“If that town was Peñausende last night, then we’ve a journey of about a day and a half to reach the border.”
“Portugal. If we can cross the border in peace,” Thea added. Matlin looked at her sharply; he had been thinking much the same thing himself but had decided not to alarm her. His child bride was growing up fast indeed. “Do you think we’ll meet with trouble?” she asked now.
“I don’t think it’s safe to assume anything until we reach England, but there’s hope I’ll be proven wrong. God knows that has happened enough. If we can maintain your story of Doña Manuela and her idiot spouse—did I recall to thank you for your quick thinking? You saved my life, child.”
“And my own.” Thea faced him squarely. “If you’re grateful you can prove it by calling me by my name, or anything but child. I am not a child.”
His mouth curled wryly. “My apologies.” He bowed with just the same manner she had seen in her cousin William when he soothed his children. That was worse than being called a child to her face. Obstinately Thea closed her mouth and refused to say anything until it was nearly sundown. The day was uneventful, a blessing for them. Now, when they stopped, Matlin made a good effort at his imbecile role; he scratched his head and took so much time between words that anyone he spoke with—soldier or passerby stopping to exchange the news—soon gave up, frustrated. Through each exchange Thea sat, convincingly silent and meek, but when they were alone she glared at Matlin in a decidedly unsubservient manner.
Toward dusk Matlin told her, “I was hoping to reach Villarino de los Aires tonight, but it seems as though we won’t.”
“Am I slowing you down?” Thea asked. It was the first full sentence she had said in hours; her tone was hardly conciliatory. Matlin was at a loss to understand her or how to treat her. Should he tease her from her sullenness? Should he reassure her?
“Slowing me down?” he repeated finally. “If it weren’t for you I would assuredly be in that damnable shack still and playing the simpleton. You’ve been the useful one, ch—Thea. I merely tend the mules.” He finished with a touch of spurious humility that made Thea giggle shyly.
At last it was too dark to go on further. They had been travelling along the bank of a river for some time. “We’ll have to cross it sometime, but I doubt if any ferryman will want to carry us tonight. There are entirely too many of Boney’s fellows abroad on these roads for my taste. What do you think, heroine? Shall we find a place to camp?”
“Away from the road,” Thea suggested. This near the border they saw more and more evidence of the occupation and more than once Thea had slipped into the role of a distressed wife, whining softly of her trials, poor simple husband, the wedding she had missed, the favor that had gone to her cousin Estella. Probably the French paid them no notice anyway, but the imposture made Thea feel better, as if she were doing something indeed. “Lord, I’m coming to hate ‘Manuela,’” she muttered in English. “What a dreadful shrew she is!”
“But a lifesaver, nonetheless. What do you expect, with a husband like Miguel? We’re not cutting very heroic figures, are we, my dear?”
It was lucky then that the light was fading; Matlin did not see the color which came to Thea’s cheeks at his offhand endearment.
“Where shall we stop?” she asked.
“Can you bear to go a little farther, beyond that stand of trees? It looks as though they will afford us a little cover.”
Obediently Thea nudged her mule forward. The obliging animal, surely as tired now as she was herself, stumbled after Matlin’s mule, and their patience was rewarded. The stand of trees hid a tiny shack, barely six feet to a side. “A roof,” Matlin exulted. “Tonight, my child, you shall have a fire. By God, I’m damned if I don’t find us something better to eat than the heel of that bread.”
While Matlin went in search of food or information or whatever else was to be had—Thea placed little reliance upon food and, knowing his Spanish, not much more upon information—she worked on the hut. After she cleared it, sweeping the floor with a bunch of twigs until it was not clean but relatively smooth and inviting, she arranged their bundles against one wall. Then she set about making a fire, gathering leaves and sticks, and poking the cobwebs out of the smoke-hole in the hut’s roof. They might have a smoky night of it but at least they would be warm. She agonised for some minutes over the striking of a spark: Matlin had taken the tinderbox away in his pocket. At last, triumphantly, Thea beheld a small flame in the heart of her tinder. Having done her best to make a home for the night, she sat back against the wall to wait for her husband.
