Dismissed, Thea and Matlin went their separate ways. Thea passed Sister Ana, ignored the questions in her friendly, curious eyes, and came at last to the orchard where she could pace luxuriously. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of shaking brush over the culvert where, twelve days before, she had found Matlin.
England.... Home and a chance for freedom.... Then she thought, an odd sort of freedom, as a married lady, but then, she would be married to Matlin. Her heart beat more quickly at the thought, and at the thought of vaguely understood secrets, hints overheard since her girlhood, hints about marriage and men. All the nights when she had sat staring down at his pale, drawn, tired, impossibly beautiful face, she had berated herself for being an idiot with a foolish schoolgirl tendre. When Matlin’s fever had broken and he was able to talk freely again, Thea had made herself flippant and teasing, trying to hide an embarrassing urge to subside into worshipful silence. He was handsome; he was the very figure of romance; it was no wonder. But she had never thought to have her feelings returned, if indeed they were returned.
How did he feel about her? To marry her, the impatient nurse, the teasing schoolroom chit. How did he see her; she wondered now. Like a schoolgirl? Even Matlin called her child, as everyone else in the convent did: niña, hija, child, daughter. She kicked a clod of dirt and watched it powder into dust. “He can’t be in love with me,” she said aloud, “but he might be someday.”
That tiny shred of hope was comforting, exhilarating. He might marry her out of kindness now, but perhaps he would come to love her in time. Once they were married there would be all the time in the world. “I’ll make him,” she said.
For an hour, until the bells rang for None, she paced unseeingly, thinking of her marriage. When she turned back to the convent her mind was more at ease, but the hem of her robe was impossibly muddied and her nose was burnt quite scarlet.
o0o
“You may travel at the end of the week,” Sister Juan Evangelista pronounced. To Matlin’s exquisite relief, she had not read him a lecture on taking care of Dorothea Cannowen; she had been refreshingly matter of fact as she took his pulse and examined his wound. “You must be careful not to overexert yourself, Señor. The infection is cleared now, but you sustained a bad blow to your head when you were injured.”
“Shot.” Matlin grimaced. “I still have headaches from the damned thing—pardon, Sister. Anyway, we could perhaps leave after Mass on Sunday.”
“I think your health will permit it, yes. Señor, you are really taking Señorita Cannowen?”
He had relaxed too soon, Matlin thought grimly, and agreed that yes, he was taking Thea with him. “I’ve given my word.”
To be honest, since the moment he had done so that morning he had been plagued by moments of lucid dismay so powerful he was tempted to skulk off in the night and beg the question of the marriage and the journey altogether. Only the memory of Thea’s face, pleading eyes that belied her determinedly disciplined expression, stopped him from escaping.
“We think well of the girl here, Señor, for all that she can be heedless. She did an excellent job of nursing you and her duenna, both. You will take care of her.”
“Sister, I swear....”
“Of course you do,” Sister Juan agreed, unperturbed. “So now it is for Mother to arrange the marriage. Don’t concern yourself over that, Señor. Mother can arrange anything.”
Matlin reflected that she doubtless could. In the next week, as he sat in the sunny warmth of the courtyard playing two-handed whist with his betrothed or chatted idly with Manuel, he was treated to bits and pieces of the wedding preparation. The Sister’s own chaplain would marry them; Mother Beatriz had managed to allay the priest’s concerns about the hurried marriage. “The girl is no better church-woman than you yourself, Señor,” the Superior confided dubiously, “but at least it is not the marriage of a devout woman to a....” she paused delicately.
“A heathen?” Matlin suggested dryly. They smiled at each other. He had grown fond of the Sisters, and particularly of their Superior; he admired the effective mixture of piety and hardheaded practicality with which she ran the convent. Mother Beatriz and Sister Juan, even old Sister Ana, who could be teased until she shook her quivering chins in reproach, had made his fortnight in their gate cottage a time of peace for him, and he was grateful to them and to Thea, too, of course, with her charming, vaguely disturbing presence.
