“Silvy had sent ahead to the Barón’s estate when we got to the Burgos. He lives there with half a dozen of my aunts and uncles, all in each other’s pockets. So we waited for a day, got no reply, and Silvy sent another note, the kindest, most conciliatory thing you could imagine. We were staying at the fonda in Burgos and she had given that as our direction; we were easy enough to find, but we heard nothing. On the fourth day my uncle Tomas called on us.”
Matlin saw Thea’s hands curl into tight little fists; her voice was surprisingly bitter and adult. “It seems that I am so loathsome an object to the entire family, particularly to my grandfather, that no one could bear to write a letter to me. Since Mama married my father without his permission, the Barón will have nothing to do with me. At least Papa’s relatives answered Silvy’s letters, even if they had nothing of use to say.”
“So your Uncle Tomas called?” Matlin urged.
“We were nearly down to our last peseta. My uncle called, making it clear that he had left my cousin and my grandfather in the coach. They could not be troubled to greet us. Silvy ordered wine which he would not drink, and was so pathetically glad to see him. That man told us, in the most brutal terms, just what help we could expect from my Spanish relatives—none. His most gracious suggestion was that we return to England immediately, or come here. Then, as an afterthought, just as he was leaving he threw a purse at Silvy, as if she were an obliging chambermaid to be paid off! To Silvy, who is worth a dozen of him! I wish I knew a name bad enough to call him.”
“I know several,” Matlin offered. “No, child, I can imagine what the Mother and your Señorita de Silva would think of me then. Go on with your story.”
“I think it had been raining every day that week, and Silvy had a miserable cold, but now, when she saw my uncle and my grandfather for what they were, I couldn’t keep her inside. She had a cold, but she ran out to find Tomas and to throw the purse back in his face. When I caught up with her she had already found them. He was talking to her.”
“Your grandfather?”
Thea nodded. “The Barón. Sitting comfortably inside with the curtain only half-way down while Silvy stood there in the rain, arguing with him, more bedraggled every moment and shivering with cold and wet. She was trying to give him the purse when I got to her, and the carriage started moving away; she was almost thrown down on top of me. The last thing I saw of my grandfather, almost the only thing, was his arm when he threw that purse back at us.” Thea’s hands went up in an angry, helpless gesture. “I used the money to bring us here, to Sepulveda.”
Matlin tried to think of something to say to her. “Are there no other relatives you could go to in Spain?” he asked at last.
“You don’t understand the way it is here. There are two sorts of nobles in Spain, Sir Douglas: the Grandees, with money and power, and the Hidalgos. They have the birth and the arrogance, but precious few of them have either money or power. My family is Hidalgo, and while my grandfather has money, the rest of the family are his pensioners. Do you think any of my relatives would risk my grandfather’s anger over a relation they’ve never met? Uncle Tomas was right about one thing: we had two choices—return to England or retire to a convent. Poor Silvy was so ill by the time I got here that I was afraid....” Seeing it all again, Thea let her voice drop to a whisper.
“What will happen when you return to England?”
Thea raised her face, very pale, and her blue eyes met Matlin’s, unblinking. “I don’t know. Someone will take me in. I imagine I shall probably be made useful in one of my aunt’s nurseries or something. Perhaps they’ll find me a curate to marry. At least I will be home. Sir Douglas, the Sisters are everything kind, but I’m stifling here.”
“I can imagine. You appear to be a very, uh, unmonastic sort of girl.”
“That’s what Mother says. Will you take me with you? Please?”
“Wait a moment. Your Silvy has a point, after all. When you are ready to think of marriage it will hardly do you credit to have traveled across Spain in my company, even if you did so for a good reason. I was no rakehell, but my reputation in London society was hardly that of a ‘gentil parfait knight’.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Thea agreed, unconcerned. Then, as if following a thought, “Who is Adele?”
