Kitabı oku: «The Fortunate Isles: Life and Travel in Majorca, Minorca and Iviza», sayfa 2

II
OUR CASA IN SPAIN

Palma was gay with bunting in honour of the birthday of the young Queen of Spain, when on the afternoon of our second day in Majorca we set out to deliver a letter of introduction that was fated to have an important influence on our future arrangements.

Much might be, and probably much has been written on the uses and abuses of letters of introduction. Sometimes the given letter proves a boon both to him who carries and him who receives it. Was not one of our best friends made known to us through the medium of a perfunctory note from a man we had not seen for many years, and whom the presenter of the note had never even met? When we left London we bore a letter of introduction to an Englishman resident in Barcelona, and he in turn gave us a letter to an American friend of his at Palma, who was Consul for certain of the Southern Republics.

The home of the Consul was at Son Españolet, an attractive little residential suburb about a mile beyond the city walls. The busy district of Santa Catalina lies between it and the sea. Undulating groves of almond and olive separate it from the hills.

Taking the mule-drawn tram-car that plies between Palma and Porto Pi, we alighted at Santa Catalina; and, after making various inquiries, found ourselves ringing the gate-bell of the house, over whose tower fluttered the gay banner of the Consulate.

Had the Consul and his wife guessed that these three British invaders were going to trespass on their endurance for a period of six months, I doubt if they would have received us with such courteous geniality. As it was, their reception was so cordial that within half an hour of our meeting I felt emboldened to reveal what had been my secret desire – that we might rent a furnished house near Palma for the winter. Not a fine house – merely a roof under which we could stow our belongings, a centre from which our wanderings about the islands might radiate.

Could they advise us? Did they think such an idea was feasible?

The Consul shook his head.

"Not near Palma," he said. "At Porto Pi or the Terreno you might chance on one. But these are summer seaside places. Most of the houses there are shut up now. You'd find it dull and inconvenient in winter."

"This district seems delightful, and near town. Would there be a chance of our getting a house here?"

"Unfurnished, yes – furnished, no. But why not take a vacant house and hire what you need? There's only three of you. You don't want much."

"Say, Luis!" said pretty Mrs. Consul, "what about the house the Major left last week? That's empty now. Would that suit?"

For a moment the Consul looked meditative.

"I'm thinking," he said. "You're right. That's the very place. Nice little house. Got a garden. Stable too. And a fine view from the veranda."

"Is the house near? Could we see it?" we asked.

"It's close by, in the Calle de Mas. We'll see about it, right away, now."

The Consul, happily for us, was a man of action. Ringing the bell, he summoned Isidoro, his man-servant, who summoned Margarita, his cook. And Margarita, having received instructions to search the wide world till she found the caretaker of the empty house and to bring her hither, departed at once on her quest. In an incredibly brief space of time she returned in company with a little old woman and two large door-keys.

Following her guidance we walked in procession round the corners of several secluded roads, whose yellow stone walls, flat roofs, and almost tropical foliage looked Oriental under the evening glow.

Viewed from the street, the house we sought, with its green shutters and tiled roof, resembled a hundred others. But when the big keys had performed their task, and we had passed through the two centre rooms and found ourselves on a wide stone-pillared veranda looking across the orange and lemon trees of the gardens to where the Mediterranean lay azure under the setting sun, our minds held no further hesitation. We knew that it was our own house.

Merely to assure ourselves that the house had no equal, we investigated the claims of two other vacant dwellings before returning to the Consulate. One had a basement in which a native family lived – apparently wholly upon garlic. The other attempted to make up in stucco images what it lacked in view.

It was too late that night to take any steps towards securing the house. The Consul, himself a versatile linguist, knowing that our meagre Spanish could hardly be expected to prove equal to the subtleties of house-hiring, arranged to accompany the Man and the Boy next day to interview the owner, and if possible to see the negotiations completed.

I think we were all secretly uneasy until we learned that, on the personal recommendation of the Consul, the landlord had unhesitatingly accepted us as tenants, and that he had agreed to have the garden put in order, to mend any broken panes of glass in the doors or windows, to see that the well was clean, and to permit us to enter upon our tenancy at once.

