Authors: Jean S. MacLeod
Meeting in Madrid (4 page)
‘Tell me about the
hacienda
,’ she said.
‘Oh, it’s beautiful, of course, and the climate is perfect—neither too hot nor too cold, even in winter—but it is so isolated you just wouldn’t believe!’ Teresa’s face clouded. ‘There is nothing for me to do all day except ride or swim or go visiting on the neighbouring estates and obey my stepmother because she is devastated by my father’s death. That was an accident. There were ugly rumours, but I don’t believe Jaime had anything to do with it. I think my father had a quarrel with someone else.’
Catherine drew back aghast at what she had just heard.
‘I wouldn’t repeat that unless you’re absolutely sure,’ she cautioned. ‘Ugly rumours are hard to suppress. I thought you were—quite fond of your uncle.’
‘In an odd sort of a way,’ Teresa agreed, sitting down on one of the stone benches to continue the conversation. ‘You see, he has been more like my brother. He was ten years my father’s younger—junior, I mean—and now he is the proud owner of Soria, which was something he coveted, I suppose.’
A chill ran through Catherine as she sat on the edge of the bench, as if a cold little wind had blown against her heart, but she had no intention of getting too deeply involved with this amazing family, no intention of taking sides.
‘Surely you’re wrong,’ she said, aware that her volatile young pupil might be prone to exaggeration. ‘Don Jaime doesn’t look the kind of person who would covet his brother’s inheritance.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Teresa allowed, ‘but you have yet to learn how ruthless he can be. I said that I did not believe the rumours and I think that my stepmother would like to marry him, but I do not say so because I am not supposed to know about such things.’ She laughed, her white teeth flashing against her apricot-tinted skin. ‘They imagine that I am still a child and I have been sent to Madrid to absorb a little culture, but I am tired of the Prado and all the Goyas and Velazquez and the tapestries well-brought-up Spanish girls embroidered in the past!’ Her lips parted excitedly. ‘I can show you another Madrid, Cathy—the one I love—full of music and romance. I will go one day to the University at Casa de Campo and it will all be mine!’
‘And worth waiting for,’ Catherine suggested.
Teresa considered her with thoughtful eyes.
‘Tomorrow I will show you,’ she promised. ‘We have not long before we leave for the
hacienda
.’
CHAPTER TWO
The
meal they shared in the long dining-room was quite elaborate. As the sun went down behind the distant Guadarramas they had gathered in the small
sal
o
n
while Don Jaime poured them each a glass of sherry, but no toast had been proposed either to the future or the past. It was a nightly routine, Catherine supposed, when he raised his own glass to the light and saluted his grandmother with a brief smile. The Marquesa returned his smile, as if words were quite unnecessary between them, and they all went in to dinner.
The old lady sat at the head of the table in a high-backed chair and he occupied the place at the far end after seeing Catherine and Teresa safely seated in their respective chairs. Above them a magnificent chandelier hung from the painted ceiling, shedding its yellow light on the highly-polished wood and on the glittering silver and crystal which adorned each place-setting, and the old retainer who had brought their tea served them with Conchita’s help. Don Jaime rose to carve the joint of meat at the massive sideboard which occupied most of the wall behind his chair, and it was almost midnight before they rose to take their coffee in the adjoining room. When the little silver carriage clock on the mantelpiece struck half-past twelve Catherine followed Teresa up the staircase to their respective rooms.
‘I am not to chatter,’ Teresa said when they reached her own door, ‘because you must be tired after your journey.
Buenas noches, senorita
!’ she added with a small, mocking laugh. ‘
Usted habla espanol muy bien
!’
‘And you will do well with your English in time,’ Catherine responded. ‘It’ll be fun learning together!’
In the morning Teresa was waiting for her at the breakfast table, looking excited.
‘I am to take you to the Prado this morning, but we will not remain there all the time,’ she said. ‘Jaime has promised to take us to lunch,’ she added quickly when Catherine was about to protest. ‘It is quite in order, you see. He will join us in the museum and we will eat in a restaurant of his choice.’
Catherine was surprised, but perhaps the Marquesa had made the request and he would not refuse her. She felt sure that he could not
want
to take them out for a meal.
