The Spaniards At Little Lasset

17

The Spaniards At Little Lasset

    Sir Harry got home so late on the evening of Dr Adams’s death that they had to delay dinner for him. He had an appetite, and briskly requested his younger son to pass that hogget stew—noting, by the by, that there was nothing like your Spanish touch with a stew and it was just as well that they had brought a Spanish cook with them. Not that he was a cook, of course. Luís coughed, but too late, Bungo’s attention was caught.

    “Eh? If he can serve up dishes like this, Pa—!”

    “Not saying he can’t cook; not a cook, though.”

    “You had best explain,” said Luís heavily, ignoring Inez’s agonised expression.

    Waving his knife and fork from time to time, Sir Harry explained. Manuel de los Angeles had been born on the estate and, after certain adventures in other metropolitan centres, had married a widow and settled down in Seville to manage the small inn she had inherited from her father—taking up the rôle which, apparently, had been that of her late husband.

    “So he fathers ten brats or so on the woman—”

    “Five, Pa,” interrupted Luís mildly.

    “Was it? Oh, yes: gettin’ mixed up with Manuel Juarez. What I’m trying to say is, time rolls by and all that, everything in the garden’s rosy— That reminds me, some fine fat hips showing along the lanes already: ought to get picking, the birds and squirrels’ll have ’em if we don’t, and there is nothing so delicate as a pot of rose-hip jel—”

    “You were telling him,” interrupted Luís, as Bungo’s face now looked as if it might explode, “about Manuel de los Angeles.”

    “Not in me dotage yet,” he grunted. “¡Holà! –What the Devil’s that fellow’s name, again?” he said, as the English footman did not respond to this cry.

    “James,” replied Luís calmly.

    “Oh, yes: James, fetch that dish of sweet peppers what is down there by Mr Bungo’s elbow, would you?”

    “This one, Sir Harry?” replied the young man on a weak note.

    “No! What’s wrong with your servants, Luís, don’t know a dish of—”

    “We are not in Spain now, Pa. The stewed red vegetable, thank you, James.”

    Sir Harry accepted the dish and helped himself lavishly. “Don’t put it back by Mr Bungo, man, he don’t like foreign food!” he said testily. “Where was I?” He tasted the peppers. “Yes: excellent, m’dear, never thought they’d come on in England,” he congratulated his daughter-in-law. “That sheltered corner of the walled garden was the right choice. No: as I was saying, time rolls by, everything in the garden’s rosy”—Bungo was seen to scowl as it dawned his father had picked up his exact phrase, far from wandering, and was, once again, doing it on purpose—“and we don’t hear much of Master Manuel, but old Julio de los Angeles gets a note via Padre Bartolomé to say all’s well and some silver coins, what the cunning Catholic so-and-so makes sure he takes his cut from before passing them on to the family. Then, lo and behold, Master Manuel’s suddenly back in the village, offering to cook for that fat old rascal Ramón Juarez at the local tavern.” He combined a large piece of red pepper with a piece of stewed hogget, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “Delicious, I’ll say this for the fellow. –Turns out the widow wasn’t.”

    “Wasn’t what?” said Bungo on an annoyed note.

    “Wasn’t a widow, dear fellow. The husband came back. Took to Manuel with a dagger, but fortunately the wife saw that coming, kicked him in the privates, and Manuel took to his heels. So as Señora Juarez don’t want him in her kitchen and Padre Bartolomé’s Señora Juarez would kill him if he let the fellow loose in her kitchen, and our poor old Consuelo Dominguez is getting on a bit, your Madre says Manuel had best come and give her a hand, so he does.”

    After a moment Bungo said: “Where had the husband been?”

    Sir Harry speared a piece of hogget. “He’s used capers, hasn’t he, Inez? Aye, thought so. There is nothing like your caper with hogget or, indeed, mutton. –My guess’d be a Seville gaol, but Jerez or Cadiz weren’t out of the question, neither. But it turned out well for us, for as I say, poor old Consuelo Dominguez was getting on a bit, and Manuel was used to do the cooking for the widow—not-widow, should say—and in addition, knew all about buttering the women up. What if Consuelo did allow him the privilege,”—Inez’s agonised expression had come back—“none of us cared. Well, Padre Bartolomé may have, damned old woman that he was, but the woman must’ve been sixty, no chance of fathering a brat on her. –If those are carrots done English-style with a bit of parsley, dare say I might try a few, so long as the damned fellow hasn’t ruined ’em with olive oil.”