The light in Matlin’s eyes died. “I must have been raving. Did I speak of her? Adele was—a kind of madness for a while. You will oblige me by forgetting her name, child.”
“You said you weren’t married,” Thea insisted. “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t take me because this Adele wouldn’t like it.”
Matlin laughed, an unpleasantly mocking sound. “Adele Frain has far too much appreciation of her own worth to be jealous of an infant like you, although you are a redoubtable child. All right then, as you will have it. I was engaged to her in England.”
“Was?”
“We had a difference of opinion and ended the arrangement. She and I have very different ideas of what marriage is, and Adele appeared to have no intention of giving up her flirts after the wedding.” He laughed unpleasantly. “If you can imagine, I was fool enough to have planned to play the reformed rake. Well, that was the end of that.”
“So you came to Spain to forget your sorrow?” Thea asked shrewdly. His remark about redoubtable children rankled, and she could not forbear her own irony. Matlin heard it; his look was sharp and wholly unappreciative.
“I came to look after my uncle’s vineyards,” he said depressively. “Are we going to play cards or will you prattle on this way forever?”
Smarting under the snub, Thea returned her attention to her cards. In a few minutes, contrite, Matlin tried to tease her into good humor again, but she was not to be won. Even the subject of her return to England brought no return of her earlier, appealingly confiding manner, and when she left the cottage to go for Compline prayers it was with a cool goodnight. He was not sure whether to be amused or sorry. He liked the girl and regretted that he had dampened her enthusiasm, but sometimes she had a damnably adult way of asking questions, of deflating him with a look.
That night, he slept fitfully, waking to remember the story she had told him, dwelling on the image of the girl and her duenna making their way alone from England to Spain, of the older woman pleading the girl’s case. That there was pleading to do, that that girl whom any family should be proud to own had been cast off in England and Spain both, was depressing in itself. He thought of Thea’s face, lively with anger when she spoke of her grandfather: “I despise him.” And it occurred to him that, in a few years and with the proper clothes and that funny, confiding mixture of dignity and innocence, she would be the toast of St. James’s. To waste that in a convent....
When he slept again Matlin dreamt confusingly of Adele Frain, Thea Cannowen, and faceless, laughing women who danced relentlessly in the rain.
o0o
“Señor Mathleen, you look better by the day.” Mother Beatriz sat gingerly on the chair at his bedside and took her rosary in hand, while running one finger over the smooth beads. “Our Sister Juan says a week should see you well enough to leave us.”
“And I will, I promise. I don’t wish to repay your kindness by endangering you and the others. I wish there were some way I could repay you. As for that child....”
“You have given up the mad idea of taking her with you? That makes me easier in my mind, I must say. It is no journey for a babe like her.” The nun drew her hand across her face as if to hide a smile. “Although I doubt there is a child in the world more ready to try than Dorotea.”
“What will become of her, if she stays?”
Mother Beatriz shrugged. “If God is good, in time she will find a vocation. If not? I wish I knew.”
“She’s very young to become....” he paused, fearful of offending. “Mother, you think she could make the journey?”
“I thought you had given up this idea, Señor? Even beyond that, what would happen if you and she survived the trip and made your wa
y to England? Would her family take her in? Señorita de Silva thinks not, and she should know. The child must be protected.”
“Her family might not take her in, but I’d lay odds that mine would.”
“Yours?”
“Yes! I can’t think why I didn’t think of this earlier. Mother, I’ve an aunt at home who has pined for a daughter for years. She would love to take Dorothea under her wing, to raise her, to bring her into society and to marry her off appropriately when the day comes. I would like to see the girl have her chance at it, ma’am.”
“Do you think someone would marry her, sir, if it were known that she had spent however-many-weeks alone with you on the journey from England?” Mother Beatriz asked shrewdly. “It is kind; Diós, it is more than kind, what you offer, but I think it would not work.”
