ESTOY ENCANTADA

My re-write is based on This House is Haunted, a novel by John Boyne (2013). The original work tells the story of Eliza Caine, a Governess who, in 1867, arrives for duty at Gaudlin Hall - a grand house in Norfolk, England. She soon discovers that its previous Mistress, Santina Westerley, haunts the house. The Master of the house, James Westerley, had travelled to Madrid as a young man, where he met and married Santina - a lowly peasant girl (“She wasn’t anybody, of course. Her family had nothing” p. 136) and returned to England with his new bride. His father was less than pleased, as he had plans for James to marry the daughter of a local landowner.  It's revealed that Santina was subjected to awful cruelty as a young girl and when she subsequently has children of her own, according to the characters telling the story, she becomes “demented” (p. 139) and loses “all control of herself” (p. 139).

 I didn’t wish to make any great political or ideological challenges to the original text, I merely wanted to give voice to Santina and describe the events and the feelings that led to her unraveling. How overwhelming would it have been for her to leave her village in Spain, arrive in England and take up residency as the Lady of the Manor – all whilst trying to wrestle with the demons of her past? What drives us to madness? To murder? Hopefully I have made Santina’s actions more understandable. To me, she was obviously suffering from post-natal depression and probably post traumatic stress syndrome – conditions we are accustomed to now, but that were completely misunderstood in the nineteenth century. Edwards (2008) says that the retelling of a story from another a point of view can help to “explore the gaps and silences” in a story and that is what was foremost in my mind during my re-write. I didn’t want to displace the original text, but rather fill in the blanks from Santina’s point of view. I was also aware of the idea that a re-write must “utilise enough of its source text to make it clear which text it is re-writing” (Mann, 2013) and the idea that re-writing “can enable all of us to read the old text in a new way, by foregrounding voices and perspectives silenced or marginalised in the original” (Mann, 2013). I have used some sentences and dialogue directly from the original text in my re-write, indicated in italics. I also kept Said’s notion of ‘overlapping territories’ and  ‘intertwined histories’ in mind. Spain and England were not at ‘odds with each other’, so to speak, and equally active in New World colonisation. Although Santina found immigration to England oppresive (because of her own demons), her character wasn’t literally oppressed by England.

ESTOY ENCANTADA

(I AM HAUNTED)

When I first saw him it wasn’t so much the event of his arrival that excited me, it was more that somehow I knew his presence in the village could ultimately lead to my departure from the place I had come to hate. This could be my chance. With his pale skin and blonde hair, he stood out from the men I had known all my life like an apparition – a pale spectre amongst the dark dusty men of my village. I had lived in El Espinar all my life and it was highly unusual for visitors to make the two-day trek from Madrid unless it was to visit Padre Felipe or to ensure the collection of long overdue rents. It was my sister who first alerted me to the stranger that had arrived in the village that morning. She had appeared breathless in the garden where I was hanging out the morning’s washing on the long line strung between the boughs of the cypress trees. I was hot and thirsty from my labours and irritated by her squawking.