    “No, he has used a little butter, Pa,” said Luís mildly, passing the carrots.

    After a considerable silence Bungo said feebly: “Well, how old is Manuel?”

    “Get into the kitchen, see for yourself!” replied his father robustly.

    “That’ll do, Harry,” said Luís in a bored tone. “Dare say he’s over thirty—well, left the village as young chap, you see,” he said to Bungo’s dropped jaw.

    “Thirty and sixty?” he croaked.

    “Their own business,” replied Sir Harry calmly. “Well, there y’are. Not saying he can’t cook; not a cook, though.”

    “I think he has clearly qualified as such, however,” said Luís smoothly. “Bungo, querido, have some of these foies de volaille, they are delicious in the cream sauce.”

    Jumping, Bungo refused this offer and took half a spit-roast chicken, what time Sir Harry decided jovially, though in general he did not care for mucked-about foies de volaille and he wondered that while they were at Ainsley Manor Luís had not thought to get Berthe’s way of doing ’em on little skewers for Manuel, that he would try the dish.

    The saga of Manuel de los Angeles, together with the culinary topics, had successfully diverted anyone from asking what Sir Harry had been doing all afternoon, had they been going to do so—as the elder of his two sons did not fail to note. Luís did not, however, interrogate him as they settled down after dinner in the sitting-room with the brandy, the port, and the cigars; if he wished to keep his own counsel, let him. Bungo certainly hadn't noticed anything—and at the moment the sight of his father courteously lighting a cigar for Inez was successfully diverting him from the thought of anything else.

    After a while Inez said brightly: “The weather continues so pleathant, no? I think I might call on Mrs Formby, tomorrow.”

    “Preferable to calling on Lady Lasset,” allowed Sir Harry, swallowing a yawn.

    “Indeed, yes! She ’as her cousins staying, you know.”

    “Her husband’s cousins, I think, m’dear,” he corrected, swallowing another yawn.

    “Why, yes, dear Sir ’Arry, you are perfectly correct,” she said in some surprise,

    “Can’t conceive how he’d know that, couldn’t see him for dust last time a carriage bowled up the drive,” noted Bungo sourly. –He himself had been in and had been fairly caught: Lady Lasset, in full panoply. Though the Ainsley brothers were agreed that Colonel Bredon, who had escorted her Ladyship, seemed like a decent chap—or would have done had be been allowed to get a word in edgewise.

    “They deed call some time back, but you men were all out,” said Inez. “The other Mrs Formby, two elderly aunts, and two of the Miss Formbys. Very pretty girls.”

    “Mm, you told us that, me dear,” grunted Sir Harry, eyeing his second son from under his lashes.

    “Miss Marianne, wasn’t it?” said Bungo, kindly but bored.

    “That’s right, Bungo, querido, and only guess! The family call ’er ‘Mouse’, is that not so sweet? For she is just like a leetle, pretty mouse, so dainty!” said Inez with a little laugh.

    “Damned Bunch had some pet mice once,” recalled Sir Harry. “The damned things stink. Not sweet at all.”

    Poor Inez was looking quite crushed. “Rubbish, Pa,” drawled Luís. “I know exactly what you mean, Inez. I’ve met Miss Marianne and she is like a pretty, dainty little mouse! Or perhaps a little—I don’t know the word,” he said, looking disconcerted. “Vole,” he said in Spanish.

    Smiling very much, Inez agreed that sí, sí, Miss Marianne was also like a little vole!

    “Vole,” said Sir Harry to his youngest son in English. “The poor gal’ll be ferret-faced.”

    Bungo dissolved in sniggers.

    After Luís had been forced by Inez to translate and Inez had reproved both her relatives by marriage, she said on a hopeful note: “So per’aps you might all like to come weet’ me?”

    “Us?” said Bungo in tones of pure horror.

    His father scowled at him. “Nothing wrong with the Formbys. Well, he’s a damned cit, of course, but she’s a Quarmby-Vine. Thought you called with Inez earlier in the year?”

