Rawblood

by Catriona Ward

  With that Miss Brigstocke bustled off, her eyes bright with purpose. She brought Mary a tonic, and the basin, and ribbons for her hair. And she would be back to rouse her upon their caller’s arrival. Miss Hopewell took the tonic and sank gratefully into her pillows.

  She woke to the singing of crickets at dusk. A dream, half-recalled; a hand pressing on the back of her neck like the heavy slow passage of a snake. The straw-coloured silk lay on the chair, grey in the evening light. The scents of the kitchen rose through the boards. Gabriela was singing below in a tuneless voice. Miss Hopewell threw back the covers and ran on bare feet down to the parlour where Miss Brigstocke sat with a candle, her cross-stitch in her lap. They regarded one another.

  ‘He did not come,’ said Miss Hopewell. It was not a question. Miss Brigstocke shook her head. ‘I dreamt that I heard his voice,’ said Miss Hopewell, ‘and then yours, speaking together.’ She looked at Miss Brigstocke in mute appeal.

  Miss Brigstocke shook her head once more, her eyes soft, and bit her lower lip. ‘My love,’ she said. ‘I have often thought that perhaps he is not entirely kind, Mr Villarca. He does give one the shivers, does he not? I have ever had a distrust of men who manicure. Perhaps it is no bad thing to draw back from his acquaintance.’

  ‘Hephzibah, I am a fool,’ said Mary Hopewell. ‘But I have been spared.’ She gave a little watery laugh, turned on her heel and went from the room.

  Miss Hopewell awaited Miss Brigstocke by the panetteria, as arranged between them. Hephzibah’s needs had taken her to the seamstress but she had assured Mary it would be but a moment. The scent of bread was welcome, elevating to the spirits. It was a grey day; the sky above loured, presaging rain.

  Miss Hopewell saw presently that William Shakes leant upon a wall opposite. He stuffed a pipe with sure fingers, face intent. When he perceived Miss Hopewell he cocked a friendly eyebrow in her direction, and crossed the road to join her.

  Mary said, ‘Well, you are the picture of ease!’

  ‘Mostly am,’ he agreed. He smiled around the stem of his pipe. ‘I am pleased by this chance,’ he said, ‘for I wished very much to tell you: I have been lately home. Don Villarca and I have been to Dartmoor.’

  ‘Why?’ Miss Hopewell said sharply. ‘What should he be doing there?’ She was greatly disturbed. Once more, Don Villarca trespassed on what was most precious to her. ‘It is quite your own business, Mr Shakes,’ she said, ‘I wonder, however, what loyalty binds you to him? To such a—’ Miss Hopewell bit her tongue, but her eyes were speaking.

  ‘I fought beside him at Albuera, you know,’ said Mr Shakes comfortably. Strong tobacco smoke curled in the air. ‘Tis how we came by one another. That is why it is quite informal between us. War does not distinguish gentlemen and mere men.’

  ‘Albuera … But Don Villarca is surely not so old as that?’ said Mary. And then, mortified, ‘I beg your pardon.’

  Mr Shakes showed her his slow smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Do not trouble yourself. Men wear their age in two ways, out or in. I wear mine in my face: but my heart is easy. He’s pretty enough but his years lie heavy within.

  ‘When we met, all those years ago, he was young outside and in. So was I, for that matter. War put paid to that, in the end. Albuera, eh,’ said Mr Shakes. ‘We waded in blood that day. Those who wrote the dispatches called it a victory. We knew better. What the French did in the towns … No one should see such things. The stench of corpse smoke. I will recall it all my days … Forgive me. I forget myself.’

  ‘You will find no reproof here,’ said Mary. ‘All the men in my family are military men. Each one. Were military men, I should say. My father was killed in the Peninsula in ’07, the year I was born.’

  ‘There were many left fatherless by those times,’ said Mr Shakes.

  ‘I do not recall him; I cannot pretend to a tragedy I do not feel. But my brothers … Major William Hopewell, 16th Light Dragoons. Major Henry Hopewell, 7th Queen’s Own Hussars.’

  He said, ‘Waterloo?’

  Miss Hopewell nodded. Tears rose in her throat. Old grief. ‘That,’ she said, ‘I do recall.’

  ‘Cavalry are very bold,’ said William Shakes. Nothing else was spoken between the two of them for a time. Each was wrapped in their own thoughts.

