Luckstones

by Madeleine E. Robins

  “If Papa had wished to have a say in the matter, Silvy, he ought not to have gone out with the Hunt on a morning when he was still half-foxed and on a hunter he could not hold. Only think: we are nearly penniless, and if I could find a position. . . .’

  Silvy had been immovable. She began to make inquiries about travel arrangements, about selling Grahamley.

  “Oughtn’t we to write and to see if my grandfather will take me in?”

  “Take you in? Of a surety, cara. We will write and tell the Barón we are coming. You who have been brought up in this cold country, do not understand. You are the daughter of the daughter of the Barón Ibañez-de Silva. Of course he will take you in. The Barón will arrange all.”

  o0o

  “The Barón will arrange all,” Dorothea repeated now, kicking a clod of dry, pale dirt, watching it disappear on the point of her shoe. “Yes, he arranged everything deedily, didn’t he? Thanks to the Barón poor Silvy practically catches her death of cold in the street in Burgos! Thanks to the Barón we go flying off to a nunnery like something out of Shakespeare! The Barón! Pfaugh. If I had my grandfather here, I’d tell him. . . .”

  A sound like a low-voiced groan brought her out of her fine reverie of vengeance. Surely it was impossible, a man’s voice within the convent enclosure, but it was a voice nonetheless. Thea was almost certain. She was fluent in English, Spanish, and French, but this sound was none of them.

  “Hola!” she ventured nervously. No use trying English here; the English were enemies again, since the Bourbon king Carlos had signed the treaty of Fontainebleau with Bonaparte. It might be a French soldier—the thought made her shiver; she had heard stories about the French troops marching through Spain. If it was one such, her borrowed habit would be little protection from him. This complicity with the French had been another of her uncle Tomas’s reasons, there at the inn at Burgos: too dangerous to have a niece, even a half-Spanish one, with an English surname and wheat-blond hair, as part of his household. “Quien es?” she tried again.

  There was no sound this time, but a faint rustling in the brush by the ditch. Dorothea considered probabilities. A child from the village, looking for berries; a goat, foraging; a Bonapartist spy; a Fernandista, lost in the northern wilds and come to enlist the aid of the nuns in the Prince’s cause. . . .

  “Fustian,” she said aloud. “Fairytales.” She turned around again, away from the culvert. At her first step the sound began again, faintly, a soft sporadic moaning that faded into the reedy sound of the wind through the brush. Someone has hurt an animal, Thea thought indignantly, and she moved toward the sound again. As she edged closer to the culvert Thea pulled the skirts of her habit closer, a foolish gesture which, unaccountably, made her feel safer. Carefully, so as not to startle it, whatever it was, she peered over the edge, into the underbrush, and found herself staring at the ragged, filthy body of a man.

  Her first thought, after her astonishment, was that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen, a hero from the pages of the novels of which Silvy so deeply disapproved. Not a bright, fair-haired hero; this man was dark, brooding, with black hair tumbled over his high, dirty forehead; he had a long nose and a shapely mouth, a narrow, determined chin. Certainly, she thought, if he opened his eyes, they would be black and filled with secret sorrows.

  “Owwrch.” The man was shivering convulsively. That was what made the brush rustle so.

  Heedless of the danger in attending a lone man here, out of sight of the convent, and quite careless of the damage to her habit, Thea clambered into the ditch and knelt beside the man. He did not have the look of a peasant, nor even that of a Spaniard. His clothes were rough, dirty, and torn; about him, there was an almost unbearable smell of sweat, sickness, and a trace of stale drink. Her first thought was that he was drunk, but she remembered too well from her father how a man deep in his cups smelled, how he acted; there was something much worse than drink to blame for the stranger’s stupor. Tentatively, she reached to touch his forehead.

  “Angel.” She drew her hand back, startled. “Can’ be angel. Not f’ me. Wunnever bleeve it.” His eyes had opened quite suddenly. They were blue, not black, and hazy with fever. “Are you an angel or not?” he demanded quite clearly—and in English. Then he gave a convulsive shudder and fell back again.

