At first, Miss Hopewell and Miss Brigstocke sat with their eyes lowered. They were still and upright as effigies, as if observed by some unseen governess; they knew themselves for intruders. But after the tea had been removed by a white-starched maid and a long interval had passed and still no one came—why, they began to exhibit the natural curiosity of any persons so placed in an interesting and unfamiliar setting and to look about themselves.
The ceiling was high and cunningly decorated to resemble a verdant canopy; here and there, brightly painted hummingbirds darted among the glossy foliage. The hides of beasts—lion, antelope, bear, zebra—lay at intervals across a shining floor of black-and-white Carrara marble. The heads were left intact; many pairs of glass eyes peered crazily at the ladies. A light breeze moved always through the room, bringing with it the faint perfume of orange flowers. Through tall, open windows could be seen the tops of trees, rustling in convocation, bearing a few pale stars of late blossom. In the distance, golden hills rose to meet the bright and blinding sky. From some place beyond their sight, there came the sound of water falling on stone and, once, the bark of a dog. The women spoke in hushed tones as they looked about them, remarking on certain little peculiarities of their surroundings. Miss Hopewell directed Miss Brigstocke’s attention to a curious box of teak that sat on a bureau. It had children’s heads carved on it, she whispered to Miss Brigstocke; the heads of little children with flowing hair…
They started as the door behind them was opened. A round, cheerful doctor entered and opined in flawless English that the reverend was suffering from no more than the heat; a day of rest with cool cloths on his brow would do all that was necessary to restore him. The ladies thanked him and asked who their host might be and, indeed, where? That they may thank him also and discuss conveyance back to their villa, for it would be dusk in a few short hours, and they must collect their trap from the roadside and convey the reverend to Siena and then themselves to home… The doctor smiled and said that he believed that a carriage was being made ready for these purposes. As for their host, it was Don Villarca who resided here, but as to where he might be—the man shrugged. He had been instructed by the majordomo to see to the Englishman, and he had done this—it was good enough for him.
“Perhaps,” ventured Miss Brigstocke, “the lady of the house might permit us one moment of her time, in order to properly express our obligation?”
The doctor shook his head and gave his broadest smile yet, for (chiaro!) there was no Donna Villarca. It was plain, as he made his bow, that he had already dismissed the ladies from his thoughts; he bustled out to other business, leaving them still puzzled as to where to bestow their gratitude.
Miss Hopewell was overcome with restlessness, suddenly ill at ease; she thought there was perhaps a flea in one of those old hides. She expressed an intention to take a turn in the grove while they waited. Miss Brigstocke caviled at this. It would not do to make free with the gentleman’s property. She would sit where she was put and wait. There arose a polite difference of opinion between them, Miss Hopewell asserting that the air in the room was torpid and bad and that she could not bear it, Miss Brigstocke asserting that she would never for her life be so remiss as to tell dear Mary how to behave but it did seem to her that it would not look well or be seemly to be found alone in a garden in a single gentleman’s house. Miss Hopewell stood in a window, returning that if this was no transgression in Hephzibah’s eyes, she would stay here and take what air she could—if it would not offend? If Miss Brigstocke thought it was not wrong? As Mary said these words, she heard rustling in the grove below.
Looking down, Miss Hopewell perceived that they were not alone; a man stood in the trees of the grove. The stranger’s eyes were fixed upon Miss Hopewell. They were shadowed, narrow, deep, like arrow slits.
A slim, dark person, his face was still as varnished wood. He held a young spaniel in his arms; the dog gazed up at him, trembling and mewing with love. His velvet waistcoat, soft as the blackest night, was embroidered with bright gold. Silk shirtsleeves billowed like poured cream. A vast emerald pin nestled in the folds at the base of his throat.
The man watched her, unmoving. Mary made to stir, to break the deadly gaze upon her. She could not. He thrust the dog from him. It yelped and fell and ran. Still, she looked; she was caught in the dark tunnel of his gaze, she could not get out… There came into Mary’s mind the picture of a harp string, wound tight around the peg by an inexperienced hand. The clumsy, unknowing fingers turned the wood, and the wire sang higher—and higher—Miss Hopewell felt something break within her with a terrible sound… The man bared white teeth at her, whether in a smile or a grimace, she could not say, but it was wholly terrible, and she gasped and drew back into the room; it convulsed, squares of shining black-and-white tile rippling at her feet.
