visitor ended up staying the night in a guest room at Lowliam and was in no
hurry, whatsoever, to depart the following morning.
Lydia and her sisters had been brought up to love music by their mother,
who had trained at the Royal Conservatory in Dublin. Good fortune would
have it that Lonfranco was greeted the following morning by the sound of
sisters engaged in recital. This particular piece was a sonata for flute, piano,
and violin. The melody sent his spirits soaring as he listened discreetly, hidden
from sight.
When Mrs. Peters found the shy foreigner listening tentatively in the
hallway, she invited him to take a seat in the parlor and listen in comfort. All
the men of Lowliam had long since departed to their daily toils, and Lonfranco
was ‘forced’ to spend the morning in the company of the ladies.
When the recital concluded, it was Lonfranco’s turn to entertain the
Peters women. Toby, the fifth eldest brother, had in his possession an old, badly
tuned guitar that the guest had spotted the night before during a tour of
the household. After delicately retuning the instrument, the man from South
America launched into an emotional love song from his adopted country. The
voice was strangely melodic for one with no formal training, and the effect on
the women was dramatic. Tears welled in Lydia’s eyes. Lonfranco stopped at
once upon seeing this.
“Ladies, my humble apologies if I have upset you. I will cease this at
once.”
He began to put the guitar down when Lydia reached out and touched
his arm.
“Please, Señor, do not take offense. Your music reminds me so much of
the young men I once knew, over there. We used music to give them hope and
peace after everything else had failed. Please, Señor, please continue. It was
wonderful. It . . . it touched me deeply.”
There is a spark there after all, Lonfranco thought. Music could be his
bellows to fan the flames of passion.
A stroll in the garden gave them a chance to be alone, before the men
returned for the noonday meal. He confessed the obvious to Lydia, that he was
smitten by her and would like to stay in contact with her if she would not be
offended.
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Lydia countered by asking endless questions about his life in Argentina.
She had already been told certain facts by her mother. Señor De Seta was a
widower with no children, extremely wealthy, and a man of great influence
on both sides of the Atlantic. But she also wanted to know the more personal
details. Where did he live? How had he adapted to a life alone? What was
Buenos Aires like? Was there room for another woman in his life? His kiss
both startled and reassured her that there was.
Lonfranco stayed on at Lowliam for the next four days. When it was time
to depart for Southampton to catch his passage back to Argentina, Lydia and
Liam made the journey with him. His bond to the Peters family had cemented
quickly, and he invited whichever of the troupe that could make the crossing to
visit him in Argentina the following February. Liam Peters was heartened by
the suggestion, for that disgusting month happened to be bleak midwinter in
England, but midsummer in Buenos Aires.
Liam pretended to be interested in the structure of the ship’s hull while
the two lovers said their passionate good-byes on the wharf. The next time
Lonfranco set foot on English soil again, it would be one year hence, on the
occasion of his marriage to Lydia Anne Peters.
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Chapter Seven
The nuptials followed eleven months of ardent transatlantic
correspondence and a month-long visit to Argentina by Lydia and her
father. The young English woman had taken to studying Spanish in
preparation for her journey, and Lonfranco was surprised at her fluency and ease
with the language.
The visitors were escorted on grand tours of the capital and the surrounding
environs, with an accommodating stop at one of the many British pubs or cafés
always on the itinerary, lest Liam suffer from liquid culture shock. Lonfranco’s
special guests were treated to a performance at the Colon Opera House, a boat
cruise on the Rio de la Plata, a gala ball at Casa San Marco, and a polo match
at the very British Hurlingham Club, where Lonfranco vindicated himself for
his poor showing in his last match in England. All this and much more were
crammed into a very exhausting two weeks.
Finally it was time to depart for the much anticipated trip to Buenos
Recuerdos. Liam in particular had had his fill of the city life and the transplanted
snobs from ‘over ’ome.’ He told Lonfranco that he longed to fill his nostrils with
the smell of manure again.
Pergamino was just the place to satisfy his desire. Liam seemed a new
man as he spent hours inspecting livestock and learning about South American
breeding techniques. He was constantly in the company of Hector Brown,
the bilingual grandson of transplanted English stock. Brown had attained
the position of head overseer of the cattle operation at Buenos Recuerdos, and
was Lonfranco’s most trusted employee. This, of course, freed the proprietor
of the estancia to spend as much time as he pleased exploring the Pampas on
horseback with his ladylove. A guitar was always in evidence on these outings,
and often after a picnic lunch and several soulful tunes, they would make love
on a blanket ensconced in a world of their own.