    “You never LISTEN!” he shouted.

    While Sir Harry’s jaw was still sagging in mixed astonishment and indignation, Luís said quickly: “Pa, that was the famed visit when Miss Victoria was allowed to take him into the garden to interrogate him about Giles and Gaetana and the style of Daynesford Place.”

   “Yes,” said Bungo, glaring. “And I told you about it!”

    “Dare say y’did. So dashed boring I didn’t retain it.” He heaved himself up. “Think I’ll have an early night, if you’ll excuse me, Inez, m’dear. Oh—by the way, a close acquaintance of the Joe Formbys has just died: heard it in the town,” he said airily. “Don’t think tomorrow would be a good day to call, me dear. Leave it for a few days. mm?”

    “I shall leave it, then, Pa. But will you not come weet’ me?”

    “Me?” said Sir Harry feebly. “Uh—well, depends what day it is, m’dear. Well, could do, dare say!” he added, reflecting that at the moment Captain Cutlass was safely in Waddington-on-Sea. “Day after tomorrow, then?”

    “Would that not be too soon, if a close acquaintance has lately died?” murmured Luís.

    “Not as close as all that! You could call, too. Don’t know why you bothered taking a decent house, if you never call on your neighbours! –Good-night, Inez, m’dear.” With this he stalked out, ignoring his sons.

    “What was all that about?” croaked Bungo.

    Luís got up and closed the door—Sir Harry rarely closed a door. “I think he’s just tired. He’s been out all day.”

    “Where the Devil does he go, with his cursed donkey-cart?” he wondered.

    That had taken long enough! Luís eyed him drily but replied mildly: “I think, possibly as far as the town, where doubtless he patronises a tavern or two. There’s a little tavern over at Lasset Halt, too, dare say he goes there.”

    “He’s getting worse, Luís!” he said crossly.

    “I wouldn’t say that, querido.”

    “Did he frequent the local taverns in Spain?” he demanded.

    “Uh—it wasn’t quite the same. He often used to go down to the local bodega, and naturally he was very hail-fellow-well-met—well, Harry would not be above his company, you know—but everyone knew him, of course. But I don’t see there’s any harm in sitting in a tavern and standing the fellows a few drinks, Bungo.”

    “I know you don’t,” he replied tightly.

    Luís sighed. ‘There’s nothing for him to do here. It was a mistake to take a short lease. I should have bought a place, let him puddle around ordering the fellows to retile the courtyard and buying the wrong type of olive trees that Madre had to quietly replace behind his back, and so forth! Well, the English equivalent!” he said with a smile as Bungo opened his mouth to object.

    “Oh. Well, dare say he is bored, aye. Don’t seem to want to fish,” he added on a cross note.

    “No. He has not lived the life of a country gentleman since he was twenty years old, querido. If he fishes, it’s for food, not for sport.”

    “Aye. Think he’s forgotten what fly fishing is,” he said heavily.

    “Yes.” Luís forbore to say that Sir Harry’s temperament was not one that could ever have supported such a dawdling, repetitious sport in any case. “So Miss Victoria Formby did not impress you, then?”

    “Only as a toad-eater, Luís,” he said with a sigh, “and if I call again, they’ll think I’m interested in her!”

    “I’ll make that point to Inez, she’ll understand. –If she goes,” he added.

    “Seemed pretty keen.”

    “Yes. But then, there was a plan to drive over to Longwood House and call on—well, I forget which ones they are, but to call there, and then when the day arrived she didn’t have the energy: do you remember?”

    “Er—yes.” Bungo eyed him warily, hoping that Luís’ status as a married man had not suggested to the fellow that he bring up topics which were properly left to the distaff side.

    “And the day we took the barouche over towards High Mallows and tried to see if the rumour about the old overgrown house being restored is true, do you recall? She was very… the English adjective is ‘tired’, I suppose. But ‘lassitude’ is the word I’m thinking of.”

    “Uh—yes. Hot day, wasn’t it? And we spent a fair while going up and down that back road trying to see the old house.”

    “Querido, it was not hot! How can you say that, after India?”

    “It was hot for England. And, uh, well, y’know what women are, Luís,” he said uncomfortably.

