Entertaining in town and country—Critical guests—A subscription ball—Le dernier crifrom London—Dancing in a bog—Why the ladies went home—The search for Spanish gaiety—A disappointed artist—Afternoon calls—Arab hospitality—Ladies at work—Spanish unpunctuality—A new winter coat—Maria’s compliment—Open house to old servants—Carmen thecigarrera.
Entertaining in town and country—Critical guests—A subscription ball—Le dernier crifrom London—Dancing in a bog—Why the ladies went home—The search for Spanish gaiety—A disappointed artist—Afternoon calls—Arab hospitality—Ladies at work—Spanish unpunctuality—A new winter coat—Maria’s compliment—Open house to old servants—Carmen thecigarrera.
It does not cost much to entertain in Spain, at any rate in the smaller towns. In the large towns things are otherwise, and it may be as well to begin by relating an incident that I heard of in connection with some very pleasant friends who lived in one of the “capitals,” which means the chief town of the great provinces into which Spain is divided. Here there is a great deal ofcursileria—a slang term best translated as “snobbishness”—and as every lady who gives a party wishes to spend more than any other lady, and as pride is everywhere more plentiful than pesetas, little hospitality is shown to or by people who are not rich.
POSED FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER.
POSED FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER.
An heiress had married the head of an old and noble family who himself possessed hardly anything beyond the family estate in Castile. Just when her eldest girl put on her first long frock and was about to be presented at Court, my friend lost almost all her money through some unfortunatespeculation on the part of her husband—for the husband, be it observed, is absolute master of his wife’s property in Spain. After the first shock the Condesa removed to a smaller house, and arranged her mode of life to suit her altered circumstances, while the Conde, a Colonel in the King’s Guard, went to Madrid as usual to fulfil his duty at Court.
One of the things saved from the wreck was a grand piano, for the Condesa was a first-rate musician, and on Salud’s eighteenth “name-day” a party was arranged with the double object of “offering the new house” to their large circle of acquaintance, and giving the girl a little amusement at home, since it was now out of the question for her to have a season at Madrid. The three daughters set to work and made paper flowers—a pretty accomplishment in which Spanish ladies excel—and garlands of leaves to adorn the patio. The Condesa herself superintended the preparation of various dainty little refreshments for her guests, and everything on the eventful night was as bright and attractive as good taste and willing hands could make it.
But there were no ices, no champagne, no set supper, and no band, the girls of the house taking turns to play endlessseguidillas,rigodones, and valses for their guests. And when the dance was over and the Condesa and her daughters stood in the patio saying good-bye to those whom they had done their best to entertain, they heard one aristocratic dame remark to another of her kind—
“Were you ever before invited to anything quite so shabby? Really, if Maria de las Nievescould not afford something better than that, she had no business to invite us at all!”
But this specimen of aristocratic courtesy was displayed in a “capital,” and things fortunately are very different in more out-of-the-way places.
In these I have seen young people meet together to talk and laugh and dance for hours, quite satisfied with no more costly refreshment than a bottle of water with a single glass from which they all drank in turn; while a lady who held weekly receptions to which we were invited once for the whole year, was regarded as quite a liberal hostess because she provided weak coffee and biscuitsad lib.
It was in a country town that I had the pleasure of attending my first and only subscription ball in Spain. The King’s approaching marriage had brought everything English very much into fashion, and we were received on entering the theatre, where the ball was held, by the young gentleman who had got us the tickets, dressed as a Pierrot but wearing a bowler hat from Christie’s, whose label was displayed by an ingenious turn of the hand as he led me into the dancing-room, otherwise the auditorium of the theatre.
It was Carnival, and most of the dancers were in fancy dress. The place was prettily decorated, and the boxes and dress circle were crowded with spectators. All the elder ladies were wearing black or white mantillas or Manila shawls, and one ought to have received an impression of smartness or even of elegance. But something was wrong somewhere to our English eyes, and instead of admiring thecoup d’œilone cast about to see why one felt as if one had accidentally intruded upon a festivity in Whitechapel.
“Will you dance with me?” asked the Pierrot of a girl of our party, who, by the way, wore a realistic beggar’s dress, all red and yellow rags, which her Spanish friends thought very absurd because it had cost only a few pesetas. And as the couple moved off together I suddenly discovered why the scene reminded me of a London coster dance. Every young man and many of the old ones wore a hat—generally a bowler—and even if he took it off to valse, which not many of them did, he carried it carefully under his arm as he danced, regardless of the inconvenience to his partner.
“What do you think of our ball?” asked an acquaintance, who was smoking a cigarette as well as wearing his hat.
