Friday, June 10, Hotel Grande
“SMASH!”
The flower vase dashed itself to pieces against the mahogany wood door of the Casa Grande, the shattered pottery fragments scattering across the floor, joining everything else breakable in the room that she had already found.
“Damn him!” Elizabeth raged, looking for something else to throw. “Damn his Spanish hide!”
Married! He was married! She spun around to face the window, glaring out over the city. He even had children. The bastard!
Her angry gaze fell upon the Vizcaya out in the harbor, but her eyes were unseeing. She saw not the fine golden colors of the splendid flag at her mast. Elizabeth only saw the color red. She had been such a fool, believing in his charm, his whispered words, the way he had looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world.
And all the while, he had a wife.
Why hadn’t he told her? He had a thousand opportunities, and he’d never said a word. Nothing. What sort of man could have made such claims of faithful love to her in Havana when, in fact, he was already married?
She wished the vase had hit Captain Eulate himself as she turned away from the pane, her eyes finding Lisa instead. The poor girl was looking at her in stunned alarm for her outburst, but Elizabeth was beyond caring. Let her know how angry she was. This was not something to be kept a secret. She had been wronged. Wronged!
With one furious sweep of her hand, she cleared off the top of her dresser, sending perfume bottles and toiletries spilling to the floor. The nerve of him to mislead her this way! How could the one and only man she had ever let steal her heart turn out to be such a cad? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair!
She stormed purposefully to her closet and flung its door open, banging it so hard against the wall that the plaster fell.
“Miss Ashley!” Lisa gasped. “What are you doing?”
Elizabeth tore into her closet, dragging down her clothes and hatboxes to the floor. Married! The whole time! The sonofabitch! Words eluded her.
The clothes were down in ruin. She kicked the pile. She should stomp them to bits! What good would they do her now, anyway? Now that the only man she had ever loved was lost to her!
“What’s wrong, Miss Ashley?” Lisa begged, fearful of how angry Elizabeth was.
“What’s wrong?” she repeated. “What's wrong?! He’s married! That’s what’s wrong!”
“Who?” Lisa blinked, surprised. “You mean Captain Eulate?”
“Yes! Damn his soul to Hell anyway!” Elizabeth ranted, ready to look around for something else to break.
Lisa did not seem surprised by the news. She did not flinch, nor did her lips part in shock.
“You mean you did not know?”
The eyes that were so full of hurt and anger which so much wanted to find something else to destroy suddenly fastened themselves upon Lisa. What had she just dared to say?
“You mean,” Elizabeth’s temper flew. “YOU KNEW?!”
Lisa put a hand to her mouth, wishing she hadn’t said anything now. Yet she was forced to give an answering nod.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Elizabeth gaped in shock. “You knew and you didn’t say anything?”
She stepped right up to her maid for her demanded answer and she must have looked pretty fearsome, for Lisa blanched in fear.
Lisa took a step back, though she did not drop her gaze. For a moment, it seemed as if she would not answer at all. “I thought you knew!” she blurted. “Everyone knows, Miss Ashley. I thought he would have told you!”
“He never told me anything!” Elizabeth exploded. “And you! You let me make a fool of myself over him. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought-” Lisa stammered. “Because it’s not unusual.”
“It’s not unusual for what?” Elizabeth demanded, “for me to make a spectacle of myself by throwing myself at a married man?”
Lisa shrank slightly before answering.
“You—you could have.”
“What?” demanded Elizabeth again, raising her hand as if to strike her. “You think I would have done such a thing?!”
“It’s not uncommon, Miss Ashley!” Lisa answered, cowering before her. “Women of discretion, even honor, do it here all the time!”
“Well! Not where I come from, they don’t!” Elizabeth fumed. “I should see him whipped for what he did. Not to tell me! To lead me on like that! To go cavorting around Havana as if he -” She stopped in the sudden realization. “Wait! How is it that if his marriage is so well known, that little snip—Donna Maria Blanco—should practically throw herself at him?!”
“Oh! Miss Ashley! It is common! The captain is very handsome, and it is known that he does not have a mistress! Since his marriage is not one of love, it still makes him very much available to take one.”
“Not one of love?” Elizabeth momentarily forgot her temper. “Why is he married then?”