The old lady’s breakfast was carried up to her room each morning at nine o’clock, and before they left for the museum they went in to pay their respects to her. She looked like a queen sitting there in the great four-poster bed with its heavy canopy of intricately-carved wood and the richly-brocaded curtains shielding her from any possible draught. The room itself was cluttered with the accumulated treasures of a lifetime, photographs and souvenirs from her travels, precious bric-a-brac and small pieces of silver, heavy combs from her Andalusian girlhood and a beautiful collection of ivory and silk fans which was displayed in a bow-fronted cabinet between the windows and on the high chimneypiece on the opposite wall.
‘You will enjoy our city, Miss Royce,’ she said as Catherine stood beside the bed. ‘Especially the Prado. It is many years since I have been there, but one day I must go again just to sit and absorb the beauty of the true masters. You know our famous Goyas, of course—the
mafas
and his clever portraits—but there are many other artists of note also on display. Do not try to see everything in one morning,’ she warned, ‘for that would be impossible. Teresa has been many times, but does not yet truly appreciate what she sees.’
‘I think that if I had decided to be a painter instead of a dancer it would have been all right with my family,’ Teresa said with a pout as they went down the stairs. ‘Shall we take a taxi?’ she added brightly. ‘Or would you rather walk?’
‘A taxi might be quicker if we are to see as much as possible before one o’clock,’ Catherine decided, thinking that Don Jaime must not be kept waiting.
Sitting close up at the window, she gave her full attention to the beauty of the Spanish capital. Wide, tree-lined avenues spread in every direction, flanked by gardens and magnificent buildings, many of them originally built for the old aristocracy in marble and polished stone. Where change had been inevitable it had been made with the past in mind, and there were flowers everywhere and cool stone benches under the trees.
At the end of the Calle Mayor they turned into the Calle de Alcala with the Plaza de Cibeles fountain directly ahead of them.
‘We are nearly there,’ Teresa informed her, gathering up her satchel and silk headscarf.
Catherine was spellbound, gazing at the magnificent centrepiece of the square with the chariot-mounted daughter of Uranus rising out of the water drawn by two stone lions. It was the most arresting group she had ever seen, the Greek goddess dominating even the cathedral-like Palacio de Comunicaciones on the opposite corner, and even here there were trees and benches and a shady promenade where the
Madrilenos
could take their ease.
The taxi driver set them down at the side entrance to the museum and from there onwards Teresa was in charge.
‘I know every crumby inch of the way,’ she declared in practised slang, ‘but it is something we must do if we want the remainder of the day to ourselves. The Vegas have asked us to eat with them later on, but we can make our excuses and come away early. I have a plan, you see, to show you more of Madrid.’
‘One thing at a time!’ Catherine laughed, following her into the great rooms where they wandered for an hour before they sat down to rest.
Time after time Catherine had found herself confronted by the portraits of men so like Don Jaime as to be almost his painted likeness, although all of them wore the clothes of a bygone age. Stem, dark eyes gazed back at her from under domed helmet and velvet cap, the aquiline nose and long, determined chin predominating wherever she looked, features handed down through generations of Spaniards to the present day. All of them had been men of great strength and vision, the conquerors who had gone out to claim a new world for their own. Painted as Velazquez had seen them, they were magnificent, and their blood still flowed in the veins of Jaime de Berceo Madroza.
They filed through the rooms containing the paintings of Goya’s ‘black period’, when he was already deaf, turning into the longer galleries which Teresa said she liked better. Before one of the larger groups of a royal family she paused.
‘This one always fascinates me,’ she declared. ‘It says so much. It is Charles IV and his queen, Maria Luisa, and her boy-friend, Godoy. Horrible, isn’t he? Like a bull. How could she have loved anyone so gross?’ She examined the royal group for a moment longer. ‘My stepmother had a lover before my father died,’ she announced almost casually. ‘Nobody thinks I know, but I do!’
Catherine looked round at her in surprise.
‘Surely that’s something you shouldn’t repeat,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘Why not, since it is true?’
‘Where is she now?’ Catherine asked, knowing even before Teresa supplied the answer.
‘At Soria—where else? She is determined to live there until Jaime asks her to marry him. Then she will once again be the undisputed mistress of the
hacienda
.’
Catherine drew in a sharp breath.
‘Surely that’s your uncle’s affair,’ she suggested. ‘If he’s in love with her he’ll want to marry her.’
‘Jaime isn’t in love with anyone—yet. He has still to get over his first disappointment with women,’ Teresa declared, sounding much too old for her years. ‘Would you like to hear about it?’
A faint colour stained Catherine’s cheeks.
‘I’ve listened to enough family gossip for one morning,’ she declared more hastily than she realised. ‘It doesn’t concern me, Teresa.’