“Oh,” Mary said. She sank to her knees. Her heart beat like a captured dove. She kneaded the place above it hard, as though to grasp the organ—to hold it in her fist. For days after, there were dark finger marks across her breast. Miss Brigstocke questioned her, laid frantic hands upon her. Miss Hopewell was white and still. “I am well,” she said. “But the window, look, the window…”
Miss Brigstocke ran on nimble feet. She peered this way and that in the warm air.
“But, Mary, what?” she asked. “I see nothing. Well, there is a little dog playing beneath the trees… I wish you could come to see. It would do you a great deal of good, for it is too sweet!”
• • •
Mr. Shakes awaited them on the gravel drive in the fading light. He handed the ladies into the carriage and touched his hat.
“I will drive your trap behind you,” he said. “Never fear.”
His warm tones acted once more on Mary, stirring memories of childhood and the taste of cream, of sunlit days when all was well, days that she had thought long forgotten. “Will you not ride with us?” she asked impulsively, reaching a hand as though to grasp his, to help him into the carriage.
“Not this time, Miss Hopewell.” He went quietly behind to the trap and the fat pony. Miss Hopewell was left blushing foolishly under the stares of her companions.
“Mary,” said Miss Brigstocke with unusual directness, “have you lost your wits?”
So the party was escorted with all celerity back to town. As they went along the road, dusk came gently. Through the open carriage windows, there came balmy evening air and the wild perfumes of thyme and sage.
Reverend Comer lay against the squabs and said nothing, consumed by indisposition and mortified, perhaps, by having been the source of such inconvenience.
In the half-light, with the rocking of the carriage providing a soothing rhythm, the women had leisure to reflect upon their day. Miss Brigstocke kept her dry palm firmly atop Mary’s and squeezed every now and again. Mary did not speak. She turned her face to the coming night, to the dim, scented land.
Miss Brigstocke professed herself invigorated by their adventure but could not altogether like it. “I believe Villarca to be a Spanish name,” she said. “To be sure, what can a Spanish gentleman have to do in Italy? Although of the two countries, I myself find Italy much the superior. But perhaps it is one of many residences, and he summers here only. To keep such a garden; it must require much precious labor, water, and expense!”
Something had wormed its way deep into Miss Hopewell. It sat sullen with knowledge in the depths of her. It wrapped leaden, parasitic arms about her heart.
• • •
In the following days, they went about their quiet business. The reverend called on them to make his farewells; he was for Florence. Mr. Comer looked on Miss Hopewell meaningfully. Perhaps he might beg a moment in private with her? Miss Brigstocke then discerned a noise from the kitchen that announced some catastrophe—she was certain of it: foreign servants did not know how to go on, and they were positively hostaged to that Gabriela, who could only be termed a maid in
the loosest possible sense—Mr. Comer would excuse them? The man looked at Miss Hopewell. He had heard nothing—surely, it was but a little domestic thing—but Mary sat with her eyes lowered. Another sound—a crash, an unmistakable crash! Miss Brigstocke was driven to distraction—what could the girl have done! Reverend Comer was left with no choice but to take his leave, taking an age to find his hat but presently shuffling out, enjoining them not to forget him.
When his pony’s hooves had safely retreated, Miss Hopewell addressed Miss Brigstocke thus. “Not kind in you, Hephzibah, to deny the man his moment!”
“Perhaps I am not kind,” said Miss Brigstocke, “but you’ll allow that I am deft.”
• • •
The next morning, Miss Brigstocke joined her companion at table to find her in a state of distress. A ring, which had belonged to Miss Hopewell’s mother, and before that her grandmother, and so on, was found to be absent. They embarked on the fatiguing rigmarole of remembrance that must always accompany a mislaid possession—it had been on her finger on Wednesday, did she remember? Miss Brigstocke had noted it particularly, since it did not look well with the lavender muslin she wore that day.
