Nacre's Promise

Chapter VIII : Troubled future

Cuevas-Blancas, 1893.

In the year that followed, Rodrigo seemed disturbed by the political meetings he attended as a notable. Each time, he returned to Cuevas-Blancas with a dark face and locked himself in his office. Sometimes he would spend the night there, writing and managing the accounts, and yet it wasn't those writings that made him gloomy. The estate was not yet affected, but he was worried about its future.

The agrarian crisis, industrial backwardness, demands for autonomy from Catalonia, strikes and anarchism shook the country. Abroad, in the colonies under Spanish domination (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines), the collapse of the colonial empire was on its way. The simmering conflicts forced Spain to send its first soldiers to these very distant countries. Rodrigo feared that his children would be requisitioned to be soldiers despite their young age and this idea did not leave him at rest.

Diego saw his father withdraw every day a little more in his solitary reflection. Not suspecting anything, he blamed it on the worry accumulated since the death of his little sister and the fragile health of his mother.

Although Elvira never spoke about it again, as if this drama never happened, that she had never had another child, she had become another since this sad event. Even slimmer, even diaphanous, she wandered around the house aimlessly, feeding herself just when she thought about it.

Considering that her sons were grown up since they had both made their communion, she had stopped their religious teaching and no longer seemed to be interested in them.

Summer had just arrived with its stifling heat and the drying up of the rivers, the flow of which had dropped very sharply until they dried up. Despite the heat, Elvira would often go for a walk for several hours with her favorite horse without telling anyone. This did not fail to worry Carlina who did not let go of her with a sole.

Of course, the horse knew the way to the stable, but the maid feared she would fall and be found too late thirsty and injured, if not worse. She always tried to prevent him from leaving alone, knowing, in spite of everything, that it was only when she returned from these walks that she seemed at peace.