by Anne Weale
‘That should do, I think, Sam,’ said his mother, as Rose brought Antonia into a kitchen large enough to contain three old-fashioned pine dressers, but having none of the laminated plastic surfaces of most modern kitchens. She came round the scrubbed deal table and took her guest’s hand between hers. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last. Not that it’s long sine Cal broke this marvellous news to us, but curiosity can make a few days seem a long time. Cal’s one of our favourite people, and we’ve been trying for ages to find a girl good enough for him. Now he’s found one for himself, and we couldn’t be more delighted.’
A few moments later Cal and Tom Rankin came in. When he had kissed his hostess, Cal turned to his bride and, putting an arm round her shoulders, gave her a hug as he said, ‘Here she is, Tom. What do you think of her?’
‘I think a lot of people are going to see what you saw in her, but wonder what she saw in you,’ said the older man, with a grin. He took Antonia’s hand and, to her surprise and pleasure, added the English translation of the traditional Spanish welcome, ‘My house is your house, Dona Antonia.’
‘You know Spain?’ she asked smilingly, trying to seem at ease in the circle of her husband’s arm which now he had dropped to her waist.
‘Not well, but I hope to see more of it. It’s time someone gave you a drink. What would—‘ He broke off as somewhere in the house a telephone started to ring. ‘Davey, look after Mrs. Barnard, will you?’—this to a boy of about eleven who, when she arrived, had been whipping cream with an electric beater.
‘Sherry for my wife, and a gin and tonic for me, please, Davey,’ said Cal, anticipating the boy’s question. ‘Not too much gin as I’m driving.’
‘The Fletchers will be here in a moment. Let’s go into the drawing-room,’ said Fanny, giving Antonia the chance to move away from her husband.
Although it was different structurally, the room to which their hostess led the way at once reminded Antonia of the sala at the Finca de la Felicidad. Later in the evening, when there was time to look at the details of the room, she realised the similarity lay in the worn but still lovely old oriental rugs on the floor, the many books and paintings, the tall blue and white Chinese vases converted into table lamps, the long linen curtains. The Fletchers, who arrived as she was taking her first sip of sherry, were a couple younger than the Rankins, but older than Antonia. Ross Fletcher was about Cal’s age, and his wife, Lilias, was probably in her late twenties.
‘Where did you go for your honeymoon, Mrs. Barnard?’ she enquired, when they had taken their places at the oval table in the dining-room. She and Antonia were seated on either side of their host, and Cal was on Fanny’s right and diagonally opposite his wife.
‘Please use my first name,’ said Antonia. ‘We came to London for our honeymoon. Although my father was English, I’d never been here, so it was interesting to see something of England. Not for Cal perhaps, but very interesting for me.’
To her surprise, everyone laughed at this, and Fanny said, ‘With you to delight his eyes, I don’t suppose Cal would have cared if you’d wanted to go to Timbuctoo.’
‘Anyway, for various reasons our official honeymoon was rather a brief one. Very soon we’re going to have another longer one, and this time I’m going to choose where to go,’ said Cal, with a smiling look at his bride.
‘We had a disastrous honeymoon, didn’t we, Ross?’ said Lilias. ‘We went to the Lakes for a fortnight, and not only did it pour almost our whole time there but we also got really fierce colds. Instead of smelling of Femme, I reeked of Vick, and we did more coughing than kissing.’
Antonia was relieved when the conversation turned from honeymoons to houses and Ross asked her where they were living.
‘And where do you want to live? In London or in the country?’ he asked, when she explained their present house was rented.
‘I don’t mind. It’s up to Cal.’
‘Do you hear that, you long-married wives?’ he said to Lilias and Fanny. ‘You make the most of your bride’s present submissiveness, Cal. It won’t last long, I can tell you. In a year or two there’ll be no question of “It’s up to Cal”. You’ll do as you’re told, like the rest of us.’
He was speaking lightly, and Cal’s tone matched his as he answered, ‘That’s because you didn’t take a firm enough line from the outset, Ross. Women are like dogs—they need a master.’
Lilias looked as if she would argue this provocative statement, but Fanny said smilingly, ‘Don’t rise to the bait, Lilias. I’ve heard Cal on this subject before, and it’s all a big tease. He may be a hard, tough man when it comes to doing business, but I’m sure in his private life Antonia can twist him round her little finger.’
‘Antonia can’t,’ he said dryly. ‘Nor, I hope, does she want to. The really feminine woman doesn’t want to be on terms of equality with a man. She wants them to be complementary: he to lead, she to follow; he to make the major decisions, she the minor; when necessary, he to command and she to obey.’
Tom said, ‘Did you know he was a male chauvinist pig before you married him, Antonia? Or hasn’t Women’s Lib spread to Spain yet?’
Before she could answer, Cal said, ‘Unfortunately most of the ills which afflict northern Europe are spreading to Spain all too rapidly—vandalism, industrial troubles, television advertising which cons people into believing that happiness lies in “getting and spending”. I wouldn’t know about the impact of Women’s Lib in Spain, but I do know that most of the young girls still have a refreshing air of innocence and, because of the compulsory military service, the boys have a manliness about them which often is lacking in other countries.’
