Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [5]
Ana would come with a dowry, but not a fortune, so it was unlikely that any of the most eligible bachelors haunting salons and ballrooms would look her way first when there was richer prey. She was also aware that she wasn’t a typical señorita. She was moderately pretty, especially when she smiled, but she wasn’t a good dancer, played no instrument, abhorred chitchat, refused to flatter the young men paraded before her, and couldn’t abide the intrusions of dueñas and possible mothers-in-law who appraised her narrow hips even through the seven petticoats Jesusa insisted she wear to make her small, thin figure more shapely.
She counted the days until her summer vacation in her maternal grandfather’s farm in Huelva, near her school. The old widower wasn’t more affectionate than her parents, but Abuelo Cubillas didn’t consistently point out that she was a disappointment. He hired a dueña to keep her company when Ana lived at the farm. Doña Cristina was a local widow of modest means, impeccable character, and no imagination. As soon as Ana could, she ran from doña Cristina’s religious tracts and embroidery hoops.
Abuelo let Ana do as she pleased so long as she didn’t interfere with his rituals of eating, sipping wine, smoking his pipe, and reading on a cushioned leather chair, his legs on a footstool, his lap and thighs covered by a quilt hand-stitched by his mother. Abuelo was born during an earthquake in 1755, and spent as much of his life thereafter in stillness, as if waiting for the aftershocks to subside.
After prayers, Ana had breakfast with Abuelo and doña Cristina, then went outdoors. She learned to ride horses astride like a Gypsy from Fonso, the groom, chaperoned by his sturdy, widowed daughter, Beba.
“A woman should know how to defend herself,” Beba told her, and gave Ana a small folding knife to keep in a pocket. “Don’t be afraid to use it if you have to.”
Fonso set up targets beyond the pasture, where Ana learned to shoot a rifle. She once shot a boar. She went on exhilarating rides through the countryside, the wind whizzing around her ears, her face flushed, her heart pounding. She was free and strong and capable, everything she never felt in Sevilla.
Every morning Beba fed the chickens, ducks, and geese, and found the fattest, meatiest ones for the cook. She collected eggs and showed Ana that she must always leave enough for the hens to hatch into chicks. Beba also taught Ana how to slaughter fowl (break their necks) and how to pluck and save the down from ducks and geese for pillows and quilts, and the feathers for beds.
She demonstrated as she pulled tail feathers from peacocks and pheasants. “Let the shaft dry. You can use them to make fans and to decorate your bonnets.”
Ana learned to milk cows, sheep, and goats from the milkmaids, and the gardener’s wife taught her to make cheese. She loved the cool, damp cave where the cheese was aged, the first whiff of the musky curds, the sharp scent of whey. She learned to wield a sharp knife when she helped graft fruit trees with the ancient gardener. She churned butter with his wife. She was happier in the gardens, fields, and orchards around the farm than in the parqueted salons of Sevilla.
Doña Cristina was scandalized by Ana’s attachment to the lower classes, but Abuelo was delighted with his granddaughter’s democratic impulses.
“I hate nothing more than a prejudiced, narrow-minded woman,” he said.
“Why, señor, if you think I’m either of those things …”
“I accuse you of nothing,” he said.
“I’m not