At length, Miss Hopewell exclaimed, she had it on the day of the ill-fated expedition—it was certain. She had removed it and placed it in her reticule as she walked to the road in order to deter unwanted interest—and had not taken it out again—but it was not in the reticule now, nor anywhere to be seen. It was then recalled that Miss Hopewell had taken her handkerchief from said reticule, to catch crumbs from the biscuits that they took with their tea, in that room by the orangery—could the ring have been caught in the folds of it and so fallen? It could have done, they concluded—most decidedly, it could have.
Miss Brigstocke was at a stand—how to effect the return of the ring or to make inquiry, when they had no acquaintance with the man, who anyway seemed to be a person of quirks? Miss Hopewell had no such qualms. A letter must be written, to ask the man to call upon them, to inquire about the ring, and to thank him—although, as Miss Hopewell observed, he had not personally involved himself in their rescue and had kept all the distance he could between the ladies and himself. Miss Brigstocke suggested that this was perhaps propriety on his part—he had a sense of their inevitable obligation and wished to spare them embarrassment? Miss Hopewell recalled to herself the countenance of the man in the garden and thought not. She was conscious of some dark and broken place within her, a gap in the row of perfectly taut harp strings.
The letter was sent, but as they received no response, the matter soon faded from Miss Brigstocke’s mind. Mary Hopewell, however, thought of their carefully crafted phrases, the pains that had gone into it. Inwardly, she poured scorn on the man who plainly considered himself so much above them that he could not frame a polite reply.
• • •
One afternoon when the sun was at its zenith and the thought of movement or the thought of thought itself was so fatiguing that Mary thought she might cry with it, the two women were shelling peas in the dark parlor. The shutters were closed against the heat. Outside, the street was quiet; it was the hour of the siesta.
The green odor of the peas, their small shapes, the sound they made as they fell into the bowl, were pleasing. Mary shook her palm. The peas rattled, cool within it. It might be no bad thing, she thought idly, to be a pea on a day like this. She collected herself and gave herself a little scold. She was becoming strange. It would not do to let their solitude and the mindless tedium of the days take effect.
“I must open the shutters,” she told Miss Brigstocke. “No, never mind the dust. I am sorry for it, but I cannot sit in both the dark and the heat a moment longer.”
She moved through the dim room, exclaiming as she tripped on a stool, “I will never accustom myself to this climate. I cannot think it healthy.” Wrestling with the catches, she went on, “We must take a lesson from the Italians, Hephzibah, and learn to sleep in the afternoons. The only way I can conceive of bearing these hot hours with fortitude is to be utterly unconscious throughout them!”
As she flung the shutters crossly wide, she heard a cry and found that one of the wooden doors had met with an obstacle in the form of the dark head of a person who had, to all appearances, been listening at the window.
This person raised his head, hand clasped to his brow, which was marked with blood. Under it, his dark eyes were narrowed against the sun.
“I have come to tea,” said Don Villarca.
He was all courtesy; with a handkerchief stemming the flow of blood from his brow, he apologized for his conduct. He had returned from a visit to friends to find their letter and was stricken with remorse. Nothing would do for him but to set out immediately, and without his stick or hat, to repair the damage. The difficulties had not occurred to him until he stood without their villa; he did not know whether they were at home or willing to receive him. The shutters were closed… He had not wished to intrude—he was not polite.
“So,” he asked, “what do I do, in these circumstances? Announce myself, like any proper caller? Go away and come back again another day, when I have answered your letter? No! I skulk in the street with my ear to your window, like a dishonest parlor maid. Until Miss Hopewell”—he bowed to her—“rewards me as I deserve and brings me to my senses with a brisk blow to the head.”