    “Yes, but Bungo, I don’t think it’s just that. She’s been having fits of—of extreme lassitude, for the past six months—no, more. She wath very bright at Christmas and for Boxing Day but then could scarce get out of bed for the best part of a week, you know!”

    “Um, but Christa fed her up on beef broth and so forth and she was right as rain, old man, it wasn’t even a cold, And, um, well, she’s had the baby and she, um, ain’t getting any younger.”

    Luís bit his lip. “No, but… I’m sorry, Bungo, I don’t think you’re the right person to discuss this with.”

    “No,” he said gratefully. “Um, well, y’could talk to Pa.”

    “Sí, I think I shall have to; because,” said Luís grimly, “it is not just a monthly thing.”

    Bungo was now very flushed. “Oh, ain’t it?” he croaked.

    “Definitely not, no.”

     Bungo cleared his throat. “Then I would talk to Pa, definitely, old man, and I think you’d better see if there’s a decent doctor in the town. Get him to take a look at her.”

    “Sí. She’s been resisting the idea, but— Aye, I will.”

    Luís might not have called a doctor within the week, but Inez had another fit of extreme lassitude, which frightened him very much. She had called at Blasted Oak House, but alone, Sir Harry having decided that discretion was the better part of valour and if the family had hauled Captain Cutlass back it’d be damned awkward, and Luís having lost his nerve completely at the thought that Miss Calpurnia might be there.

    On her return from the visit Inez was unable to get out of the barouche without assistance. She was in no pain and declared she’d had a lovely time, but just felt very weak. Luís ordered up some beef broth immediately and was horrified to find that she felt too weak even to hold the spoon. Though she swallowed obediently as her little Consuelo held it to her lips.

    Dr Kent came, Sir Harry having remembered that there was a decent doctor fellow, thought his name was Kent, and anyone in the town would be able to say where he lived. He himself was not in when the doctor arrived, but Luís merely assumed that after having gone through Madre’s final illness he didn’t feel up to another lot.

    “I can find nothing organically wrong, Mr Ainsley,” said the burly doctor with a frown.

    Luís looked at the frown fearfully. “But?”

    “It isn’t something I’ve ever seen, though I’ve read of such cases… May I ask if she has always had drooping eyelids?”

    Her eyes were one of the features that in Luís’s opinion most made Inez resemble those horrid paintings by that El Greco fellow: large, quite deep-set but nonetheless bulgy eyes with drooping eyelids. But she was such a good-natured creature that after a while you scarcely noticed them. “Er—well, yes, as long as I’ve known her, doctor.”

    “Uh-huh. Anyone else in her family the same?”

    “Um, the Vedia de Bastianini family do tend to have heavy eyelids and, um, protruding eyeballs,” he said limply.

    “Exophthalmic, yes. Well, that may not be a factor. Has she always been this thin?”

    “No. She was always thin, but she was remarkably well all the time she was expecting Tonio and even put on weight. But all this summer she’s been losing weight steadily. Um—this sounds silly, doctor, but one day she said to me that chewing is such hard work.”

    “Mm. I think it must be a wasting disease, Mr Ainsley,” said the doctor bluntly.

    Luís swallowed.

    “In that case, she may be expected to get progressively worse. There will be no pain, however. There’s nothing I can prescribe, I’m afraid. But by all means seek another opinion.”

    “Should I take her back to Spain, do you think?” asked Luís in a trembling voice.

    The size and style of Little Lasset was a fair indicator of the man’s worth: he could clearly afford to do so. Dr Kent looked dry. “If she wants to see her relatives again, I would say do so as soon as possible. Doubtless you’ll find an eminent physician in Madrid who’ll charge you sixty times as much as I and do as much for you.”

    “Seville,” he corrected faintly. “She is not fond of her mother but there are some sisters to whom she is very close.”

    “Take her back before the weather closes in, then. The sea air may well do her good, but don’t be fooled into thinking she’ll recover on that account.”

    “Very well,” said Luís with tears in his eyes. “It—it wath not a love match, doctor, but I have become very fond of her. How long hath she got, do you think?”

    “I can’t say for sure, Mr Ainsley, and I doubt that anyone could. But I think she might hang on for as much as another year—perhaps even longer if her system is not submitted to the rigours of an English winter.”

