Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards (20 page)

The youngest infanta's favourite way to play during siesta was to tell stories. She loved hearing mine (I grew quite skilled at making them up or remembering Celtic and Indian tales I'd been told), and
she loved to tell them herself. The subject of her stories was her own family history. In fact, except for my first lesson (also in bed) from the earl of Malmesbury, and some brief but vivid sketches from Grimaldi, most of what I know about Spanish royalty and vengeance came from the fair-faced princess—no doubt distorted and embellished through a ten-year-old's perspective.

The facts I eventually distilled go something like this: At Isabel's birth, the high dignitaries of the Catholic church, the apostolics, rejoiced that King Ferdinand had fathered a girl. They hated him, for he'd leeched away all of their lands and riches. Although his new wife Cristina and her termagant sister Carlota had convinced the king to sanction the baby's reign, whatever sex it might be, the apostolics believed that eventually the old rule of male successor to the throne must be upheld—which meant Ferdinand's brother, Don Carlos. The apostolics were also angry at Ferdinand's lack of enthusiasm for the Holy Inquisition, which pious Don Carlos had sworn to bring back. The country's loose morals and religious and political backsliding needed cleaning up, according to the churchmen, who vowed to place Carlos on the throne by force of arms if necessary. But then the unthinkable happened: Ferdinand died, the Pragmatic Sanction somehow passed into law, the queen regent and her now
two
female children ascended, and the people rejoiced. An apostolic call went out for “Religion, King, Inquisition” and madmen of all stripes leapt on to it with conviction. This had been followed by full-fledged war.

Don Carlos, meanwhile, had continually refused to take an oath of allegiance to his niece—unlike the third brother, Don Francisco, who was married to Carlota. The rest of the world then stuck their oars in: England supported Cristina and the rights of a woman to rule (we'd had a remarkable queen once, after all, one the Spanish remembered well). France backed the women reluctantly, partly because they were all related by their Bourbon blood. Portugal was involved in its own civil war over the rights of a pretender, so they were not to be trusted. The old Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia refused to recognize Isabel for the usual reason of her sex, and because they feared the rise of liberal
principles which had begun to percolate all over Europe. Austria's gouty old Metternich had described Isabel at age three as “revolution incarnate in its most dangerous form.” Luisa Fernanda told me this story with a wicked giggle, proud of her sister's reputation.

“
Papí
had three wives before
Mamí,
but hadn't got any children from them, and he was getting old and sick.
Tia
Carlota says he'd been,” here the little girl put on a raspy, world-weary tone, “‘too busy with women other than the queens to have managed to officially replicate himself.”

That made me laugh.

“
Mamí
changed all that,” Nanda went on. “She made him get down to business, because she wanted to see us as soon as possible.”

“That's one way of looking at it,” I murmured sleepily. It was beginning to strike me that all this war, death, hate, and destruction had been caused by one thing: emphatic denunciation of the rights of a woman to rule.

“We have lots of half brothers and sisters now, but we never see them. They live in France.” The girl's voice was a little sad. “
Mamí
fell in love again too fast. But she'd never really been in love anyway. Not to
Papí.
He was too mean and grumpy. I understand that; do you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Anyway, everyone knows she and Muñoz are married now. But they were married even when she was queen regent. They got married secretly, with the help of the Papal nuncio.”

The pope had approved? But—? Oh never mind.

Nanda had her white stocking-clad legs in the air at this point, admiring her feet as they twirled in one direction and then the other. “I don't mind him, and I do like their babies. Though they're dark like Muñoz and they're only half royal, so they don't really count.” I remembered Concepción's whispered relieving of the big man's itch and wondered how many others he might have been fathering on the side when circumstances lent themselves to full dalliance. “He's rich now,” the cherubic princess added innocently, “because when they were living here, he got stock tips from different finance ministers. And I heard him tell some of his friends.” Interesting. Could that possibly have included the Grimaldis? Was that why
Concepción had been so accommodating? I filed the Infanta's gossip for future reference; you never know when you might need some scuttlebutt to save your own, I thought. Then we fell asleep in the afternoon sunshine.

Back to Isabel. Her importance can't be forgotten, though she herself often was. Isabel—and sex. It was on everyone's mind, not only Isabel's.

The truth cannot be shirked: The chubby infanta was embarrassingly randy. When she sat at her desk, chewing her pencil and trying to conjugate French verbs, she would rhythmically rock back and forth on her chair. Under the table, she would rub at herself; Arguëlles, noticing, would make his violent snorty-snot sound. Nanda had told me that political as well as royal fingers had been crossed on Isabel's birthday, hoping it would herald the arrival of her courses, too long delayed. But so far, nothing. What could be keeping the girl from becoming a woman?

“What about him?” Isabel would whisper to her sister during their interminable courtly audiences. “Look, he smiled at me.”

“Too far below you,” was the reply. “And he's ancient.”

“What do you think it will be like to fuck?”

My ears burned! The fat girl was incorrigible.

“Don't call it that,” Nanda scolded. “That's rude!
Mamí
would say you sound like Tia Lota.”

I was beginning to understand Cristina's anxiety for speed as far as selecting a potential suitor was concerned. One day I overheard the British ambassador telling a visiting English dignitary, “She must be married somehow and to someone
immediately,
” as they watched the princess licking a sweet on a stick with more than usual gusto. The ambassador went on, with a grimace, “As the Spanish would say, if we don't make haste, at this rate the heir will arrive before the bridegroom.”

Arguëlles himself seemed to be settling into a horrible charade of courtliness towards the chubby one. In the schoolroom, he'd pull out her chair and help arrange her skirts once she was in it. He started sharpening quills for her and other small gestures of devotion. He was filling the girl's head with strange ideas.

