12
He echoed her words. “About the family? What do you mean?”
“Oh, Santiago. You’ve heard many stories of your precious mother, I know, but you’ve never heard as much as a whisper about your father, have you? I think it’s time you did. With Gerald gone, and now your grandfather, there’s hardly anyone left who knows the full story. We need to change that before I too go to meet my Maker.”
Santiago felt a bolt of excitement, followed almost immediately by a stabbing fear. He hated the thought of one day losing Benecio. She was the only family he’d ever known.
He considered her, nestled into the sofa’s squashy cushions, waiting expectantly for fresh coffee. The youthful energy that had been so evident for most of her life wasn’t showing in her face today. Her complexion was tinged with gray, the bags under her eyes adding deep shadows to a once-perfect caramel complexion. She didn’t look as if she was sleeping well.
He was about to ask after her health when heavy footsteps sounded in the tiled hall and Leo burst into the room trailed by the housekeeper flapping her hands and crying, “Perdone, senora, perdone!”
Leo ignored her, patently unwilling to observe any niceties. When he saw Santiago sitting opposite his mother he halted abruptly and the housekeeper barely avoided colliding with his back.
“What’s he doing here?” He glared at Benecio. “Mother? I said, what’s he doing here?”
Benecio raised her eyebrows quizzically. “And good afternoon to you too, son. It must be, what, at least six months since you were last here. Surely you can greet your old mother before launching in?”
Leo sat down next to her in an impatient whoosh, leaned over and pecked her cheek. “Sorry. I’m in a hurry. I thought you’d understand.”
“What’s so important that you can’t observe the normal courtesies?”
Leo glared at Santiago. “It’s a private matter.” He blew out an impatient breath. Santiago ignored him.
“Santiago, can you get lost? I want to talk to my mother.”
Benecio took hold of his arm. “Leo, please. This rudeness is completely unnecessary. Santiago and I are about to have coffee and a private discussion. He got here first. Go to the kitchen and Ana will find you something to eat. We can talk later.”
Leo scowled. He stood abruptly, wheeling around to face the wall behind him, eyes alighting on the portrait of a white-bearded man in military uniform.
“What’s this I hear about Grandad’s will?”
Benecio’s bland humor vanished. She sat very still and straight, her eyes glittering. “What about it?”
“Is it true? That he’s left Aunt Lucia’s share to him?” He tilted his head in Santiago’s direction, his voice sneering.
“Why is that any concern of yours?”
Leo thrust his hands into his pockets and swiveled toward the door as if he was going to leave and then thought better of it.
“It is, isn’t it? True, I mean. How could he? First Francine asks him to be godfather of the first grandchild of our generation. Now this. It’s as good as announcing to the world that the Carver family doesn’t care about family honor.
“Here I am, working my fingers to the bone to get a partnership in one of the best law firms in San Francisco. Headed by a man whose wife sees herself as the guardian of public morals. Do you think they’re going to take on a partner whose family rewards bastards? That spits in the face of all respectability, legitimacy, rectitude, decorum, correctness . . .” Leo’s face reddened as he raved. Dots of spittle flecked his tidy sandy mustache.
“All right, Leo, we get the picture.” Benecio plucked at the wool tassel on the cushion she’d pulled into her lap and let her eyes rove over Leo’s agitated face. “This hasn’t got anything to do with your suit for the beautiful Josefa’s hand, by any chance? Have you anything to tell your old mother on that score?”
Leo bared his teeth. “What do you think, mother? How many times can we snub society’s rules and still be welcome in the best drawing rooms? You of all people should get that.”
13
“Well, thank goodness for that.”
Benecio relaxed back into the cushions, a coffee cup and saucer perched in one hand. Ana had returned with fresh coffee and had ushered the still-fuming Leo back to the kitchen for a snack.
Aunt Bene leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, hands clasped, and fixed Santiago with one of her looks. “And you’re not a bastard. I won’t have you called that.”