After dinner they returned to the drawing-room which, at one end, had double doors leading into a large Victorian conservatory no longer used to house plants but, as Fanny explained, as somewhere to dance when the children had parties.
It was Cal who, when they had had coffee and were chatting about this and that, rose from his chair and went to look through a rack of records.
‘May I put one on?’ he asked Fanny.
‘By all means.’
He put the record on the turntable, keeping the volume at a level which would not disturb the conversation, and came across to Antonia, who at that time was listening but not taking part in an exchange between the two older women.
‘Shall we dance?’ he asked, holding out his hand.
She had never danced with him before and, the music being slow and sweet, as soon as they entered the conservatory, he took her closely in his arms and began to move slowly across the black and white tiles.
The very high heels of her sandals reduced the difference in their heights by nearly ten centimetres, but still he made her feel small, and without defence against his strength if ever he chose to exert it. Probably he never would, and yet when he had said at dinner that women needed a master, there had been a glint of steel as well as amusement in-her eyes. She suspected that Fanny was wrong in thinking he had meant only to tease them.
Cal was not like the two other men. There was something different about him. She didn’t know the others’ history, but she thought it probable that their forebears had lived in comfort for many decades, whereas Cal was only two generations removed from the grinding hardship of the mines.
She felt he had in him a kind of residual stamina and grit which had been bred out of the other men by too many generations of inherited ease. Tom and Ross would be good providers and protectors as long as the world in which they lived followed its normal course. But Cal was the kind of man who, if his world was suddenly disrupted by war, economic depression or some form of natural disaster, would still find a way to look after those in his care. He was a man who, if he found himself stranded in a desert or a jungle, would survive when other men died because he would never give up as long as he had an ounce of endurance left in him.
Why dancing with him should put these thoughts into her mind she could not tell, unless it was the touch of his long hard thighs a
gainst her softer legs, and the solid strength of his shoulder under her fingers.
His arms tightened round her, pressing her even closer to him. Knowing she could not protest, he touched his lips to her temple. They must look just as newlyweds should, still deeply immersed in each other.
‘We must make this a habit,’ he murmured, close to her ear, and she knew without looking that a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth.
She felt a sudden spasm of vexation that always it was he who teased her, never she who could make mock of him. Afterwards, she thought she must have had a little too much of the wine at dinner. Not that she was unused to wine but, their food being mostly highly seasoned, the Spanish tended to drink red vino corriente—their equivalent of vin ordinaire—with their meals, rather than the potent wine which their host had given them that evening, mentioning that it was a bin end bargain and of higher quality than, as he put it, ‘our usual plonk.’
If it was not the wine, she could not imagine what impelled her suddenly to relax against him, her free arm sliding upwards until the whole length of her forearm was resting on his broad shoulders.
The hand holding her hand tightened. The hand on the small of her back moved upwards between her shoulder-blades. He turned her, so that what he did next was hidden from the people in the inner room. Then he ran the tips of his fingers slowly, sensuously along her spine from the nape of her neck right down to the base of her spine.
‘Don’t start anything you aren’t prepared to finish,’ he said softly.
Looking upwards and meeting his eyes, Antonia saw in them the hot glitter she had seen once before, on their wedding night.
Instinctively she recoiled, and Cal did not prevent her from drawing away. The gleam left his eyes, and his smiling mouth straightened and hardened. From then until the record ended, he held her as if she were someone with whom he was on the most formal terms.
‘Drop in by yourself, any time,’ said Fanny warmly to Antonia, when some time after midnight the Barnards were taking leave of her. ‘It can be lonely at first in a new country, although once you’ve found yourselves a house you’ll be run off your feet finding the right things to fill it. What fun it will be! I can see by your clothes you have superb taste. You’ve found yourself a treasure, Cal my dear—but not perhaps totally undeserved.’ She tucked her arm through his and gave him an affectionate squeeze. ‘By goom, ‘e’s a luvly lad, our Caleb.’
He grinned and bent his tall head to kiss her on the cheek. As they left the house, his hand was on his wife’s shoulder, and he put her into the passenger seat with his usual courtesy. But as they began the drive home and the minutes passed and he made no attempt to discuss the dinner party with her, a swift, furtive glance at his face revealed a more intimidating expression than she had seen on it so far.
In a low voice, she said, ‘I—I’m sorry I made you angry while we were dancing.’
He didn’t answer, and being ignored changed her contrition to anger. She determined to say nothing more, not even goodnight.
But her plan to enter the house and stalk up to her room while he was putting the car away was frustrated by the fact that her latch-key was in another bag, and she did not want to ring the bell in case Marcos and Rocío were in bed, and asleep.
She had to wait until Cal came to unlock the door. But although, having done so, he stood aside for her to pass, as she headed quickly for the staircase he ordered her quietly to wait. And it was an order she dared not defy for, in spite of the low voice in which he uttered it, there was no mistaking the steely note of command.
With her hand on the newel post, Antonia turned, raising her dark wing-like eyebrows at him.
He came close to where she was standing on the bottom stair, and suddenly she was reminded of the very first time they had met on a stony mule-track in Spain.