  At last Shakes said, ‘Miss Hopewell.’ The Devon was strong in his voice. ‘Soldiers are the only men I understand. And in his heart Don Villarca is a soldier still. He is as a brother to me. So I understand what has been taken from him: by life and by war. And I think that perhaps you also understand these things. I hope that you would know a suffering heart, however disguised.’

  Into Miss Hopewell’s mind there leapt unbidden an image of a young Don Villarca, whose face was open and untouched by the dark. ‘I had not known,’ she said, ‘that he was in that war, or in any war at all.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Shakes. ‘I thought you might not know, perhaps. Well, good day, Miss Hopewell.’ He went, trailing pipe smoke behind him.

  ‘Dear Mary,’ said Miss Brigstocke, ‘do you intend to stand outside the bakery, or to go in it? For I believe the rain is upon us.’ She clutched to her a little parcel, the contents of which she proceeded to describe. A paper of needles, merely, and some silk. For they had not the kind of worsted she wanted for stockings. ‘Goodness,’ said Miss Brigstocke, ‘someone has been smoking here. It is positively pungent.’

  Miss Hopewell allowed her arm to be taken. She allowed herself to be drawn under the awning of the panetteria, as the first heavy drops of rain fell. She felt strange and deeply fretful. She did not wish to be asked to reconsider her ideas.

  That evening the two women sat as usual in Mary’s chamber. Miss Brigstocke began, as was her habit, to offer up the thoughts and actions of her day for Mary’s delectation. From the unreliable character of Italian servants, to the wide cracks in the floorboards, which plagued the women greatly (imagine, dear Mary, if we were to take them up; what things we might discover! Perhaps your ring also fell in there!) Miss Brigstocke’s mind roved widely. She contemplated the problem of removing the red Italian dust from the hems of her gowns, the elegance of those dogs, the little greyhounds that one could carry, and the slovenliness of the local butcher and thence moved on to shopping in general. Idly, she began to describe a piece of lace which she had glimpsed that morning. She had been much taken with it. So pale, so intricate, the way it fell in folds like running water, and when light shone through it the pattern was revealed: endless arabesques of blossom and curlicues, repeating themselves, over and over …

  Miss Brigstocke’s reverie was interrupted by a strangled noise; when she looked up Miss Hopewell was weeping. Tears ran down her face, and dripped through her fingers, shining in the candlelight. Her shoulders shook with violent paroxysms.

  ‘Mary!’ cried Miss Brigstocke in real alarm. ‘Why, whatever can be the matter?’

  Miss Hopewell raised her head. Her eyes streamed, her face was pink and seamed with effort.

  ‘It is so stupid,’ she gasped. ‘It is … unconscionable to be roused to such passion by a piece of cloth. I cannot bear it! Do not talk to me anymore! Get out! It is bad enough that I must bear your presence, which was foisted upon me, and that you must call me your “dear girl” and “sweet Mary”! Do not also bombard me with this … this trifling, womanish stuff! Get out, get out, get out!’ She fell to her pillow, racked with sobs. She felt the dark worm within. It stirred; she reviled herself.

  Miss Brigstocke contemplated her a moment. She rose from her chair and approached the bed slowly, then sat down upon it. Giving Mary much time to retreat, she took her in her arms. She then began rocking her, uttering meaningless sounds and stroking her head. ‘There, there,’ Miss Brigstocke said. ‘I have tired you. Yes, indeed. I talk too much, I do; it has ever been a fault of mine. But please, do not let my nonsense perturb you. All will seem different tomorrow, I promise it.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ raved Mary into Miss Brigstocke’s chemise. ‘Tomorrow! Yes, we must endu
re that, and the one after, and the one after! Of course. The endless series of tomorrows. I abhor it! Damn tomorrow! To … to Hell with tomorrow!’

  Miss Brigstocke closed her arms tight and her eyes tighter.

  ‘If you like,’ she agreed in gentle tones.

  The following evening a small package lay beside Miss Brigstocke’s plate, at table, inscribed Hephzibah in Miss Hopewell’s elegant hand. Having been informed in Gabriela’s rough Tuscan that the other Signorina was malato, and would dine in her room, Miss Brigstocke set to her solitary supper. She eyed the package as she ate, bird-like, a cutlet and a little salad.

