The Summer of the Spanish Woman Read online

  The Summer of the Spanish Woman

  Catherine Gaskin

  Copyright © The Estate of Catherine Gaskin 2015

  This edition first published 2015 by Corazon Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published in 1977

  www.greatstorieswithheart.com

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for the enjoyment of the purchaser only. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Also available from Corazon Books by Catherine Gaskin

  The Property of a Gentleman

  Sara Dane

  The Lynmara Legacy

  A Falcon for a Queen

  More Corazon Books titles by Catherine Gaskin coming in 2016

  Promises

  Corporation Wife

  Discover the world of Catherine Gaskin

  and be the first to know about new releases at

  www.catherinegaskin.com

  Contents

  BOOK ONE: IRISH MORNING

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  BOOK TWO: NOON

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  BOOK THREE: SPANISH TWILIGHT

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Preview: The Property of a Gentleman

  Preview: Sara Dane

  Preview: Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom

  Preview: The Wine Widow by Tessa Barclay

  Preview: The Ruby Ring by Grace Macdonald

  Preview: Lily’s Daughter by Diana Raymond

  Preview: Hardacre by CL Skelton

  Preview: A Shaft of Light by John Finch

  Author’s note

  This novel could not have been written without the assistance of those whose lives are closely concerned with the making of sherry, and whose names are part of the history of Jerez.

  I would like, therefore, to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to all the members of the González family, of Gonzáles, Byass and Co. Ltd, in particular to Sir Manuel González Gordon, Marqués de Bonanza, patriarch of the sherry shippers, the beloved ‘Tío Manolo’. The family have been unstintingly generous of their time and expertise, endlessly patient in showing, explaining and answering questions. They have spared no pains in trying to give me a true picture of Jerez, and my husband and I have had the unforgettable experience of Spanish courtesy and hospitality. Through their kindness we have been permitted to visit the famous, invaluable, and now endangered wilderness of the Coto Doñana.

  I must also thank Fatima Ruiz-Lasaleta, of Zoilo Ruiz-Mateos, whose enthusiasm for, and love of old Jerez were an inspiration. To the Marquesa de Tamaron, I wish again to extend my thanks for cold water on a hot afternoon, and a tour of her wonderful castle at Arcos. In both London and Jerez we have enjoyed the friendship and tapped the memories of Geoffrey Hawkings Byass.

  This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  C.G.

  ‘My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he made a trench about it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes … What could I have done more my vineyard, that I have not done in it?’

  Isaiah, V. 2-4

  BOOK ONE

  IRISH MORNING

  Chapter One

  I

  The Irish Sea crashed in breakers on the sand in the fury it still possessed from last night’s storm, and the man and the horse came towards me like the thunder of the sea. I knew at once who he was, and I had been prepared to dislike him, even to hate him. But I saw now the man and the stallion almost as the one being, and I coveted them both.

  Afterwards when I looked back on this moment I knew it was the time when the last of childhood dropped from me.

  He drew in the stallion, needing all his strength to do it; the horse had to be a full seventeen and a half hands, I judged. It was milk-white, with mane and tail tinged with cream. A dream of a horse. A quiver ran through the mare I rode, as blood and beauty seemed to recognise each other. At the same time I looked at the man, and my own body quivered. He returned the stare. Then slowly he raised his hat.

  ‘Miss Charlotte?’

  I slid my hand along to pat the neck of the mare, in a vain attempt to calm us both. ‘And you are Richard Selwin ‒ Lord Blodmore.’

  He was unsmiling, and seemed at that moment as handsome as the horse he rode. He had the Blodmore features, the Blodmore eyes. He had more than a passing resemblance to my grandfather, who had once been called the handsomest man in Ireland. It was hard to hate him. But because of him we had to go ‒ we had to leave Clonmara, dispossessed like gypsies turned off their camp site because they did not own it. And still, now I saw him, it was hard to hate him.

  All these months we had been waiting for him. We had been waiting for Richard Selwin, now Lord Blodmore, because my mother had not had the tact and good sense to have been born a boy. We had been waiting since the day my grandfather had put his famous hunter, Wicklow Lad, at a bank which had proved too much even for that great heart and strength. For almost fifteen years my grandfather had hunted this, his best-loved horse, over some of the fiercest country in County Wicklow, but that high, nearly impossible, bank had been the last for both of them. Wicklow Lad had broken a leg, and my grandfather had broken his neck. The hunter had been shot there on the hunting-field. The body of my grandfather had been carried home on the five-barred gate which, if he had been sensible he would have opened and gone through, instead of putting Wicklow Lad at the bank. But he had been a man of great courage and little caution in matters like that. So the earldom of Blodmore and its entailed estate had passed to this man whom no one at Clonmara had ever seen before.