I was tactless enough to say that it looked odd to us to see so many hats about, and I noticed that the young man’s face fell. I learnt afterwards that the bowler from Christie’s was believed to be absolutely thedernier criin England, and that being so, it was considered as appropriate to the ballroom as to the street.
The entertainment was got up by the rank and fashion of the town, so everybody behaved with great dignity, and there was none of the rollicking fun we expected to see at a Carnival ball. The ladies in the boxes continually threw serpentinas and confetti at the dancers, until the floor was inches deep in them, and an Irish girl in our party saidshe felt as if she was dancing in one of her native bogs. But no one got excited, and an English artist on the look out for local colour began to bewail the absence of the light and life that he had believed inseparable from Spanish society.
A little before 1 a.m. there was a universal move towards the centre of the theatre, and at a given signal the heavens seemed to open and a mass of paper flowers, confetti, and bonbons concealed behind the garlands draping the ceiling, showered down on our heads, while a number of white pigeons were let loose and flew about in terror; but still nobody got excited. When this was over the Pierrot in charge of our party called the eldest of the Englishmen aside and asked him to take his ladies home, “because other ladies would be coming now”—a gentle hint, on which all the English and most of the Spanish dames hastily took their departure. The artist was the only one of us who stayed, hoping that with the advent of the “other ladies” he might see something of the celebrated animation which he wanted to introduce into his pictures of Spanish life. He told us next day that he had stopped till 4 a.m., and then came home escorted by half the Spanish army and all the Spanish navy—as represented at the ball—most of them rather and some of them very drunk, but solemn to the last.
“Spanish gaiety is a fraud,” he indignantly declared, and departed in dudgeon, shaking the dust of our town off his feet.
But when I came to know more of Spanishsociety I understood why all the ladies and many of the men were so solemn on that occasion. Being at a subscription and thus a semi-public ball, they considered that it would beinfra dig.to show that they were amused. I never went to another such dance, for I prefer natural fun among young people at a party, but I would not have missed that one for the world; it was so delightfully unlike anything else of the kind one had ever seen.
Afternoon calling in Spain is very different from the quarter-of-an-hour duty visit or the formal leaving of cards which is customary in England—or was when I left my native country ten years or so ago.
Here it is a serious matter for those who have any sort of occupation, for one is expected to stay never less than an hour, and indeed your intimate friends are hurt if you don’t remain the whole afternoon.
It is absolutely contrary to etiquette to go out when you have visitors, no matter how important an engagement you may have made before the uninvited guests appeared. I have known friends fail to arrive when expected to a ceremonious dinner at our house, and the all-sufficient reply to my reproaches has been, “I was very sorry, but what was I to do? We had visitors.”
This exaggerated regard for the duties of hospitality in your own house, coupled with a calm disregard of any obligation imposed by an engagement to visit your neighbours, is another of the innumerable survivals of Arabic tradition, and as such must be respected by all who would enjoy the friendshipof Spaniards. It is stronger in the south than in the north, where the Oriental influence was comparatively ephemeral and made no lasting impression on the natives. And it is even said that in Barcelona the Catalans sometimes turn up punctually when they have made a business engagement. This, I am credibly informed, is one of the causes, as well as an effect, of Cataluñan prosperity. But the Catalans are reputed to make a boast of their virtues, and this ridiculous regard for punctuality and the rest is one of their many offences in the eyes ofe.g.the Andalucians, who are to the Catalans as oil to water, and never will agree with them on any single question to the crack of doom.
The extraordinary indifference of Spaniards to fixed hours and previously made engagements caused me no little trouble in connection with the photograph facing the head of this chapter. I wanted to take a pretty group formed day after day by the friends with whom I was staying, as they sat at work in their charming old patio, with some small nieces playing about them, and a typically Spanish air of ease and comfortablenégligépervading the whole scene. So I asked them to be in their usual rocking-chairs on a certain day, fixed by themselves, and arranged with the photographer to come at three o’clock on that afternoon, this being the time when my friends were always sitting there with their needlework, and the one hour in the whole day when the light in the patio, which was shadowed by a large orange tree, admitted of successful photography.
At three o’clock the patio was empty, save for a baby niece and her nurse. The girls, I was told, were dressing for the occasion. At three-thirty the photographer came. By that time the baby niece, badly bored, had begun to cry, and she continued to cry until at last she had to be taken away. She was a pretty baby, and I did not want to lose her from the picture. At four o’clock, when the light in the patio was already bad, the girls at last appeared, not, as had been arranged, in their everyday dresses prepared to sit down for a couple of hours’ needlework, but in the costume of peasant girls got up for the fair, and quite obviously ladies in fancy dress. Nor was this the only disappointment to a writer who wanted a picture of Spanish ladies at home, for the sight of the camera had attracted all the children of my friends’ friends within range, and I was told by my hostess that great offence would be given if they were not allowed to figure in the photograph.