Santiago spread his hands in a placatory gesture. “It’s fine. I’ve been called worse.”
Benecio shook her head. “But it’s not accurate. Californios have a special Spanish phrase for your situation, and that’s hujo natural — a natural child of his parents. Born outside of wedlock, yes. But not a bastard. In our world once the parents of a hujo natural married — even if was years after the birth — everything was legitimized from that point on. Such an enlightened way to handle it. Luisa would have been distraught to hear you insulted like that, because before the Americans came that’s how we viewed it.”
Santiago shrugged. “I suppose from where Leo stands the only opinion that counts is Americano.” He grinned. “But do go on, Aunt Bene. Now you’ve started, you’ve got to finish this story.”
He was feeling feverishly hot one moment, shivery cold the next, and his insides quivered. He couldn’t decide if he was excited at the prospect of finally learning his father’s name, or terrified at what the truth might hold. Perhaps both at the same time.
“Please go on. I can’t stand the suspense.”
“Oh, Santiago. Where to start?” She smiled fondly at him. “Deep breath and dive in, I suppose. My two sisters, Luisa and Dominga — one older than me, one younger — were romanced by the same man. Right under our noses, in the family home, the sneak. It was easy for your father, because he was always here, doing business with the General. We all liked him. But he broke a sacred trust. No one realized he was flirting with both of my sisters, and neither of them knew about the other.
“It’s what happened in those days with ambitious gringos. You know how it was, thirty, forty years ago. Take up Mexican nationality, become a Catholic, and marry a Spanish rancho’s daughter. It was how men of that sort got on in the world.” She sighed. “I did it myself, for all the good it did me. But staying single wouldn’t have made things better for either you or me.”
Santiago’s palms were sweaty. “So he was courting two sisters at the same time. And what happened?”
“Luisa fell pregnant. Dominga screamed that he was promised to her. Even today, a palabra de casamiento — a promise of marriage — is binding. Although these days you’d probably have to have it in writing. Back then a woman could take a claim to the priest and force a man to marry her if she could prove he’d promised he would. And father wasn’t going to have the scandal of one of his daughters going to a priest claiming she’d been stood up at the altar. So Dominga married the gringo.”
Santiago heard nothing more.
Dominga married the gringo.
A loud rushing filled his ears. Benecio’s lips were still moving, but he couldn’t hear a word she was saying for the noise in his head.
Dougal Mackinnon was the gringo. Dougal. Rory’s father, who’d died just last year. He thought back to when he was a little kid — five or six, maybe. Rory and Dominga would come to visit, and he and Rory would play together. But Dougal? Dougal had never accompanied them.
Dougal Mackinnon was my father?
He raised a hand, as if to ward off any more words. His fingers were tingling.
“Hold on. Wait, Benecio. Give me a minute.” He took a long, measured breath. “Are you telling me that Dougal Mackinnon was my father? Rory’s Dad? Have I got it right?”
Benecio nodded, holding her silence.
“The man who did his best to bankrupt the Stewarts in a bitter feud after Dominga died?”
“The very same.” Benecio’s brows were contracted, the tips of
her mouth downturned. “He caused a lot of strife in his lifetime, did Dougal Mackinnon.”
Santiago felt a big lump forming in his throat. It was practically impossible to swallow. He opened his mouth. A croak was all that came out of it. “In heaven’s name.” He gasped. “That means Rory was my brother.” Another gasp. “Well, half-brother. And I never knew.”
An avalanche of bottled-up sorrow threatened to engulf him. All the unshed tears of not knowing he’d had a little brother, never knowing when Rory was murdered so brutally just a few months ago that it was his brother who’d perished. All the lost opportunities.
His chest heaved. He bunched up his fists and screwed them into his eyes in a vain attempt to impose some control on himself.
And so that the baby Josefa is carrying is my nephew. Or niece.
“Benecio, I need some time alone,” he gasped. “I need time to think.”
