Rawblood

by Catriona Ward

  The expedition was a success, and when the following day, Miss Hopewell expressed an interest in the church at Fiesole, the words had barely left her lips when a sortie to that place was proposed.

  Miss Hopewell acquiesced to these schemes with equanimity. If the reverend did snuffle air loudly through his nose, well, it was a small price to pay for exploring the abandoned monastery of Pontignano. If he did apostrophise Miss Hopewell in a mournful tone, as a ‘poor soul’, or at other times as a ‘fragile bloom, upon a tender stalk’, why, this too could be borne if he did so as they drove through the vineyards of Chianti.

  Miss Brigstocke had qualms: she did not like to indulge the reverend’s generosity so far. It looked perhaps somewhat … pushing. Miss Hopewell soothed her: in due course the reverend would leave the district. In the interim, biddable escorts with ponies and traps did not grow on trees. One could not live always at the rock face.

  On a particularly hot day the three were taking tea in the campagna under a white umbrella, in the fashion of that time. Of a sudden Reverend Comer began to gasp; his face became an even deeper shade of puce, and acquired an uncertain sheen. Miss Hopewell and Miss Brigstocke rapidly concluded that they must seek relief for him.

  It was the ‘fragile bloom’ who proposed that they should walk together to the road where they had left their trap and hail a passing vehicle, perhaps the diligence, which travelled this road, and so summon help. This they did, and waited some time on the hot wayside. The diligence was not in evidence; the road, which was peopled – in Miss Brigstocke’s mind – with bandits, was yet empty of vehicles. Presently, however, hoof beats announced the approach of a man in rich livery, who came on a sweating horse, returning from the discharge of some duty.

  Miss Brigstocke stepped into the path of the animal, calling piteously, ‘Aiuto, per piacere, vi preghiamo di portarci a Siena!’2

  Mary seized Hephzibah’s collar and pulled her from the road, as the man attempted to wrestle his horse to a halt in a cloud of dust. At length, when all was still, he addressed Miss Brigstocke: ‘I pray you, Madam, do not throw yourself in the path of galloping horses.’

  At which Miss Hopewell said sharply, ‘You are a Devon man. I would know it anywhere.’ Her heart hurt with half-recalled things. To hear it in this place, after so long …

  ‘Aye,’ he said quietly. ‘William Shakes, madam, of Peter Tavy, on the Tavy River.’ He swept the tricorn from his head, pulling at his forelock, which revealed a pleasant face of forty years or thereabouts, topped with sandy hair, without powder or wig.

  ‘I know Peter Tavy,’ Mary said. ‘A good place for fishing. Well met, fellow countryman. But I could wish for better circumstances! You find us in straits. One of our party is indisposed. Help should be sought with all possible speed. Is your establishment nearby? Will your master admit us? Is there a doctor in the neighbourhood?’ He nodded briefly after each enquiry. Mary thought he seemed an effective, restful sort of person.

  ‘It will be done,’ he said. ‘A carriage to fetch you. Look for it.’ The horse leapt forward. Miss Hopewell and Miss Brigstocke were left with dusty faces in the empty road.

  ‘Well!’ said Miss Brigstocke, in distress, ‘to go to some strange gentleman’s house, to beg help? Mary, you have put us in a predicament. It cannot be right.’

  ‘Your solution was folly,’ said Miss Hopewell, and settled on a stone to wait.

  ‘It is what I would wish to avoid – to take such aid from a stranger, and a foreign gentleman too.’ Having lived all her life at the behest of others, the taste of obligation was bitter to Miss Brigstocke; she valued any independence that remained to her. She was averse to accepting more than she must. ‘But perhaps he will go to Siena and fetch help,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘You are putting niceties before our need,’ said Miss Hopewell with great energy. ‘A ride of two hours to the town and back – folly! All should be done with the greatest haste. If he had not chanced to pass, I would have driven the trap to the nearest house to seek help.’

  Miss Brigstocke lowered her eyes, reproved. Mary relented. ‘But, no,’ she said, ‘I could not very well leave you.’ She extended a cool gloved hand to Miss Brigstocke; an olive branch. The other took it tightly.

  Presently a large dark carriage in the Italian style came rumbling along the way, and Mr Shakes riding at its side. Two footmen, directed by the women, got the ailing clergyman into it, and Mary and Hephzibah climbed in after.

  They presently arrived at a wall whose gate, being opened, revealed a formal garden of the type not often seen in that country. Even in their fatigue and concern for their companion (whose colour had grown alarmingly high), Miss Hopewell and Miss Brigstocke’s spirits were lifted; by the perfume of flowers in the air, the rolling lawns before them, which lay lush and verdant in defiance of the white sun. The coach made its way between spreading oak trees, leaves dappling the drive in longed-for, familiar patterns of light and shade. Miss Hopewell looked about and found herself confronted by a roe deer; it regarded her briefly with a walnut eye, and fled into the trees like smoke. The drive curved to reveal a lake hemmed with rushes, upon which swans sailed; on the far side of the water lay a tall white house, encompassed by rose gardens and fruit trees. The sound of the cicadas in the distance fell strangely on their ears. The ladies felt they had stumbled into a pocket of England.

  The reverend was whisked away into the depths of the house, protesting that he felt – if not well – quite better, and that he forbade a fuss to be made … His querulous voice faded up the long staircase, and a deferential major-domo motioned the ladies to follow him down the marbled hall, to a cool parlour overlooking an orange grove, where they were given tea.

  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, bright 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 which 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 major-domo 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 cavilled 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 rippled 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 with her fingers, through the flesh – to hold it in her fist. For days after there were dark fingermarks 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 said. ‘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 which she had thought long forgotten. ‘Will you not ride with us?’ she said 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 labour, water and expense!’

  Something had wormed its way deep into Miss Hopewell. It sat sullen with knowledge in the depths of her. It wrapt leaden, parasite 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, 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 enquiry, 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 enquire 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 Ho
pewell 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 parlour. The shutters were closed against the heat. Outside, the street was quiet; it was the hour of the siesta.

  The green odour of the peas, and 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.