by Blood
He took the receiver from its cradle and held it out to Clete. Clete walked to the bed, sat down, and took the receiver from Enrico.
"What can I do for you, Father?"
"I have been busily taking care of my pastoral duties, and I thought you might he interested in learning the result," the priest announced cheerfully.
If he had bad news, he wouldn't be so cheerful!
"Absolutely!"
"First of all, I called on the Bishop, to explain the role you and Father Denilo would like him to take in the mass tomorrow. And the subject somehow turned to the waiving of the banns of marriage, which is permitted under canon-ical law when a bishop determines there are extraordinary circumstances. In these extraordinary circumstances-"
"You told him the circumstances?" Clete interrupted.
"Not in specific detail. I think the Bishop formed the impression that I had learned of the extraordinary circumstances through the confessional booth; and of course, he could not ask me to reveal matter I had learned in my role as con-fessor. In any event, the Bishop feels that he can in good conscience permit your marriage in fourteen days. He also indicated that if you asked him to officiate, he would grant your request."
"And what do we do about her father?"
"That proved less of a problem than I thought. After I spoke to Claudia, she telephoned him and asked him to reconsider his decision not to come to Estancia Santo Catalina. She told him that I was here and wanted to speak to him about you and Dorotea." The priest laughed.
"That's funny?"
"Se¤or Mallin responded that Claudia should thank me very much indeed for my interest, but to tell me there was no longer cause for my concern. He was already aware of your regrettable and impossible interest in Dorotea and had taken the necessary steps to bring the situation under control."
"And?" Clete asked, chuckling.
Why am I laughing?
"At that point, Claudia told him that I was standing beside her, and why didn't he tell me that himself?"
"And?"
"He did so. I had to correct his belief that the situation was under his con-trol, and to explain his options, as I saw them."
"Which are?"
"The one he chose is to accept your invitation to stay with you at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo tonight. Tomorrow, his family will be seated in the family pews-to the right of the altar-of La Capilla Nuestra Se¤ora de los Milagros. With the exception, of course, of Dorotea."
"They're coming out here?"
Welner ignored the question.
"During the mass, Dorotea will be seated beside you on the chairs-in front of the family pews-reserved for el Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and his wife. When the service is over, she will take your arm and the two of you will lead the exit procession of the laity. Immediately afterward, she will stand beside you at the head of the reception line, as you greet your guests."
"He went along with this?" Clete asked incredulously. "You said they're coming out here today?"
"They are at this moment en route and should be here within the hour. But let me finish. I told Se¤or Mallin that Dorotea's prominent role in the ceremony should suggest to just about everyone present that the relationship between you and Dorotea is long-standing, has had all along the approval of the respective families, and that because of your recent loss, there is nothing really extraordi-nary in your electing to have a small, private wedding in two weeks here at the Estancia."
"You're an amazing fellow, Padre."
"So I have been told. I prefer to think of myself as a simple priest, a simple shepherd, encouraging the erring members of my flock to do the right thing," Welner said with outrageous piety, then added: "And Se¤or Mallin didn't really have much of a choice, did he?"
"He could have said no." Clete said, laughing. "Not only no but 'over my dead body.'"
"But that, my son, might have been misinterpreted by some people-as matters of this kind often are. The word might have been whispered around the Jockey Club that 'there goes poor Henry Mallin. Foolish chap, thinking he was onto a good thing, practically threw his daughter at Cletus Frade, who, after sampling the merchandise decided he'd rather not endow the young lady with all his worldly goods.' He would, I knew, find something like that hard to take."
"Good God! You didn't say anything like that to him, did you?"
"Let us say that I suggested to Se¤or Mallin that it would really look better all around if you appeared eager to take his daughter as your bride. You are pre-pared to do that, aren't you, Cletus? To eagerly endow Dorotea with all your worldly goods?"
"Of course," Clete said, chuckling.
"Good. Now that you've had a chance to consider how many worldly goods you now possess, I was a little concerned that you might have had second thoughts."
"I hope you're kidding."
"Another reason I called, Cletus, is that Claudia suggested there is proba-bly a ring which might be suitable for Dorotea in your father's strongbox."
"What strongbox?" Clete asked, and turned to Enrico. "Is there a strongbox around here?"
"In the library, Se¤or Clete."
"Enrico says there's a strongbox in the library."
"That's probably it. Why don't you have a look? I think it would be nice when I come for dinner- Did I mention that Claudia suggested you ask me to dinner?"
"Why don't you have dinner with us, Father?"
"Thank you very much. Very kind of you. It would be nice, as I was saying, if when I come over there, Dorotea had an engagement ring on her finger. And even more for people to notice tomorrow morning."