“Your Majesty, never mind recent history. Leave the skirmishes of the battlefield for the men who understand them.”

“But I should take an interest, that was
Mamà
's war,” Isabel said, scratching her cheek, then her wrist, then her torso.

“The prime minister knows what is best. That's why your mother left him in charge. In charge of Spain, our beloved country, and of you, Your Majesty, and your dear sister.” His voice slippery and persuasive. “What Spain requires now is more young people—more babies, in fact. You will make a supremely fit mother, Your Majesty. You will set the standard for mothers.”

“Do you think so?” she asked. I nearly gagged at the tutor's blatant foolishness, but he was much smarter than I could bear to think him. He played to her weaknesses.

“Yes, Highness. A beautiful bride, and a tender young mother.”

And tears actually came into her red, raw eyes at the image of herself, breast-feeding and enjoying the nightly rumpy-pumpy that she craved.

Luisa Fernanda, at least, didn't take the tutor's fawning hypocrisy lying down.
She
could see clearly, her head not yet clouded by burgeoning lust and an unappeasable stomach.

“I don't like these lessons,” Nanda told him. “I don't think
Mamá
wants us to be told such things. Right now we need to know about the
Cortes
and why the war happened.” She flung her pencil down and walked out.

Arguëlles looked over to Isabel, who was digging out a sweet. As long as the soon-to-be-queen was still in the room, he was content. He was Espartero's minion, the fat girl had no time for me, and there didn't seem much that I could do about it.

And still every night, coded, impatient notes from Ventura were being left for me at the theatre: “Time is wasting,” followed by “Do not fear, but do not wait,” and then the more forthright, “Soon it will be spring, so make winter come soon!” I was in an agony. I
had
to make my move!

The moment finally came three days later. The lesson had been a particularly nasty one: Spanish history, spiced with gristly battles and descriptions of obedient royals who'd heard the word of God as delivered
through His earthly messengers, the apostolics. Then, just as the three of us thought he was winding down, Arguëlles suddenly wound himself up again. The glories of the Holy Inquisition really made the spittle fly. I watched with horror as his enthusiasm rose, informing us of some of the more intricate forms and devices of torture devised to winkle out heretics. Isabel seemed quite taken with it, but poor Nanda placed her little hands over her ears. When I saw tears trickling from the corners of her eyes, I spoke up.

“Please, señor, that is enough for today. Their Royal Highnesses are fatigued and must retire. It is past the usual time.”

He dug into a pocket to retrieve a large, wrinkled handkerchief with which he wiped his perspiring face. Then he rose and bowed. The girls scurried away.

The day had been as long as the lesson, and now the swift autumn dusk had fallen. Though servants had come to light the lamps, the room was still quite dimly lit—luckily, I thought. The less I could see of Arguëlles, the better. I summoned all my courage for an assault at the malodorous, arrogant carcass.

“Dear señor,” I breathed, moving gracefully towards him, in the kind of S-curve motion that Fanny Kelly would have appreciated, “I cannot help myself any longer. I cannot bear to be in this room with you any longer—” Oh, what was I saying? Turn that around “—without delivering myself of my deepest emotions.”

“What's that?” he huffed, wrinkling his bulbous brow as if the sound of my voice caused him pain.

“I am saying I must tell you, señor, that your, your—” ('Struth, I told myself, spit it out!) “—your
ankles
have driven me to distraction. They are beautiful. They are . . . manly!” The idiot actually looked down and pointed his toe so that he could glimpse the marvel to which I was referring! Are all Spanish men in love with their lower limbs? I stuttered onward, “I have fallen, Señor Arguëlles. I am . . . speechless.” I was running out of ammunition. My brain was starved for inspiration, and the man just stood there, one toe pointed, the rest of him looking for all the world like a great, hairy-bodied, bald-headed brown bear with
constipation. What could I do? I threw myself at him. I clutched his coat and then plunged my hands inside and around his waistcoat as far as my arms could reach—which wasn't far. I clung like a limpet.

“What? What is—? Señorita, cease this silliness!” Luckily I was looking at a waistcoat button, so the shower of spittle wetted my hair, not my face.

“I can wait no longer,” I managed, face pressed against his buttons and out of range (I hoped) of that fearsome breath. What I would do about full frontal avoidance, in what I earnestly hoped would be only a few minutes of intense dalliance, I wasn't quite sure but—sound the charge! “I
must
give in to my impulses, señor, though I have no idea what may happen now . . .” I let my voice quaver, hoping to sound like an innocent, overcome for the first time by newly awakened lust, while removing one hand from his ponderous belly and inching it lower and lower in the usual way, tickling and fondling to stir the juices. Face pressed to his sour torso, I couldn't see his expression, but hoped for the best. “Oh, I admire your intellect, your knowledge of the past—”

“The ingenuity,” he croaked suddenly, “the pain intensifies . . .”

What was this? Hurry on, Rosana, what was the man muttering? My nimble fingers roved, the palm of my hand connected with a soft roundness. I gave a sensual squeeze. I'll be honest, I was expecting the man to have a set the size of a walnut but—
¡Hijo de puta!
And son of a bitch again! It was huge! His balls were enormous and hard, like a melon. I scrabbled about, at a bit of a loss. Where was his prick? Ah, there it was, but! It was soft as an earthworm!

His eyes were squeezed shut, and his lips were babbling: “Sacred duty . . . Sorrowful agony . . .” What in God's name? I was trying to instill life into a bean-sized cadaver, and what was he going on about? Then it struck me, as his tiny prick finally began to stir and stiffen: He was imagining the instruments of torture he'd just been describing to Nanda and Isabel!