As it was evidently useless now to attempt to get the sort of group I wanted, I gave way with such grace as I could command. The weeping baby was brought back, still weeping and refusing to be comforted even by some artificial flowers offered by its mother, who had put on a beautiful Manila shawl as an appropriate garment for sewing in the patio. The children from over the way planted themselves as seemed good to them, and the grown ladies settled themselves as the photographer recommended. When all was ready half an hour or so later, the sun went behind a cloud, the baby gave an extra howl,my particular friend stepped out of focus, and the photograph was of course hopelessly spoiled.
When the superfluous children had run away thinking it was all over, and most of the ladies had taken their leave, the sun reappeared, and the photographer hastily snapped the two prettiest girls, with the baby’s mother pretending to be the nurse of the elder nieces, who yawned violently and informed us that their dolls had gone to sleep.
All things considered, I think the result was fairly good, but it is not a picture of Spanish ladies sitting at home with their sewing in the reposeful attitudes characteristic of the land where one hour is as good as another. I gave that up after wasting a whole afternoon and a certain amount of money in the manner here described. Neither the ladies nor the photographer seemed at all concerned at the fiasco, nor were the former at all contrite at having caused it by their unpunctuality. Indeed one of them, adding insult to injury, informed me that if I had had Señor Fulano instead of Don Mengano to take those photographs I should have obtained better results. And I think it should be counted to me for righteousness that I refrained from pointing out what admirable pictures my photographer produced when he had not to deal with society ladies.
The subjects of conversation at these friendly sewing parties are apt to be somewhat limited in scope, but one that never fails to please is dress in all shapes and forms.
The day after the photograph fiasco was the saint’s day, or name-day, of Maria de las Mercédés,one of the two señoritas pretending to be a peasant at the well in the patio. And in the afternoon I was invited to eat cakes and drink wine, and be introduced to various callers who had come to offer the usual congratulations. Mercédés had received, as a name-day present from her brother, a new winter coat of the latest fashion, and first she had to put it on to exhibit to every woman and girl who called, and then every girl who called had to take the coat and try it on for herself. How they could do this I can’t imagine, for it was a blazing hot day of St. Martin’s summer, and in deference to a lady who had a cold we were all together in a small sitting-room with the windows shut. But one after the other of Mercédés’ young friends slipped into the garment, studied her appearance in the mirrors with which every Spanish sala is plentifully provided, suggested improvements in this or that detail, and invariably ended by asking how much the coat cost and telling the owner that it was a wonderful bargain.
If the señoritas had brought gifts themselves, there might have been some excuse for their insatiable curiosity as to the price of the brother’s present; but no: on Spanish name-days (which are equivalent to our birthdays) it is the heroine of the day who makes offerings, represented by cakes and wine, instead of receiving them. I trust that my readers will not cry “enough of King Charles’s head” if I again remark that this is an Oriental tradition, just as many of the cakes themselves are made after Oriental recipes.
The custom of asking the price of whatever they admire is universal here, and is not in the least considered bad manners. The first Spanish lady whose acquaintance we made in Spain asked us what we were paying at the hotel we were staying at. When we took a house we were always asked what rent we paid, and when finally we bought the house in which we hope to end our days, all our Spanish friends asked us what the price was, and held up their hands in congratulatory amazement, exclaiming, “How cheap!” It is always a compliment to say you have made a good bargain, and if you wish to annoy, you have only to remark, “How they have cheated you!”
An old servant who lived with us for a good many years hoarded all her wages and spent nothing beyond the “tips” she received from visitors. To my certain knowledge she never bought a new dress for herself all the time she was with us, but wore my cast-off clothes when doing her work, and a brown, or as she called it, “Carmelite” cloth skirt, given her by a visitor, for Mass and the street, year in year out, until some one else gave her a blue serge which she turned and made to look like new. She was under a vow from her childhood never to wear any colour out of doors but brown, in honour of Our Lady of Carmel; but the vow somehow slipped into the background when she received the blue serge, and this will probably last her till she dies, for she is well over seventy.
This old lady, the first time she saw me in a new (and rather expensive) dress, came up andfingered the silk very carefully, and walked round and round me with expressions of enthusiastic admiration, such as—
“Señora, how beautiful! How handsome you are in your new costume! Never have I seen you look so well and so fat!” (As in the East, stout women are greatly admired here.)
And to finish up with, she said—
“Señora, the material is excellent. What did you pay for the dress, and where did you get it? To-morrow I shall go to the shop and buy myself just such another!”
