2
They all came back to Plasencia at the beginning of September.
The Doña received the plan of the play’s being acted on her lawn with indulgent indifference; ever since they had been quite little her children had periodically organised dramatic performances. “Mrs. Moore can bring her Women’s Institute to watch it, and that should leave me in peace for this year, at any rate. I suppose we’d better have the county too, though we did give them cakes and ices enough at Concha’s wedding to last them their lifetime. What is this play of yours about, Teresa?”
“Oh ... old Seville,” she answered nervously, “a nunnery ... and ... and ... there’s a knight ... and there’s an old sort of ... sort of witch.”
“Aha! an old gipsy. And does she give the girls love potions?” And the Doña, her head a little on one side, contemplated her, idly quizzical.
“Yes, I daresay she does,” and Teresa gave a nervous laugh, “it’s an auto sacramentál,” she added.
The Doña looked interested: “An auto sacramentál? That’s what they used to play in the old days in the Seville streets at Corpus Christi. Your great-grandmother de La Torre saw one of the last they ever did,” then she began to chuckle, “an auto sacramentál on an English lawn! Poor Mrs. Moore and her Women’s Institute! Still, it will be very good for them, I’m sure.”
Would she guess? She was horribly intelligent; but not literary, so there was hope—and yet ... that affective sensitiveness that, having taken the place for centuries of education and intellection, has developed in the women of Spain into what is almost a sixth sense....
Well, if she did guess it would be only what she knew already, and if she chose to draw false conclusions—let her!
But would she recognise herself? The mere possibility of this made Teresa blush crimson. But it was not her fault; she had not meant to draw her like that—it had grown on her hands.
And then she thought no more about it, but wandered through the garden and ripening orchard, muttering absently:
So silently they one to th’other come,
As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.