Mary Hopewell was bemused by this rapid stream of confidence. A friendly, somewhat dandyish gentleman he seemed. Could he be the same man who had looked upon her so murderously? Yet the room shivered around her. The blood was scattered like rust across the purple velvet of his coat. His hand stroked the handle of his teacup. He was too vivid in the small room, his legs too long for the chair, his gaze too direct, too inquiring. It was not that he was tall, Mary thought, but that he occupied his space without apology. His voice was melodious, considered. His English was perfect and elegant. Only the faintest trace of Spanish lingered about his consonants. It hinted of another man beneath. He seemed at once both too easy and too menacing, and she did not know what to think.
“We have met, of course, Don Villarca,” Mary said. “Although no introductions were performed.”
Don Villarca tipped his head to her, polite. “Indeed?” he asked. “In London? I am mortified, Miss Hopewell. I cannot think.”
“In your garden,” Mary said. “I saw you in the garden, amid the orange trees.”
“Miss Hopewell, I would never contradict so lovely a woman—”
“You looked at me,” Mary said, “as I stood at the window…”
“—except to remark that had I the great fortune to meet you before this, it would be graven on my memory.”
Miss Brigstocke patted Mary’s hand soothingly.
“It was so very hot, my love,” she said.
“I am not mistaken,” Mary persisted. “And I was perfectly well enough to trust my senses…” Don Villarca was silent, and Miss Brigstocke looked at her kindly.
It was a small humiliation, expertly dealt. Mary’s face grew hot. The room spun. Don Villarca sipped his tea demurely. He raised his eyes; they met Miss Hopewell’s dazed ones, and she saw the cold fire that gleamed in their depths.
Don Villarca filled the air with soothing nothings. He was so gratified to have made their acquaintance, although so tardily! If his dear Mama—vaya con Dios, God rest her soul, departed one year past—had she known that he had not even inquired after them, after their upsetting time… Well, he would spare them the details. Suffice it to say that Mama was from Seville, they must understand, and Sevillan women are terrible when they are angry… On and on it went, an easy stream. All the while, his cold eyes were on Miss Hopewell. The words of old tales flew through her mind, half remembered: of bargains and pomegranate seeds. By agreeing to take their lukewarm tea and stale cake (the much abused Gabriela having chosen today—of all days!—to take an unexpected afternoon off) in their stuffy room with mid
ges darting in the corners, he meant something else…
“Tell me, Don Villarca,” said Miss Hopewell, alarmed by the pitch of her voice, “how precisely would she—excuse me, your esteemed mother—have punished you? For I am terribly stupid; it seems to me that you are a man full grown. Your mother still had nursery privileges over you? To give you a sound whipping? Is this your meaning?”
Don Villarca turned smoothly to her. There was no trace now of the savage face that Miss Hopewell had glimpsed in the garden. Yet she looked on him and trembled, as the puppy had, under his eye. It seemed to her that the dim room winked black; it was filled with the scent of the warm night land.
“But no, Miss Hopewell,” said Don Villarca. “Indeed, she would never have done such a thing. That would not be fitting for me, or for her. No. She would have done far, far worse. She would, very publicly, have cut me! But she cannot do it now.” He smiled kindly. “Perhaps you did not mean to speak so, of the dead.”
Fear touched Mary then, gentle and cold.
The ring—alas!—was not to be found, but Don Villarca would have them search the carriage too. And may he offer the ladies such a carriage when they wished to drive? He kept one in Siena, which was not put to any use at all—a scandal in fact, and he would be obliged to them for justifying this woeful extravagance on his part. It was not right that they had no carriage, when the surrounding country was beautiful.
Miss Hopewell meant to rebuff his offers. She knew that they must not take these seeming alms, offered to the poor. But when her look met his, her tongue became as a stone. The quality of his gaze, it reminded her of something, an animal… She mocked herself for her nervous fancy. He was merely overbearing—it was common in vain men—and she had borne worse. Mary felt herself recovered, and then she was drawn again toward the long, dark tunnel of his eye.
Miss Brigstocke was speaking of Bristol, which she liked. “I cannot call it home,” she said. “I do not believe I have the right to name any place such. No indeed. One must shift, as a governess, you know!” Here, she grew flustered. “Or rather, you, sir, would not know, and there is no earthly reason why you should. But there are places that speak to one, are there not?”
The Girl from Rawblood Page 21