It was settled that the wedding would take place directly after Mass on Sunday. There would be a sort of wedding breakfast afterward; the nuns, it seemed, had their hearts set on some sort of festivity for Dorothea, and it seemed a small enough thing to do. From somewhere among Manuel’s relatives in the village clothes had been produced for Dorothea a tatterdemalion collection of black and grey skirts, jackets and shawls in which to travel; a yellowed white muslin dress at least twenty years out of fashion and far too big for her, which would somehow be made seemly for the wedding.
Inevitably, Matlin thought of Adele Frain and how she would have taken to all this. The image was incongruous: Adele’s vivid, imperious beauty and fastidious tastes in such a time and place as this. Thea was still an infant, young enough to make a game of her hardships. He could not for one moment imagine Adele taking in the seams of a twenty-year-old dress or feeding the convent chickens or allowing those ridiculous kittens to climb up her skirts.
As for Thea, the brief card games with Matlin were almost her only contact with her betrothed, a circumstance somewhat unsettling to her. Most of her time was spent with Silvy in the cool, dim confines of her chamber. They wound skeins of wool, and darned the piles of dark clothes Manuel’s kinswomen had brought for her, all of them ragged and, despite many washings, redolent of past owners. Her wedding dress had to be bleached in the sun, rinsed in lavender water, and bleached again; then Silvy, with hundreds of pins and the tiny, precise stitches she had taught Thea to make, took the dress in and up until it fit properly.
It was awkward, uncomfortable somehow, sitting with Silvy in the small, cool room where they mended and stitched. This business of marriage had come between Thea and Silvy in a way that Thea did not understand; it made Silvy prone to heavy sighings and significant looks. Thea had so much to think about, the adventure she faced, Matlin; Silvy’s unreproaching, heavy silence made her very self-conscious. Would it have been any different, she wondered more than once, if the marriage were to take place in England, in the Grahamley chapel?
“It is a serious thing, niña,” Silvy murmured more than once. “You are marrying this man.”
Nothing Thea could say seemed to make any difference to Silvy, and after a day or two she ceased to try, as much interested in putting off this strange discussion as Silvy seemed to be herself. To Thea the whole matter was something of a mystery, the marriage a magical solution which would solve all her problems; she had a vague notion that, if too closely examined, the magic would simply disappear. It was enough to say that on Sunday afternoon she would be Matlin’s wife, regarded as the woman she was, no longer a tiresome child, a responsibility and a danger to her friends. Even were it not Matlin she was marrying, the feeling of release would be worth the marriage for her.
o0o
Sunday morning half the village was waiting outside the chapel betimes for early Mass. Señorita de Silva and her charge were known and liked by the villagers, who had kept their secret well. The marriage of the young Señorita to a mysterious foreigner was one more matter for secrecy, another way to guard their Sisters. Sister Ana and Manuel, who regarded himself now as Cupid, had broadcast the word in their search for garments, and an invitation to one or another had become a general invitation to the wedding for the whole town.
Dressed in the formal muslin dress Thea was conscious of sudden dignity, as if the dress itself conferred a new and weighty status upon her. Sister Scholastica and Sister Ana, who had the dressing of her, fluttered and clucked and swore that Thea resembled sisters, cousins, nieces, anyone beloved. A veil of lac
e was settled lightly over her yellow hair.
At last, clutching nervously at her handkerchief and carrying the fullness of her skirt over one arm, Thea went in to Silvy.
When her duenna began to weep—silent racking sobs—Thea dropped her skirts and knelt; she was heedless of the clean muslin and put her arms around Silvy. There was something in the quality of those tears that frightened Thea, as there was in the way that Silvy’s thin, tired hands clutched at the skirt of the wedding dress and stroked Thea’s face. For ten minutes Thea sat, arms about Silvy’s shoulders, neither saying a word, the older woman weeping while the younger sat, helpless.