“And if we married, Mother?” As soon as he said the words Matlin wondered what had possessed him. Marry that baby? After he had sworn never to consider marriage? “In name only, of course,” he heard himself assuring the Superior. “The girl is so young, but if we were married in form, when we reached England the marriage could be annulled, the proprieties would have been attended to, and my own family would take her in happily. I am much interested in her future; after all she did save my life.”
“You think because I have lived in a convent most of my life I do not understand that for Dorotea our life might be wrong? I think perhaps it is so. But this idea is still mad. I wonder if it is mad enough to work. If Clara would agree—Señorita de Silva, her duenna—and the girl herself, of course.”
As if she had heard her name, Thea’s laughter rang up from the yard at the back of the cottage under Matlin’s window. Wordlessly he rose from his bed and went to stare out the window. At a distance of some twenty feet, Thea was playing with the convent cat and her kittens. As Matlin watched, two of the kittens began to climb their way straight up the skirt of her habit, and she bent quickly to pick up another kitten and to deposit it in the cuff of her sleeve. A fourth kitten appeared, perched precariously on her shoulder; half under the veil, it played with a wisp of Thea’s hair.
“How old is she,” Matlin asked. “Sometimes she could be ten years old; other times I would swear she was thirty.”
“I suppose her to be thirteen, fourteen years of age. Perhaps less, perhaps more.”
“Young enough so that she won’t conceive of any nonsense about me, in any case,” Matlin concluded naively. Mother Beatriz regarded him with faint amusement. “Will you speak to Señorita de Silva at least? Tell her what I’m offering?”
The Superior was silent for a few moments. “You are serious? Then I think you and Clara must speak with each other. You are well enough now so I think I will bring you to her; she is not well. The child does not know,” she added quickly. “This is all much against our custom, Señor, but custom must take a back seat to necessity sometimes. Shall I tell her you will come?”
Matlin looked out the window again. “Do, please, Mother.”
o0o
“I do not like it,” Silvy protested again. “Who is this man, after all? What sort of future does he promise my Dorotea, away from me?”
“What sort of future do we promise her here? In honesty, Clara?” The Superior was concerned for her friend: Clara de Silva’s skin had taken on a gray pallor of late, she grew thinner and more insubstantial by the day. “He’s a good man, Clara, I would swear to that, and he has a softness for your Dorotea. He would look to her happiness. What more can any man offer her? At least you could speak to him.”
Silvy sighed deeply. She was dying and had suspected so for some time. Her heart was bad, her strength failing, and hope had been taken clean out of her by the treatment they had met with from Tomas and the Barón Ibañez-de Silva. The Superior was right; what other choice did she have but to listen to the man? Dorotea was half in love with him already, she thought. What happiness would this marriage of convenience bring to her? Still, it was a chance. “I will speak with him.”
That evening, when Thea had been sent with the convent’s four novices on an errand in the village, Matlin, dressed in clean, ill-fitted garments borrowed from Manuel’s family, was introduced to Doña Clara de Silva in the guest house of the convent. The woman he found seated severely upright in a chair by the window wore a black gown as Thea did, but her long, horsey face was unsoftened by veil and wimple. Her voice, when she greeted him, was high-pitched and flat, faintly strained and threaded with a rale. She was ill indeed, he thought.
Silvy, for her part, looked up at a tall man, dark hair brushed away from the still-livid scar on his forehead, and thought, Poor Dorotea! No wonder!
“Sir Douglas,” she began at last. “You must understand that Dorotea is a daughter to me; I am not merely an interfering woman when I tell you I fret for her safety on your journey and afterward. Her mother was my cousin and my dearest friend. You cannot expect that I will be delighted by the notion of Dorotea travelling in helter-skelter fashion with one of whom, I beg your pardon but, I know nothing.”
Matlin smiled, trying his best to put her at ease. “I do understand, ma’am. In the ordinary way—but it’s not the ordinary way, is it?” He pulled a stool close to her and took one of Silvy’s cold hands in his own. “I will tell you anything you wish to know.”