‘It might,’ Teresa suggested slowly, ‘if you were to fall in love with Jaime.’
‘That would be ridiculous!’ The colour in Catherine’s cheeks deepened. ‘Anyway, here he comes! Please don’t repeat what you’ve just said,’ she added hastily.
Don Jaime strode towards them.
‘Have you had enough culture for one day?’ he asked, glancing at the pictured group they had been studying. ‘A cruel portrait,’ he observed, ‘but it was a degenerate age.’ He looked at his watch to check the time, dismissing the royal husband and his faithless wife with a shrug. ‘Where would you like to eat?’
‘Surprise us,’ Teresa suggested. ‘You know all the best places.’
They went in search of his parked car and he drove them along the Castellana to a secluded restaurant on the top floor of one of the higher buildings where Catherine could enjoy a panoramic view of the city while they ate, and somehow he seemed more mellow as he ordered their sherries, naming points of interest for her benefit as he stood at her shoulder to point them out.
Turning suddenly, she caught an amused twinkle in Teresa’s eyes, but for once she refrained from her usual sly observation and kept silent.
‘What do you intend to do with the remainder of the afternoon?’ Jaime asked when he had ordered for them. ‘Go shopping?’
‘I have to be measured for a pair of shoes,’ Teresa explained carefully, ‘and I will collect my shirts from Antonio.’
‘And spend a great deal of money in the boutiques,’ he suggested good-humouredly. ‘I’m sorry I can’t collect you later in the day as I have an appointment in Toledo, but I believe you are going on to the Vegas for an evening meal.’
Teresa nodded somewhat hastily.
‘That is what has been arranged,’ she agreed.
Jaime looked pointedly at Catherine.
‘I will leave her in your care, Miss Royce,’ he said formally. ‘I hope you will enjoy the rest of the day.’
‘I’ve enjoyed it, very much up till now,’ Catherine told him. ‘Thank you for a pleasant lunch.’
Teresa was laughing as they turned away.
‘You and Jaime are so formal!’ she declared. ‘Perhaps it is because he does not trust you.’
‘Why should you think such a thing?’ Catherine protested. ‘I’m trying to do my job to the best of my ability, and you could help enormously by not being so facetious.’
‘That’s an interesting word,’ Teresa declared. ‘Can you please tell me what it means?’
‘Broadly speaking, it means “waggish”, which in turn means jesting. You don’t mean what you say half the time, especially about Don Jaime.’
‘Oh, but I do! He can be stern and quite heartless when he feels justified, and at Soria, you will discover, his word is law.’
‘Supposing he decides that I shouldn’t go to the
hacienda,
after all,’ Catherine suggested in an odd sort of panic. ‘It’s quite on the cards, you know.’
‘H’mm! Yes, I suppose it is, but I think you will go, all the same. The Marquesa will send you because she thinks you might be good for Soria.’
‘Where do you want to shop?’ Catherine asked because she could find nothing to say to Teresa’s final declaration.
It was now well after three o’clock and they walked briskly through the crowded streets which were coming to life again after the
siesta
hour. On Velazquez Teresa was measured for her handmade shoes and they spent more time on the Alcala until suddenly they realised that it was six o’clock. The coffee houses and pastry-shops were now full of women chattering over their
merienda,
but Teresa seemed disinclined to stop even for a quick glass of chocolate and a cake.
‘We will call on the Vegas early,’ she suggested, a flush of excitement staining her cheeks, ‘and then we can make our excuses. I want to take you tascas-hopping. It’s lots of fun and something you really ought to do before we leave Madrid.’
‘What will the Marquesa say?’ Catherine asked diffidently. ‘Or Don Jaime?’
‘Oh, Cathy!’ Teresa protested. ‘How will they know? We will be home before midnight if we go early enough, but you really must see our busy
mesones.
They are a kind of tavern—terribly respectable, you understand—and most of them are in the old part of the city which is the real Madrid.’
Catherine hesitated.
‘If you’re quite sure,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I feel that I’m more or less in charge at the moment.’
‘As if you could be when you know so little of Madrid!’ Teresa laughed. ‘You will be glad to get away from the Vegas, I assure you!’