Finally Silvy pulled away and made a pretense at daubing at her tears. “It is time for you to go down to the Chapel and say a prayer before Mass, hija.” She pushed Thea’s arm away and made her stand up. “Go on. And Dorotea?” Her eyes filmed over again but she did not cry. “You know you have my blessing in this. This life....” She made a small, inclusive gesture with one hand. “This is a good life for a woman, if it is the right life for her, niña. God put woman on Earth—you must take the chance—if you are lucky, someday you will be a mother, as I never was, except to you!” The tears began again. Thea only half attended: the bells had begun to ring, summoning the community to Mass and herself to be married. Silvy was saying something important, but Thea had not the attention to understand it now.
“I’ll be good, Silvy, I promise I will,” she mumbled finally, the old promise of her schoolroom days. Silvy looked at her charge and smiled now, a little grimly.
“Of course you will, niña. Are you not Ibañez-de Silva? And Cannowen,” she added before Thea could do so. “Go on. Sister Scholastica will help me down to the Chapel.”
Of the wedding itself Thea remembered little later: bits of the Mass; the color of the sun on brass candlesticks that glowed on the altar; the soft rustle of the nuns’ habits as they knelt and stood and knelt again; Mother Beatriz’s smile when she brought her to the altar; Matlin’s long, pale face and the cool touch of his hand when he took hers. Father Anselmo prompted their responses; she heard her own voice and Matlin’s. Then, as simply as that, they were married.
Under the appreciative eyes of the Sisters, Silvy, the townspeople, Matlin bent and kissed Thea, a quick, fleeting touch, then tucked her hand into his arm and led her from the church. She realized then that she had been trembling. Married. I am truly married, she thought. Under her lashes she looked sideways at Matlin, but before she could savor the idea Silvy was there, and the nuns, each demanding an embrace before they went to the breakfast that had been laid in the courtyard.
An hour later, when they had eaten as much as they could, Matlin murmured something to the Mother Superior.
“Yes, you are right,” she replied. “Dorotea, it is time that you changed into your travelling clothes.”
Thea was bundled away for the last time to the small, cool cell in the guest house, to dress in a full, dark skirt and jacket, the shawl about her shoulders ready to be placed over her pale, curling hair. The rest of her peasant clothes and her own small pile of belongings had been wrapped securely in another shawl and her English gowns distributed to the girls in the village. She carried her bundles down the stairs and stepped into the white midday light of the courtyard. Matlin was securing parcels and a basket filled with cheese, sausage, beans, and bread to one of the two mules they had been given.
“You’ll want to make your farewells.” He sauntered off to chat with Manuel. Turning to face Silvy, Mother Beatriz, the other women with whom she had lived for almost four months, Thea was speechless. There was a flurry of embraces, a few words from Mother Beatriz, and a final embrace from Silvy, who seemed able only to murmur distractedly. Thea thought how thin Silvy had grown, so insubstantial it seemed as if she were hardly there at all. “Make sure they take care of you, Silvy,” she said fiercely.
“Me? You be careful, Dorotea, and make sure that man does nothing dangerous while you are travelling. I want you safe. Be happy.”
“I will...” Thea began.
“Señorita Cannowen,” Matlin called to her. “We must start. I hope to reach Segovia tonight. After that,” he cast a general look of apology at the crowd, “perhaps safer for us all if you do not know what our route is.”
“Sensible.” Mother Beatriz took Thea’s hands in her own and kissed her forehead. “Blessings. Go with God.”
“I will, Mother. Take care of Silvy for me. I’ll write when we are safe home. And Mother, thank you. I never....”
Matlin made a noise of impatience and the Mother Superior pushed Thea away with a smile.
Just before the road twisted Thea turned her head for a last look behind at the convent. They stood in a cluster: Silvy, tall and narrow and pinched-faced beside Mother Beatriz’s shorter, more substantial form, other nuns, indistinguishable at a distance. They waved and Thea raised her hand in a final salute. When she could not see any more she turned her eyes forward to the road for Segovia. It was not yet noon of her wedding day.
o0o
They rode without speaking. That morning Thea had wished for a few minutes to think, to catch hold of all the notions which had run through her mind since she awakened; now there was nothing but the slip-slap of blankets against the mules’ sides to distract her; she had all the time in the world to think, but her mind was empty. Every now and then something would pass through her mind: Father Anselmo’s broad smile as he pronounced them man and wife; Silvy’s white, agitated face; the sweet dusty tang of the convent wine drunk at their wedding toast. Nothing made sense to her. After a time Thea gave herself up to the drowsy rhythm of the mules’ trot and concentrated on nothing but keeping her seat.