  At last, her repast concluded, the maid rung for and the table cleared, she reached for the parcel. Her fingers unfolded the brown paper neatly. She put the handy length of string aside for further use. When the wrappings had yielded, and the tissue beneath was lifted apart, there tumbled into Miss Brigstocke’s lap a creamy length of Sicilian lace.

  Summer dwindled into autumn, and in the business of making the house ready for the winter the two women found some occupation. Miss Brigstocke spoke of Don Villarca often, and told tales of him to the limited society which fell in their way. She spoke of his whims and his oddities in small hot rooms where English people took their tea, so that he seemed to hover like a miasma over the tea urn, and some semblance of him clung to the scones. As for Miss Hopewell, she did not speak of him. She preserved a reticence on the subject. But something was still wrapped tight about her heart.

  Mary grew quieter with each day that passed. She was for a time much occupied with correspondence, largely directed to a Signor Fratelli, avvocato, Siena. One day a legal clerk came to call, bristling with pens and red tape. He spent the afternoon closeted in the parlour with Miss Hopewell. This posed a very minor inconvenience to Miss Brigstocke since she would not presume to intrude on Mary – particularly when she feared to disrupt the administration of business, something of importance? And thus could not get to her tambour frame which was in the parlour. And therefore had fallen sadly behind with her stitches. Of course, she would not dream of mentioning such a trifle to her dear friend; she could not now recollect why she had brought it up.

  Mary Hopewell did not reply.

  ‘Oh, Mary,’ said Miss Brigstocke. ‘What will become of us?’

  ‘Of you,’ said Miss Hopewell, irritable, ‘I know not. But I will die.’

  Miss Brigstocke’s eyes filled with sympathy and tears. ‘You must not fear,’ she said. ‘You are the best of us, dearest. You shall be the first to be taken to the bosom of our Lord.’

  Miss Hopewell was silent. ‘I am not afraid,’ she said at last. ‘Do you know, I wish I were? It is just … so torturously dull, the prospect.’ She rose stiffly from her chair and went away. She was not seen below stairs for some days.

  One overcast morning when autumn was far advanced there was a great pounding on the door of the villa, so that the two women leapt from their seats where they had been mending a table cloth, and Miss Hopewell pricked her finger, and Gabriela went to answer the summons with much complaining.

  Through the door poured Don Villarca, filling the air and the corners of the room. ‘I have apologies to offer, which I hope will not be spurned,’ he said, proffering two nosegays of vivid colour. Their rich scent perfumed the apartment, dizzying. The hearts of the flowers were golden as egg yolk. The petals were the same deep red as the silk of his coat.

  It is said that there is nothing so elevating as the reunion of friends. Don Villarca launched into narration of his months away from them. It had been hard! Miss Hopewell and Miss Brigstocke would forgive him, for they were so estimable and everything that was kind.

  Miss Hopewell drew a deep breath. She wished to show Don Villarca a strange flower she had found – it was by a well, in a field, and peculiar – she believed she had it in her reticule. Mary said, ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to fetch it for me, Hephzibah?’

  Miss Brigstocke stared at Miss Hopewell. ‘If you are tired, dear Mary, it would be well for you to retire. Conversation, I find –’ this addressed to Don Villarca – ‘can be as exhausting as a brisk walk!’

  He made no reply to this. Mary looked long at her friend. ‘I should think it such a kindness in you, Hephzibah,’ she said gently, ‘to go to find that flower.’

  Miss Brigstocke went, and Miss Hopewell was alone with Don Villarca.

  Neither spoke. Miss Hopewell could not meet his bright, narrow eyes. So Don Villarca took her hand, and asked her to be his wife.

  A small sound was heard in the hall – a board squeaked. They stared at the door.

  ‘Not here,’ Mary said. ‘Come.’

  They went to the villa’s garden, a small patch of dry earth adorned by lank spider plants. Above them the grey November sky.

  Mary said without preamble, ‘Now, as to your question, sir; you do me great honour. I am devastated to be obliged to refuse. I view you in the light of a dangerous man; I do not desire any more intimate acquaintance. I could not reasonably expect happiness from a union with such an … individual. I am not persuaded that you are steady in your intentions,’ she said. ‘You cannot keep even an appointment.’

  Don Villarca kicked at a lump of dry earth, which broke and covered his shining black boot in red dust. ‘Miss Hopewell,’ he began, ‘I understand you. But I will not have that set against me. I did come that day.’