They took a taxi to a rather drab-looking edifice in a side-street leading off the Calle de Segovia which was the home of the Vegas, where they were entertained by an elderly lady and her two nephews, whom Teresa obviously disliked. Catherine thought them pleasant enough, but dull, and was almost glad when Teresa rose to go. She made her pretty excuses to the
se
n
ora,
dismissed the two polite young men with a brief smile, and shepherded Catherine out on to the pavement in the shortest possible time. They heard a clock strike nine as they walked briskly in the direction of the Plaza Mayor.
‘You needn’t look so worried,’ Teresa assured her. ‘Nothing is going to happen to us. You are a good
duena,
are you not?’
‘I’m out of my depth,’ Catherine admitted. ‘Teresa, I think we should go back.’ She looked about her at the maze of narrow, cobbled streets with their closely-shuttered windows and barricaded shops. ‘We can come some other time—with Don Jaime, perhaps.’
‘He would not come here, unless on a very special occasion,’ Teresa said, ‘but he would not object to you seeing the real Madrid, especially when we are so soon to go away.’
It seemed a reasonable enough argument, and Catherine followed her across the wide
plaza
to an archway and down a flight of stone steps to where a dozen small taverns spilled their light and gaiety on to the adjacent pavements. Most of them were already full of people searching for a table, but Teresa seemed to know her way about. She selected the nearest side cafe where she ordered shrimps, mushrooms and
tortilla,
together with two glasses of
carta blanca
which they drank standing at the counter.
‘We haven’t time for any more
tascas
,’ she decided when they had finished. ‘It’s rather a pity because you can spend a whole evening just hopping from one cafe to another and eating as much as you like.’ She turned along a darkened side-street where a mellow glow led them to the window of a secluded restaurant.
‘You’ll love this,’ she said, plunging in at the door.
It was at this point that Catherine had the strongest misgivings. But the restaurant looked eminently respectable, a tall, narrow house of many floors reached by a single staircase on which departing and arriving guests seemed to be inextricably mixed. Groups of tourists rubbed shoulders with the local
Ma
drilenos,
laughing and talking as they filed between the crowded tables, determined to make this an evening to be remembered, and Teresa nodded to several acquaintances as they passed.
Finally they were installed at a small table for two in a corner. Teresa’s eyes were alight with a new intensity as she gazed about her and an American lady at the next table said in a loud voice: ‘My, but she sure is cute!’
‘Cute’ was hardly the word to describe Teresa in that moment. She was completely transformed. A band of minstrels dressed in the garb of Philip II was serenading the diners for money instead of the traditional love, but they were immensely talented young men and truly colourful in their velvet knee-breeches and tunics with the large, slashed sleeves of the period and their capes festooned with satin favours in all the colours of the spectrum. One, in a voice which echoed to the rafters, was singing a love- song.
‘They are university students,’ Teresa whispered. ‘They form groups to play and sing in the restaurants. Isn’t it romantic!’
‘O, my beloved,’ sang the vocalist, while the guitars and a single violin played the accompaniment. Then, when the applause had subsided, the guitars came into their own. Sobbing out in the sudden hush which had fallen on the noisy room, the music started on a plaintive note, a few soft chords gently plucked from the delicate strings, but soon it was rising on a wave of anguish, a lover pleading in the night for trust and understanding.
Catherine sat rigidly in her seat, the music vibrating on every sensitive nerve as she listened, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, until she became aware of the man standing in the doorway at the head of the stairs.
Don Jaime had come in search of them, his face dark with anger as their eyes met.
‘It’s Jaime!’ Teresa exclaimed in a half-whisper. ‘He must have returned early from Toledo.’
Don Jaime made his way purposefully between the tables, drawing the eyes of most of the American women as he passed and striding between the minstrels as if he would sweep them from his path, and none of the anger had left his face when he finally confronted them.
‘How did you know where to find us?’ Teresa asked. ‘We have just come in.’
Ignoring both question and observation, he sat down in the vacant chair opposite his niece.
‘I presume you have already ordered your meal,’ he said in a tight voice, ‘and you may wait for it, but I intend to take you straight home after your first course.’
‘Oh, Jaime!’ Teresa wailed. ‘You spoil everything! Catherine wanted to see the night life and it was
so
dull at the Vegas’. You say yourself that they are only half alive!’
‘That may be so,’ he agreed, ‘but you were supposed to be there and you were not. When I arrived to take you home you had gone.’ He was holding his temper in check with an effort. ‘If Miss Royce was so keen to sample our night life you should have mentioned the fact when I took you to lunch and it could have been arranged for some other time.’
‘But there is so little time!’ Teresa pouted. ‘Botin’s is most respectable and Catherine should get some “atmosphere” instead of always dining in a top-class restaurant.’