  “Sir?” She shook him gently, but there was no response. “Sir? Diós,” she muttered to herself. He was English; her heart had lifted momentarily at the sound of those few crisp, deep-voiced words. Here was a gentleman, whatever his dress. Thea was appalled by the stench when she leaned close; his forehead was burning hot, and, when she brushed the hair back, she was sickened by the sight of a deep gash smeared with blood and obviously infected. “My God.”

  What to do? Tell Mother Beatriz? Or simply fetch Manuel Ortiz, the man who was porter for the nuns, and have him bring the man up to the convent? He was as English as she herself was; she could hardly permit him to stay in the village where he might be discovered by the authorities. However, Mother Beatriz would fret, worry about the danger to the House, and by the time she made a decision, the stranger could well be dead.

  “Sir?” she tried again.

  Her voice or touch roused him a little. He opened his eyes and really seemed to see her this time. “Adele?” He was squinting; Thea realized that she must be framed against the sunlight, her face indiscernible. “Not Adele,” he added with a feverish chuckle. “Nor an angel either, but closer. Lo siento, hermana. Estoy enfermo.” His accent was dreadful.

  “Can you walk? Please, sir, I can take you to the convent, if you can walk.”

  “English? Must be an angel after all.” He peered up at her face, grimacing as he shifted positions to see her better. “Go away, little Sister. Dangerous companions. . . .” He closed his eyes and seemed to be drifting toward unconsciousness again.

  “Sir?” There was desperation in Thea’s voice. “Please, sir, can you stand up?”

  The stranger’s eyes opened again, unseeing. “Adele?” he asked again. “Bitch,” he said, and he fainted dead away.

  Nothing Thea could do would rouse him this time. He lay there, pale under the grime and sunburn, shivering in the noonday sun. There was no way to bring him to the convent alone. As she sat back on her heel and tried to think, he groaned again. Rising clumsily to her feet, Thea looked around her, then hitched up her skirts and ran for the convent.

  o0o

  Sister Maria Trinidad would not dispatch Manuel to the man without Mother Superior’s approval. “And she is in the chapel with the Sacristan and must not be disturbed,” she added. “These are dangerous times, child. Harboring an Englishman, if that is what. . . .”

  “Is it any worse than harboring an Englishwoman?” Thea asked impatiently. “Sister, if something is not done for that poor man soon, he’ll die. I vow I will put on my English clothes and ride into the village on a donkey and announce. . . .”

  “Hush, child, don’t speak foolishness. As if the villagers did not understand who you and Doña de Silva were. You keep up this masquerade against strangers—French soldiers. A stranger and a man? Where would we put him?”

  “In the guest house,” Thea suggested logically.

  “Inside the House?” Sister Maria Trinidad was shocked. “And who would nurse him, if he is sick as you say? Manuel is not a nurse, and two men inside the enclosure. . . .”

  “I will nurse him then. I helped to nurse Silvy, Doña de Silva. Even Sister Juan Evangelista would tell you. . . .” Seeing a trace of softening in Sister Maria’s eyes, Thea dropped to her knees and took the nun’s hands in her own. “Dear, kind Sister, let me do this. I’m half mad for occupation since Silvy is well again. Truly, the man will die if we don’t help him.”

  Sister Maria Trinidad regarded Thea with troubled eyes. “I will talk with Mother, child. Wait here.”

  So Dorothea waited. It seemed to her, as the minutes stretched on and on and her concern for the handsome stranger in the orchard grew, that Moth
er and Sister Maria must be talking over a great deal more than whether or not to aid a stricken traveller. Half an hour passed before Sister Maria Trinidad reappeared, puffing slightly after the rapid descent from the upper hall.