And then, the house being secured, the important subject of furniture had to be considered. Knowing that with hired goods we would feel conscious of certain restrictions, we had resolved to buy what was absolutely necessary. And the question was – how much or how little furniture would three unexacting people require during six months of a picnicking existence in a gracious climate?

Already there were several indispensable articles in the house – two tables, one large enough to serve as dining-table, a bench, and a tall glass-doored corner cupboard. Beds would be needed, washstands, two more tables of the plainest description, half-a-dozen rush-seated chairs of local make for utility, lounge chairs for our laziness, and looking-glasses for our vanity.

Still under the Consul's skilled guidance we visited an upholsterer's, a dark and narrow shop where the closely packed stock took up so much room that there was hardly space for a single customer. The shopkeeper, a smiling little round man in a pink shirt, and his daughter, a smiling big round girl in a white frock, entered heartily into the spirit of our requirements; and with the Consul's aid in the reduction of prices, we speedily acquired what was necessary.

We had landed on Majorca on Tuesday morning. Before dusk fell on Thursday our house was not only taken, but the furniture purchased. Electric light is a cheap luxury in Palma, and for our comfort in the winter nights we were having it put in. Knowing that the installation of the light, the scrubbing out of the house, and the raking up of the garden would occupy a day or two, we decided to remain at Barnils' until Monday, on which morning we would journey out to Son Españolet and take possession. Meanwhile we roamed about Palma with our eyes open to the necessities of our bare establishment, picking up a broom here, a coffee-strainer there, some wooden cooking-spoons yonder.

Matters moved with surprising briskness. Monday morning found the electric light fixed, the tiled floors well scrubbed, the scant provision of furniture in the rooms, and the garden dug. So, leaving our heavier luggage to follow by cart, we packed ourselves and our smaller baggage into a carruaje, and set out for our new home. The progress thither was circuitous, as first we had to journey up and down the narrow streets of the town collecting the smaller purchases we had made.

First we called at a grocer's to pick up the supply of provisions that were to form the nucleus of our housekeeping. Then we meant to drive to the china shop where our store of crockery awaited us. Unfortunately the china shop, being situated on a street so steep that it ascended in a series of wide steps, was unapproachable by our two-horse conveyance. Leaving the carriage at the foot of the steps the Man and the Boy mounted to the shop, and by and by reappeared accompanied by a man and a maiden, all four laden with dishes.

Space in the conveyance had been limited before. Now, surrounded by earthenware cooking-pots, and basins, and jugs, and plates, we were jolted over the primitively paved streets, and out beyond the gate of Santa Catalina to the little house in Son Españolet.

Perhaps our sense of possession threw a glamour over the dwelling, but already it seemed to wear a look of home. The scanty furniture was in place, a few minutes sufficed to put the groceries on the shelves, the dishes in the glass cupboard, the earthenware cooking-pots and pans on the kitchen shelf. Then, when the table was spread with our new tea-cups, and decorated with roses and scented verbena from the garden, set in a jug, and the kettle was a-boil over our trusty spirit-lamp, we sat down, in great contentment, to enjoy the first meal in our casa in Spain.

The lines even of a foreign householder in Majorca are cast in pleasant places. From our point of view the Majorcan landlord has the worse of the bargain, his tenant the better.

We took our little house for three months, paying in advance the very moderate rent – it was twenty pesetas, about fifteen shillings, a month – and agreeing to give, or take, a month's warning. This done, our obligations appeared to cease. There were no taxes, at least none that the tenant was expected to pay. There was no water rate. The well in the garden afforded a supply of pure and wholesome rain-water. If windows were broken the landlord sent, or promised to send, a glazier to put in new panes. In the rare event of a chimney requiring cleaning, the accommodating landlord was expected to employ a mason to do the work. And with the arrival of the season locally considered best for the annual pruning of the vines – which is the period between the 15th and the 20th of January – a duly qualified gardener, instructed by the owner of the house, appeared and clipped those within our walls.