    “I see,” he said with difficulty. “She had such a lovely time in Wiltshire last Christmas!”

    “Mm. And afterwards?”

    “She was very tired and kept to her bed for a week but—but my sister-in-law coddled her and we thought she was quite well again.”

    “Yes. These wasting diseases are like that: the patient has ups and downs. Don’t blame yourself, there was nothing you could have done.”

    Sir Harry made an awful face. “Right. Thought she was getting thinner.”

    “Sí… She had that bad cough back in spring. I was afraid it might be consumption,” said Luís in a low voice, “but Dr Kent thinks not.”

    “Hmm. Seen it several times, and it don’t look like that to me, no. They do cough a lot, ’specially at the end, and become very weak, but in the earlier stages seem more, uh, not feverish, exactly: fevered. Typically with very flushed cheeks. She ain’t like that, is she? Very pale. Think the doctor’s right, Luís, and it’s a wasting disease. There were a couple of cousins died of that, I think, but they were younger—in their thirties, I think. Um… Well, never knew the family that well. Your Madre knew them better. I rather think there was a brother popped off in his twenties. Let’s see… Well, two of ’em died in the Peninsula War, but I’m pretty sure this other one died in his bed.” He cleared his throat. “Thing is, wouldn’t like to question the poor little thing.”

    “No. It would be pointless: there is clearly nothing to be done. I will consult a doctor in Seville, but…”

    “Kent has a very good reputation in the town,” said Sir Harry.

    “Yes; I am sure that his diagnosis is quite correct.”

     “Aye, well, poor little soul…Never mind, you gave her Tonio and you’ve made her happy, Luís!”

    Luís got up, his eyes full of tears. “I hope so.”

    “Don’t bawl, mi hijo, these things happen,” he said heavily.

    “Sí, but it’s so unfair!” he choked.

    “Life is, querido,” said Sir Harry sadly as his son hurried out.

    As was only to be expected, the news that Luís was going back to Spain because of Inez’s health resulted in Christabel’s leaping into the Ainsley Manor carriage and hurrying down to Sussex to look after her. Paul wasn’t able to come, or possibly things would not have turned out as they did. Christabel Ainsley was, of course, extremely level-headed, and her advice on any matter was bound to be sane and sensible. Unfortunately, though she was not an impatient woman, she had very little time for Sir Harry’s wilful eccentricities. And was certainly far too sane and sensible herself to grasp, as Luís had once tried to explain to her, that at his age the eccentricities were no longer entirely wilful and that he could not really be happy in the sort of well-ordered country-house existence that she and Paul led at Ainsley Manor. What else had he been doing, all those years on Marinela's estate, if not leading a country-house life? she demanded. Luís’s feeble mention of smoking his cigars on the terrace, puddling around ordering the retiling of the courtyard and buying the wrong type of olive trees that Madre had had to replace had not raised a smile, far from it.

    Sir Harry thought it over for some time, but a full week of Christabel managing the household made up his mind for him—illogical though this might have been. In addition, her continual reminders to Bungo about the farm that was available for him had become very tiresome indeed, as had Bungo’s reaction to them. So, carefully selecting a time at which Inez was resting and the energetic Christabel had also consented to rest, he sat back at his ease in the delightfully casual comfort of the Little Lasset sitting-room and brought his two younger sons up to date about his expeditions with Don Quijote. Within the limits of what he wished them to know. Though as he was fed up with never being able to mention Captain Cutlass’s name he revealed that much. Well, no skin off Luís’s nose any more, the fellow was going back to Spain, wasn’t he?

    Luís went very red but said nothing.

    “WHAT?” shouted Bungo. “Masquerading round the town as Mr Smith when Mrs Joe Formby and her daughters have met Richard Baldaya and the John Formbys know Stamforth?”

    “Well, slight drawback, yes,” admitted his parent airily. “Never met the present man meself, mind, though I was at school with a Vane.”

    Bungo drew a deep breath. “You’re beyond the pale, Pa! It’s just as well you’re going back to Spain.”

    Sir Harry cleared his throat. “Um, been thinking. Had enough of Spain, really. Know I should support you, Luís, old chap, ’specially after all you’ve done for me—”

    “Nonsense, Harry!” said Luís quickly, endeavouring to give him a warning look.