I am afraid I did not receive this proposal with enthusiasm; but after a while I became used to talk of the kind, for I discovered that old Maria had no more idea of copying my clothes than she had of making a trip to England, and merely intended to suggest that sincerest form of flattery which is found in imitation.
I have met with many odd incidents showing how in certain ways the most complete familiarity prevails between master and servant, although in others there is a gulf fixed which seems to be impassable.
Servants, male and female, who have been engaged in a house even for a short time, especially in the country, are made more or less free of it for the rest of their lives. They may go away to other situations, or marry and set up their own homes, but always when they come to see their former mistress they walk in as if the house belonged to them, and are treated as if they had a perfect rightto be there. A laundress or charwoman will arrive with three or four small children at her heels, and these will sit about in the laundry or the patio all day, while the mother does her work. I am bound to say that the little things generally behave very well, being trained in the hard school of necessity, and as soon as they can walk and talk they begin to run errands for the household. They soon become useful in this way, for errands are innumerable here. Save in big country houses which depend largely on their own farms and fruit gardens for provisions, it is the exception to have a storeroom, and every pennyworth of household sundries, down to salt, pepper, and spices, is bought from day to day. As no attempt is made to furnish a list of requirements for the day’s meals when the cook goes to market, every item used in the cooking has to be got when it is found to be wanted—a system which accounts for much of the unpunctuality of meals in Spanish houses, and for the resultant national tendency to various forms of dyspepsia.
This of course does not apply to the poor, whose food is of the simplest. They eat bread andmorcillaorchorizo(varieties of dried sausage highly flavoured with garlic) for their lunch, andpucheroorcocido—of which more later on—for their dinner. In the towns they buy everything by the day, like their employers. But in the country they largely live on what they grow themselves, unless the whole family is engaged on the farm at a wage which includes food. And they thrive on bread,morcilla, and water, not even coffee being drunk by countrycottagers, as I have discovered when accepting their hospitality on my archæological excursions. Thus they have no need to be continually running to thecomestiblesshop, like their town friends, which is just as well when the nearest town may be anything from two to ten miles away.
To return to the manners of Spanish servants. I was sitting one evening with friends over the after-dinner coffee when a picturesque creature in a purple garment of penitence, with a white handkerchief on her head, and a pair of twins in her arms, strolled in to tell the family that she had had a letter from her brother, a soldier in Morocco. They were all obviously interested, and while I listened to their sympathetic inquiries about the young man’s health and happiness, I finished my coffee and handed my cup for a fresh supply. The bearer of the twins broke off short in her talk on noticing that I refused sugar.
“Is it possible that the Señora drinks coffee without sugar? Never have I heard of such a thing. Is it not very unpleasant to the taste?”
And then and there she shifted both babies on to one arm, took the unused spoon from my saucer, dipped it into my cup, and proceeded to try for herself what coffee without sugar tasted like.
I had much ado to refrain from laughing, the woman’s simple unconsciousness of offence was so funny. One of my friends asked me in English—
“What do you think of Spanish impudence?” but no one else took any notice.
This particular act was unusual, because everybodytakes sugar in their coffee, so that few opportunities arise for a servant to sample the unsweetened coffee in her master’s cup. But the licensed familiarity that underlay it is widespread.
Sometimes, however, an excess of familiarity brings about condign punishment, as in a case that occurred in the hotel in which we stayed on our first arrival in Spain.
I was alone in our little sitting-room one day, strumming on a guitar, when the door suddenly opened and in marched a large blowsy woman with big black eyes, a wilted rose in her hair, and a cigarette in her mouth. She plumped herself down on the only easy-chair in the place, took the guitar from my unresisting hands, remarked “I can play better thanthatat any rate!” and struck up the twanging chords which preface every south-Spanish song.
It was perfectly true that she played better than I did, though that was not saying much, for she could hardly have played worse. And I was so much amused at her calm assurance that I just sat and laughed, while she twanged the guitar and beat on the floor with her slippered foot preparatory to bursting into song. But the concert was quickly brought to an end by the entrance of an indignant chambermaid, who seized the guitar and soundly cuffed the guitarist with anAnda! Vete tu!(“Go! Get out!”) full of wrath and indignation.
“She seems fond of music,” said I deprecatingly, for the whole scene had been as good as a play to me.
“Fond of music!Ca!” retorted the chambermaid. “She’s the washerwoman, and she’s drunk!”
Further inquiry elicited that the washerwoman was acigarreraby profession—hence the cigarette, for respectable women in Spain do not smoke. And her name was Carmen! Shades of Bizet and his “toreador”! Alas! The landlady dismissed her next morning, and I never had another scene from that play enacted before me. Incidentally I may remark that drunkenness among women is extremely rare in Spain, and I can only remember coming into direct contact with one other old lady the worse foraguardientein all the years I have lived here.