Our Majorcan home proved to be full of the most charming informalities. Its architecture was the perfection of simplicity; a child might have designed it. It was on one floor only, and measured fifteen paces square. There were neither hall nor passages, and in a short time we found ourselves wondering why we had ever considered such things necessary. All the doors were glazed. The front door opened directly into a sitting-room, whose wide glass door led to another room that opened on to the veranda. To the right of the front door was the Boy's bedroom, to the left an apartment that served as studio. From the back sitting-room opened, on one side, a bedroom that had a useful dress closet; and on the other a compact little kitchen with a cool larder that was almost as big as itself. The kitchen walls were lined breast-high with blue and white tiles; and under the window that looked towards the sea was a neat range of stoves, for the consumption of both coal and charcoal.

The two sitting-rooms boasted the distinction of wall papers, and the ceiling of our favourite room – that which opened on to the veranda – represented an azure sky among whose fluffy white clouds flitted birds and butterflies. At one side of the house was a stable, and an enclosure fitted with stone tubs and jars, meant to be used in the washing of clothes.

The veranda, or terras, bade fair to become a perpetual joy to us. It was roofed by a spreading vine, whose foliage even in November was luxuriant. The former tenants had eaten all the grapes except one bunch, of which the wasps had taken possession; and we were either too generous or too timid to dispute their claim.

On the broad ledge of the veranda, on either side of the short flight of steps leading down to the garden, were great green flower-pots. Three held pink ivy-leaved geraniums, one contained a cactus that had exactly the appearance of four prickly sea-urchins set in mould, the others were empty.

The garden measured nineteen paces by twenty-two. Raised paths of concrete divided it into eight beds. The four larger encircled the quaint draw-well; the four smaller were in a row, two on either side of the veranda steps. The beds held a number of fruit trees. There was a sturdy lemon that bore both fruit and blossom, and three orange-trees; one carrying about sixty mandarin oranges. And besides a second vine there were seven almond-trees and two apricots. A shrub in whose racemes of hawthorn-scented blossom bees were busy, we had never before seen. Later we learned that it was the loquat.

Some rose bushes, which obligingly flowered all winter, a jasmine, a tall scented verbena, a long row of sweet peppers, two clumps of artichokes, and sundry tufts of herbs completed our vegetable kingdom.

Majorca is a paradise for the gardener – or would be, were the rainfall more assured – for the climate varies so little that almost anything can be planted at any season.

The day we took possession of the house I sowed some rows of dwarf peas. In a week they were above the ground and continued to flourish exceedingly, until brought to a standstill by the long-continued drought. The rain in January set them a-growing again, and from early February till April we had dishes of green peas from our own ground.

At the foot of the garden, separated from it by a high stone wall, were two small dwellings. One was empty. In the other there resided a cobbler named Pepe, his wife, and a lean red kitten.

The sudden arrival of us foreigners proved an event of extraordinary interest in the circumscribed lives of the pair, and of the skinny kitten, who developed into quite a handsome cat on our scraps. Mr. and Mrs. Pepe had no veranda, but from their patch of garden a tiny staircase led to a mirador– a species of roof watch-tower – from which they had a capital view of the town, the port, and of their neighbours.

As in these sunny November days we lived with the wide glass doors open to the veranda, there was so much to observe in our doings that for the first week at least of our stay Pepe's customers must have been neglected; for morning, noon, and night he was at his post of supervision. As we sat at table we got quite accustomed to seeing his squat figure outlined against the sky as he undisguisedly watched our movements. Sometimes he even carried his quaint spouted wine-bottle and hunk of rye bread up to the mirador, and enjoyed his breakfast with a vigilant eye on us.

Pepe had a taste for gardening, and grew chrysanthemums and carnations in the few feet of soil attached to his dwelling. Sometimes, with due ceremonial, he presented us with one of his striped carnations. And one day, when I was in the garden, he hastened down from his post of observation to reappear, smiling broadly, at our side gate, bearing the gift of a sturdy root of French marigold. We showed our appreciation of the compliment by sending him a boot to mend; and, courteous preliminaries having been thus exchanged, we continued to live on terms of distant amity. The marigold I promptly planted in one of the empty green flower-pots, where throughout the winter it bore a constant succession of its brown and orange velvet flowers.

A family from Andalusia – a father, mother, and four children – occupied the house adjoining ours. They seemed good-tempered, easy-going folks, living a happy careless life in this land of sunshine. Their somewhat extensive garden was well kept and fruitful.