“Ven pronto Santina, sígueme” she said. I was in no mood to follow her. My body ached and my mind was elsewhere. Her twelve-year-old mind was fascinated with everyday occurrences that I had long lost the luxury of noticing. For me, my days consisted of keeping my head down - staying near to the cocina or the wash-house and trying desperately not to be be caught out alone. I shooed her away but she was insistent. “Un extraño blanco ha llegado”, she said, a look of sheer delight upon her face.  I had often told Isobel of my dream to be taken away from El Espinar by a stranger – that he would come for me one day and that I would leave all this behind. The washing, the dust, the chatter of los pollos, the heat, but most of all, I would leave behind my father and my Uncle. I never told her this part of course. I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth. She asked many times why I had been crying, why I seemed frightened and jumpy in the evening when Papa and Uncle Mateo were drinking in the courtyard… I told her it was nothing. Sometimes I told her I cried because I missed Mama and she would beg me to tell her stories of the woman she could barely remember. Although my desire to escape overwhelmed me most days, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind to take my place with those men. My Papa. I was broken hearted that it had come to this. Life had been so sweet when we were little - she was four years younger than me so didn’t remember, but I had so loved him when I was a little girl. I would rush to greet him when he came in, smelling of fresh sweat and earth after a long morning in the fields. Mama would be in the kitchen singing and making pan de leche for our midday feast. Nor does she remember Mama brushing out our long dark hair before bed and tucking us up in the lumpy old bed that we shared in a tiny room off the cocina. Papa burnt the bed when Mama died. He wanted to ensure that the unseen assailant that had first turned my mother’s skin flush and slick with fever, filled her lungs with fluid and finally left her cold and still, did not come for us. He burnt everything. We scrubbed every surface of the house after her funeral but could never rid the air of his grief. It was everywhere. I soon assumed the burden of the household duties but I did it willingly. The busier I was, the less time I had to miss her and the less Papa noticed me. We became ghosts to him like Mama. For three years, life in our tiny house continued this way. Papa would work, I would clean and prepare meals, Isobel grew up.  When Uncle Mateo showed up from Palencia, everything changed. We had never met Mama’s brother before and she had rarely spoken of him. As a wave of industrialisation hit the far North, the men that ploughed the fields found themselves disenfranchised and hungry. He had come looking for work. Isobel and I shrank back from him. He was wild-eyed and stank of wine and old sweat, but Papa let him stay. He was family and Papa said he needed the help. What I needed was a way out of this life, a reprieve from the fear that I felt on the nights when Mateo and Papa would drink and somehow lose themselves to El Diablo himself. I would be woken and taken from my bed by one or the other and have to turn my face away from the glazed unseeing look and the stale breath whilst they wreaked havoc on my body and especially my soul.

“Lo extraño”? I asked her, trying to keep the mixture of fear and excitement out of my voice. She told me of the young man who had ridden into the village square that morning amid the staring eyes and whispers of the women gathered there. He looked rich according to Isobel, sitting atop a fine Andalusian usually ridden by Captains or Lords. He had taken refreshments at the Taberna and asked about lodging for the night. Senora Barranco had offered him a room, and it was there that Isobel believed him to be. With a racing heart I finished pegging out the last of the sheets and hurried to the washroom to discard my basket and wipe my hands. I had to see for myself.

I was only sixteen. I was lost in the darkness of my father’s grief-soaked existence, his desires as a man skewed by the influence of Uncle Mateo. I had become nothing to him except a maid and a cook and perhaps, when he’d drunk too much, a feint reminder of my mother. I took her Sunday dress from the chest in the front room, the one remaining thread of her existence, smoothed it over my aching body, brushed my hair and made my way to the square. When I saw him, standing in a shaft of sunlight filtering through the trees, I felt as if my eyes had fallen upon Christo himself. James was my Saviour. As I write this from my filthy cell in this cold and unforgiving country, I wonder how it went so wrong.

James and I married in the village church with only Isobel and Padre Felipe in attendance. When we left El Espinar for the last time in the inky pre-dawn stillness, we took Isobel with us. We left her in Madrid with the Sisters at the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales. It broke my heart but she said she was happy. She hated the thought of England, with Her cold and austere ways. I promised her that when I was settled I would send for her and that we would see each other soon. The only thing that made my heartache bearable was the fact that I had saved her from Papa and Mateo. I could imagine Papa storming into our room the morning after we left, throwing back the covers of our bed and the roar that would have escaped his throat when he discovered that we had stealed away in the night, never to return.