Later, when they stopped to eat, Matlin commented on it. “You’ve been uncommonly silent this morning, quite unlike yourself.” He tore a piece of bread from the loaf in his hand and offered it to her. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, child?”
“Afraid?” she echoed. You’ve been silent too, she thought, but, “I’ve never been married before,” she told him. “It’s a lot to think about.”
Matlin laughed briefly but with amusement. “No more have I; I suppose it does give one food for thought. You know, I am aware that this cannot be all easy for you. You will miss Doña Clara, the Sisters. If you want to talk, if I can help, I’d like to.”
Startled, a little undone by this kindness, Thea took refuge in a quick retort. “I’m not the one with a great gash in my head; so long as you don’t faint away from the sun I’m sure I will be perfectly happy.”
Matlin smiled again, finished up his bread and the spicy sausage he had smeared on it, and began to pack the hamper up again. Striving for some dignity Thea picked herself up from her perch on a downed tree. Child, she thought irritably. That word again.... I’m your wife! I’ll make you forget that word if it’s the last thing I do.
“Are you ready? I’ll help you up,” he offered, leading her mule over. Thea wished that she could refuse his help, tell him she could manage very nicely without it, but that seemed childish too. She let him swing her up and sat astride the mule’s back, running her hand along the bristling mouse-brown neck. “Señorita, shall we?” Matlin urged, gesturing with a flourish toward the road.
“Señora,” she retorted, and prodded the mule forward.
o0o
For the rest of the afternoon, if they were out of earshot of other travellers, Matlin kept up a stream of nonsense in his patchy Spanish, as much for practice as to amuse his companion. At first Thea refused ostentatiously to be amused, but when he committed a truly horrendous error in pronunciation she corrected him loftily and after that found it impossible to maintain her starchy facade. Then they chattered together as they had in his sickroom. Only when they passed other travellers or neared a town or farmhouse did they fall silent of one accord.
Each mile made them more aware of the difference between what they were in truth and what they pretended to be, and between the serenity of the countrysid
e and the upheaval caused by the French troops. Once they passed a small encampment; even at a distance Thea could recognize that these were not Spanish, but French soldiers, boisterously noisy. The peasants they met near the encampment had an edgy, suspicious manner. After that neither Matlin nor Thea said anything for some time.
They passed Segovia before dusk and Matlin began to look for an inn. As darkness fell he thought increasingly of the awkwardness of their situation; it was not an aspect of the journey he had considered before. The girl understood about a marriage in form he assumed; the women must have explained all to her. However, to think up a plausible story for an innkeeper, particularly in his imperfect Spanish, was a task at which he quailed.
No explanations were necessary. They stopped at the next posada, a ramshackle three-room hut of a place richly scented with cooking odors, the smells of the stable behind it, and the ripe smell of human bodies seldom bathed. There was room, he was assured, and their food would be prepared for them by the landlord’s wife; the mules would be stabled and fed. But the accommodations, as the landlord explained, were of the simplest kind, a dormitory for the men, one for the women, and a tiny room behind where he and his wife slept. Was this agreeable to the señor?
Matlin breathed a sigh of relief and assured the innkeeper the arrangements were wholly satisfactory.
He did not think to explain the matter to Thea when he brought her inside. After they had supped on more of the rich sausage the nuns had provided and on some eggs bought from the landlady and cooked by her in oil and garlic, Thea was surprised to find herself handed into the woman’s custody.
“You are lucky tonight, Señora, only one other woman guest here; so you will have a bed to yourself,” the landlady clucked complacently as she steered Thea along a short hallway.
“But my husband,” Thea protested.
Spanish Marriage Page 5