He returned after what seemed like hours to Thea. “There’s a farm over the rise. I bought some food there and told our story. Miguel and Manuela’s, in any case, and I don’t doubt they believe me an imbecile as you could wish. Damning to my ego, but better my self-esteem than my neck.... Or yours.”
“Thanks,” Thea said.
“I have news. I’ll tell you while we eat.” He set his sack down by the fire and looked about him. “You’ve been busy: started a fire, cleaned the place. What a housewife you are.” He smiled at her. “Clever child.”
Matlin missed the face Thea made at him. Child again! Already he had forgotten his promise.
He turned again and reached for his sack. “Not haute cuisine, I regret, but it will do for an evening. What a world of dinners we shall have to make up for when we reach London, eh? Here’s bread.” He produced a small round loaf. “Some cheese and sausage, of course....” Two almost identical lumps, smelling strongly of garlic. “And wine! Come, my dear, smile. We dine like kings tonight, with a roof over our heads and a table....” He mimed a long formal dining table laden with the best silver and china, and a sideboard piled with delicious things to eat.
Giddily, Thea responded in kind. “Would you like a slice of roast duckling? Or pigeon in tarragon?” She shifted closer to the fire and began to slice the round loaf with Matlin’s knife.
“I thought a bite of terrapin to start, or a bit of pig’s cheek. I’m partial to that.” Thea recorded this information as she handed him a thick slice of bread. “And of course, a glass of burgundy? An excellent vintage, my love. May I pour you a glass?” Triumphantly he produced a tiny, misshapen tin cup from one pocket and poured a splash of dark, vinegary red wine into it. “Milady?”
Thea giggled and inclined her head. “My lord.”
“To your continued good health and beauty.” He took a healthy swig from the wine bottle. “And now, perhaps you will pass me a morsel of....” He gestured questioningly at the cheese.
“Venison?” Thea suggested dubiously. Matlin nodded agreeably, smeared his bread with cheese and the sausage, and swallowed it quickly. He took another long draught of wine, making a face. “Some pretenses are easier to carry out than others,” he admitted ruefully and wiped his chin with a dusty sleeve.
They kept up the charade for the rest of the meal, getting sillier as they went, dining on quail eggs and breast of lion. In between toasts and grand courtesies Matlin told her what he had learned: the new king, Fernando, had gone to Bayonne, in France, to meet with Bonaparte.
“It’s madness; apparently Fernando has some idea that Bonaparte will marry him to a French princess and take him under the protection of the Empire. So he has delivered himself into the hands of the French, and it seems that the old king and his wife are going to Bayonne as well. I wonder how long it will take for Bonaparte to announce that he has taken Spain for its own good.”
“Doesn’t anyone care? The people, I mean?”
“When I escaped from Madrid after Fernando forced his father’s abdication, the people all thought it was the dawn of a better day, that the Prince would keep Bonaparte at bay, work wonders, bring Spain back as a power. Now? I think they begin to see Fernando isn’t a savior, at least. God knows when the worm will turn. I hope we’re well away when it does. Dorothea? Do you wish you had stayed safe at the convent? This is hardly the life for a delicately bred girl....”
&nb
sp; “But there’d have been no quail eggs or breast of lion, either.” Thea sipped her wine slowly, savoring the rough, sour burr it left on her tongue. “I’d have been learning Latin and hating it. I’d just as soon have the adventure, thank you.” She licked her fingers for punctuation.
Matlin drank his own wine in grateful swallows and stared at the orange glow of the fire. “It hasn’t been boring, certainly. But a girl like you, travelling this way, facing these dangers...not that you haven’t faced them well,” he added hurriedly. “I promised not to call you child, didn’t I? I’ll try to remember that.” He looked angrily at his hands and saw beyond them: “Your Silvy, Mother Beatriz, they must have been out of their minds to let you come with me.”