I had never been away from El Espinar in my life and the sights and sounds of Madrid were overwhelming, little did I know what was to come. We travelled by coach to Barcelona and then on through the Pyrenees to France. The journey felt endless but I had such hope in my heart and the further we travelled from the men that nearly destroyed me the better. Nearly a month later we arrived at Calais and the sight of the ocean left me both terrified and exhilarated at once. As we boarded the creaking ship at the port, James told me in his limited Spanish that it was called a Packet ship. It was small and fast and he explained it was especially built for the cross-channel route. The captain and crew were expert sailors and able to take advantage of every shift of the tide and wind and the journey was only 6 hours in the end. Once ashore we were met by a “post” - a fast light carriage. The horses were changed every thirty miles and so twelve hours later we arrived in London. I had never known such cold. The street were filthy, the very air grey and damp. I started to doubt my decision to come to this unforgiving country but I had had no choice. We made our way to Liverpool Street Station where the monstrous black steam train would take us to Norfolk. I was bewildered and frightened not only by the hulking mass I was to board but also by what awaited me at Gaudlin Hall. James had told me of his mother’s death when he was a little boy – this we had in common – but also of his father’s wishes for him to marry a girl of title from a place called Ipswich – apparently her father was a landowner there. This was one of the reasons that James had embarked upon his journey to Spain – he didn’t want to be told whom he should marry. However, his father’s wishes nagged at my heart and my stomach. How would he react to the news that I was the new Senora Westerley, a Spanish peasant girl with nothing to my name except a dark and shameful secret? Not only was I without means or title, I wasn’t even English. What had we done?

Needless to say there was a great commotion, the old man said we could not marry but of course the deed had been done. I saw the old man’s shoulders visible slump and the very fight go out of him as he spied the rose gold band upon my finger. James and his father were angry at each other for a while, but once tempers abated, they reconciled.

So I settled into life at Gaudlin Hall as best I could and committed myself to learning the English ways and language. It was so strange to be cooked for, to have Mrs. Livermore do the washing and Heckling oversee the sprawling grounds. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would one day have servants and to be honest I’m not sure I was ever entirely comfortable with it. I did my best to make friends with people in the village and felt particularly welcomed by Mr. Raisin and his wife Charlotte and Dr. Toxley and his wife Madge. Mr. Raisin and James had been childhood friends and it was partly due to their friendship that I felt that maybe happiness was possible for me in the end. I was still haunted by the memories of my father and Uncle Mateo but tried to put them out of my mind.

I didn’t know what it was that I felt for James. I was grateful yes, but also afraid. Was I in love? I didn’t even know what that meant. I had no real understanding of what it was that a man really wanted and when James touched me I froze. A terrible gulf opened in my belly when I saw that look in his eyes. I longed for the reassuring voice of Mama – for her to explain what was expected of me. I wanted to return to the innocence of my childhood in Spain, to have her brush my hair, lift it gently in her hands and whisper to me the secrets of love and passion and what it was that I was supposed to feel. Instead, my education had been in the savage grappling of my Uncle or the sad heaving of Papa, both of which left me screaming to escape my body but also hiding deep within my own bones at the same time. It wasn’t James’ fault and I felt terrible that I couldn’t respond to him. I know that my fear put a terrible strain on our relationship therefore I was immensely relieved when I realized I was with child. I hadn’t bled for three months and my body felt heavy and tender. Surely now he would leave me alone in the dark. I was amazed that I could actually conceive after the brutality of my childhood, and vowed that this child would never know such cruelty. Whilst I was pregnant old Senor Westerley became ill and before the baby was born, he died. James was now the Lord of the Estate. I constantly fretted that he regretted his decision to marry a peasant girl  - and a foreigner at that – and wondered if he would have much preferred an English woman at his side. When my daughter was born I felt my soul cleave. I felt I had let James down by not producing a son. The ache for my mother that I had contained so well broke the banks of my heart and I fell headlong into the dark. Some days I thought I heard Mama whispering to me, telling me to keep Isobella safe. Sometimes I thought I saw the shadow of Uncle Mateo or Papa lingering in the nursery and other nights I woke in the dark to the smell of wine and sweat in my nostrils and would rush to the side of Isobella’s cuna and snatch up her warm body, if only to still the wildness of my own heart hammering in my chest. Each time I spoke my daughter’s name, I thought of my sister at the convent school in Madrid. We had written on a regular basis, I had named my daughter after her but nothing could alleviate the guilt I felt at leaving her. I made a decision to send for her but James refused. I had withdrawn into the tiny world of my daughter and James was becoming increasingly frustrated with me. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want a nanny to take care of her. I understood that it was the custom of the English upper classes but I would never let my daughter out of my sight. I had grown up without a mother to protect me and had been subjected to such horror at the hands of my father – I would never let any harm come to my daughter as long as I lived.

