And now she stood before the altar—her own altar—with her first long dress trailing behind her (she had not stumbled over it, but had made a most dignified entrance) and placed her helpless-looking little white hand in that of the stout, common-place man, over thirty years her senior, whose word was henceforth to be her law (for a married woman in Spain has practically no civil rights), and who had already made it evident that he would be a jealous husband. It may, however, be remarked that marital jealousy is regarded by many Spanish wives as rather a compliment than otherwise, as showing that their husbands think them worth being jealous of.
The ceremony was soon over, and while the bride and bridegroom, the bride’s parents and godparents, and her brothers and next sister, went into the sacristy with the priest to sign and witness the register, little Lola slipped her hand into mine.
“Carmencita told me to take you to our house now,” she said. “I am too little to witness for her, and she was afraid you would go away, and she wants you to see her dance in her wedding dress before she leaves with Cesar.”
She led me out of the church and along the badly paved street, which was lined with spectators anxious to see the new Countess whom they had known from a baby.
“There are only two carriages,” said Lola, “mamma’s and Cesar’s. Can you believe it? Carmencita has to come home all alone with Cesar in his carriage! She cried last night, and so did Pura and I, we all cried together. Fancy having to be left all alone with that horrid old man! Do you know, she is afraid he will kiss her, and his ugly blue nose will disarrange her hair. That is the only thing she is afraid of—being alone with him.”
A Spanish girl is never, under any circumstances, left alone with her fiancé, until she is actually married to him. There is always a mother, or an aunt, or some other female relative present to superintend the love-making. Small wonder that stolen interviews at the grating, with no listeners but the moon, have their charm. And perhaps the happiest marriages are those which come to pass, sometimes after years of parental opposition, between lovers whose courtship began thus. They at least have a chance of getting to know each other, free from the restraint of the chaperone whose attentive ear makes all real confidence impossible.
The house of the Campos Abandonados in Ronda is one of the most perfect examples of its kind in Spain. To the right of the spacious zaguan, as large as many a patio, are the stables, empty now, save for the Marchioness’s mules. The sixteen mangers are pure Arabic work, built into the wall, with a cusped arch over each. Passing these we get to the “modern” part of the house, which was renovated and “restored” in the prosperous sixteenth century, when gold poured into Spain from her new colonies across the Atlantic. Beyond this patio, the walls of which are covered with roses, jessamine, and other creepers planted in the ground, we get a glimpse of the inner one, cool and shady under its white awning. This is the summer sitting-room, furnished with easy-chairs and lounges all gay with bright calico covers, tables with work-baskets, photographs, and knick-knacks, and the other trifles which ladies of gentle birth all the world over collect about them, books and newspapers only excepted, for it is a rare thing to see anything to read in a Spanish lady’s sitting-room.
This inner patio is all just as it was when the Arabs ruled in Ronda: columns, capitals, carved beams, round arches—nothing has been altered since the conquest of the old town by the Catholic kings. In the mountains it is the fashion to paint every brick within reach with a solution of red ochre, and the maids, in their desire to add a touch of extra glory to the place for the wedding, had painted the arches as well as the brick floors. On one side of the arch nearest the staircase is a stone roughly carved and springing from a base very much older than the Arab invasion, and this was left of its own yellow stone colour, so that its extreme age was apparent. For this is one of those Græco-Roman houses of which I have spoken, and each of the successive races who have inhabited it used the remains of their predecessors’ building and carving when they in their turn added to it. There was a third patio beyond this, from which one looked sheer down into the ravine 500 feet below, past arched openings giving light and air to subterranean chambers under the house, which are often said to be prison cells, but are in fact mazmorras for the storage of corn, wine, and oil. Indeed, there still exist in one of these cellars, half built, half cut out of the rock, a number of enormous oil-jars, quite large enough for the Forty Thieves to hide in.
When I reached the house with Lola I found the inner patio transformed. Everything movable had been taken away, and the arcades on all four sides had been filled with chairs: the piano had been pushed to one side, the whole centre of the court was bare, and the blind organist of one of the churches, a couple of guitarists and a man with a bandurria (a tenor guitar) were busy tuning up, to the accompaniment of the shrill whistling of half a dozen canaries and the excited screams of the Marchioness’s pet parrot.