Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

“So, brother, you fell in love with a headstrong girl scarce fourteen?”

  “I am nearly fifteen and a half,” I reminded him.

  “And you say she is not Spanish, yet she lived with her Spanish family, spoke the Spanish language and dressed like a Spanish girl?”

  “Don Rafael is my stepfather.” This I explained for the third time.

  “Yes, Don Rafael, the noble Spaniard,” he commented to Kitt.

  “He is an Andaluz,” I corrected him, because no one in Spain called themselves a Spaniard. “But I am not an Andaluza. I am British-Portuguese born in Lisbon.”

  “But her mother, Doña Marisa, born in Lisbon, considers herself an Andaluza?”

  I said nothing, out of fear that my mother’s past as a bolero dancer would come to light.

  While he tossed out more of his captious questions, hoping to discover inconsistencies in our story, I couldn’t help but compare the brothers. How dissimilar they were, both in looks and temperament. Kitt, a most honorable and benevolent young man, had a higher turn of mind and a genteel nature. Brodie, on the other hand, being of a cynical bent, had a sardonic appearance, dark hair and eyes, and only a few lonely freckles.

  To own the truth, I disliked him instantly. There. I have said it. I can’t help writing my mind. But there’s nothing worse than trying too hard to like someone when it’s clear you’re incompatible, with no shared feelings beyond love for a mutual friend or relation.

  That night, in our sparsely-furnished room in the attic story, with its triple windows that overlooked the wooded garden, Kitt stayed up past midnight to compose an urgent letter to his parents, knowing that his brother would be doing the same. It would be a race to the post.

  Sure enough, before sunrise, Brodie dispatched his servant to post their letters. It would take nearly three days for the letters to reach Glasgow, even more than that if the weather and roads were bad. Outside, it was dark and gloomy already.

  At breakfast-time, the post was brought in. Brodie held up a letter that had been peppered with capitalizations and exclamation points. “By jingo, old Mrs. Munro beat us to the post,” he announced. Her letter, dated from Glasgow, and addressed to Brodie, had been sent in response to Kitt’s letter that he had posted from Plymouth a week prior.

  In “Letter 1,” which is how she numbered her letter, she decried Kitt’s betrayal of his parents and his abominable behavior towards his cousin Oona Munro, who, by the bye, was most improved in looks these days. “To throw her off like that for a foreigner unconnected to us—such CRUELTY! Your uncle put himself into a curfuffle about it.” Kitt, upon his return to Glasgow, had been expected by his parents to work for his uncle, the tobacco-merchant, and to marry Oona, the daughter and heiress. “Kitt’s destiny was to be the king of tobacco, but he would rather give it up—would he?—for a marriage without financial security. FOOLISH boy!” she reproached her disobedient youngest son.

  “Oona and I do not suit,” Kitt declared. “When I left Glasgow, I promised only to think on it. I have not jilted her.”

  “Our cousin Oona is uphill work, to be sure,” Brodie agreed with him. “You are good to be well rid of her and her pimples. But you might’ve become the ‘king of tobacco’ were you able to withstand her quotidian complaints and hysterics.”

  “I do not wish it, brother,” was Kitt’s solid reply, and I was glad to hear it.

  Old Mrs. Munro went on—something about the cataclysm of Glasgow—because now, Oona might marry Dunn Foster, a rival wine-merchant who would dearly love to steal their customers. “We shall be UNDONE!” she had punned unwittingly. They were all put out of sorts. Poor old Mr. Munro had suffered an attack of gout, Margaret their sister had caught a prodigious cold, Dillon their eldest brother had grown very tetchy, while she, herself, was beset with maladies of every disgusting kind. Even Dryden their dog refused to eat. And Cook cried into her hot toddy and burned the roasted Solan goose one evening, and overboiled the crappit heid the next.

  “Ha! Cook is in her cups, and mother is hyp’d.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I wondered what he meant by the latter.

  “My mother is a hypochondriac,” Brodie replied. “She’s in season, now that autumn has arrived.”

  His callousness staggered me. Without a care, he lit a cigar with a candle because, apparently, a morning fumigation with his coffee and Chelsea bun was the most natural thing for a bachelor like him. He puffed away, blowing surly clouds onto us.