He blundered out of the drawing room and into garden. The afternoon was warm and still, the bees buzzing in Benecio’s roses a reassurance that the rest of the world had not turned upside down. Some things were the way they’d always been. As Santiago pitched blindly down the path, he inhaled the spicy rose aroma, and slumped onto a garden bench.
His head fell into his hands, and he allowed himself a long, relieved exhalation. He was alone, as he’d wanted. But would he ever make sense of what he’d just heard? At this moment, he doubted it.
In the foyer just inside the door leading out into the garden, Leo loitered, an excited, self-satisfied grin on his face. He just couldn’t suppress it.
It was something that had gnawed away at him. All his life. Why was Santiago so special? Why did Benecio’s loving glance always search him out in a room before she looked for him? No matter that he’d had a father — a good father — and Santiago had none. It was his mother’s love he’d wanted most, and he’d always come in second in the running.
It had chewed at his guts, this desire to be rid of his rival, once and for all. To get his revenge on Santiago, even if he was the apple of his mother’s eye.
He corrected himself. Because he was the apple of his mother’s eye.
And now he saw exactly how to do it.
14
“Oh Leo, there you are. Did you have a nice lunch?”
One glance at her son’s face told Benecio he was in a far better mood now than when he left them half an hour ago.
“Very nice. Ana’s huevos motuleños were excellent, I must say.” He smiled. “Love those black beans with the chili sauce and ham.”
“So.” Benecio hesitated, fearful of spoiling his good mood. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I did, Mother. About this San Francisco partnership I’m going after. It’s so important to me. It will set me up for life. I just can’t afford to miss out.”
Benecio felt a familiar heaviness wash over her. How many times had Leo come to her with demands for things he “must have right now.” The boy was still in his twenties. That was young to expect to secure a partnership in a lucrative legal practice.
“Oh, Leo, I’m sure you won’t miss out, ultimately. You’re still young. I’m sure you’ll give it a good shot, but if it doesn’t happen this time, there’ll always be another chance.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t afford to wait.”
“What do you mean you can’t afford to wait? You’ve got a good job, you’re learning lots. No one gets it all immediately.”
“Mother. Listen to me. I have to get that partnership, or I’m going to go under.”
The heaviness she’d felt intensified into a deadly weight on her chest. The breath rasped in her throat. Was she having an asthma attack? She consciously tried to slow the air going in and out of her lungs, while also calming her racing mind.
“Going under? I don’t understand. You received a very substantial inheritance from your father just two years ago. How can you say you’re in danger of going under?”
“I’ve had a bit of bad luck. Invested in a bad lot. I’ve borrowed to try and get out of it and dug myself in deeper. If I don’t get my hands on some cash very soon, I’m on the rocks.”
He gave her a winsome smile, his blue eyes wide and guileless.
Benecio let out a deep sigh. She recognized this Leo, with his “calculated to appeal” act. She’d watched it evolve from when he was a little boy, using it to get another cookie at eight years old. Now he was nearly twenty-eight, and hoping it will win him the big prize of what? Thousands?
“I need Grandad’s inheritance money. All of it. I see no reason on earth why it shouldn’t go to me rather than that … that mongrel of Lucia’s. She only brought disgrace on this family and now he threatens to do the same. He should just get back in his hole.”
The sunny smile had vanished, replaced by the much more familiar jealous scowl.
“Leo, it isn’t mine to dispense. Your grandfather made his choices and they must be honored. Surely as a lawyer you understand that?”
“What if I were to challenge it in court?”
She gave a short sharp laugh. “I can’t see you risking the bad publicity to do that. Wouldn’t you just be drawing attention to a situation you want to keep hidden?”
Leo clenched his fists, and his voice rose in register. “It would have been best if they’d all died. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with this.”
“Leo, who are you talking about?”
“You know very well. Santiago. Dougal and Dominga.”