The father, like so many of the residents in these islands, was a bird-fancier. And when, on sunny mornings, assisted by his children, he had carried out the dozens of cages containing his pets, and had hung them on his pomegranate-trees, and on the pergola, where the purple convolvulus twined about branches heavy with golden oranges, our world was vocal with their song.

At the foot of their garden was a flourishing little poultry-yard, in which, with laudable success, they reared chickens and ducks and rabbits. They supplied us regularly with eggs, and when any of the live stock was ripe for the pot we always had the first offer of purchase.

The method of procedure was to catch the beast – plump rabbit, young rooster, or whatever it chanced to be – and to carry it, suspended by the legs and vigorously protesting, to the door of our casa to exhibit its proportions, and to inquire if we would like to purchase. On the sale being effected, as it usually was, for the quality of their live stock was unequalled, the victim would be taken away, to reappear half an hour later stripped of fur or feather, and with its members decorously dressed for cooking.

Early in the year the Andalusian family was increased by one – a fine boy. A few weeks after, the mother paid me a state visit to receive congratulations and exhibit the baby. Going into the studio, I said:

"Our neighbour has brought her new baby to show us."

The Man waved me away with a protesting paint-brush.

"No," he said. "Don't buy it. Send her away. I don't mind the ducks and the chickens, but I absolutely refuse to eat the baby!"

Life in the Casa Tranquila, as we had christened our winter home, was a pleasant irresponsible matter compared with existence in ceremonial Britain. Social pleasures we undoubtedly had, but no social duties. Housekeeping ran on the simplest of lines. Maria, the woman who had been key-keeper of the house while it was empty, came in to do the rough work. Apolonia, a smiling, rubicund old dame, with a keen sense of humour, acted as laundress. It was all so easy and unconventional and open-airy that we never quite got over the impression that we were enjoying a prolonged camping-out, and that it was by accident that our roof was of tiles and not of canvas.

Our morning began with the arrival of a baker who brought the bread, rolls, and enciamadas for the day's consumption. We did not use the milk of goats, though, twice daily, a little flock, with tinkling bells, their udders tied up in neat bags of check cotton for protection against the unauthorised raids of their thirsty kids, was driven past our door to be milked before the eyes of each customer. A sprightly matron served us morning and evening with the milk of a cow, which her husband spent his days herding on any stray patches of herbage in the district.

Each day at noon, Mundo, the greengrocer, called with a donkey-cart containing quite a comprehensive assortment of fruit and vegetables. Three kinds of potatoes he always brought – new, old, and sweet – pumpkins that were sold in slices, egg-plants, garlic strung in long festoons, spinach, cauliflowers, sweet peppers, curious fungi, purple carrots, sugar beans; all at astonishingly low prices. I shall always remember the November day when, in a moment of forgetfulness, I asked for a whole pennyworth of tomatoes, and was afterwards confronted by the difficulty of disposing of so many.

A popular article of diet seemed to be the gigantic radishes, in which not only Mundo but all the little shops appeared to do a big trade. We puzzled long over the way in which they could be used before making the chance discovery that they are cut in round slices and eaten raw with soup or meat, as one would eat bread.

III
PALMA, THE PEARL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

As a place of winter residence for those who like sunshine, and are not enamoured of society, Palma could hardly be excelled.

For one thing, the town is just the right size. It is not so small as to allow the visitor to feel dull, or so large as to permit him to become conscious of his own insignificance.

While Palma is bright and full of movement and of cheerful sounds, it is an adorable place to be lazy in. The sunshine and soft air foster indolence; and though there is no stagnation, everybody takes life easily in this walled city by the southern sea. There is no bustle, no need to hurry. What is not accomplished to-day can be done to-morrow. And if to-morrow finds it still undone – why, what is the future made up of, if not of an illimitable succession of to-morrows?

When the ancients christened Palma "the Pearl of the Mediterranean," they gave it a title that to this day it deserves.

Something of the resplendence of the town is due to the warm-coloured stone of which it is built – a stone that shades from the palest cream to warm amber. Every stroll we took through its mediæval streets, every walk along its antique ramparts, every saunter down the mole, made us more and more in love with its beauty, which we seemed always to be viewing under some new condition of light or atmosphere.