Don Jaime turned to Catherine for the first time. He was evidently not going to make a scene in a public place. He was too well bred for that.
‘I’m sorry you found our rendezvous on the Castellana so dull,’ he remarked, ‘but no doubt this evening will make amends.’ He glanced beyond her at the minstrels in their velvet doublets while their impassioned music rang like a knell in Catherine’s ears. ‘Botin’s has always been a colourful tourist trap, but the food is excellent, I believe.’
Catherine, who had been enjoying the atmosphere in the picturesque seventeenth-century building as well as the talented performance of the students, was suddenly angry.
‘I thanked you for a very pleasant lunch,’ she reminded him, ‘and I really meant what I said, but this is different. I didn’t see any reason why Teresa and I shouldn’t have come here for a meal, but if I was wrong I’m sorry. It seems a shame not to take advantage of so much innocent pleasure, but no doubt I should have been more—discreet.’
‘It is Teresa who should have known better,’ he said briefly. ‘The point is that she came here without permission while you were supposed to be somewhere else. The Vegas are very old friends of the family and we do not wish to offend them. Such things are not done in Spain, even yet,’ he added as a waiter approached with their order of roast sucking pig on ancient earthenware platters which had been burned almost black with constant use.
Catherine’s appetite had gone, but she forced herself to eat under his eagle eye while he ordered a
fi
no
and drank it while he waited.
The minstrel students came to stand beside them, playing softly, but most of the romance had gone from their performance for Catherine, at least. She could no longer respond to the gentle words, and the sighing guitars were almost more than she could bear.
Teresa braved out the situation with what seemed to be a total disregard of his anger.
‘Jaime, you must admit that it is all wonderfully romantic,’ she sighed, looking across the table at the violinist with wide soulful eyes. ‘You play the guitar yourself: why do you think this is not the same?’
‘Possibly because it is no more than a gimmick,’ he returned as the serenading group moved away. ‘They do it solely for the money they can make.’
‘I think you are wrong,’ Teresa declared. ‘They sing with all their hearts and we respond to the music, not to them.’
He looked amused.
‘So long as that is the case,’ he said, ‘who am I to reprimand you!’
Had his anger evaporated so easily, Catherine wondered, or was he only holding it in check till they left the restaurant and he could tell them what he really thought? The evening had been spoiled, as much for herself as for Teresa, although Teresa was quick to find another delight.
‘This little pig is delicious!’ She dug into the succulent flesh. ‘Why don’t you try some, Jaime? Now that you are here we can stay much longer.’
‘You are expected home before midnight,’ he reminded her. ‘You are supposed to be visiting privately.’
The dark eyes under their thick fringe of black lashes were suddenly lifted to his.
‘Does that mean you are going to keep our secret?’ she demanded. ‘
Gracias
, Jaime!’ she rushed on before he could make his decision one way or the other. ‘It is very kind of you, and I will obey you in future. I will do anything you wish!’
‘It would be nice if you meant what you said on the spur of the moment,’ he returned drily, but some of the anger had already gone out of his eyes and he settled more comfortably into his chair to enjoy another
fino
while they disposed of their sucking pigs.
‘Catherine can’t finish hers!’ Teresa pointed out a few minutes later. ‘She has no appetite now, perhaps because you were so angry with her.’
‘I was angry with you both,’ he said, ‘but since no harm has come from your foolish venture, we will try to forget it.’
Catherine could not forget his anger, however, that initial flash of impatience which had darkened his eyes, hardening his whole face even as she watched, and somehow she knew that Teresa’s disobedience was only part of the reason. There was also her own part in their adventure to consider, and it seemed reasonable enough for him to consider her completely irresponsible. He had been at little pains to hide his feelings when they had first met and now she seemed to be confirming them.
By quarter to twelve they were driving in the stream of traffic along the Calle de Bailen and just before midnight they were home. A light was burning in the Marquesa’s room on the second floor and it seemed that they were expected to go there to report on their ‘happy evening’.
It amazed Catherine to see how skilfully Teresa managed to evade the truth. Her animated description of their visit to the Vega household suggested that nothing could have been more congenial than the
senora
’
s
company, and the fact that Don Jaime had ‘collected’ them to bring them home seemed the most natural sequel at the end of their busy day. She rushed on to talk about the Castellana luncheon party, which she was able to do without avoiding her uncle’s disdainful gaze.