  “I have sent for Manuel,” she began. “You must meet him by the gate and show him where the stranger is. And yes, you will have to help in nursing him. He will stay in the cottage past the gates. Sister Juan has gone to make all ready. Please, Señorita Dorotea.” She stumbled over the name as all the nuns did. “Be careful what you say to him and what you say to Manuel and to anyone else about him. These are perilous times.”

  Restraining the urge to say that she knew, that she was not a child, Thea thanked the nun, curtsied, and was halfway down the hall before Sister Maria Trinidad could reply, her skirts looped up scandalously so that her ankles showed as she ran down the stairs toward the garden door.

  Manuel was waiting for her by the orchard gate. He was a short, smiling, brown man with bad teeth, who felt himself honored by God to be porter to the Sisters. He was a little baffled by the little one who was not a Sister but who wore the habit, who gave orders like an Hidalga but barely came up to his shoulder. “The Sister said there was a man, Señorita?”

  “Just past the stand of trees, Manuel. And you must swear, on the lives of your children, on the Virgin, that you will never tell anyone about him. We have to hurry.”

  Manuel had stopped, hand over his heart. “I would never do anything to hurt my Sisters,” he began, his tone heavy with wounded dignity. “You think I cannot be trusted!” He turned and made as if to return to the village. Frantic, Thea grabbed his arm and turned him around again.

  “How could I doubt you, Manuel? I apologize, but I am so frightened for this poor man. I know you are as trustworthy as an angel of the Lord, Manuel. I do! Please, we must hurry!”

  Mollified, Manuel set off again, looking at Dorthea slyly from the corner of his eye. “A man, Señorita?” he asked. “A lover? If the Sisters found that out. . . .” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. Thea controlled the urge to scream at him.

  “It’s a stranger, Manuel. I never saw him before. He is dreadfully sick. Sister Maria Trinidad said it would be ungodly to deny him help.” She used the Cellarer’s name for effect. Manuel had a healthy respect for Sister Maria Trinidad’s authority. “Please, he’s just a poor, sick man who needs our help. Me, what would I do with a lover here?” She gestured at the convent walls. “A fine time we’d have of it; can you imagine?” Evidently he could; after a moment Manuel gave a slow snicker and grinned at her. Thea pushed him onward. “Just a stranger,” she repeated again. Just the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life, she added to herself, though what that’s to the purpose I don’t know. Probably a villain, too . . . and then: I wonder who Adele is?

  o0o

  It took all of Manuel’s strength and Thea’s considerable ingenuity to get the man back to the cottage by the gate. Sister Juan Evangelista and two novices had cleared one of the two tiny rooms out and settled a fresh straw pallet on the bed. The room smelled dusty and damp; the earthen floor had been freshly swept: there were bundled rushes by the door, ready to spread under foot.

  Heedless of Thea’s protests, the women left the cabin while Manuel stripped the man and put him to bed.

  “I’m not saying that I should be the one to help,” she fretted impatiently, “but Manuel is not strong enough to move the man safely by himself.”

  “It is not to be thought of, Señorita,” Sister Juan admonished. “A young unwedded woman . . . it is not possible. Trust the Lord. Manuel will do well enough.”

  “Mother is asking for you, Señorita,” Sister Maria Trinidad added quietly. The Cellarer had come up behind them silently, and her voice made Dorothea jump.

  “But the man. . . .”

  “Will be attended to. Señorita de Silva wishes to speak with you.”

  Something in the nun’s flat tone disturbed Thea. “Silvy is all right, isn’t she? Nothing is wrong with Silvy?”

  “Wrong? No, child, but go to her. The man will be attended to: you have my word. There are some things of which we know more than you. One,” she added dryly, “is obedience, I think. When you have spoken with Mother and with Señorita de Silva, and have taken time to eat and to wash and, I think perhaps, have stopped in the chapel for a few minutes to re-collect yourself, then you may sit with him.”

  Thea knew better than to resist. “Yes, Sister. I’ll be back then.”

  Sister Juan smiled. “I don’t doubt it.”