The supper was a wreckage of oiled paper and crumbs on the dirt floor. Thea began methodically to clear the mess away. “Mother thought it was mad,” she said after a moment. “Silvy was the one who told me to go, finally. My dear old silly Silvy, who was never so happy in her life as at the convent when the nuns took us in, but that day, the day we were married, she started saying things, that if I could not give myself to God entirely—oh, fusty stuff. I think she meant I had to take my chances, and I have.” Thea looked into the fire and saw Silvy’s long, sunken face and feverish eyes, her slender bony hands which had clutched her own so tightly. “My God, she was so ill; how could I not have seen?”
In the hot light of the embers, shaking with grief and lightheaded from the unaccustomed wine, Thea began to weep for Silvy.
Matlin stared at her, dismayed. She had simply dropped her head to her knees as she sat, clutching herself together tightly as if she was afraid she might fall apart altogether, rocking silently, shaking, her hair touched with gold by the dying fire. He reached an uncertain hand to her and pulled it back; he watched her and was paralyzed by her tears.
“What did she say to you?” he asked at last.
Thea sniffed and raised her head. Her face was wet with tears, her eyes red-rimmed. “It sounds stupid. Unless one wanted to be a Bride of God, that sort of thing—I mean, unless one really had a vocation, it would be better to take a chance. For children, I suppose she meant. Do you know, I always supposed, the way a child might, that Silvy was happy to be just as fusty and careful and spinsterish as she was, and all those years she wanted....” Tears overwhelmed her. Thea dropped her head again.
This time Matlin did not stop to think. He put his arm about Thea’s shoulders and held her as if she were a babe. She was not a child, though. Through the heavy folds of dress and jacket he could feel decidedly unchildlike contours, the softness of her breast and the swell of her hip under his hand. Startled, he thought: but she’s so young. He looked down at the shivering, mournful girl in his arms, his wife.
“Here,” he said unsteadily and twisted away from her for a moment. “Drink this.” He filled the tin cup with wine and held it to her lips. Sniffing, Thea obeyed, and Matlin swallowed what remained in the bottle before he turned to her again.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. The shawl was bunched around her shoulders, a frame for her face and tousled, dust-darkened hair. Her eyes were dark, the lashes still wet with tears. “I didn’t mean to do that.” She looked up at him; her face was very close to his, unguarded. Matlin stirred uncomfortably, very much aware of his one hand still across her shoulder. “Matlin, don’t be angry.”
“I’m not,” he said thickly. Which of them moved, he could not say, but when Dorothea’s face was inches from his he stopped remembering her age, their situation, everything, and drew her abruptly toward him.
She did not fight. Her arms came up around his neck willingly and her mouth was as hungry as his. As they dropped down onto the brushed dirt floor Thea was distantly aware of small things: the glow of embers through her half-shut eyes; the call of a nightbird outside in the trees; the coarse fabric against her skin as Matlin opened her blouse, and the touch of his fingers. Just once, when he pulled away from her, she opened her eyes to stare up into his. “Mi esposo,” she murmured, and it was true.
Chapter Six
The sun made a pattern of sparkling slivers between the raw boards of the hut when Dorothea awoke the next morning; she found herself wrapped willy-nilly in blankets and clothes, her hair tangled. Matlin was not beside her, was nowhere to be seen. She allowed herself a long, delicious moment to stretch, to remember, and to smile. Then she rose and began to dress, shaking her creased clothes out and bundling together the blankets and last scraps of their ridiculous make-believe dinner. When she had two neat bundles piled by the door and had removed the most obvious traces of their brief tenancy in the hut, Thea pulled her shawl up to cover her hair and stepped into the sunshine.
Matlin was standing by the mules and fussing intently with the harness.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Thea began slowly. She felt shy, uncertain of whether she should go to him, as she wished to do, or wait for some sign. His back was to her, and she could not see his face.
“At least it does not look like rain,” he agreed after a minute. “We’re starting out late, and we’ll have to find someone to take us across the river” He turned, scowling in concentration at the knotted lead rein twisted between his fingers. “Can you be ready to ride in a few minutes?”
