in Asturias would she be allowed to keep? ‘We shall soon have to have the priests as permanent guests in our homes ‒ that is, if they allow any priests to stay. Or if they don’t shoot them all.’