Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: BRIDE (02/25/21)
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TITLE: The Orange Tree | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sue Botte
03/03/21 -
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‘Padre, did Alejandro speak to you today?’
‘Conchita…no reales, no peso’s, no reales'.
‘But Padre…’ he silenced her.
With shoulders hanging, she walked outside, in the direction of the forest. She did not feel the cold.
The one sided conversation cut deeply.
Renewed tears welled up in her eyes as his words refrained in her head. Anguish and grief enfolded her like a woollen blanket. She felt numb.
She dragged her body along; her feet were like lead, her heart heavier. Her cheeks were burning from her tears. She slowly walked into the forest on the edge of the vast estate. She kept herself from hysterics as she hummed canto jundo songs. She focused on the notes and words in her head, which portrayed her sadness and heartache. She did not care for the cold February wind cutting through her too thin body.
She sat down on a fallen Pyrenean oak tree trunk; she wept out load.
Alejandro! Her heart called out.
Will I ever see you again? She dared not think of the answer, but she can speak to him in her heart.
I so much want to be your bride.
A while later, a thought…or was it a deep-seated knowing, crossed her mind: this is no way for a bride-to-be to behave.
Trusting her inner voice, Conchita stood up, ‘I will be a bride,’ she said out loud. She shook her shoulders, lifted her head and chin. She found a rock; she carved her name and Alejandro’s name on the trunk of a young Pyrenean oak tree nearby.
With determination, she walked back to her father’s casa campesina. She wished she had taken her winter’s cloak.
Maria, her mother, noticed her red and swollen eyes.
‘Your padre did speak to you about the dote? There will be no marriage, my little Conchita.’
Conchita just nodded.
She took great care of herself within her means. She took extra care of her skin and teeth. She brushed her hair a hundred strokes every night.
She learned traditional recipes alongside her mother in the kitchen. She learned first aid. She made a point of not forgetting to wear her apron to protect her clothes.
She minded her manners more than ever before.
She attended mass whenever she could.
She carried on making her trousseau. She finished the black-work embroidery of the tablecloth and serviettes. She started scarlet-work on a new cloth.
‘Conchita!’ her father called one morning, out of the normal routine.
‘Yes Padre.’
‘Come, come, I want to show you a new tree in the king’s garden.’
Happy, Conchita walked alongside her padre.
It was an orange tree, the first in Spain, and, it was flowering. Conchita was in awe. She asked many questions. Eventually she returned to the casa campesina.
There was much hustle and bustle with the visiting French king during the following weeks.
One day after working with her father in the garden, she noticed some servants huddling together, not one for gossip she walked past them but one of the servants, Quiteria, approached her. Not wanting to be rude, she acknowledged her.
‘Conchita, have you heard? The King has refused the king of France a …’
Quiteria carried on talking; half way through Conchita was no longer listening. A plan formed in her mind.
I have to stay calm.
That evening she did not do scarlet-work embroidery, instead she went to bed early. But, not before she got a note to the king of France, to meet her thirty minutes before dawn the following morning at the south gate leading to the stables. Conchita was pleased with herself.
Wrapped in her dark coloured winter’s cloak, she set off into the garden, a pair of scissors held tightly in her right hand. It was still dark; she knew the garden well.
‘Thank you, my Lord.’ Conchita said as she bowed, accepting the reales; enough for the dote. She was grateful that for once, gossip was information that paid off.
The king of France left that same day with a cutting of the orange tree carefully packed, safely in his luggage.
She managed to get a note to Alejandro to speak to her padre.
Preparations for the wedding started with anticipation.
She and Alejandro attended the Pre-Cana course at the local Catholic Church.
The bride wore white orange blossoms, from the same orange tree, in her shiny black hair on her wedding day.
______________ .
Part legend, the rest fiction.
Reader’s Digest – Did You Know page 242-245
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