The excitement and pleasure drained from Thea slowly, leaving only a chill, weighty apprehension. Something was wrong; she had done something to displease him. After last night it should be so different between them; he had called her his wife. He had made her so, for the love of God; so what was wrong now? Stiffly, she thrust the parcels of food and blankets toward him. “Here.”
“Is that everything?” Matlin asked calmly, tying the blankets onto his mule’s saddle.
“Yes.” Without waiting for his help Thea led her mule to a fallen tree and, with some difficulty——the tree was half rotted——managed to mount without Matlin’s assistance. He then nodded as if he had confirmed a thought to himself.
It was the longest, hardest, most disenheartening day of the journey. They kept to smaller roads and travelled as quickly as they could make the mules move, stopping before noon to ferry across the Douro, then starting off at the same brisk, distant pace. Thea, staring moodily ahead of her, wondered over and over: What did I do? Matlin had been kinder when they were only——married. In the light of day the gentle lover of the night before was gone, and the sometimes amusing companion of the roads as well. He was a cold, efficient stranger, silent and curiously unforgiving. What did I do wrong?
If I wait, she thought. If I wait and am very patient and very good——idiotic word to use. If I am good and faithful and he sees that I don’t mean to inconvenience him, perhaps he will begin to love me a little. I thought last night he had begun to do.
“Is something wrong?" Matlin's?” Matlin’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Thea looked up and realized that her mule had stopped. Last night was, after all, last night. “Forgive me,” she said, keeping her voice steady. The urge to weep had been with her all day, but as her confusion grew her anger did too; it helped her to answer him in kind, coldly; it helped her to maintain her dignity a little. Thea dug her heels into the mule’s dusty sides and urged it forward again.
o0o
Matlin had wrestled with his conscience, a brutal headache, and his balky mule all morning. Of the three his conscience was the worst. No matter how he approached it, what he had done could be considered little short of rape. God knew he had not meant for the evening to end that way. Married or no, Thea was only a child. What had the Superior said, that afternoon at the convent? Thirteen, fourteen years old? She should have been playing in the schoolroom, giggling, and learning French verbs and delicate pianoforte pieces. He had been foxed, and the girl had seemed willing, but what could that have been but ignorance? Now, today, she would not let him near her, kept him at arm’s length even to the point of crawling awkwardly onto her mule without his assistance. He had offered her his protection for the journey, and what ha
d he done? Abused the right, taken advantage of a marriage which he had never intended should be more than a fiction…....
Looking sideways at her, he remembered the touch of her hands, the taste of her lips still damp with wine, and he felt desire, followed immediately by a deeper sense of self-loathing. From now on, he thought furiously, he would keep as far from her as possible, avoid the slightest temptation. When they arrived in England he would offer her her freedom on any terms she liked. His wife, he thought, and was miserable.
They rode along the border for some time before they crossed, without incident, about fifteen miles south of Villarino de los Aires. By sunset, when Matlin brought them to a tiny inn, Thea was so tired that she rocked in her seat and suffered Matlin to lift her down from her mule without protest. They stood in the yard for a moment just so: Thea within the circle of her husband’s arms, staring up submissively, waiting. He thought he read fear in her eyes and stepped back at once.
“Dorothea, believe me,” he began in an undertone, in English. “I won't...won’t....” Then, as a sottish farmer stumbled out of the inn and passed them, he switched to Spanish. “I apologize for what happened last night,” he elaborated unnecessarily. “You need not fear that such a thing will happen again. I——Just accept my apologies. We’ll sort out this sorry arrangement when we reach home, I promise you.”
The farmer had been waddling in aimless, drunken circles around the yard; Thea, not at all certain of what Matlin meant, except that he had regretted sharing his bed with her, murmured “Shhh” and started complaining loudly in Spanish, fretting over the missed wedding, all the favors gone because she had had the ill fortune to marry the slowest man with the slowest mules in all Galicia. The drunkard seemed waveringly amused but not particularly interested in this domestic quarrel. He drifted off in the general direction of the road.
“I take your meaning,” Matlin told her. “I won’t slip from my character again, I promise.” He began to make loud, repeated apologies to her Manuela, as they picked across the path to the inn door.
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