Lydia’s attitude toward her sexuality had been strongly influenced by her
wartime experiences. Life had seemed so insignificant at the time, and pleasures
so fleeting. She had given herself first to a young captain in the Blackwatch
regiment, and then had heard of his death less than a month later. There had
been others after him, but she never considered herself promiscuous. She wanted
to give, to soothe, to comfort these poor boys to whom life had dealt aces and
eights. A dead man’s hand.
JAMES McCREATH
Lydia had not resisted Lonfranco’s amorous advances as they strolled in
that wooded glen near Lowliam many months before. She was afraid of losing
him, as she had all the others, but she also felt a stronger passion for this Latin
lover than she had ever previously experienced. After their relationship had
been consummated, she confessed her past liaisons with a forthrightness that
surprised, but did not offend her suitor. The slate was clean as far as he was
concerned, and he had told her so. The past was in the past, and it would stay
there forever. The topic was never discussed again.
Their parting was excruciatingly painful, and the months leading up to
the wedding seemed to move with the speed of a tortoise. When the wedding
party finally arrived from Argentina, it included several members of Porteño
society whom Lydia had preciously met, as well as a sprinkling of polo players
and business associates. In total, thirty-six people made the voyage from the
Southern Hemisphere to take part in the most talked about, widely publicized
social event in High Wycombe since the end of the war.
Lonfranco’
s English business associates turned out in full force, kidnapping
him on his last night as a single gentleman, and forcing him to take part in
their loss of bachelorhood rituals. It mattered not that he was a widower, not a
bachelor, as he loudly protested.
“A red herring, old chap. Now come on, another pint and chug-a-lug this
time!” came the anonymous reply.
The ceremony, while Roman Catholic, did not offend the vast majority
of guests who were Church of England followers. The priest welcomed them
warmly, and even inserted a prayer and one hymn from their solemnization of
matrimony service so that the Anglicans would feel at ease.
As expected, Liam Peters saw to it that no one left the reception hungry or
thirsty, and the festivities continued until dawn. The newlyweds stole away to
the Hillingdon Inn just after midnight and took up lodging in the room where
Lonfranco had stayed the year before. It was the room in which they had been
alone together, ever so briefly, for the first time.
A honeymoon in Italy followed, then a short visit to Lowliam to say their
good-byes, and it was off to Argentina to start a new life together. That life
would be blessed by a baby in September of 1921, and Lonfranco finally felt
that his life was complete and fulfilled with the birth of his infant son.
Named Peter Figueroa De Seta, after the Peters’ surname and Lonfranco’s
mentor, the boy would be the shining star in his parent’s constellation. The
only cloud that appeared in the De Seta’s bright and happy life together was
Lydia’s inability to become pregnant again, due to complications during Peter’s
birth.
Lonfranco was not upset in the least at this news, for having lost a wife
and baby during childbirth already, he was thankful that he would not have to
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experience that ordeal again. He had his son, and the bloodline would endure.
What more could a man ask for?
The years passed quickly, with good health and financial success blessing
the De Seta household. Peter grew to be an intelligent, sensitive young man
with a faculty for the sciences. He was enrolled in the Newton Academy at
age six, and graduated twelve years later, cum laude and class president. He
continued on to medical school at the academy and became one of the top
pediatric surgeons in the country.
Life for Lydia and Lonfranco was idyllic during those years. Their love for
each other never faltered, and they doted on their son as if nothing else in the
world mattered. Lonfranco taught him to ride and play the guitar, much as old
Roc Sena had done for him. The boy was instilled with a love of the land and
its wildlife, as well as a respect for the almighty peso and the benefits that hard
work could reap.
He inherited his gentleness and tranquility from his mother. She read to
him in English, so that he would become fluent at an early age. She taught him
of the great poets and writers, and also of the wonders of the world and beyond.
She shared with him her stories of the horrors of war and warned him to always
avoid armed confrontation as a solution to a problem. She imbued him with a
true love for children with the many stories of her own childhood as one twelfth
of Liam Peters’ offspring.
It was with Lydia’s blessing that Peter decided to practice pediatric
medicine instead of pursuing a career in the family business, as his father
would have preferred. Lonfranco was not unduly upset about his son’s chosen
vocation and actually found the fact that there was an esteemed surgeon in the
family, a source of great pride.
The three De Seta’s traveled to England and Europe on many occasions to
renew old acquaintances with family and friends. All that came to an abrupt
halt in 1939, the year that Peter entered medical school and Adolph Hitler
entered Poland.
England was at war with Germany for the second time in two decades,
and, once again, the Peters family would encounter the grim reaper.