A quarter of an hour passed before Silvy raised her free hand—the other was still in Matlin’s gentle grasp—and protested that she knew him well enough. “Your honesty is overwhelming, Sir Douglas,” she said with a trace of humor, the first he had heard from her.
“The important thing is the girl, Señorita. She has been raised to expect that her future would be no different from that of any English girl: a season, presentation at Court, a good marriage. I will undertake to assure you that she will have all those things, the best chance a young lady can have to establish herself, when the time comes, and I promise you I will do everything possible to ensure that she is never hurt through my offices....”
“I believe you! I am not a selfish woman, and I know my time is coming quickly. If my niña wishes to go with you, I will not protest. I ask only,” her voice broke, then steadied, “only that you be kind to her, Señor. These last months there has been little happiness for Dorotea, she has mostly made her own.” She has a tendre for you which makes her terribly vulnerable, Silvy thought, but she did not say it aloud.
“Then shall we put it to Dorothea herself?” Matlin suggested. His eyes met Silvy’s, and they shared a long look of understanding.
“Yes. I doubt we need wonder what her answer will be.”
Chapter Four
“Marry him.” Dorothea turned to stare at Matlin. “You want to marry me?”
Taken aback, Matlin assured her that his offer was quite genuine. “Your Señorita de Silva and I have discussed it, Miss Cannowen, and it seems the only way to return you to England with your reputation intact. I hope you would not very much dislike it.”
“Dislike it?” Thea heard the enthusiasm in her voice and some instinct for caution made her temper the tone of her next words. “I am honored, of course, Sir Douglas....”
“You had as well call me Matlin, child. You will see when we are back in London that nearly everyone does.”
“Yes, Matlin, but do you really wish to marry me?” she asked dubiously. “There is that woman in England....”
“I knew I would regret having told you that story. I beg you will not let any consideration of Adele Frain constrain you. Miss Cannowen.” His tone was formal, but he smiled. “My aunt will take you in hand when we reach England; you will like her, I warrant, and she will enjoy having you to dress and to cosset.... I hope you shall not mind being a doll for her! And your family....”
“I haven’t any family. Except for Silvy, of course,” Thea added conscientiously. “If I were a married woman they would not matter a whit, would they?” She seemed, for a moment, to be entertaining some private, delicious fantasy. Just as quickly her expression changed to one of concern
and she dropped down at Silvy’s side. “I’d be leaving you, Silvy. Do you really want to stay here?”
“Dorotea, you are hardly courteous to our hosts,” Silvy reproved gently. “Now, you are not to concern yourself with me, niña. I am where I wish to be. Besides, think of the nuisance I would be on such a journey. It won’t be an easy one, hija, you understand? You will not be travelling in comfort as we did when we arrived here.”
Thea, recalling the journey from Burgos made in a crowded mule coach with a dozen other people, squeaked, “Comfort!”
Matlin was agreeing. “What your duenna says is true, infant. The number of French troops is increasing daily, from what Manuel tells me, and since the abdication the countryside is unsettled. My Spanish is of the rough and ready sort, and we will have to travel overland to Portugal, probably on foot most of the way.”
“In that case, it’s as well I shall be with you. My Spanish is excellent.” Thea was not displeased by the gentle, conspiratorial laughter of Silvy, Matlin and the Mother Superior. They were all determined to be amused by her? Very well, let them. She was going to return to England. “When do we leave? When are we to be married? Mother,” she turned anxiously to the Superior. “Must I be married in this?” She gathered the folds of her habit in one hand with obvious distaste, and the others laughed again.
“I think, hija, that we will find you something else to marry in, and for your journey as well. Now, Señor Mathleen, you look fatigued; it is time you returned to your bed, if you wish to be healthy enough to start on your journey soon. We will speak more of plans tomorrow, when Sister Juan can tell us how long until you are fit to travel.”
Spanish Marriage Page 4