  Mary Hopewell raised her eyes to his. She regarded him with fascination. ‘You understand me?’ she said. ‘Most kind. I cannot make a similar claim. For, sir, you did not come.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I did. And I was told by … the person who received me that you could not marry. I was told that it would mean your death. Then I knew that I must stay away. I resolved never to see you more.’

  ‘What a very indelicate conversation,’ she said. ‘By whom … Who told you this?’

  ‘I thought you had made her messenger,’ he said, then shook his head. ‘I thought … But it does not matter.’

  ‘Who,’ persisted Miss Hopewell, her cheeks pale, ‘would dare presume so? Who would be so cruel?’

  He made no answer, and she stared. The blush rose slowly in her face.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘who are you then, to go away, on this person’s authority, with no word to me, as if I were a naughty child?’

  ‘I have sent many, many men to their graves in my time,’ said Don Villarca. ‘It is too much. The death I have dealt. So, to be the means by which yet another were to perish …’

  Miss Hopewell, who had long lived with mortality at her heels, said, ‘Do not speak of your guilt, of these deaths upon the battlefield and then of my death, mine … Do not speak of them as if they are the same. They are not. It is not for you to tell me what my end might be, to blame yourself for causing it, or to praise yourself for preventing it.’ Rage lent Miss Hopewell vigour, colour.

  ‘To end another life,’ persisted Don Villarca, ‘and that, your life – it could not be borne. It seemed neither of us was free to act. It was good and neat.’

  ‘What fecklessness, what presumption.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see that, now.’

  ‘I know my own case,’ said Miss Hopewell. ‘The obstacles which stand between myself and marriage. You will in time consider this a lucky escape – for I would be giving you a sad bargain if I said yes. Your situation, however, is not apparent to me. You say you are not free. Explain.’

  His lips tightened, and the furious light shone once again in his face. ‘This is an old truth: that when we, the Villarcas, marry, we invite the bad luck in. Foolish it may seem to you. But it is not so.

  ‘My grandfather left his wife – after terrible travails – and went to Vienna, could find no peace, and lost his mind, and died in a hospital there. My father married, as was arranged for him, his cousin. Thinking to live in a healthful climate they went to Switzerland, but he died in a brawl shortly after I was born. She stopped eating, altogether, until she too died. My uncle wed his l
aundress; he murdered her, while walking in the Pyrenees during the lune de miel, and then threw himself from a cliff. I could go on. Shall I? My family … We eschew our own country. Rightly so. It carries ill memories for those of my name. We have done great wrong there. I have chosen Italy to spend my days.

  ‘The Villarca blood is dark and strong. The Villarca temper is furious, sublime; full of poetry and madness. We seek the light, ever … but we never find it. We should not share ourselves with others. It is not a good thing. They call it in my tongue, the luz oscura, which means the dark light. Some call it a curse. I do not know. Certainly our past, the history of the house of Villarca, has shameful passages. Shameful. Our lineage is steeped in blood. There is no family more deserving of a curse.

  ‘But I have considered it carefully, you may believe me. The luz oscura … It is more likely to be madness. An inherited weakness. Such things not infrequently afflict high-born, well-bred families. We have been so jealous of the bloodline, you see. So very, very fond of marrying our children to one another. You would not breed dogs in that way – but yes, it will do for the Villarcas. Anyhow. Superstition or madness, there remains this: that when we marry, we do it badly: we drink, we lose our minds, we rage, we wound – and always, always we die young. It is the way. I was afraid for myself. And, perhaps, of myself. You speak of a sad bargain – on my side, I fear it is so. I like to do things well; this matter, I felt, was beyond my skill.

  ‘It was wonderful when you were so cross with me, when you looked at me with – hate. For when it was only I who felt this, nothing could result.’ His brows darkened; he said, baleful, ‘I fostered your distaste. I encouraged it. I was a boor. I do not like to think of how I behaved. For that I am sorry. But when I came to suspect that despite all my seemings you did not entirely dislike me … Ah. Then it was frightful.’

  Something stirred within Miss Hopewell like the beginning of inspiration. Regarding a broken tile at her feet she shivered, and drew her shawl about her. She said, ‘Luz oscura, you call it. Yes. It is a good name. Madness? Perhaps. But not that alone. I saw the darkness in your soul the moment I saw you.’