  It began to pour outside. Trapped inside 15, Hans Place, we read books in the cheerless drawing-room. We played at draughts. We ate black pudding and hard dumplings the size of cannon-balls for dinner—more of Brodie’s favorites. Oh, how I longed for a plate of ropa vieja instead! Thereafter, the two brothers played at billiards. I thought the game a great bore except when Brodie, in a foul mood, lost wager after wager to Kitt, who thereby reduced his debt to his brother.

  I do believe my brother-in-law was still upset about something I had said earlier that afternoon when we acted out scenes from a play Sir What-D’ye-Call-Him. The so-called comedy was about a vastly corpulent fellow—one so tiresome that none of his acquaintances cared three straws to remember his name. At the time, I couldn’t understand why Kitt thought the dialogue witty and entertaining. As usual, I spoke out my mind.

  “I say, Kitt, what a stupid play; and the plot is tortuous—”

  “Stupid! Tortuous!” Brodie snarled at me. “I’ll have you know that Gummy and I have been working together on this play for the last two years.”

  And so, to the mortification of my husband, that was how I put my foot in it.

  Kitt set off the next afternoon to attend a trial at Westminster Hall while Brodie did whatever junior editors do at the Juggler office in the Strand. They were young men about town, their minds fully employed. I was a young wife at home, quiet and confined to the drawing-room, my only consolation being a view of the garden. Such dull calm! Completely alone and quite miserable, given that Aggie and the colonel couldn’t see me today, I became eager to do something out of doors.

  Wearing my best leghorn bonnet and one of my new gowns from Plymouth, I walked to Chapel Row. A servant-girl from our house accompanied me. Later, when we departed the Catholic chapel there, I sensed a troubling presence, but I foolishly chose to ignore it. Upon reaching Hans Place, I dismissed the servant and didn’t go home. Instead, I took a turn by myself on the lawn inside the wooded garden, so that I could admire the deep green and yellow leaves of the trees—the chestnut, the plane, the cherry, lilac and lime.

  A grimy-looking man dodged behind the trunk of a plane tree. It gave me a very bad feeling. My heart racing, I strode towards the garden entrance. The man noisily stalked me, crunching the leaves and snapping the twigs underfoot. I had nearly escaped when, out of the shadows he sprung, and he seized my arm. My recognition of him was instant. Revolted by his touch, I struggled like a madwoman to free myself, and that was when I boldly slapped him.

  “Let me alone, Frenchy, or I’ll give you another!” cried I.

  My evil star, that odious newspaper reporter, Jean-Pierre Tessier, had somehow tracked me to London. But why? What could he want with me?

  Tessier stroked his unshaved cheek where I had slapped him. He swayed on his feet, nearly falling forward, and I wished he would. Drunk, as usual, he was. Would I be forever plagued by this sottish Frenchman? Hadn’t I been disgraced enough by my association with him? Ay! We are always just one mistake, one indiscretion from something we’ll regret for the rest of our lives.

  He taunted me with, “I know about your betrothal to Don Fausto, the old nobleman in Madrid.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” I lied like truth.

  “When I met you in Madrid, it was your wedding day.”

  “Pooh, nonsense! I was making a pilgrimage to Zaragoza.”

  He sniggered. “You ran away with your secret lover, the Scotsman. And you gave up your virtue to that trickster.”

  “Such cruel slander!
I’ll have none of it,” I tartly replied.

  He belched in a disgusting way. “It’s mighty good stuff for a newspaper.”

  “No one would care to read such a thing. I am a nobody.”

  “They know Lord Scapeton, your uncle.”

  I gulped. Oh, that dreaded name.

  He drawled out, “What a story I could write, of how his lordship went to such great lengths to protect your honor.”

  “That’s far-fetched.”

  “I don’t believe so. A man hired by Don Fausto found you with your lover. But someone shot him in the heart. I wonder why?”

  Why? Because …

  Mark-present-fire! A reluctant memory blasted me, and with such force that I staggered back. This was the “it”—it surely was!—that Kitt had refused to discuss, the day he had been nearly knifed to death. The shooter had been none other than me, the confused half-goose, half-maiden, and I had done it to save Kitt’s life.

  Tessier pointed at my guilty countenance. “I’ll tell you why. Lord Scapeton, blazing away with his pistols, silenced the man, so that your ruination might be kept secret.”

