Spanish Marriage

by Robins, Madeleine

  “Well?” Joaquín prodded.

  “Well?” Thea returned defensively.

  “Did you speak to your husband, cousin?”

  Thea blinked, looked away, looked back and got the worst of it out. “We had a quarrel. Cousin, I would help you if I could, but I promise that nothing I say will be of any help to you or to Spain. My husband....” She paused painfully. “He does not think very highly of me just at this present, and I had as well tell you he has taken you in strong dislike as well.”

  “Me? He does not even know me.”

  “He saw you last night, talking to me. He thought you were too particular in your attentions. He blamed me for encouraging you.” She laughed bitterly. “I did not even have the chance to explain to him....”

  Joaquín stopped in his tracks, his eyes cold. The hand that had cupped her elbow with a courteous guiding touch seemed suddenly hard as iron; it bruised her. “You should have run after him. You should have crawled after him, if you had to, made him understand the desperate case we are in.”

  “You don’t understand.” She tried futilely to pull her arm away from his grip.

  “I don’t need to understand, cousin: you don’t understand. This is more important than you or me or your husband’s prejudices. You must talk with him....”

  “I cannot.” Thea’s tone was suddenly as hard as his own. “Speak with him directly, cousin. Perhaps he will listen to you. I am no longer going to play at go-between, I hardly know why I began in the first place. Bess!” She pulled away from him and started toward Bess and Tony Chase as they paused, buffeted by the crowds at a path-crossing.

  For the rest of the evening Thea stayed with Bess or Bess’s brother and gave Joaquín no chance to renew his urgings. Her cousin seemed to accept Bess’s obvious admiration with pleasure; once or twice Thea wondered if her cousin was as hard-hearted in everything as he had been this evening with her. Then their eyes would meet, and she would see the steel in his, the hard resolve, and she would shudder. When Tony proposed to go in search of a friend he had hoped to meet in the gardens, Thea at once volunteered to accompany him. He apologized and said she would find his friend deucedly flat.

  “By which he means, I collect, that he is going off to settle a wager, and you would be de trop.”

  “I suppose I would,” Thea agreed flatly and let Tony go alone. She privately did not expect to see him after that and resigned herself to an evening spent as a gooseberry; even that was preferable to facing Joaquín alone. She was surprised, then, when Chase returned to their seats not fifteen minutes later, and the more surprised by his message.

  “Matlin is here?” she paled. “He can’t want to see me.”

  “He came a-purpose to find you; he told me so. He seemed in a very good humor, Lady Matlin. I told him I would bring you out to him.”

  The spark of hope which Thea had imagined to be dead, drowned or strangled or buried alive, flared up again. She was dizzy with hope, giddy with it. “Where is he?” she asked. From his place at Bess’s side Joaquín nodded approvingly.

  “I’ll take you to him. If you are certain....” Chase let his voice trail off suggestively. He had never made an impassioned declaration to Thea, but she had read the look in his eyes before and understood the power she had with him. Her word would be his law.

  “I’m sure, Tony. I thank you.... for caring.”

  “I should always do that, I hope,” he replied briefly. “Well, let us find Sir Douglas then.”

  He threaded a path expertly through the crowd, past noisy revellers playing in the mist from a fountain, past a stand of musicians scraping through a country dance. When he paused, searching the crowd for Matlin, Thea stopped too, hoping to read her husband’s mood before they spoke.

  She saw him. Adele Towles had her arms around his neck and they were kissing for all the world to see, in the middle of Ranelagh gardens.

  “Tony, take me home,” she commanded waveringly. He must have seen what she saw, for he was close behind her as Thea began to push back to Bess and Joaquín. She was weeping, barely able to see in the dusk and the press of the crowd. Chase said something to her as he followed, but she could not make it out.

  When they reached their table Tony murmured a few words to them, and immediately Bess folded Thea in an embrace; she soothed and patting her tousled curls. The two men spoke in undertones for a few minutes. Then Thea was pulled gently from Bess’s arms and urged in the direction of the gates. It was not until she had climbed into a carriage that she realized that it was Joaquín, not Chase who accompanied her. Miserably she recalled what a rapprochement with Matlin would have meant to him and to his cause.