"Christ, you're something."
"I'll be over there, probably, before your fianc‚e and her family arrive," the priest said, and the line went dead.
Clete put the receiver back in its cradle and stood up.
"Show me the strongbox, Enrico," he said, and then turned to Lauffer. "I have just been informed that my fianc‚e and her family will be joining us for dinner. I know, a moment ago, I told you I was not engaged. A moment ago, I wasn't. Now I am."
"Well, then let me be the first to offer my congratulations," Lauffer said.
Chapter Fourteen
[ONE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1805 11 April 1943
The strongbox turned out to be just that, a metal box reinforced with thick wrought-iron bands, and closed with two enormous padlocks. It was concealed in a huge leather trunk set against one wall of the library. After Enrico showed it to Clete, he retrieved the padlock keys from behind a set of Compton 's Pic-ture Encyclopedia.
The strongbox held two small wooden boxes, resting on top of what ap-peared to be legal documents. Clete picked up the first box and started to open it.
"Where's that whiskey you promised us, Enrico?" he asked.
Inside was a collection of discarded male jewelry, cuff links, studs, pocket watches, wristwatches, tie pins, tie clips, and rings. The watches and rings had tags tied to them, identifying their owners. Clete looked at several of them. There was one huge gold ring with maybe a dozen half-carat diamonds sur-rounding a deeply engraved Frade family crest; its tag read Guillermo Jorge Frade.
That looks just like something Uncle Willy would wear.
He put the ring back in the box and picked up the second box. It contained discarded female jewelry-broaches, necklaces, rings, pendants, and wrist watches. Rolling around loose on the bottom of box were what looked like sev-eral hundred pearls. He saw the rotted-through strings they had escaped. More than two dozen rings were each tagged with a name. But only three could pass for engagement rings. He read the tags. Only one name-Maria Elena Pueyrred¢n de Frade-meant anything to him, and that tag was attached to the least impressive of the three rings. It was old and worn thin, and the stone was tiny compared to the stones in the other rings.
That's a pity. It would have been nice if that one, in particular, had been the sort of thing I could giv
e Dorotea. The reason "the blood of Pueyrred¢n "flows through my veins. And now of our baby.
Well, hell, I'll show her these, and tell her to pick one just for the circus to-morrow. I'll tell her I'll buy her any damned ring she wants later.
He untied the tags and slipped the three rings in his pocket. Enrico was holding out a whiskey glass to him. Clete took it. "Close it up, Enrico," he ordered.
Thirty minutes later. Antonio came into the library to announce the arrival of the Mallin family.
Clete rose quickly out of his chair and started to walk to the library door. The action caused him to realize that his belief thirty-five minutes earlier that Cousin Jorge Alejandro's English riding boots fit perfectly was grossly in error.
"Christ!" he exclaimed, surprised at the intensity of the pain in his feet.
"New boots, eh?" Roberto asked innocently.
By the time he reached the foyer, maids were carrying in the Mallin lug-gage, Enrico Mallin was himself in the doorway, and Clete was hobbling in pain.
Enrico Mallin's eyebrows rose questioningly as Clete limped across the tile floor and put out his hand to him.
"Thank you for coming, Se¤or Mallin," he said.
"How good of you to ask us," Mallin replied, with a smile that Clete thought deserved the all-time, all-category prize for insincerity. The handshake conveyed the same message.
"Have you met el Capitan Lauffer?" Clete asked as Pamela Mallin came through the door.
She laid her hands on his arms and moved her face to his ear.
"I don't know whether I want to kiss you or kill you," she said. "How could you, Cletus?"
His attention was distracted when he saw Dorotea pass through the door. She was wearing a sweater and a skirt, and her hands were folded modestly in front of her. Her head was bent shyly. She looked very quickly at Clete and then lowered her head again.
Christ, she's beautiful!
"How could I what?" Clete asked absently.
"You know very well-" Pamela said, and then, blushing, interrupted her-self.
Little Henry came in the door.
"Little Mr. Big Mouth," Clete said.
That earned a faint smile from Dorotea.
"May I see you a moment, Dorotea?" he asked.
Her father glowered at him.
He walked to her, fishing for the rings in his pocket. He held the three of them out to her, displayed in his palm.
"Pick one," he said. "Just for tonight and tomorrow. I'll get you another one later."
"Are you trying to give me a ring or loan me one?" Dorotea demanded.
"They're all yours, if you want them," he said. "I didn't think you'd like-"
"This is exquisite!" she said, picking up one of the rings. "You can be such a bloody fool, Cletus!"
She slipped the ring on her finger, met his eyes defiantly for a moment, and then called, "Daddy, look at the exquisite ring Cletus gave me."