  “How absurd.” I sneered at him. “You’re a beastly man, Monsieur Tessier, to spread such lies, just so that you can damage his lordship’s reputation and mine.”

  “A lie or a truth—there’s no difference in the public’s mind.” He swayed forward again, and much too close. “Tell your rich uncle to pay me two hundred quid if he wants the story suppressed.”

  “You brute!” I shoved him and his fusty breath away. “We shan’t pay you twopence.”

  Ready to flee from him and everything that complicated my life, I had no sooner turned on my heel than my past collided with my present. Brodie, apparently, had been standing there long enough to hear everything. Had he followed me into the garden? The dogged junior editor had sniffed out a story and it was called “Tessier.”

  “You blackguard!” Brodie rushed at him. “I ought to kick your niry-nary.”

  He struck out with a swift foot to Tessier’s backside. The Frenchman yelped.

  “Two hundred quid,” Tessier shouted over his shoulder as he teetered off.

  Brodie furiously snatched my arm. “You and this third-rate newspaper reporter—”

  “You’re hurting me. Let me alone!”

  We wrestled mightily until I stamped his foot good and hard.

  “D - - - ation!” he swore like a trooper. “You Spanish spit-fire, I’ll tear you all to—”

  But I didn’t hear the rest. I had gone off at a run.

  Trouble always follows trouble—first Tessier, then Brodie, now Brodie and Kitt. The brothers were having a terrible row in the drawing-room. I tried to intervene, but my pleas went unheard. Brodie, the junior editor, couldn’t distinguish between a truth and a lie, just like his readers, nor did he care to. He fired off bullet after bullet at Kitt.

  “A Spanish nobleman. A Scottish trickster. A runaway bride. A dead Spaniard. An heir to an earldom. Have I forgotten anyone?”

  “Brodie—”

  He pointed at me. “She’s one of them, you know, with her connections to Lord Scapeton, though she acts like a town girl.”

  “You’re speaking of my wife!” cried Kitt. “Apologize or I’ll—”

  “Are you going to hit me?” Brodie assumed a boxer’s stance.

  “Don’t be a blockhead,” was Kitt’s stout reply. “I haven’t knocked you down since I was six years old.”

  Brodie pouted.

  “I’m waiting for your apology,” Kitt reminded him.

  “Yes, yes, I apologize. But this Spanish girl-wife of yours seems a great deal of trouble. I suspect you felt obliged to marry her, to get her out of some kind of scrape, and she, being a selfish young thing, took advantage of your good nature. I assure you that tomorrow she will throw herself into a new scrape—”

  “That’s not true!” I protested loudly, speaking over Brodie, but he continued to treat me like a bystander in this quarrel between brothers.

  He continued on, “Lord! She went wild and ferociously attacked me. I can hardly walk now.”

  “Her reaction, though extreme, is understandable,” Kitt defended me. “You have no idea of what she has gone through or what it’s like for women in Spain. Danger lurks everywhere there for them.”

  He groaned. “This is great and mighty England, not your savage Spain. Brother, admit it—you’re bewitched.”

  “I am in love.”

  “Father will surely cut you off with a shilling.” He then pulled out his purse. “Look here, this girl must be bought off. Give her this ten-pound note, send her back to her people and tell her addio.”

  “I shan’t give her up. I love her dearly. If it wasn’t for Sofia, I wouldn’t be alive today. She has no memory of her courageous act.” Kitt, looking quite determined, unbuttoned his coat.

  “What the devil! Are you going to hit me now?”

  Some part of me wished Kitt would kick him in the niry-nary.

  Kitt tossed his coat to his brother.

  “Don’t pitch your things at me,” cried Brodie.

  Kitt told him, “You must give me your word not to repeat this to anyone. Swear on the Stonyhurst Bible.”

  “We’re not school-boys at Stonyhurst anymore.”

  “Swear on it, brother.”

  Brodie didn’t answer.

  “Well?” Kitt had removed his waistcoat.

  “Yes, yes. I swear on it then.”

  I cried out, “No, Kitt! Please don’t tell him about it.”