“His wife’s parents arranged it, Miss Ashley, and he accepted for the offered social gain. Without his marrying into a family of status, as a common colonial, he would never live such a fine lifestyle.”
“You mean the captain sold himself?” Elizabeth was incredulous that he would do such a thing. “And what does Eulate’s wife get out of all this?”
“She gets his children who will have a respected captain for a father. Most such arranged commoner marriages either had her parents lose their wealth or had an ugly daughter and so used their royal position to rid themselves of a daughter no one else of status would have.”
An arranged marriage into wealth? Elizabeth considered that—it suggested he had married an unattractive woman. “You mean,” she asked. “He married an ugly woman?”
“I would assume so. He never takes her out in public.”
“Ha!” Elizabeth chuckled vengefully. “It serves him right. I hope she’s a witch!” She rather liked that idea. “But how does this make the captain, if he is married, still ‘very much available’ to other women, as you say?”
“Oh!” Lisa relaxed a little as Elizabeth’s fury subsided into a more narrowed eye interest. “Where there is such a betrothal, it is a common and accepted practice for the man in such a marriage, formed without love, to seek that satisfaction elsewhere, usually taking a mistress for life.”
“And the captain has taken no such mistress.” Elizabeth nodded in understanding. “Making him available, as you say? Are the wives of these marriages allowed to take men on the side, too?”
“Oh! Only if the greatest of care is taken, Miss Ashley, for if the wife should become pregnant while the husband is away, it would create great embarrassment and public scandal.”
Rather like Solomon and Bathsheba, Elizabeth guessed. She eyed Lisa. This was proving interesting.
“You say this is quite common?”
“It has been going on for hundreds of years, Miss Ashley. It dates back to the Bible.”
“I see.” Elizabeth turned around thoughtfully and asked, “But what of General Blanco—He certainly had no need for his daughter to become the captain’s mistress. Why would he so encouragingly throw them together?”
Lisa hesitated. “Well... I don’t think it was his idea. She practically threw herself at him. There was never any intention of a romance by her father. He is expected to have his wife and daughter at his table. She was never the captain’s partner. He was always there by the general’s invitation and not hers. He had no interest in her. That’s why, when she offered him an invitation to her birthday party, he declined.”
“She always sat right across from him.”
“No doubt by her own doing. Donna Maria may have been willing but the general would have had no part in such a thing!” Lisa seemed quite certain of this. “The captain was never at the Blanco household to see Donna Maria.”
“But he and Donna Maria were together at the concert!”
“I do not know what you mean by ‘together’, Miss Ashley. I was not there. Did he take her?”
Elizabeth didn’t think so. He didn’t take Donna home.
“Then I think she just made it seem that way. I doubt the general would not object to whom she chose to sit by, especially Captain Eulate. Besides, every young lady of quality needs to be properly introduced to society. When a girl comes of age, she is shown around by a man of the father’s choice. In this way, the other young men who wish to suit her see the father’s standards of expectation. For that, Captain Eulate was an excellent choice.”
“And it doesn’t matter that the captain is married?”
“If he wasn’t, that would undo the whole purpose, Miss Ashley. The other young men would think the captain was her suitor and she would receive no invitations from them at all.”
It seemed so simple Elizabeth found herself believing it.
“And the captain would willingly submit to being a part of such a charade?” she asked.
“Well.” Lisa shrugged. “I rather doubt he was asked. The general is his commanding officer and there was no harm in it and the captain is too much a gentleman to object to his own commander’s daughter. Remember, wherever Donna Maria and the captain went, the general and his wife were there to follow. In that way, the reputations of both parties were protected. The captain had nothing to lose by it and possibly something to gain. It demonstrates General Blanco looks upon him with favor.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth bristled and looked away. “I’m beginning to wonder what the captain would not do for social gain.”
“Oh! You judge him too severely!” Lisa protested. “The captain is not that sort at all!”
“Really?” asked Elizabeth, turning to her. “Then why did he not tell me he was married? What sort of gentleman would keep such a secret?”
She waited to give Lisa an opportunity to answer, but when there was none forthcoming, she went on.