  “I’m sorry....”

  Surprisingly, he seemed unperturbed. “Cousin, you have nothing to apologize for. You were correct: I did not understand your situation.” Joaquín’s tone was kindly, but there was a cold quality to his words which was not entirely comforting. “Lie back and rest, cousin. We will be there shortly.”

  Obedient as a baby, Thea sat back against the cushions and closed her eyes. Dimly she was aware of the carriage’s sway, the sound of crossing-sweeps arguing and the rattle of other vehicles in the street. She was too confused to think. Exhausted by emotion, she fell into a kind of doze.

  “Cousin? Wake up. We’re here.”

  Joaquín’s voice roused her; it was quiet but insistent. He was urging her up and out of the carriage, toward a doorway, up a few stone stairs. Flambeaux burned brightly on either side of the door, but when Thea looked up she realized it was not a door she knew.

  “Where?” she began. Joaquín impelled her forward with the same gentle, inexorable clasp on her elbow. “Cousin, where is this?”

  “Shhh, Dorotea, you don’t wish to make a scene, do you? Don’t worry; you are with friends. We are in Chiswick, where I have been lodging with friends of mine. Ahh. Señora Lorca; here, cousin, go with this lady and she will see to you.”

  Thea was given into the custody of a severe woman of middle-age whose black dress and dark hair did little to mitigate her forbidding expression. Eying the woman dubiously, Thea said, “My apologies, Señora, but I am going nowhere until I understand what is going on. Joaquín, I want to go back to Hill Street immediately.”

  He shook his head as if he genuinely regretted the inconvenience. “It is not possible, cousin. If you think upon the matter a little, I am sure you will see that it does not serve your purpose or mine to return you to Señor Matlin’s household just yet.”

  “Cousin?” The truth of it struck her at once. “You mean to hold me to ransom until Matlin takes you to speak with Canning or Castlereagh!” She laughed. “I cannot seem to make you understand that I am not the route to Matlin’s attention, can I? Believe me, if you present yourself at the doorstep announcing you have abducted me, he’ll either laugh you out of the house or shoot you down where you stand. Probably he’ll just shrug the whole thing off as the end of a bad job.”

  “Go with Señora Lorca, Dorotea. I know better than you what a man will do in such a case. Sir Douglas will come after you, and while I have you here I can make him listen. He may be fool enough to dally with other women in public parks, but no man will permit his wife to be stolen from him....”

  “As if I were a book-end or a boot? You’ll see, Joaquín. Matlin won’t care a fig what happens to me.” The words were a bitter admission. While she still had some dignity left, Thea turned back to Señora Lorca. “If you will show me to my room, Señora? My cousin will see that I am right.”

  The woman turned without comment and led Thea up the stairs to a narrow, musty corridor. The chamber to which she was shown was small and as dim as the hallway, and the fire which burned dispiritedly in the grate made a scant difference to the chilly dampness of the air. It was colder in the house than out.

  “May I have some hot water, please?” She smiled as best she could at Señora Lorca and received no response; the woman only turned and left the room. She returned a few minutes later with a
can of lukewarm water in which Thea was able to wash her hands and face. Then, without even Señora Lorca’s grim company, she sat on the edge of the bed and stared hopelessly into the fire. Oddly her thoughts were not of Matlin or Adele Towles or even of her cousin Joaquín. “The sheets on this bed are probably damp,” she said aloud. “I suppose that fire won’t last long, either.” As if in confirmation, the fire gave a feeble snap. “I don’t care. I won’t think about it.” Instead, she thought of Silvy and remembered her at the convent, at Grahamley, from the dim days when her own mother had been alive. The memories were comforting.

  After a while she was filled with a curious numbness which was itself peaceful. She stared at the dwindling fire, pulled off her slippers, dropped her pelisse on a chair, pulled back the thin cover on the bed, and curled up there. When Señora Lorca stopped to peer into the room half an hour later she found her guest fast asleep and the fire out.

  o0o

  He had not been able to catch Thea, but he had recognized Tony Chase at her side, so the first thing to do, Matlin reasoned, was to find Chase. He stopped briefly to leave a message in Hill Street, then went to the Chases’ hired house in Upper Wimpole Street. There, over the butler’s protests, Matlin sat down to wait.