The Man never wearied of the crooked secret-looking streets and fine buildings of the old, old city. By day or night they held for him an inexplicable charm. He was always discovering some new "bit" – a quaint patio, a Moorish arch, an antique gateway, a curious interior, a sculptured window.

And the streets were always full of life. A cluster of officers in full dress chattering on the Borne; a company of soldiers marching to the strains of an inspiriting band; a priest, under a great rose-coloured silk umbrella, on the way to administer extreme unction to someone sick unto death – all the spectators falling on their knees as the solemn little procession passed by; or a party of queerly attired natives of Iviza, just arrived by the thrice-a-week boat, and curiously foreign both in speech and appearance, though their island home was only sixty or seventy miles distant; or a string of carriages whose occupants were on the way to a morning reception at the Almudaina, the old Moorish palace, now the residence of the Captain-General.

Everything in the place was new to us, and the feeling of novelty never waned.

As for the Boy, from the moment of our arrival his interest centred in the port. Its constantly changing array of shipping, and the fine sun-tanned buccaneers who did business on its blue waters, supplied him with endless congenial subjects for pictures.

The port of Palma nestles, one might almost say, right into the heart of the city. The chief promenade, the Borne, ends on its brink. The Cathedral and the Lonja dignify its banks.

The gay life of the harbour lies open to the casual observer. Under the ramparts, by the side of the public road, old men in red caps and suits of velveteen that the sun has faded to marvellous hues sit at their placid occupation of net-mending. There, too, when the falucas are moored at the edge of the wharf, come the families of the fishermen to join them at lunch – the women bringing down wine and bread and the men supplying a tasty hot dish from the less saleable items of their catch. Sometimes a cloth is spread, and then the al fresco repast assumes quite a ceremonious air.

Stern on to the muelle, the long breakwater that partitions off the water of the harbour from the open bay, lie the larger craft: the most important of which are the white-painted steamers of the Isleña Marítima, the fleet of boats belonging to a Majorcan Company that carry mails and passengers between the island and Spain or Algeria.

Once Palma was a great maritime centre. Now little foreign shipping does business in her port. But though the bulk of the traffic is local, an open port always holds the element of the unexpected.

Sometimes a leviathan-like liner, making a holiday tour of Mediterranean ports, anchors by the wharf, and her tourists, eager to make the most of the hours at their disposal, hasten on shore to pack themselves into every available form of conveyance and drive off, enclosed in a pillar of dust of their own raising, to enjoy a hasty glance at Valldemosa, Miramar and Sóller. When at sunset they steam out of the harbour it is with the pleasantly erroneous conviction that they have exhausted the attractions of the island.

Once a fine ship that sharp eyes recognized as the private yacht of the Czar of Russia quietly entered the bay, and after a brief stay, during which her voyagers held no intercourse with land, as quietly departed. And after a spring gale a Greek sailing ship, her main-mast gone, was towed in by a French tug. Sometimes it was the capture of a smuggler's faluca caught in the act of trying to run a cargo of contraband tobacco that furnished the excitement.

On the frequent feast days Palma was gay with flags. Every Consulate in the town – and they were many – mounted its special banner. The gun-boats sported strings of bunting out of all proportion to their size, the merchantmen flew their ensigns, and though the business of the town was transacted with its customary air of casual lightheartedness, the never-lacking holiday feeling was intensified.

One November feast day the Boy, who was painting at the port, discovered among the decorated craft a ship flying the British flag; a closer inspection revealed her to be the Ancona of Leith, just arrived with a cargo of coal. Nearer home I doubt if the proximity of a Leith collier would have appealed strongly to our patriotism. In that southern latitude things were different. A sudden and fervent desire to hear our own northern accent awoke within us, and, incited by our adventurous son, we determined to board the Ancona and pay our respects to her captain.

It was a glorious morning, one of those wonderful mornings when the world seems newly born, that we three went down the mole. Lying beyond the schooner from Sóller, and the pailebot from Valencia that was shipping a cargo of empty wicker-cased wine flasks, we came to the Ancona.