Brothers Edward and Toby, the guitar enthusiast, would perish in the
insanity that swept across Europe and infested the Pacific Rim. Argentina
again remained neutral, although the advances in mechanized transportation,
especially in the aviation field, made the world a much smaller place.
‘Splendid isolationism’ had become a phrase borrowed from the Americans
before their entry into the first Great War. Both the Allied and Axis powers
exerted enough pressure on Argentina to make the reality of the phrase far
from splendid. Nevertheless, by 1945, the storm had been weathered and life
returned to normal for the globe-trotting elder De Setas.
9
JAMES McCREATH
As always, Argentine politics remained volatile during this period, with
a succession of governments attaining then losing the favor of the masses.
Lonfranco continued to use his influence wisely, and this allowed the family
assets to continue to prosper.
In February of 1946, an opportunistic army officer by the name of Juan
Domingo Perón swept to power and began what would become the most
remarkable political career in Argentine history.
Perón had great appeal with the common people, but he also had a
firm grasp of the economic realities of the time. The military was a valuable
asset when it came to dealing with dissidents or troublemakers, but it was
the bankers and financiers that would determine the real fate of his regime.
The master politician played all the angles to perfection. Despite several well
documented public atrocities, Perón remained in the presidential palace for the
next nine years.
Juan Perón’s ascent to the presidency occurred in the same year as Peter
De Seta’s ascent to the surgical staff of the Children’s Hospital of Buenos Aires.
A kind and sympathetic practitioner, Peter was at his best in the company of
ailing youngsters.
Always wanting to do more for his young patients, he easily convinced his
philanthropic father to establish a summer camp for terminally ill children on
the banks of the Rio de la Plata, north of the city near Tigre.
The camp, optimistically named ‘No Se Preocupe’ or ‘Don’t Worry!’ was
Peter’s pride and joy. Every spare moment he could find was spent planning
further expansion or fundraising for new facilities.
His two other passions were the classical guitar, with which he often
entertained his adoring charges, and surprisingly for such a gentle man,
the Boca Juniors football team. Hard times had fallen on his alma mater’s
professional club, and Newton’s once lofty Prefects languished in the depth of
the Argentine third division table.
It was the pride, the color, and the passion of the Boca Junior’s fans that
were the siren’s call to Peter. The first time he ever witnessed a match at the
Bombonera, their raucous, rollicking, intimate stadium, he knew that he was
hooked. Perhaps it was his Italian roots finding a home and a cause, for there
was real passion in the heart of Peter De Seta, too, and on game days he would
often become one of ‘the bad and the brave’ on the Bomb
onera terraces.
He would buy blocks of tickets and give them away to the soccer mad
parents of his patients. It was not unusual to see a star player visiting one of
Peter’s wards in the hospital or teaching the children the game they loved on
the beach at No Se Preocupe.
One of the more prominent local families in Tigre happened to have a
direct connection to camp No Se Preocupe. Ernesto Robillar owned several
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ferries that plied the waters of the Tigre delta as tourist vessels. On weekends,
when hundreds of Porteños took the hour-long train ride to Tigre, they would
most likely step aboard one of Robillar’s boats. There they would continue
their escape further out into the delta, where parks lined with weeping willows
embraced small restaurants and hotels. It was a profitable livelihood for
Robillar, and it allowed his family to enjoy a lifestyle unlike anything available
in Buenos Aires.
Unfortunately, Ernesto Robillar’s youngest son, one of three sons and a
daughter, had come in contact with the polio virus. The disabling disease had
wasted the youngster’s body to the point where he was paraplegic. The child
had spent several months in the Children’s Hospital in Buenos Aires under the
care of Dr. Peter De Seta.
When the reality of the boy’s terminal situation was relayed to his parents,
Peter tried to lessen the shock by inviting them to bring young Ernesto Jr. to
No Se Preocupe as often as he was able. The staff at the camp was particularly
adept at counseling both parents and children on how to face death with peace
in their hearts and the joy of being with their God in the afterlife.
Even at ten years of age and in spite of his disability, Ernesto Jr. was a big
football fan, a supporter of the River Plate team. He and Peter would engage in
spirited discussions on the merits of their respective loyalties. The boy’s mind
was still as sharp as a tack, and he displayed a knowledge of the strategies of the
game that left Peter scratching his head in amazement.
Ernesto Jr. also had a very earthy sense of humor. That, combined with
his wandering hands, would often cause him to be reprimanded for telling off-
color stories to the other children on his ward or pinching the behinds of the
female nursing staff.
Privately, Peter would recount Ernesto’s antics to his male peers at the
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