Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  “An elopement in Spain—you had better hope no one raises an objection.”

  I stood tall and confident. “My mother won’t. Neither will Kitt’s parents. They are very reasonable and good people.”

  The colonel humphed. “For your sake, I hope Mr. Munro doesn’t break your heart and flee if his father threatens to cast him off. No young man, especially one who is under age, or without an occupation or inheritance, will give up his allowance, even for love.”

  “Kitt says we’re married for life no matter what anyone else says. He is steadfast.” Not done yet with bragging about my perfect husband, I added, “My man is a good provider and not an idler. In fact, he already has a new job waiting for him in London.”

  “Doing what, might I ask?”

  “He is to report crim. con. trials.”

  “Odsbodikins! For whom?”

  “It’s for the Juggler, where his brother is a junior editor.”

  The colonel groaned. “My dear Mrs. Munro, hack writers are libelers, maligners and pretentious frauds. No proper lady should be seen in company with them. It’s best to cut them dead than to mingle with that sort of low life.”

  “But, colonel—”

  “Too late—here comes your grub now,” he muttered drily. “There’s no avoiding him. If we weren’t stuck here on this boat, floating on the arm of the sea, we could cut him dead. I’m the king of cutters.”

  I made a wry face as though I had swallowed physic. “Colonel, you’re too clever by half and a terrible punster.”

  Kitt, who is all amiability, shrugged at me in a puzzling way, which was how I realized that he had been sent on a fool’s errand. The colonel, that regular prankster, had already claimed Kitt’s berth. To be sure, it troubled me that the colonel had taken advantage of Kitt’s trusting nature to get rid of him so that we could talk alone.

  My poor husband wasn’t the only one who suffered from the colonel’s rogueries. We had gathered later in the main cabin, awaiting the captain’s arrival for dinner, when someone squeaked. I knew it was Aggie, because I observed the colonel’s rakish behavior afterwards, and how she nearly jumped out of her skin when he pinched her bottom. Even so, she wasn’t in the least provoked by it.

  That night, as we rocked gently on the calm sea—I tucked in my berth, Aggie in hers, so very close to me—we ladies shared confidences. I spoke plainly with her, now that I’m a married woman. Had the colonel been told anything about their marriage? Aggie replied that a physician had tried to tell him, but the colonel refused to believe it. That was why she cared for him as his nurse, and though he was fond of her, he slept in a separate bedchamber. He would accept no other living arrangement, no cohabitation in the intimate sense of the word.

  “My dear Sofia, I am fifty-one years old and no longer the lively and flirtatious widow Mrs. Wharton, who once captured the heart of the colonel. How do I make my husband fall in love with me again? The first time, he was a very reluctant suitor. He proposed to me with, ‘Oh, hang it, I love you.’”

  “I remember your argument with my father,” I replied, “when you threatened to end your courtship. But he summoned up the courage to love you properly. Being only four at the time, I thought your passion was so great that you wanted to marry twice—in the Church of England first, and afterwards in the Catholic chapel.”

  Aggie said nothing, but I heard her plaintive sigh.

  Dying to know more, I blurted out, “Aggie, why do you let him grab at your backside?”

  She laughed softly at my frankness. “A wise noblewoman once said, ‘In men, desire begets love—and in women, love begets desire.’ There’s truth in that.”

  “I think he does desire you.” I said this, knowing that she wished it to be true.

  Something else confused me, though. What had happened to MacTavish, the colonel’s Scottish valet, who had taught me the Highland fling and how to beat a drum? And what about her lady’s-maid, Maddison? Where did they go?

  Aggie replied, “They married one another. York is where they live now.”

  “I’m all amazement.”

  She lay in silence. I didn’t want to torment her with the past, but I had to know what exactly had happened to the colonel.

  “Aggie, did some men attack my father for supporting Catholic Emancipation?”

  “Did they! And throwing bread crusts—those fools. The poor and hungry came running to eat the crusts off the ground while your father lay there bleeding.”

  “He had run into a lamp post,” we said together. My dream of it had been true after all.