    “Look,” he began crossly: “it’s time Bungo—”

    “No,” said Luís grimly.

    “Time I what?” asked Bungo suspiciously.

    Sir Harry gave him an unpleasant look. “Time you pulled your weight, young shaver. You can get over to Spain and support Luís instead of me.”

    “I—well, yes, of course I shall come, Luís,” he said stiffly, very flushed up.

    “Thank you, querido, I should be very glad of your support,” owned Luís with a sigh.

    “That’s settled, then!” said Sir Harry briskly. “The lease of this dump has got months in it yet, hey? Dare say I may stay on for a bit, and then look around in the town for something. Little house or something. See a bit more of Miss Calpurnia. –Don’t look like that, Luís, she’s only the only living creature with a modicum of intelligence I’ve met since we set foot in England!”

    Luís sighed. “I dare say, but in which persona do you intend staying in Waddington-on-Sea, Harry?”

    He shrugged.

    “Staying in the town as Mr Smith would be totally ineligible!” cried Bungo.

    “Pooh! Like I say, Stamforth and his wife don’t know me.”

    “Listen, you old idiot!” said Luís loudly. “You are the spitting image of Bungo: Lady Stamforth has only to set eyes on you instantly to realise who you must be!”

    “Oh. S’pose I could always go to Paul and Christa. Thing is, it’s so dashed stuffy there.”

    “Well, proper, yes,” said Luís, biting his lip. “Won’t you come with us, though, Pa?”

    “Do you want me?” he said glumly.

    “Yes, of course!”

    “Don’t think you ever called me an old idiot before,” he said glumly.

    Luís ran his hand through his curls. “Possibly you didn’t quite behave like one before!”

    “Dare say. –I really don’t fancy Spain again, Luís.”

    Luís sighed. No, and if he insisted he come back with them, what were the odds of his starting to gamble again? He went over to him, bent down and kissed his cheek. “You must do exactly as you wish, Pa.”

    “Dago trick,” grunted Sir Harry, looking vastly gratified.

    “Look, Luís—” began Bungo.

    “Hush.” He went over to the decanters and poured them all a glass of port.

    Sir Harry brightened. “This the porto you got when you were in Lisbon dangling after—”

    “Never mind that,” he said quickly, glancing at Bungo’s face. “Tasty little morsel though she was!” He raised his glass. “To better times.”

    Happily Sir Harry drank.

    … “It’s no use, Bungo, querido,” said Luís when Sir Harry had gone to bed. “He’d mope with Paul and Christa, and if I insist on taking him to Spain he might start gambling again.”

    “What?”

    “Er, well, yes, he did become rather silly after Madre died. Don’t mention it to Paul, will you?”

    “Lor’, no! –Um, has it sunk in he can’t stay on here once the lease runs out, old man?”

    “Yes. I’ll see he has plenty of funds, and doubtless he can find himself a quiet little house in Waddington-on-Sea, if that’s what he imagines he wants.”

    “Look, Luís, he’ll go on with this Mr Smith rubbish, y’know, without you to stop him!”

    “Sí. Well, querido, it’s no use wrapping it up in clean linen: when he was a spy, which was all of the time I was growing up, he spent more than half his days pretending to be someone else—usually someone of a low character. Dare say he is reverting to his old ways.”

    “Living like a peasant?” he said grimly.

    “Mm. Oh, well, when he gets bored with it he’ll give it up. Madre did once tell me that he was ever horridly prone to boredom, but I couldn’t see it—too young to do so, y’know.”

    “Boredom! This donkey-cart business started back in spring, y’know!”

    “Of course. Oh—you mean the Mr Smith thing? Yes, it sounds as if it did. Well, you see, pleasant though our country house life here was to us, old man, to him,” said Luís, wrinkling his elegant Spanish nose a little, “it lacked scope. Always was a play-actor, y’know.”

    “I suppose I see,” he admitted sourly.

    Luís hesitated. Then he said lightly: “Bungo, querido, I don’t think Bunch and Jack Hall will be back in England for a good long while yet, and it will be your chance to look around Spain and see what you think of the property without Pa bothering you with his opinions.”

    “His bad advice, y’mean! Well, yes, as a matter of fact I should like to,” Bungo decided gratefully.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/going-up-in-world.html