  His wait was not long. Within half an hour he was roused from deep, bitter thought by the sound of Bess Chase’s voice in the hallway and by that of the lower voice of their butler.

  “Here? He’s here?” Miss Chase squeaked. “Good God, Woods, fetch my brother at once! Where did you put Sir Douglas?”

  Matlin felt it was time to announce himself. He rose and went to the door of the little book room. “Good evening, Miss Chase. I apologize for forcing myself upon your hospitality, but you can understand that I am—” he gave a wry sniff— “a little distracted this evening.”

  “If making yourself free with our book room is all you have to apologize for, Sir Douglas,” Bess began hotly. She was stopped from continuing when her brother appeared at her side and put a quick hand on her arm. Where Bess’s pretty round face was red with indignation, young Chase was cool and distant, as angry as his sister but filled with icy politeness. “Sir Douglas?” he said evenly.

  “Chase.” Matlin inclined his head. “I was saying to your sister that I apologize for foisting myself upon you in this fashion, but I must know where my wife is.”

  “Why? So you can flaunt that horrid Towles woman before her eyes?” Bess shook off her brother’s restraining hand and squared her shoulders. “No, I won’t be quiet, Tony. Thea—Lady Matlin—is the bravest, best, kindest—”

  “I know.” The two words cut Bess off cold. “What my wife oversaw in the gardens was Lady Towles’s last attempt to rekindle an old closeness between us. I had indicated to her that I was not interested, and that kiss was, well, her form of revenge. She had seen Thea in the crowd, you see, and I had not.”

  “Even so,” Bess began.

  “Bess, be quiet. Sir Douglas, why did you come?” Tony Chase’s manner was warmer by a degree or so.

  “I have said: I came to find my wife. I told you. I saw you were with her, so I assumed you would have brought her here with you.” There was a pause. “I see she is not here. Then where the devil can she be? She hasn’t many close acquaintances in London, not of the sort to whom she could go in distress.”

  “Wasn’t she at Ocott’s house? That was where Joaquín set out to take her.”

  Matlin’s face darkened. “Joaquín? What the devil has he to do with this?”

  “He was part of our party at Ranelagh. When Lady Matlin and I, uh, came upon you and Lady Towles, he volunteered to drive her home. I could not very well leave Bess with him, and I thought that since they are cousins....”

  “Cousins!” Thunderstruck, Matlin looked intently at the Chases. “Her cousin? What sort of hum is that? Or—oh my God, perhaps that was what she was trying to tell me.” With the air of a man suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted, Matlin collapsed into a straight chair and sat staring at the backs of his hands. “It appears I have been every kind of fool there is. I still do not trust that man....”

  Bess flew to Joaquín’s defense this time. “He would never do anything to hurt Thea, I know it.”

  Matlin and Tony Chase exchanged dubious glances.

  “Lady Matlin was not at Ocott House?”

  “Not when I stopped there. I left word with my uncle’s butler to have word brought here if she arrived while I was out. Of course, she may have countermanded me. Damn, where can she be? What is she thinking of me? I tell you Chase, this business of marriage is the very devil.”

  “So I’ve heard sir. I’d say the thing to do is to return to Hill Street and see if they have any word of her. With your permission,” he colored slightly. “I would like to come with you.”

  “If you wish.” Matlin had not the heart to refuse the younger man, although he would have welcomed the solitude in which to berate himself for what seemed to be limitless stupidities in dealing with his wife. He was aware of Chase’s infatuation with Thea, but it was such a chivalric boy’s tendre that he had had no qualms about it. As for Joaquín: “Her cousin, Joaquín styled himself? I wonder. He looks Spanish, certainly.”

  “Perhaps he has taken your wife for a drive to clear her head, and by now they are returned to your uncle’s house, sir. A runner may be on the way with the news at this moment.” Chase’s words lacked total conviction, but Matlin was grateful for them nonetheless.

