Читать книгу A Forbidden Love: An atmospheric historical romance you don't want to miss! - Kerry Postle - Страница 15

It was the day after the landowners had returned to their estate and Don Felipe was having breakfast while scanning the paper looking for news. He put it down in frustration. ‘Still nothing in the papers about any coup, dear?’ Dona Sofίa asked. Her husband gave a loud shush, followed by a hasty glance at the door to make sure none of the servants were listening. ‘Oh, it’s not the coup I’m looking for. Though in view of the strikes all over the country,’ he said, jabbing his finger at some article, ‘it had better come soon.’

Pools of unrest had been bubbling beneath the surface right across Spain since the start of the decade. Tension. Civil unrest. A struggle for the heart and soul of Spain. Made all the worse by an international politics of extremism. The growth of fascism in Germany and Italy whispered to the Spanish masses that the ruling class would never give up its power without a fight. The victory of communism in Russia murmured in the ears of the ruling class that the workers would rise up if not kept down. A tug of war was being played out where right and left struggled for supremacy. Up until now an equilibrium of sorts had been maintained. Up until now Don Felipe had had to allow his workers to form unions, had had no choice but to approve of liberal absurdities such as reading programmes. But all that was about to change. Bullets were about to overcome ballot boxes and the landowner couldn’t wait. It was the reason for his return.

‘You’ll have to talk to her dear,’ his wife said.

‘I know,’ Don Felipe replied, picking up the pamphlet that Guido had handed to him the previous evening. ‘I don’t care if she is the doctor’s daughter!’

‘Oh, I’m not talking about the girl, silly!’ said Dona Sofίa, who, contrary to her show of interest, had little time for some child who wanted to play teacher to the workers. ‘No. I’m talking about Cecilia. It’s her arms. Did you not see them yesterday? They’re hideous. The lower classes have no sense of shame or modesty,’ she said, breathing heavily. She put down her magazine full of beautifully dressed young women and put a hand to her well-coiffed curls checking they were still in place. One had dropped. She closed her eyes and asked for strength. The ceiling fans simply moved hot air around and she couldn’t stand keeping the shutters closed. The heat combined with the sight of her housekeeper’s indecent arms was making Dona Sofίa irritable, as was her husband’s inability to grasp what was truly important. And now her hair was losing its shape. It was really too, too much.

‘Cecilia!’ Don Felipe called. The housekeeper rushed in, her fleshy arms wrapped round a heavy pile of freshly ironed sheets. ‘Why are you doing that?’ Dona Sofίa asked. ‘Put them away, then come back,’ she tutted.

When Cecilia came back in she rubbed her arms repeatedly with worry. She’d been worried about Manuel all night. What if Guido had given him away?

‘Cecilia, dear,’ Dona Sofίa said, a fixed smile nailed to her face. ‘We have something to say to you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Cecilia said, waiting for judgement. If only Luis was here. He had always been able to curb the worst of his parents’ excesses. ‘I promise that I will work hard to make amends.’ Cecilia wasn’t past begging to keep her son in employment.

‘Well, we do expect to be having some very important guests staying with us in the not too distant future,’ Dona Sofίa replied, frankly surprised at her housekeeper’s eagerness to accept responsibility and expressing regret at having let herself go. ‘And so your diligence and commitment will be much appreciated. Behind the scenes.’

Relief flooded Cecilia’s body from head to toe that Manuel’s name still hadn’t been mentioned but Dona Sofίa’s lipstick-coloured lips still moved up and down with unstoppable purpose.

‘I don’t want you serving … Best we keep you in the kitchen.’ She then nodded over to her husband. He coughed three times. ‘Yes. Play to your strengths,’ he said. ‘Cooking, cleaning, stuff like that.’ His wife pushed him on with her eyes and touched her upper arm, ‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘And we’d like you to wear sleeves from now on, old girl. More decent on a woman of your age, don’t you think?’ And with that he turned round and went to look for Guido. It was time to get to the bottom of that unpleasant reading nonsense.