  It had been midday when she found the stranger; now, walking the path through the convent gate and crossing into the courtyard, Thea realized that hours had passed. It was late afternoon. She entered the guesthouse attached to the cloister and went down the corridor to the rooms she and Silvy had occupied since their arrival. In her own cell she hurriedly scrubbed her feet and hands, relishing the cool water against her dusty skin. It was useless to worry about her hair, crushed under the wimple and veil, but she tried to shake out most of the dirt from the hem of her skirts. Then she went next door to speak with Silvy.

  The older woman’s cell was as plain as Thea’s—a cool, whitewashed room furnished with cot, cupboard and prie-dieu. Where Thea had cheered her small space with objects of her own, Silvy’s room remained bare, austere. Silvy was seated in the changing light of the afternoon sun, her long, mournful face oddly gray and pulled. The skin around her lips was white and ridged, her brows drawn down in a frown of pain kept carefully controlled. Thea saw it all as if for the first time and swept across the room to kneel at Silvy’s feet.

  “What happened? Silvy? You look terrible. Are you ill again? Mother. . . .” She turned to the door as the Mother Superior entered the room. “Tell me what is wrong with her.”

  A cold hand took one of Thea’s own in its grasp.

  Silvy said, “Nothing is wrong, Dorothea, only I am tired, a little. Now. Tell me about your stranger.”

  Undistracted, Thea turned again to the doorway. “Mother, will you tell me? She won’t.” Silvy’s fingers pressed hers, and Thea squeezed back, angry and frightened, seeing the look exchanged by her duenna and the nun. “All right, then, don’t tell me. You’ve been fretting yourself over me, and I won’t have it, Silvy. I’ll find out what this is. . . .”

  “In the meantime, hija, the stranger? Mother and I are waiting to hear about the man you found.”

  Mother Beatriz teased gently, “You must admit it is not every day that a man appears swooning in our orchard, Dorothea. Unmonastic, you would say.”

  Reluctantly Thea returned Mother Beatriz’s smile and began her story anew. She kept Silvy’s hand in her own as she spoke. “He’s a gentleman, Silvy, an Englishman. I would vouch for it on my honor. He was hurt. He has the most horrid gash across his forehead, and his feet were bleeding as if he’d walked for miles. He thought I was an angel.”

  “When he knows you better he will certainly revise his opinion,” Silvy murmured. A little of the bluish tint had left her lips, and her smile was gentle and amused. “Do you wish to play nurse again, Dorothea? You must recall that you are a lady, that you are Ibañez-de Silva—”

  “And Cannowen!” Thea added.

  “Yes, and that too, I suppose.” The duenna sighed. “Now you wish to go back to your patient. I wish we knew more of this man, but I suppose that, if he lives, he will tell us. Ask permission of Mother then, child, and eat something, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Sister Maria Trinidad left word in the kitchen that you would come down to fetch bread and milk for your supper, child. Take your time. Certainly your stranger is not going anywhere for a time. Run along. Slowly.” This was said as Thea rose precipitously in her heavy robes.

  This time she did not stop to hear what the Superior and Doña de Silva were saying of her; in a moment she was down the hall, and she turned the corner so quickly she almost overturned one of the Sisters carrying a bucket of water. She made a hasty apology and dashed d
own the stairs toward the kitchen.

  In Doña de Silva’s chamber the Mother Superior and Silvy were talking about Dorothea, and about the stranger. They reached no conclusions. “If he is, in truth, English, it may be an omen of sorts,” Silvy said reluctantly. “Perhaps I should send Dorotea home to England. If her grandmother saw the child was without me. . . .”

  “Perhaps she would not take the girl no matter what, Clara. First, I think we must learn what sort of man this stranger is and a little more of how things stand between England and Spain. You will not tell Dorotea about your heart?”

  “Would it make her happier to know that I am ill? Would it mean that I would grow well again? I think not.”

  Mother Beatriz agreed reluctantly. “Thank God she is still only a child.”

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