Three railless plank gangways connected her with the wharf, and down two of the planks Majorcans in their elaborately bepatched blue linen suits were carrying straw baskets of coal. We ventured up the third. Our gangway ended on a six-feet-high platform situated on the verge of a hold still brimful of coal. As we hesitated on our perch, wondering what to do next, a bronzed man in slippers appeared. It was the first mate.

"It's a fine day," the Man gave colloquial greeting. "Is the skipper on board?"

"Ay. It's a real bonnie day," the mate made truthful reply. "No. He's just gone up the quay to see the ship's agents."

The homely words, the familiar accent, fell like music on our ears. A few words of explanation brought the mate to our elevated platform, where he spoke with the inherent appreciation of the Scot of the beauty of the town.

"Ay. It's a bonnie place this. I think it's as pretty a place as I've seen. No. We've been busy on board and I haven't had time to see the town yet. But I'm enjoyin' the view fine from here. The captain? Oh, you couldn't miss him. You're sure to come across him. He's just up on the front."

So, in quest of a compatriot whom we couldn't miss, we set off up the street. And sure enough, before we had proceeded very far we met the captain face to face.

If the captain of the Ancona was surprised at being accosted by a trio of complete strangers, he was too much a Highland gentleman and a man of the world to reveal any astonishment. In five minutes we were all on a friendly footing, our nationality the firm basis of good-fellowship; a little later we were all seated outside the Lirico, over tall glasses of vermouth and seltzer, recalling familiar scenes and discovering mutual acquaintances.

The captain was at a loose end. We were going to the fruit market, to the bookseller's, to the Cathedral. So he came too.

In the market, as he saw me buy big bunches of yellow grapes at twopence-halfpenny a kilo (nearly two and a quarter pounds) his face lit up – "I'll be for sending the steward up here," he said.

Chance favoured us. We turned into the Borne just in time to see an infantry battalion march past to the strains of a good military band. A general had died and the soldiers were on their way to escort his body to the cemetery. The music, which was appropriately solemn, was played with great feeling. And as the procession moved slowly up the street the closed window shutters were thrown open and fair señoras in light dresses thronged the balconies.

It was as though Palma had determined to reveal herself at her best to our companion. Even the interior of the Cathedral, lit by the brilliant sunshine that filtered through the stained-glass windows, seemed grander than ever.

"I've had a splendid time," the captain said when we parted. "Though I've been here two or three times, I never saw so much of the town before."

We were leaving next morning for Miramar, and before our return the Ancona would have sailed. But we said good-bye with the promise of meeting again – a promise that was fulfilled, for on two subsequent voyages the captain was a welcome guest at the Casa Tranquila.

"The captain is a gentleman," the Boy said half-a-dozen hours later when he returned from the ship, where, by special invitation, he had been having a smoke and a chat with her master. "See what he insisted on giving me. I refused, of course, but he made me take that and this."

"That" was a batch of thrice precious literature in the shape of sixpenny editions of novels and magazines. "This" was a tin of tobacco marked "full strength," that class of dark-complexioned rum-odorous tobacco that the Boy specially affects, and whose lack in Majorca had formed the theme of his only regret.

Life on the native craft in the port is entertaining to watch. The dark-skinned rovers of the deep contrast so oddly with the mildly domestic aspect given by the presence on board of the patrón's wife, and by her way of keeping hens loose on deck, and of hanging feminine garments to dry on the poop.

One Sunday morning we had been scrutinizing their doings with the open stare that life in Spain teaches one both to give and to take composedly, when we discovered that luncheon-time had stolen unawares upon us. As we walked back down the pier we glanced inquiringly at the cafés that lined the lower part of the way; they were all crowded with jovial seamen and uninviting. We had resolved to eat at the Lirico, and were leaving the pier, when something in the situation of a little open-air eating-place just on the brink of the sea, almost in the shadow of the city wall, attracted us; and advancing to the awning, under which little groups of people were seated, we demanded food.

The proprietress, a plump, smiling woman with a purple silk kerchief on her head and a green apron, welcomed us in fluent but, unfortunately, unintelligible Majorcan. She knew no Spanish. All we could gather was that if we seated ourselves she would give us to eat. And nothing loth, we sat down at an unoccupied table whose bare boards were scrubbed as clean as hands could make them.