  Now I saw him, and the loss of everything I had ever known became more bitter, because I wanted him also. And yet at this moment some new, strange feeling stirred; the half-veiled suggestions of Nanny, and my mother’s much broader innuendoes of the last months became a faint hope in my own heart. In these first moments of looking at him, when we had spoken only each other’s names, my mind flashed back over the months since that morning of last January when the frost was still white on the north side of the hedgerows, and I had seen my grandfather killed. Everything had seemed to die with him; I had loved my grandfather. I was never sure, at that time, whether I actually loved my mother, Lady Pat. Of course I admired her, as many people did, admired her spirit, her charm, her ‘way’ with people. But there were many things I found hard to forgive her, as, irrationally, I also found it hard to forgive my grandfather for making that last, mortal mistake of putting Wicklow Lad at that bank which had proved too much for both of them. I found it hard to forgiv
e him for having only one child, and that one a girl, who couldn’t inherit Clonmara. I couldn’t forgive my mother for having made that mad, disastrous marriage, the marriage which had lasted only long enough for one child to be conceived. And that child had been born here at Clonmara ‒ myself. It was the only world I had ever known, and there was no man, no son of my grandfather, no brother of my mother to inherit it. The Blodmore strain, it seemed, did not run to boys. Fondly, and sometimes a little sadly, my grandfather had called me Charlie, as he had called his daughter Pat. It was a poor world, I thought, in which to have been born a woman.

  My mother had gone back to hunting that same winter, restless and unable to maintain the formalities of mourning, beyond the black band on her sleeve, and the heavily black-draped top hat. She had ridden, and flirted, more recklessly than ever before. But I, halfway between the schoolroom and womanhood, hadn’t been able to face the rather wild camaraderie of the Irish hunting-field without the stabilizing influence of my grandfather. Without him as Master of Hounds the field had seemed strangely empty and vacant. So I had taken to riding alone, without even a groom ‒ something my grandfather would have known of, and forbidden but which my mother didn’t seem to notice. It had been a lonely time, a time which bred strange and frightening thoughts about the future, thoughts which provoked me to things I had never done before. I had even started to read books from my grandfather’s library, beginning one, laying it aside for the next, growing desperate at the realisation of my own ignorance. I had, in spite of the fear and anger of the head groom, Andy, dared to mount Half Moon, that mare of beauty and still uncertain temperament who had already given us the best foal, my mother said, ever bred at Clonmara. The mare, under-exercised, and feeling the lightness of the creature on her back, had at once thrown me, as if to establish immediately her supremacy. Hurting, and more than a little afraid, I had mounted her again, and had again been thrown. She seemed to sense my own unease, my state of bewilderment, and it affected her. I had offered her sugar, and only the gentle, calming words learned from my grandfather, and I had mounted her once more.

  ‘Is it wanting to kill yourself you are, then?’ Andy had demanded, furious with me. ‘And what will I be telling her ladyship?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I shouted, struggling to keep my seat as the mare wheeled wildly in the space of the stable-yard. ‘Nothing at all! She’ll settle to me, you’ll see!’

  ‘She’ll be the death of you,’ Andy had insisted. ‘And me too, when I come before the magistrate for letting a child kill herself.’ He added, coaxingly, ‘Ah, Miss Charlie, you’d never be putting me in prison, would you now?’

  But I didn’t answer him because Half Moon had headed out of the stable-yard and down the continuation of the long avenue, the part that led to the break in the dunes, to where the sea glittered distantly. There was no choice for me; at that time I went where Half Moon chose.

  But I went on with my efforts to win the mare, to steady her and to banish my own unsteadiness of mind. I spent hours with her each day. There was little else to do, except spend the time with the books in the library which only made me anxious again. I had had a governess, but she, guessing the state of my grandfather’s affairs, and being offered a post, she said, elsewhere, had gone. The steward of the estate attended to everything, and life, except for the aching absence of my grandfather, appeared to go on as before. But an awful uncertainty hung over us, mostly unvoiced, but always present.

  The one person, however, who always spoke of it was Nanny. She had been a young nursery maid when my mother was growing up, and had still been at Clonmara when Lady Pat had returned to have her baby. She had a position of privilege at Clonmara, and strong views, which she never hesitated to air. ‘Well, child,’ she would moan softly to me, ‘it’s the end for all of us. What can we do but go out to that place in Galway that the Earl settled on Lady Pat? And it with the roof falling in on it. And very poor land that goes with it. And the mice in possession of everything, and the tenants as hungry as the mice. Ah, well ‒ it was the Earl who was too easy to ask for their rents this long time. Well, that’s where we’ll be going when Himself, the fine heir shows up.’ Then she would usually rattle the poker briskly against the irons of the grate. ‘Unless … unless, Miss Charlotte, you would bestir yourself to be a little pleasant to Himself. It wouldn’t hurt now, to comb your hair once in a while, and put on a decent dress. You’re not half bad-looking, though not the beauty Lady Pat was at your age. But still …’ Then she would shake her head as she looked at the child she had brought up. ‘If his lordship could see you in those … those breeches things you ride in, sure wouldn’t he die all over again, God rest his soul. Now when this new man comes, if he could find a nice, decent, quiet young lady, such as you’d expect the Earl’s granddaughter to be, why there’s no knowing what might come of it, and he unmarried still …’ And her voice would go on crooning, beckoning up visions of this life at Clonmara which might go on forever if only I would make myself pleasant to the new heir. Then she would add with bitterness, as the reality of the situation struck her again, ‘It isn’t as if any of the gentlemen around here would have you ‒ you without a penny to your name ‒ and even that name your mother has made a scandal of. Ah, if only the Earl hadn’t been so foolhardy with those investments of his that went awry. Only trying to make some provision for his poor, foolish daughter, he was, and taking risks and being led astray by scoundrels. Just trying to see she had a bit more than that terrible place out west, which is where we’ll all be going ‒’