Dona Sofίa gave the old girl, who was five years younger than herself, her most beneficent smile, full of pity. She lowered her eyelids in imitation of the Virgin Mary in her favourite painting by Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Two Angels that she’d seen in Florence.

‘How’s Manuel?’

Dona Sofίa clutched a letter to her chest not really caring to know about her housekeeper’s son one way or the other but the question put the fear of God in poor Cecilia. She needn’t have worried. Her employer’s interest in Manuel was the same as it had ever been – a flimsy pretext for talking about her own sweet boy, Luis. And he was a sweet boy.

‘He’ll be back soon. He has a fine mind. Reads philosophy … and the finest novels – in English, of course.’

That her employer boasted, Cecilia found tedious, but she was grateful for the opportunity to remember the child she’d loved so well. When he’d been first sent away to school he’d been so young. Such a gentle child. His parents weren’t the only people to miss him when he’d gone.

Luis and Manuel were the same age, possessed the same generous natures. Manuel was the only one of Cecilia’s children that had ever been allowed on the estate. Dona Sofίa had even allowed a friendship to blossom between the boys. They’d been inseparable.

Until they’d been forcibly torn apart.

Don Felipe’s gift of a ball to Luis had seen to that. The boy had kicked it around the house, breaking a porcelain ornament. As it had fallen to the floor it had shattered into a thousand pieces, one of which had lodged in Manuel’s left cheek. Luis had called for his mother, called for Cecilia. Both women had come running to find him cradling his injured friend in his arms.

There was to be no friendship after that. ‘Luis knows better than to kick a ball around the house. He knows the value of things, whereas that half-wit of a boy Manuel has no more respect for civilised living than a wild animal,’ Dona Sofίa had cried.

‘But Mama. It was me. It was my fault. All my fault,’ her son had told her bravely. ‘Can I see Manu? See if he’s all right?’

But it was no use. No matter how many times he had reasoned with his mother there was to be no shifting Dona Sofίa from her position. It was all Manuel’s fault. She blamed him for everything. And when Luis had run to the village, determined to see how his dear friend was getting on, Dona Sofίa had blamed Manuel some more. Dona Sofίa had always managed to keep her son away from Fuentes de Andalucía and its inhabitants until then.

That Cecilia wasn’t dismissed there and then was a miracle. A miracle brought about by Luis. He’d pleaded with his mother on Cecilia’s behalf and she had given in. But she was determined not to do so again.

Four months after the ball incident Luis was sent away to school. Dona Sofίa wouldn’t have him going to the village again.

The child was ten.

Poor Dona Sofίa. What had she done? She’d waited for a child for such a long time, had feared she might never be able to find one. And then she’d sent him away.

Of course, his mother missed him terribly when he’d gone. And she would pour out her heart to Cecilia whenever she could to shout about the fact. And Cecilia wouldn’t – couldn’t – condemn her for that. But Luis was homesick. And Dona Sofίa’s eyes were forever red and sore, her nose constantly streaming. ‘What should I do?’ the wealthy landowner’s wife asked her penniless housekeeper. An observer would have thought Dona Sofίa regarded Cecilia as a friend. Cecilia made the fatal mistake of thinking so too. As one mother to another. Cecilia dared to give Dona Sofίa her most truthful counsel.

Oh, the insolence.

Cecilia had very nearly lost her job that day. ‘How dare you Cecilia! We’re providing that boy with a first-class education. But then, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’ The housekeeper had put her fingers to her hot cheek, her employer’s red hand print upon it. She had momentarily forgotten her place. She wouldn’t do so again. It was clear that to Dona Sofίa, Cecilia was no more sentient than a wooden sculpture that she’d had fashioned to her pleasing.

And so now, though happy to hear that Luis was coming home, Cecilia kept her excitement well and truly to herself.