  Minutes later, after we had bid each other good-night, a great commotion arose in the men’s cabin. Was the colonel having another nightmare about the Peninsular War? As quickly as it had begun, it soon quieted. Aggie yawned gratefully and then sleep took her.

  Mid-morning, Kitt emerged from the men’s cabin wearing a reddish bruise upon his right cheek-bone. He sat at table as though nothing was wrong.

  I gaped at him. “What happened last night?”

  He calmly responded, “The colonel woke up vastly confused, and when I tried to assist him, a slight tussle ensued. Like a sleepwalker, the colonel returned to his berth. Although he doesn’t remember what happened, he asked me this morning to switch berths again, convinced that he’ll sleep better tonight.”

  “Mr. Munro, I am so sorry,” Aggie told him, completely mortified. “The colonel must’ve suffered from another episode.”

  “It is nothing, Mrs. Wharton.”

  Aglow with newly-wedded love, I gushed out with adoration, “Oh, Kitt, how fortunate am I to have such a kind and patient husband like you. I still can’t believe you proposed to me in Spain.”

  The colonel, who had joined us, commented, “I have often observed that women are inclined to accept their first marriage proposal.”

  “But it wasn’t my first proposal, colonel.”

  “Mine was her second proposal,” said Kitt, winking his eye at me.

  Had it been? Foolishly I pointed out, “No, actually, yours was my third proposal.”

  Kitt choked out, “Third?”

  “O ho! This is very interesting.” The colonel’s eyes shone with mirth, but Aggie told him to mind his own business.

  “When happened this proposal?” asked Kitt, with much curiosity.

  The red beads on my neck flashed hot. My husband awaited my response.

  “In Cádiz … some little time after you departed.”

  His eyes widened. “A man courted you, days after I quitted Cádiz?”

  “I didn’t know it was courtship—truly! My grandfather arranged these meetings with Señorito Gil.”

  “Gil? Gil Lucena?” He abruptly stood. “He and I were friends.”

  Troubled by this news, he quietly excused himself, to disappear into the men’s cabin.

  “Oh, that was badly done,” I chastised myself for giving him pain.

  The colonel spoke up, “Mrs. Munro, it is a well-known truth that when a man breaks his fast, the only thing he wants to hear from his wife is, ‘Good morning, dear.’ Complete silence thereafter is an absolute must, so that the man can read his newspaper and slurp his cup of coffee in peace. He doesn’t want to hear about your domestic problems or female vapors or past loves. For the sake of marital harmony, always hold your tongue until your man speaks first.”

  But his levity didn’t help matters.

  “You seem to know much about married life, colonel,” Aggie remarked in a sarcastic tone.

  He paused to think. And then he gave Aggie a surprised flirtatious smile, which she reciprocated. I felt like an intruder in what had clearly become a private moment. “Pray excuse me,” said I, rising from my chair, but I don’t think either of them heard me. Their relationship was blooming so early in the day while mine had already wilted. How had my marriage, too, turned upside down?

  Treading on deck, I met with a rude blast of icy wind. The dull grey sky had conspired with the dull grey waves—these grumpish waves sla
pping the sides of the cutter. Shivering with cold, I chided myself for not wearing my cloak. I would give anything for that cloak, but really, I would give anything for Kitt to wrap me in his arms instead, holding me so close that I could feel his swift heartbeat chasing mine.

  A love scene wrote itself in my mind where Kitt came to find me on deck. He said, “I never did finish serenading you in Cádiz,” and in his warm bright voice, he sang in my ear.

  I’ll tie the posie round wi’ the silken band o’ luve,

  And I’ll place it in her breast, and I’ll swear by a’ above.

  An impetuous wind howled its way into my being, invading my love thoughts. It dashed the deck and rattled the newish sails. Immediately a seaman mounted the mast to secure the mainsail. The duck canvas had been torn once already, and the twine stitch used to sew it up resembled a long herringbone-scar.

  The sail then swelled out, proud and defiant, and I admired its tenacity. When the wind advanced to attack again, it trembled at the mighty sail and it fled southward to the coast. A perfect calm resulted. That’s when I heard the universe say, “Listen, a new love like yours, very much strong and exposed to the elements, can also be fragile. It needn’t tear apart at every episode of bad weather. But even if it did, don’t be cast down, my girl, because it can be patched and mended.”