  It was too late. Kitt had slipped off his braces. He pulled up his shirt to show his brother the jagged red scar on his lower back. Brodie stood there, quite pale, listening to how I had saved my husband of certain death by shooting his assailant. What must he think of me—his sister-in-law, the wretched killer?

  I sobbed into my hand. “I had no choice … I had no choice …”

  Kitt gathered me into his arms to comfort me. He said that he regretted having to remind me of that horrible day near Biescas; in fact, he nearly couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. A heavy sigh shook his slender frame.

  “Brodie has been sworn to secrecy. He won’t tell a soul about any of this.”

  “I couldn’t bear it if he did.”

  “None of us will speak of it ever again,” he assured me.

  We had been standing there for another long minute, still holding each other, when I dared to ask him something, the answer of which I dreaded.

  “Am I your great disappointment, Kitt?”

  “You’re my sweet girl, my guardian angel.”

  “Your father must hate me. He’ll cut you off unless—”

  He tightened his embrace. “Hush. No one will ever take you away from me, nor me from you. I promise.”

  I wanted to believe him, my steadfast husband, because he always spoke the truth.

  Thereafter, Brodie sank into sulks for several days. Because of that, Kitt and I gratefully accepted Aggie’s invitations for dinner at Grosvenor Square, where we ate the colonel’s favorites—roast beef and macaroni pie—pretending all was well. But we couldn’t avoid Brodie forever.

  One evening, back at Hans Place, an uneasy truce continued, with an exaggerated air of formality during dinner.

  “Heads or tails, Mrs. Munro?”

  “Heads, if you please, sir.”

  Wielding a large knife, Brodie stabbed one of the pilchard heads that jutted out of the Cornish fish pie—a strange-looking dish that his friend Gummy favored. He cut up the pie into pieces. Deliberately or not, he served me one with a fish tail. Kitt, who was given a fish head, swapped plates with me. Brodie had seen us do it.

  He grumbled out, “Brother, I have given over persuading you to sever ties with your girl.”

  “Sofia is my choice,” my husband declared. “We are married for life.”

  “Yes, yes—you’re nutty upon her.”

  Nutty! Was that a good or bad thing? Kitt raised no objection to it.
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br />   And then Brodie turned to me, with accusing eyes, while continuing to speak to his brother. “I hope this young thing will stick by you and be a good helpmeet. You will need it in the coming years.”

  Kitt stared at him. “I can still count on your support then?”

  “We are brothers,” he replied, and his countenance softened.

  A genuine spirit of brotherly affection passed between them, making me wonder what Brodie meant. I thought he couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive Kitt for marrying me. Would I ever come to understand the family Munro?

  Before long, I discovered that Kitt’s family was as quarrelsome as mine, and prone to absurdity. Letters 2, 3 and 4 from old Mrs. Munro arrived. She had posted each of them on the same day, which surprised me, given the expense. They were, all of them, addressed to Brodie. In Letter 2 she listed her complaints—languor, sadness, apprehension about the future, lack of appetite, heart palpitations, dizziness. “I am inclined to do nothing. It’s a WONDER that I can even compose this letter when I’m deathly ill,” she scrawled out, with fretful energy.

  I innocently asked, “Why doesn’t your mother write to you, Kitt?”

  Brodie guffawed. “Sister, let me tell you how it is in our family. If I must inform my father of something disagreeable, I write to my mother, who will surely discuss it with him. If Margaret vexes me, I speak with Dilly about it, so that he can tell her what a nuisance she is. If Dilly hates me and wishes me dead, he advises Kitt. By carefully avoiding each other, we stay together as a family. It’s a perfectly contrived system.”

  What a crazy thing it was. Now I understood why my husband had hesitated to speak to his family, the people whom he loved. If he dared to speak directly to a family member about anything that would upset him or her, it could topple the whole system.

  Brodie broke the seal on the next letter, Letter 3, from old Mrs. Munro.

  “My dear Brodie,” he read out loud in a falsetto tone. “I read Kitt’s letter posted from London. If only he could have cooled his youthful ardor in the cold winds of the north before he was ensnared into an imprudent marriage. This Spanish girl HENPECKS him. Even more alarming, from what Kitt boasted of her intellectual curiosity, she’s got that horrid TAINT OF BLUE about her. He should have looked to his own mother as a guide for what is a good sort of wife.”