Sleep became a memory as I watched and worried over Isobella. The voices whispering around Gaudlin Hall became louder and more constant. My fears surrounding her safety began to consume me and I became quite detached from everything around me except my baby. I contemplated some days whether to just end my life and take Isobella with me, where we would never be parted or in danger. I could see that James was at his wits end, and after one night when he demanded what he called “his conjugal rights”, I closed my heart to him once and for all. I would never be free of Papa’s legacy. I was aghast to discover I was once again with child and sank deeper into my nightmare. James aged before my very eyes. There seemed to be no solution to the disintegration of our relationship and I let it fall away. Isobella and the baby growing inside of me were all that mattered. The following summer I gave birth to a boy and James named him Eustace – a Westerly family name. He again began to insist we hire a nanny, again I refused and for a time, he let it rest. I spent my days alone with the children and my all-consuming fears and slept now permanently in the nursery. James and I were strangers to each other - I had only the children and the whispering voices for company.

 For several years, life at Gaudlin Hall continued this way. The villagers withdrew from me, I knew they considered me a mad woman - ‘la loca”, but I didn’t care. I was utterly shocked when James confronted me to say that he believed my relationship with the children to be an unhealthy one and that they needed outside influences. He had hired a governess. Miss Tomlin arrived and assumed her duties with the children. I was devastated. James would insist that she take them into the village alone but I would secretly follow, I couldn’t bear for them to be out of my sight. I know that Mr. Raisin saw me on one or more occasions watching them from a measured distance – part of me was embarrassed but I was consumed. As I write this from my cell, I feel as if the veil has been lifted from my eyes. If only I had listened to James, seen reason, but nothing could convince me at the time. It was as if I had been taken over by an unknown force – the fear and the voices urging me on. I regret terribly what I have done, but I was convinced they were going to steal my children. The voices told me. They said that if I ever lost sight of my children, then unspeakable things would happen to them.

I have been sentenced to die today. I sit alone in my filthy cell, four solid walls shutting me off from the other prisoners but the walls do not keep out the smell. I have grown used to it though. The other women are crammed into cages; they are not murderers like me. Pickpockets, thieves, streetwalkers most of them. When Madge Toxley from the village came to see me yesterday I could hear them all screaming and pleading as she passed by. 

“It was kind of you to come”, I told her, my accent still so present although my English was near perfect now.

“I thought about it for a long time”, she told me “But I felt that I should see you, on this day of all days”.

“You always showed such kindness towards me,” I said. She broke down then, tears welled up in her eyes as she pleaded with me to tell her why I had killed Miss Tomlin and injured my husband so. She asked what had possessed me to commit such an evil act, she asked if had been possessed by the devil.

I told her that I had been convinced that James and Miss Tomlin were going to steal my children. I told her that I had sworn from the moment I knew I was carrying Isobella that I would not let anyone touch them.

“Miss Tomlin was nothing more than a governess” she protested. “A young girl. She was there to help you. To take some of the weight off your shoulders. To instruct them in their historical studies and their sums and their reading. She presented no threat to you.”

My hands clenched into fists. “You do not know of the horror that can befall a child if their mother is not there to protect them” I snarled.

“But no one wanted to hurt them” she said, “Oh Santina, no one would have hurt them for the world, James told you that”.

It didn’t matter what James had told me. Madge left in tears, she just couldn’t understand. I suffered so greatly as a girl without my Mama. There is such cruelty in the world. It breathes on us; we spend our lives trying to escape it. I came to Gaudlin Hall as a girl with nothing but the spectre of my past to my name. It was on it’s alter that I sacrificed my future. James, Madge, Mr. Raisin and Charlotte all tried to make me feel safe here but it was an impossible task. These people, however kind and well meaning couldn’t understand that I could never draw Spain from my veins.

The dusty streets of El Espinar never left my mind, the cluck cluck cluck of los pollos were forever in my ears and the terrifying nights with my father and Uncle Mateo forever in my soul. The death of my mother and the crimes of my father and Uncle have left stains on my skin that even the scouring English air couldn’t remove.