Читать книгу Pepita - Vita Sackville-West - Страница 10

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Between two and three months later, Juan Antonio Oliva turned up again in Madrid. He went straight to Pedrosa’s house, and found Pedrosa still in bed. Pedrosa was surprised to see him, although it was no unusual thing for Oliva to visit him on his return from fulfilling some dancing engagement, even before he had called in at the house of his parents, but on this occasion he had believed him to be far away, touring Spain with his young wife and her family. Pedrosa knew that after the marriage they had remained living in the Calle de la Encomienda with Catalina and Lopez, for although he had declined to visit them there, he had once or twice met Oliva and Pepita walking arm-in-arm together in the street and on each occasion had stopped to converse with them. He had evidently not noticed what the Oliva family had noticed, “that almost from the day of the marriage Juan Antonio appeared to be depressed and downhearted.” He knew only that they had all left Madrid together, had heard of them passing through Ocana and Toledo, and had had news of them again in Valencia. Now here was Juan Antonio, alone.

They had breakfast together, and over breakfast Oliva told Pedrosa that he had quarrelled with Catalina and had come away. Pepita had not wanted him to come away, but he had insisted on doing so. “He said,” added Pedrosa, “that it was one of those questions which sometimes arise between a man and his wife on account of the mother-in-law.” What that question exactly was, we shall never know, nor shall we ever know what exactly had taken place at Valencia to send Oliva flinging away by himself in spite of Pepita’s protests; but we do know that Pedrosa always laid the blame at Catalina’s door. “I am certain,” he says, “that the cause of the separation was Catalina,” and it is manifest that in his loyal way he felt deeply indignant on behalf of his injured friend. Oliva, indeed, fully agreed that it was Catalina who had made the trouble, but it was not a question he ever cared to discuss. “He was very reticent in the family circle as to the relations between himself and Pepita”—this is his sister Isabel speaking again;—“He stated that the causes of the separation were not honourable to Pepita, that there were some things which he could not tolerate, and that he blamed mostly her mother.” Beyond this, he told his family nothing, though poor Isabel’s curiosity was whetted to an unbearable pitch. His state of dejection was obvious to all, and “having once made his reserved revelation, he could never bear to hear even the name of Pepita mentioned by the family.” Once, however, when he caught sight of Lopez in a box at the theatre, he started up with the exclamation, “There is that rogue!” (bribón). But “so punctilious in matters of honour” was he, that he would never breathe a word of disparagement against Pepita. It is all very mysterious. There is no doubt that he had been very much in love with Pepita; and as for Pepita herself, she had tried to prevent him from leaving her, and it was many months before she could speak of him without tears coming into her eyes. Whatever it was that Catalina said or did, or forced Pepita to do in Valencia in the spring of 1851, it was certainly something which effectively wrecked the married life of her daughter and son-in-law. They would have been better off away from the tyranny of that jealous, possessive, and, I suspect, mercenary though generous and charitable woman, Catalina Ortega.

[1] Inner courtyard, open to the sky, common to all Spanish houses.