  12. Hans Place

  The Royal Mad stage coach, long departed from Basingstoke, brought us closer to London. High white clouds obscured a faint pink glow and a dismal setting sun. “Barometer 55, thermometer 63, fleecy white clouds shaded with grey,” had been the weather expected for the second day on the road. In Spain they call these clouds a cielo empedrado—a cobbled sky—though it doesn’t compare at all to what you see here. There’s something altogether different about the cloudiness and frequent glooms of English skies.

  Kitt followed my gaze upwards to contemplate the motionless clouds. Exploring the wonders of Plymouth on his own and reading a good deal of poetry had revived his spirits. Whereas I, in need of clothes &c., had suffered through visits to a mantua-maker for gowns, and then a linen warehouse, a milliner, a shoe-maker. Aggie had insisted upon it. But I told myself what did it matter, because I was finally home, and safe, and loved, and with my father, even though I had to call him “the colonel.”

  “These fleecy clouds signify an imminent change of weather,” said Kitt, with a meaningful look.

  “I suppose changes are in store for us.”

  Brushing aside a stray tendril of my hair, he smiled. “How happy am I when some things needn’t change.”

  Earlier that day, Kitt had dismissed my maid at the inn for attempting one of those “silly Apollo’s knots” that sprouted from my head. He refused to spend hours creating such a ridiculous thing for me each morning. Aggie had been thunderstruck to discover that, as a matter of economy, my husband was the one who pinned up my hair, using silver bodkins, into an elegant unassuming knot. The colonel, who eventually found out about this, thought it unmanly of Kitt. It was just not done.

  “You seem an entirely soft fellow, Munro,” he had grumpily remarked at breakfast. The truth was, the colonel still hadn’t found his land legs, and it discomposed him.

  Kitt manfully rose to his own defense. “I assure you, sir, that I am not.”

  The colonel muttered something disagreeable. If only he knew how Kitt, a young man armed with just a rifle-gun, had set out alone to search for me in a hostile frontier. If only he knew how Kitt had braved death to save me from Don Fausto. Is facing death not our last act of courage on earth?

  But I had promised Aggie not to upset or confuse the colonel, nor to reveal my connection with Lord Scapeton and the wrong his lordship had done me in Madrid by arranging a marriage against my will. The colonel loved his brother unconditionally, unlike before his injury, when he had despised him. Theirs was a disturbingly pleasant relationship at present.

  Kitt whispered in my ear, “I fear there’s no getting on with the colonel today.”

  “He’s as cross as cross can be.” I felt badly for Kitt.

  For that reason, we chose to ride outside on the stage coach, behind the driver’s box, while Aggie and the colonel sat within. We were glad of it, to be free of prying eyes. How else could we hold hands and steal a kiss in the waning light? The coachman, who caught us at it, exclaimed, “What are you about? In heaven’s name, you’ll be taken off to the watch-house for indecently exposing yourselves in public.”

  Before long, the darkness descended. It disguised the thick monstrous cloud that comes from the smoke of burning coal. We had arrived in London, the wealthiest, the largest, the liveliest capital city in the world, and now we were part of it, swallowed up in its vast suburbs, with its palaces and streets illumined by gas-lamps.

  It had been years since I last visited the metropolis—I must’ve been eight years old when my father took me to the Royal Menagerie to view the chimpanzee. To be sure, I still felt charmed by London, awestruck even. Yet, in an unsettling way, it reminded me of Lord Scapeton—an ominous blend of power and riches and misdeeds.

  The time had come for us to separate at Hyde Park Corner, and I nearly cried at the thought of being fatherless again. Aggie and the colonel hired a hackney to the residence of Lord Scapeton at Grosvenor Square while we hired one to Chelsea. Easing away my awkward fears, Aggie promised to invite us for dinner, which would be held at six o’clock, the fashionable time for city-folks. “Roast beef and macaroni pie—my favorites,” added the colonel.