“I thought so! The captain is nothing but a lowdown scallywag and it is my misfortune that I did not see it earlier. He let me make a fool of myself over him.” Her eyes darted back to Lisa’s assertively. “And he probably enjoyed every minute of it, too! Don’t think he didn’t!” She stepped to the window as she felt a tear form in her eye. “Why! He is probably sitting on his ship and laughing at me this very instant!”
Elizabeth had to blink her eyes. Was she going to cry?
No! She shook her head. Not over him! She would get angry all over again before she let that happen. Not over that bastard!
Elizabeth wheeled about suddenly to grasp the dresser with both hands and dumped it over, spilling the drawers onto the floor, and astonishing Lisa that she should be so strong. She didn’t care. She would take the captain’s eyes out!
No man—no Spanish officer, no matter how handsome, how cunning—was going to make a fool of her and get away with it.
“I’ll get you, Captain Eulate!” She swore. “I’m glad I sent that cable! Glad!”
Cuba’s Captain General Ramon Blanco watched from behind his massive mahogany wood desk as his servant, Enrico Toto, sorted through the day’s Havana mail and cablegrams. His own desk with its empty coffee cup was covered in useless reports and requests he could do nothing about. This is work without hope of reward, he thought, as his eye drifted over the new papers handed him dealing with Admiral Cervera's squadron in Santiago. If he conceded to Spain’s request and released Admiral Cervera’s squadron to the Philippines, he would fail in his duty to Cuba, the very reason he was assigned here. Yet to keep the admiral here accomplished nothing. He now not only had to supply water to their boilers, but to keep them out of the very battle they had been sent here to fight. To do anything less would result in the squadron’s loss to the enemy.
Ramon Blanco was a man who realized he couldn’t win. While he had a sizable army, it was ridden with sickness, was unpaid, and cut off from its supplies. Worse, he could not tell friend from foe outside the city gates—and more were foes than friends. If the Americans didn’t starve him out, the insurrectos would slaughter them in their beds. How much deeper could the unrest go before even the likes of his Enrico here joined the Insurrecto ranks?
“The civilian militia,” Enrico reminded him as he looked over Cervera's cables, “will want to know what to do with the Reconcentrados. What shall I tell them?”
The Reconcentrados! God! How he felt for them! Ramon hated the position in which Spain put him. The Reconcentrados were loyal to Spain and had been promised food and protection within the camps. Yet now Reconcentration had ended with no more food to be delivered to the camps. The American Red Cross supplies intended for them had been taken over by the Army. Yet the people in the camps had not gone back to their farms for fear of reprisal by the insurrectos and had instead came here to the city to beg. They were still just more hungry mouths to feed and, as such, every bit as dangerous as the American ships outside the harbor.
“Order General Aguares,” Ramon replied, “to use his troops to force them out of the city.”
Enrico nodded, knowing full well what that meant for the unfortunate Reconcentrados at the hands of insurrectos but kept his opinion to himself. Instead, he changed subjects.
“And Admiral Cervera?” he asked. “Have you any messages for him?”
Ramon mulled that thought. The admiral had just reported his opposition yesterday to a sortie for the Philippines. Ramon had wasted no time in sending a copy of that decision to the Spanish Minister of the Marine in order to counter any orders planned for Cervera. Yet if the squadron didn’t come out to fight, it would eventually be starved into submission. Either way, the squadron would be lost and with it, Cuba and his good name.
“No,” he decided. “No messages.”
Enrico nodded and then changed subjects to something more hopeful.
“Has your daughter, Donna Maria, been found?”
Blanco raised his head before shaking it with a reluctant sigh. “No,” he said. “She is still missing.”
Admiral Toto was disappointed to hear that. He had hoped for at least some good news. Without that, he had to ask the more obvious, yet delicate, question.
“General Aguares will want to know the appropriate degree of force to be used in clearing the—uh—streets of the—uh—problem of the Reconcentrados.”
Yes, Ramon realized. He would. With a frown, he gave the pat military answer.
“Whatever force is necessary.”
By this response, he gave Aguares carte blanche in his actions. If the resultant action proved too heavy-handed, Ramon could defend himself by stating that Aguares had overstepped his intended orders. Of course, an under reaction was hardly likely. In all probability, he had just ordered General Aguares to fire upon the only loyal sons of Spain left in all Cuba.
“By any means necessary,” he repeated.
