"There was a young man, a Spainard that my father hired one season. We found out that he was from a very old family in Spain, he chose to live in a castillo high up on one of the hills that overlooked the orchards. I thought him to be very cold and aloof, when Papa found that he was fond of me, Papa did his best to keep us apart. Well you know what happens when you tell a stubborn young girl she can't do something right? I disobeyed him every chance I got."
Alannah let out a low chuckle, and continued sipping her tea and listening to the tale the Señora was telling her.
"One day I found myself caught in the most ferocious rainstorm, much like what you experinced here a few days ago. I was much too proud to admit that I had foolishly ignored the signs in the weather, and therefore I was too proud to ask for anyone's help as I struggled all the way home.
"Victor, was his name, may Dios rest his soul, came driving by in this big, fancy thing that looked like a box on wheels being pulled by his horse. I heard it approaching from behind me, I my bike off the road to let him pass, yet as he got closer to me he slowed the horse to keep pace with me. He tried to talk to me, yet I ignored him and kept riding, picking up speed as I was going along, he got upset and spoke to me as though he were speaking to a child, he said, 'Enough of this foolishness! Get in the wagon. I am taking you home.'
"Well, I thought nothing of it as he took me and my bicycle home, but my parents, being very old-fashioned, were absolutely beside themselves with anger. Yet to everyone's astonishment - even mine, Victor announced that he and I would be wed. He asked for my fathers permission to marry me, and we were wed by the next harvest.
"And the rest, as they say, is history. Victor brought me here where we built this marvelous Chateau, we had a fine son and three very beautiful daughters. For long we had what many would call an perfect life.'
Surprised at what the Señora had just said, Alannah said, "three daughters? Where is she now?"
"Oh my girls have long since married and moved far away"' the Señora said with a note of regret in her voice. "The oldest lives in Valencia Spain with her husban, the middle child Alecia in Texas, and the youngest well she moved to Ménerbes, where I was born. All three have good husbands and lots of children, but we hear from them so seldom that it breaks my heart to have them so far away. So tell me," she said unexpectedly, giving Alannah a speculative look, "would you ever consider living . . . in a place like this?"