  No more olla podrida, the Spanish hodge-podge. No more chorizo, the spicy Spanish sausage. No more siesta, the Spanish afternoon slumber. I told myself not to miss those things, not even an Andalucian summer moon, not even the tolling of the bells for our morning and evening prayers, not even a bolero dance beneath the stars, because whenever I did, I would feel saudade—my heart overflowing with sad and joyful memories—and I would remember everyone I loved there.

  But then, I recalled my mother’s betrayal, selling me to Don Fausto.

  You must think and be all things English again. Yes, yes, I was definitely back in good old England, where my troubled past couldn’t find me. So I told myself.

  “15, Hans Place,” Kitt gave directions to the hackney driver.

  A half a mile later, we came to terraced houses surrounding a wooded garden. A quiet and respectable place it was. The driver stopped at one of these brick-houses, a four-story corner house with its arched door and windows facing one street, and tall windows facing another. How was it that a junior editor had the means to live here?

  Kitt explained that Brodie rented a room on the third story from a great friend of his, someone by the name of Gummow—a publisher who leased the house. This Gummy, as everyone called him, had gone down to the country, somewhere in the wilds of Cornwall. Suddenly, I became nervous. I wished to behave well and not like a booby in front of my brother-in-law, with his fine city ways.

  We had no sooner rung the bell than the door abruptly opened. It was Brodie Munro, just home from an evening out. He was pulling off his great coat.

  “Brother Kitt, come in!” Brodie pumped his hand. He summoned a house servant to attend to the luggage.

  “I am very glad to see you,” Kitt warmly replied.

  The three of us gathered in the small entrance-hall.

  “Where’s Hopper?” his brother asked, noticing me for the first time. He cast a critical eye at the Spanish hat perched on the side of my head.

  “My tutor remained in Madrid.”

  “Your tutor—did what! This thing here was your traveling companion in Spain? How devilish bold of you.”

  “Now, Brodie, I want you to meet someone very special and dear to my heart.”

  With a teasing look, Brodie pointed to Kitt’s cheek-bone. “What’s that mark there?”

  “Oh, the bruise? That was from a tussle with—”

  Brodie suppressed a laugh. “Well, well. It seems you’ve got yourself a Spanish girl with a hot and spicy temper—�
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  “I’m not a Spanish girl. My father is English, and I was educated and brought up as English, and so, I am English,” said I, defiantly.

  Taking my arm, Kitt drew me to his side.

  “Sofia-Elisabete, this is my brother Brodie. Brodie, this is my wife, Sofia-Elisabete.”

  Brodie gaped at me.

  “How do you do?” I extended my hand to him.

  He shook it weakly. “Great God! You’re a child.”

  “I am nearly fifteen and a half.”

  “Fifteen! This is doubly disturbing.” He blatantly examined my figure. “Kitt, is there some reason that you were obliged to marry this boldface Spanish girl?”

  “Brother,” Kitt warned him off sharply. “Be careful what you say.”

  “A Spanish wedding, though? Surely neither of you was of age there.”

  “A priest married us.”

  “Even so, you’ve stirred up a mighty mass of trouble for the governor once he hears about this.”

  Brodie threw aside our outerwear onto a small bench. He conducted us into a dark and dreary dining-room situated to the left of the entrance hall, to sup with him. It was bachelor fare, or rather, his odd kind of bachelor fare—crappit heid and champagne. He served up the stuffed fish heads, this Scottish dish having been made especially for his supper, because the cook and housekeeper, a Scot herself, favored him.

  Persistent and gruff, he questioned us without end. He thought himself quite clever in the way he attempted to elicit information from us, carefully repeating whatever we said, as though he wanted to get the facts straight, when, really, he sought to ensnare us. Kitt, however, refused to give much detail beyond that we met in Cádiz, we fell in love, we reunited in Madrid, we eloped in Biescas, and we journeyed to Bordeaux, after which, thanks to Brodie’s generous loan, we returned to England.

  Something that annoyed me about Brodie was that he didn’t always ask me questions directly. He addressed Kitt instead, throwing me an occasional side glance.