  “It’s possible,” he agreed. “Well, let us go and see if we can learn what’s to do there. Miss Chase, will you send word to my uncle’s house if you hear anything from my wife?”

  “Yes.” Bess offered him her hand. “I’ve thought rather horridly of you, Sir Douglas. Will you accept my apology?”

  Matlin took her hand. “None is needed, Miss Chase. I have bungled this whole business from start to finish. If I have the chance now, I mean to make amends to her.”

  “Good. She loves you terribly, you know.”

  “I hope you’re right. We’ll need it. Chase?” The men started for the door. “If there is any word?”

  “I will let you know at once,” Bess promised.

  Neither man said a word on the short drive to Hill Street. Platt opened the door to them with a look of expectancy that vanished ludicrously when he saw who it was.

  “No word, I take it?’

  “No sir. Sir, my lady is home, and considerable upset....”

  “Damnation, I’ll just wager she is. It needs only that. No, Platt, I do not wish to see my aunt. Some brandy, I think, in the library?” He looked at Chase. “I think I need to consider what to do next.” As Tony seemed to exhibit signs of departing, he added, “I would appreciate it if you would stay, Chase. I realize this is a hellish imbroglio to invite you into, but I need a friend tonight, and you are in it already. Come have a brandy, in any case.” As he followed Chase into the library he muttered, “Where the devil can she have got to?”

  “Does Lady Matlin have family in London, sir?” Tony asked ten minutes later, after silent contemplation of the glass in his hand.

  “In London? No. Some family of her father’s in Cumberland who refused to take her in after her father’s death, and the heir to her father’s estate in Somerset.... If I know my wife, she’d rather sink than go to them. If she has not gone to your sister, who the devil is there left, unless my aunt has arranged for her to stay with some one of her friends. Perhaps I ought to have a word with my aunt.” Matlin rose out of his chair far enough to reach the bell-pull. When Platt appeared he asked, “Has my aunt retired yet? No? Would you ask her if she would grant me a word after all?”

  Platt returned five minutes later.

  “Her ladyship says,” he began, but was forestalled by her ladyship herself, dishevelled and distracted.

  “I want to know what sort of imbecility you have been practicing, Douglas. The story was all out at Lady Pickett’s half an hour after it happened: Godfrey Webster was at Ranelagh and
had no better sense than to spread it among the ton. Kissing that revolting Towles woman in the middle of a public garden, as if she were a fille de joie and you were a mooncalf of eighteen!”

  “She was kissing me,” Matlin protested.

  His aunt disregarded the distinction. “I arrive home to find that Platt has word to send to you when Thea shows herself, which made me not at all comfortable in my mind, I assure you. She’s a sensitive little thing, Douglas; can’t you imagine what she must have felt?”

  “Aunt Sue....”

  “Be quiet. I don’t want to hear excuses from you. Perhaps Thea will forgive you someday, although I honestly do not see why she should. It is one thing for a man to have his outside amours, but to make them public in that fashion, when you’ve not been wedded two months, is unconscionable and indelicate beyond anything I have ever heard. I have only one question.”

  Matlin sighed and waited.

  Lady Ocott drew herself up to full height. “What have you done with her?”

  Incongruously, Matlin began to laugh. Under Lady Ocott’s and Tony Chase’s scandalized eyes, he sank into his chair with his head in his hands.

  “Douglas?” Lady Ocott started toward him, one hand outstretched nervously. “Oh dear. Douglas, I really did not think, really, my lamb, you must not upset yourself this way. We will find her; I know it. O dear.”

  Matlin raised his head from his hands. His face was white, but, from his expression, he had regained his control. “My apologies,” he said first, to Chase. “Honestly, Aunt Sue, of all the things of which I might be accused, making away with my wife is the very last.”

  Lady Ocott settled herself into a wing chair and tucked a trailing strand of hair into the ruins of her coiffure. “I know it is, dear lamb. I never thought it would come out that way, what I said, I mean. Don’t you know where Thea is by now? For heaven’s sake, at least tell me what really happened. And yes,” she added thoughtfully. “Will you pour me a brandy as well? For my heart.”

  Tony Chase poured the liquor while Matlin gave his version of the evening events.