Benecio’s heart chilled, her pulse slowed.
“You’ve been eavesdropping.” Her voice cracked. “Listening in on a conversation that was none of your business.” She spat out the words with a venom she rarely felt. “Leo, I warn you. If you make any attempt to use this information to harm anyone, anyone at all, I will see to it that you live to regret it. Do I make myself clear?”
Leo’s blue eyes widened at the finality of her statement. She’d never spoken to him like this ever before. His jaw remained clenched shut.
“Do you understand?”
“Why is he so important?” The bitterness spewed out with the words. “Why do you care so much? It’s always been the same. It’s all about Santiago.”
“Leo, that’s a ridiculous thing to say and you know it. From the time you were born your father always ensured you took precedence. You got the best tutors while Santiago was sent off to the orphan’s wing with the foster children. From the age of ten Gerald sent him off to the brothers for most of his lessons. You know that. How can you say it’s all about Santiago when it so plainly wasn’t?”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Leo, I’m telling you. Anything you overheard today, forget it. It’s none of your concern. Do you understand? You’ve had more than your fair share. You’ll just have to learn to live with what you’ve got.”
Leo’s mouth curled. A corded vein throbbed in his neck. “You’ll live to regret this conversation, Mother. I can tell you that. One day, you’ll remember this and be very sorry.”
He bunched his fists at his sides and strode out.
15
“Caleb, Josefa. Come quickly. There’s something you must know.”
Leo had gone to his mother’s in a somewhat lackadaisical mood, hinting he was making some new arrangements to do with his grandfather’s will. He arrived back a day later full of drive, with a sense of mission Caleb previously hadn’t seen in him.
“I have information that has a direct material impact on the well-being and understanding of your — of our family.”
The siblings exchanged bewildered looks and Caleb gestured to an armchair in the family sitting room. “You’d better sit down. I’ll get Rosario to bring in some coffee.” He ducked out to let her know while Leo smirked.
“Did your visit to your mother’s go well?” asked Josefa, aware her face was reddening from resorting to such a blatant “fishing” question.
“Well enough,” Leo answered. “You’ll certainly be shocked t
o hear what I learned there.”
Caleb came back into the room. “Rosario will be here in a few minutes.” He plopped down in a chair opposite Leo. “So, what’s the cause of all the excitement?”
Leo took a few moments to compose himself. “It’s a very serious matter I have to report, very serious indeed. But as Josefa’s fiancé, I feel it’s my obligation to alert you.”
“Alert us to what?” asked Josefa. “You’re sounding awfully dramatic, Leo.”
“This isn’t a minor matter, Josefa. It’s tragic what’s been going on.”
“Tragic?” said Caleb. “Oh, for goodness sake, Leo, out with it.”
“It’s Santiago. He’s a Judas in your midst. For years now, he’s taken full advantage of your kindness to him while he’s been plotting against you behind your backs.”
The Stewart siblings stared at Leo, both too shocked to speak. Then Caleb chuckled. “That sounds like total nonsense to me, Leo. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Leo turned to Josefa. “Josefa, do you have any idea who Santiago’s father is, or rather was?”
She shook her head.
“You Caleb? Any idea?”
“As far as I know, his father has never been identified. Even Santiago doesn’t know who he is. It’s personal, and it’s never been relevant.”
“What if I told you that his father was none other than Dougal Mackinnon, the scoundrel who’s made your life hell for the last decade?”
Josefa’s hand flew to her mouth. “That can’t be! He’d have said something, surely.”
“The fact that he didn’t just makes it all the more sinister. How do you know he hasn’t been plotting with the Mackinnons all along? Acting as a spy in your household? Who knows, he might even have had a hand in Rory’s death. How would you know, if someone can be that deceitful?”
Caleb jumped up, pulling at his hair, so agitated that when he spoke next, he stammered. “S-s-stop it, Leo, Stop it.”
Hope Redeemed--A Spanish Novella Page 4