  ‘You don’t have to go, Nanny,’ I answered. I was wearied of all this talk of money which she understood even less that I did. ‘The new Lord Blodmore will need servants at Clonmara.’

  Nanny, at this point would draw herself up stiffly. ‘If you think for a moment, Miss Charlotte, that I’d abandon you and your poor mother …’ Her voice invariably trailed off in a keening whimper that I found infinitely trying. I avoided the old nursery, and Nanny, as much as possible.

  I couldn’t always avoid my mother, who put the matter of the new heir more bluntly, but still without much hope. ‘He’s busy in London, they say, and somewhere down in the south of Spain, where, it seems, he had some business connections. So God only knows when he’ll turn up here and turf us out. I wonder what sort he is? ‒ never a letter from him, or anything saying what he intends to do. I feel, from what Siddons says ‒ though why I should think a fusty old solicitor like him would have much notion of these things ‒ that our fine new Lord Blodmore is scarcely considered a gentleman. He’s been mixing in commerce all his life, Siddons says. No money. His only expectation was that Father would die without an heir closer than he. A second cousin of my father, or something even more remote ‒ that’s all he is, and yet he’s to have the title and Clonmara. Oh, I tell you, Charlie, it’s not fair. No, not fair at all. He’s probably some miserable little inky-fingered clerk, but he’s to get it all. Those laws they have … Women don’t have a chance.’ She was referring, of course, to the laws of primogeniture and entail which prohibited any but the male closest in line from inheriting the title and estate. ‘Just a second-odd cousin who left Ireland as soon as he could, got some schooling in England, and got himself into some sort of clerk’s work. Then he went out to Spain, and worked there for a while. Doing God knows what. I sometimes wonder if he wasn’t trying to make Father give him some introductions there. Father must have known a lot of people from the time he spent in Spain … but that was quite a long time ago, when he was chasing after that woman who was here that summer. Oh, if only he’d married her! They used to say she was richer than the King of Spain.’ Then she would shrug. ‘Well, never mind that. If he’d only married someone after my mother died, and had a son. When I was old enough to realise what the situation was I used to keep on at him to marry again. But he never seemed to hear me. And, dear God, he was so good-looking! He could have had almost anyone. No money, of course, but still he was so wonderful ‒ and the title. The title coul
d still attract money. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know he needed a son ‒ but he didn’t do anything about it. And Uncle Bertie. He could have married and had children, but he always said he wasn’t the marrying kind. And then getting himself killed in the Boer War. Really, he could have been more thoughtful. If he’d married and had a son, then surely we wouldn’t have to be turfed out of Clonmara. I mean, the heir would have been a first cousin. He’d have let us stay, somehow. But, instead, we’ve got this inky-fingered little clerk coming … oh, it’s unbearable …’ My mother rambled on in this way often, and I tried not to take too much notice, not even to hear it. Uncle Bertie, my grandfather’s only brother, had been killed in South Africa in 1900 ‒ nine years ago, but still my mother talked of what might have been. Always, at about this point, she would reach for the brandy decanter which stood ready at her hand in the little sitting-room we mostly used.

  ‘I’ll tell you, though, Charlie ‒ inky-fingered little clerk or not ‒ if I weren’t still tied to that wretched husband of mine, I’d have a try for him myself. I’d do anything, Charlie ‒ anything not to have to leave Clonmara.’ And then as the brandy relaxed and soothed her, her tone would grow more speculative, a trifle more hopeful. ‘But there’s you, Charlie. You’re not tied to anyone. Pity you’re still so young in your ways. He’s only about thirty ‒ or less. Not too old for you ‒ or any girl.’ She would purse her lips, and look hard at me. ‘Perhaps we should go to Dublin and get you some new clothes ‒ grown-up clothes.’ Then she would sigh and shrug. ‘But who’d make them? I owe money to every dressmaker and milliner in the whole town. They’d never give us more credit now ‒ now that Father’s dead …’ Then she usually brightened up; it was not in her nature to be pessimistic for long. ‘Well, they do say that Miss Doyle in Wicklow Town is quite clever with dresses. Perhaps we could try her …’ Then she would look at me, her head tilted, a look of slight reproach, but also of expectation. ‘You could try, Charlie. You owe it to us. You owe it to us to keep Clonmara. After all, it would only be fair of him to make the offer … If he’s only half a gentleman he’d make the offer. Yes, we should try Miss Doyle …’