‘You didn’t make me angry, Antonia. You made me want to make love to you, and when a woman excites a man’s desire for her with no intention of gratifying it, she plays a very dangerous game. Girls who do it to callow boys can find themselves being raped, and men have been known to kill women for playing that game once too often. Don’t ever play it with me, unless you are ready to take the consequences. Because the next time you press yourself against me, I shall take it you are as impatient for me as I am for you. Goodnight.’ He turned and went into the sitting-room, closing the door behind him.
As she climbed the rest of the flight, Antonia found herself shaking with a mixture of fear, mortification and resentment. Cal had shown her a side of himself which she had sometimes suspected, but never seen: a ruthless, implacable side which, although seldom apparent in his private life, must always be there, underlying the surface urbanity. He had spoken to her in a tone which suggested that not only was he her husband but also her master, and that, if he chose, he could do exactly as he pleased with her.
Did you know he was a male chauvinist pig before you married him, Antonia? Tom had asked her.
It had been a joking remark at a table of people all of whom seemed far too civilised for the women ever to harbour rebellious feelings towards their husbands. But when Cal had said ‘he to command, she to obey’, he had meant it. Antonia had a frightening feeling that if she were to beg him to release her, he would not only refuse but was capable of taking her by force. Not rough, brutal force, but nonetheless force of a kind.
Although she saw little of him, except in the evenings, on the days when he was busy with board meetings and conferences, Cal devoted one day of each week to showing his bride more of England.
Sometimes, when he was flying to a distant part of the provinces to visit a works, he took her with him, although she had to amuse herself while he was on his tour of inspection. He was capable of flying the plane himself, she discovered. But he rarely took the controls, preferring to spend the time studying reports. Antonia greatly enjoyed these flights because the aircraft flew at an altitude which enabled her to see more of the patchwork of fields, woods and towns than was possible from an airline plane.
When they arrived at their destination, a chauffeur-driven car would take her to the centre of the nearest town, or drop her off there if it was on the way to the place which her husband was visiting. Occasionally he would meet her for lunch, but more often he would have lunch at the works and she would eat in a coffee bar.
It was typical of him that he didn’t leave her to wander about without knowing what was of interest and where it was located. Always, he would give her a list of the outstanding features of the place. The list would be attached to a map of the town, and doubtless this was procured by one of his secretaries. But the list would be written in his own bold, clear hand, and based on his own experience of the place, or on enquiries he had made.
In this way, at Coventry, Antonia saw the modern rose sandstone cathedral and the controversial seventy-five-foot-high tapestry, designed by the artist Graham Sutherland and woven in France, above the altar.
In Birmingham, which Cal had told her was about the same size as Barcelona although it was in the centre of the country and not a great seaport like Spain’s second city, he sent her to the Art Gallery to look at paintings by Burne-Jones and by William Morris, whose name she knew because there were several wallpapers, designed by him and reproduced by Sandersons, in the house they were renting.
On their expeditions together they usually went into the country, and one of their happiest outings was the day he took her to see the four Claydon villages—Steeple Claydon, Botolph Claydon, Middle Claydon and East Claydon—in a wooded part of Buckinghamshire.
This was England as she had imagined it; black and white thatched cottages, winding lanes, ancient country churches in grassy churchyards with weather-faded inscriptions, some of them dating back to the eighteenth century, on leaning, lichened headstones. These churchyards were very different from the white-walled, cypress-shaded cemeteries on the outskirts of Spanish villages.
They had a picnic lunch inside the gate of a field
, which she enjoyed all the more because Cal did not mention any personal matters but talked about industrial psychology, a subject in which he was keenly interested. It was an incongruous topic in such pastoral surroundings, but she listened attentively, thankful that he was not in a mood to watch her with mocking eyes and take delight in upsetting her composure.
After lunch they went to see Claydon House, long the house of the Verney family, and now a National Trust property. In an effort to improve her knowledge of English history, a few days earlier Antonia had begun to read a biography of Florence Nightingale, the hospital reformer, first famous as the Lady of the Lamp in the Crimean War.
It was not until, as they entered the mansion, Cal bought a guide to the house for her, that she discovered that a former Lady Verney, Parthenope, was the sister of Miss Nightingale, and that the house contained a museum of Nightingale mementoes in the rooms where Florence had stayed when visiting Parthenope.
‘Did you know of Miss Nightingale’s association with this house?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, and I thought it might make the book you’re reading more interesting. Often, seeing people’s intimate possessions can bring them alive more vividly than anything else.’
Antonia found herself touched by his interest in what she was doing. She had left the book about the sitting-room, but had not expected him to bother to glance at it.
One evening Cal said to her, ‘I hope you haven’t any engagements tomorrow?’
‘No, none. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’ve arranged a lunch date for you. One o’clock at the Hyde Park Hotel.’
‘With you?’
‘No, with your uncle.’
‘Tio Joaquin! He’s coming to London?’
‘Only for three or four hours. He’s on business in Paris for several days, and he telephoned me this morning and asked me to book a table somewhere reasonably quiet. I shan’t join you. As it’s only a flying visit you’ll enjoy a tête-à-tête with him.’