Her father examined the ring for all of half a second.
"How nice," he said.
"That's old," Pamela Mallin said, an observation, not a criticism.
"It belonged to my great-grandmother," Clete said. "Maria-Elena Pueyrred¢n de Frade."
"Then it belongs in a museum," Pamela said. "The National Museum, not on Dorotea's finger."
"It's mine," Dorotea said. "Cletus gave it to me. It'll go into a museum over my dead body!"
[TWO]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
2010 11 April 1943
Humberto and Beatrice Duarte arrived twenty minutes after the Mallin family. By then Enrico Mallin had had two stiff drinks of whiskey.
It was a very long twenty minutes.
Once Enrico Mallin had inquired into the well-being of el Capitan Lauffer and his wife, little seemed available to talk about, at least that either he or his wife had to say to Cletus H. Frade, at least in front of Lauffer.
Sensing this, Lauffer raised an eyebrow and gave his head a tilt, asking Clete if he should leave the library. Clete placed his hands together as if in prayer and shook his head, meaning that he would very much prefer for Lauf-fer not to leave him alone with his father-in-law-to-be.
When Humberto came through the door, Clete felt an enormous sense of relief. That, however, did not last long.
With tears in his eyes, Humberto wrapped his arms around Clete and wetly kissed both his cheeks. Feeling another male's stubble against his own made Clete uncomfortable.
"God is good," Humberto announced emotionally. "The Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth. A new life! I will pray that it will be a son."
Dorotea looked very uncomfortable.
The face of Roberto Lauffer, who was standing beside Clete, made it quite clear that he understood the meaning of the term "new life."
At the same moment, Enrico Mallin's face made it quite clear that he did not regard the new life as a manifestation of the generosity of the Supreme Be-ing. He allowed himself to be embraced by Humberto, then held out his glass to one of the maids for a refill.
"I found those documents you were concerned about," Clete said.
It took a long moment for understanding to register on Humberto's face.
"Oh, good," he said finally.
Since he is anything but stupid, he must be drunk. I didn't think that was af-tershave I smelled when he kissed me. And that "God is Good!" speech!
"What documents are those?" Beatrice asked.
"Some business dealings I have with von Wachtstein," Humberto replied, "nothing to concern yourself about, my dear."
And he has a big mouth. My God!
"Oh," she said, and put the subject out of her mind.
As soon as she walked in, it was immediately apparent to Clete that Bea-trice was again-still?-detached from reality, heavily dosed with what Hum-berto euphemistically called her medicine. The odds were remote that she would ever remember the exchange, Clete decided.
But Enrico Mallin and Roberto Lauffer both heard von Wachtstein's name, and it caught their attention.
It soon became apparent that while Father Welner had apparently told both Humberto and Beatrice that Clete and Dorotea were to be married, he appar-ently told them separately, and left Dorotea's pregnancy out of the version for Beatrice.
The minute the priest showed up, just before they were going into dinner, Beatrice went after him.
"I don't want to talk about it at dinner," Beatrice said, "but I don't want to hear one more word about a small wedding here, and in the next few weeks. That's simply out of the question. What would people think?"
The faces of Se¤or and Se¤ora Mallin made it clear they had already con-sidered what people were going to think.
"I agree," Welner said, "that it is not a matter we should talk about at dinner."
Beatrice then talked about nothing at dinner but the wedding she thought Dorotea and Clete should have, starting with a detailed account of her own wedding, and moving through weddings she thought had been "done well," and then on to the relative merits and disadvantages of celebrating the Frade-Mallin nuptials at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo or in the city.
Hardly touching her food, Dorotea sat through it all with her head bent.
It was only with a great effort, buttressed with pity, that Clete was able to keep himself from taking Humberto into the corridor and asking him, for Christ's sake, to shut his blabbering wife up.
And seeing the looks she was getting from Enrico Mallin, he was surprised that Mallin didn't say something to her.
It was Mallin, however, who finally ended it.
The coffee had just been served, and with it snifters of cognac. Antonio moved to each of the men, offering cigars from a humidor.
Mallin suddenly pushed himself away from the table and lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair, his wineglass, his water glass, and his untouched cognac snifter. The heavy crystal water glass fell onto the snifter, smashing it. He didn't seem to notice; but his wife's hu
miliation showed on her face. Little Henry giggled.
"With your kind permission, Cletus," Se¤or Enrico Mallin said, carefully pronouncing each syllable, "we will ask to be excused. It has been a long day, and we have a busy day tomorrow."
"Of course," Cletus said, rising to his feet.
The perfect end, Clete thought, to a perfectly lousy dinner.
The Mallins left the dining room. Dorotea didn't even look at Clete.