Read Online Indiscretion by Hannah Fielding - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hannah Fielding
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in while she was asleep: her beautifully pressed dresses, blouses, skirts and trousers were all hanging up and her underwear had been neatly folded and tidied away in the chest of drawers. She selected a fresh-looking, full-skirted dress in white lace and cotton. The wide red patent-leather belt, bought on a trip to Italy with Aunt Geraldine, encircled her tiny waist and showed off to advantage her graceful and shapely form. To protect her face from the sun, she wore a straw hat with a wide brim embellished with a couple of pink roses. In twenty minutes she was on her way to the garden.
Alexandra had no difficulty in finding her way through the house.Walking along an oak parquet corridor, she passed a series of
cuarterones
, heavy panelled doors inspired, she noted, by ancient carved Moorish screens, some with deeply panelled squares and others with a variety of geometric shapes. She guessed that behind them must be other bedrooms, dressing rooms and guest accommodation. The wide marble staircase swept down to a vaulted entrance hall that, on either side, led to huge ceremonial rooms lined with oriental rugs and embroidered hangings.
The chimes of the great wooden Catalan clock standing grandly in the hall resonated noisily through the sleeping household, startling her; it was now eight o’clock.
Once outside, Alexandra stood and looked at the front of the house. It had been too dark to see anything much when she’d arrived the night before, and she was curious to get a view of the hacienda in daylight.
El Pavón was a large, rectangular edifice with three quite distinct storeys, its whitewashed walls splashed here and there with patches of brilliantly coloured purple bougainvillea that crept up to brush the rounded brown tiles of its roof. Its style was neo-classical, the proportions pure: an austere structure.
An imposing seventeenth-century portal, which she later discovered was originally from a convent in Toledo, flanked by double Tuscan columns at the top of three widely fanning steps led into the vaulted hall. Placed at equal distances from the main entrance, at each end of the long façade were two identical narrow doors, richly decorated with carvings and marquetry. They opened on to separate wings, the private apartments of members of the family. Together they enclosed an inner shady courtyard. The ground-floor rooms at the front of the house each had French doors that opened on to an uncovered terrace running the length of the building, punctuated by fragrant miniature orange trees in large terracotta pots. Fronting the house was a wide gravel carriage circle that enclosed a huge round lawn, spread out like an emerald carpet beyond the foot of the mainsteps. Balconies with wrought-iron consoles and uprights lined the upper two storeys.
Flanking the great house were great expanses of manicured lawns and landscaped gardens curving round to the back of the hacienda. Beyond these, on the west side, stretched protective groves of oleander trees where statues and fountains joined in an interplay of cascading water and iridescent spray. The de Fallas, of which the present generation was the fourth to have lived at the house, had built up a sizeable business in wine production and horse breeding on the estate; and to the east of the hacienda, beyond the lawns, lay the stables and pastureland, neighboured by stretches of flourishing vineyards.
The house and its grounds, set in the wild and arid Andalucían countryside, seemed like a flashing jewel thrown on a sandy beach by a giant hand. With its green lawns, colourful shrubs, myriad flowers and tall trees, the hacienda had all the grandeur and panache of the peacock,
el pavón
, after which it had been named.
Alexandra relished the prospect of discovering every part of this spectacular place, realizing that it would take more than one morning to discover all its secrets. Now she turned towards the flowery grove where she had seen her cousin earlier. Soon she
Alexandra had no difficulty in finding her way through the house.Walking along an oak parquet corridor, she passed a series of
cuarterones
, heavy panelled doors inspired, she noted, by ancient carved Moorish screens, some with deeply panelled squares and others with a variety of geometric shapes. She guessed that behind them must be other bedrooms, dressing rooms and guest accommodation. The wide marble staircase swept down to a vaulted entrance hall that, on either side, led to huge ceremonial rooms lined with oriental rugs and embroidered hangings.
The chimes of the great wooden Catalan clock standing grandly in the hall resonated noisily through the sleeping household, startling her; it was now eight o’clock.
Once outside, Alexandra stood and looked at the front of the house. It had been too dark to see anything much when she’d arrived the night before, and she was curious to get a view of the hacienda in daylight.
El Pavón was a large, rectangular edifice with three quite distinct storeys, its whitewashed walls splashed here and there with patches of brilliantly coloured purple bougainvillea that crept up to brush the rounded brown tiles of its roof. Its style was neo-classical, the proportions pure: an austere structure.
An imposing seventeenth-century portal, which she later discovered was originally from a convent in Toledo, flanked by double Tuscan columns at the top of three widely fanning steps led into the vaulted hall. Placed at equal distances from the main entrance, at each end of the long façade were two identical narrow doors, richly decorated with carvings and marquetry. They opened on to separate wings, the private apartments of members of the family. Together they enclosed an inner shady courtyard. The ground-floor rooms at the front of the house each had French doors that opened on to an uncovered terrace running the length of the building, punctuated by fragrant miniature orange trees in large terracotta pots. Fronting the house was a wide gravel carriage circle that enclosed a huge round lawn, spread out like an emerald carpet beyond the foot of the mainsteps. Balconies with wrought-iron consoles and uprights lined the upper two storeys.
Flanking the great house were great expanses of manicured lawns and landscaped gardens curving round to the back of the hacienda. Beyond these, on the west side, stretched protective groves of oleander trees where statues and fountains joined in an interplay of cascading water and iridescent spray. The de Fallas, of which the present generation was the fourth to have lived at the house, had built up a sizeable business in wine production and horse breeding on the estate; and to the east of the hacienda, beyond the lawns, lay the stables and pastureland, neighboured by stretches of flourishing vineyards.
The house and its grounds, set in the wild and arid Andalucían countryside, seemed like a flashing jewel thrown on a sandy beach by a giant hand. With its green lawns, colourful shrubs, myriad flowers and tall trees, the hacienda had all the grandeur and panache of the peacock,
el pavón
, after which it had been named.
Alexandra relished the prospect of discovering every part of this spectacular place, realizing that it would take more than one morning to discover all its secrets. Now she turned towards the flowery grove where she had seen her cousin earlier. Soon she
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