Luckstones (9 page)

It was bitter to realize as well that she was a danger to them.
Angrily, because she was so deeply aware of her obligation to them, Thea
refused the only option that might have made her and the convent safe again:
membership in the community.

One of the kitchen sisters was sitting on a stool by the orchard
gate and shelling beans. Thea smiled stiffly at her, dipped a curtsy as she
passed through the gate, and started off for the orchard and the field beyond
it, her steps as long as her height and the weight of her habit would permit.
Silvy wore her own gowns, grey and black—sober enough for a nun, Thea had
always thought. It had been decided when they arrived and were granted
sanctuary that Thea should wear a novice’s habit, both as a disguise to
cover her short, feathery, blond hair, and as a practical measure. Her day
dresses were not suited to conventual life or to nursing.

She was hoping to walk off some of her anger and worry; she
was ashamed as always of the feelings every kindly-meant whisper and glance
occasioned in her. A damnable sort of kindness that made her ever more aware of
what a nuisance and trial she was to everyone. Especially Silvy, she thought
miserably. That was hard: Silvy had practically raised her, had been the
affectionate, worrying counterpoint to her father’s easygoing, neglectful
presence. Silvy had come to England when her cousin Celia married Sir Henry
Cannowen, and, on Celia’s death seven years later, she had stayed to
raise Celia’s daughter, Dorothea. Thea had always known that Silvy
disapproved of her father and that Sir Henry disliked her cordially. Privately,
Thea had always enjoyed her blustery wastrel father, as she would a
delightfully foolish companion, but she understood Silvy’s distress at
him and the way he held household. Thea had never realized, until her father’s
death, that Silvy’s dislike went beyond Sir Henry to include all of
England and all things English. Watching Silvy as she spent weeks closeted with
Sir Henry’s man of business, Thea saw the worried frown on her long,
somber face deepen and heard increasingly bitter remarks about “this
country,” “these people,” “this place.”

None of Sir Henry’s family, which had been as little
pleased by his marriage to Celia Ibañez-de Silva as her family had been,
vouchsafed any assistance or advice after his death. It was a shocking thing
for Henry to have died so young, and was it not fortunate that, while the
Baronetcy had passed on to a cousin, Sir Henry’s estate was not entailed.
The fact that Grahamley Hall was the only thing of value left to Dorothea, and
that her father’s debts nearly outweighed the value of the estate, did
not soften anyone’s heart. Dorothea’s grandmother, her aunts—Susan
and Eliza—her uncle Edmund, all sent polite condolences. None was willing
to attend Sir Henry’s funeral, let alone to take in his daughter.

Silvy and Thea had stayed on at Grahamley as long as they
could; they watched the slender monies of Dorothea’s inheritance
disappear, as if by magic: servants’ wages, mourning clothes, food,
stable expenses, a thousand minor, damning things. In the end, it had been a
neighbor, Mrs. Haddersleigh, who provided a solution to their slow
impoverishment. “What I don’t see,” she had said, her plump,
mittened hands clutching at the thin china teacup, as if she suspected it were
capable of flight, “What I do not see is why you do not simply sell this
place and go to your mama’s relatives in Spain. Surely they would be
delighted to see you?” Then she added, lest Thea think her unneighborly, “You
know, dear Miss Cannowen, that I would invite you to stay with us; only, Mr.
Haddersleigh was saying just the other day that his cousin Sophy must needs
come to us again this summer. Besides, my dear, I am afraid he has the most
gothick objections to foreigners. Not that
you
are foreign, of course,
but. . . ..” She glanced at Silvy’s impassive face with insensitive
meaning.

Dorothea had hastily ushered Mrs. Haddersleigh from the
house; she heartily wished her at Jericho and returned to the drawingroom full
of apologies. Silvy was smiling.

“That one,” she began disdainfully. “That
Mrs. Haddersleigh is an imbecile, but she is right.
Niña,
we will go to Spain!
Your aunts and uncles there will take us in; your grandfather, the
Barón,
he
will arrange a marriage. . . .”

“Wonderful,” Thea said dryly. Silvy was not to
be stopped. For days, while their debating and considering went on, Thea was
overwhelmed with stories of Spain, of sunshine, and of gracious, happy people. “The
English are like frogs!” Silvy pronounced baldly. “I never wanted
your mama to come to this place,
niña.
Now, when we go back, you will
see what real people are.”

The more that Dorothea had considered the matter, the more
it seemed the solution to their problems. There was no future for her now in
England but to go as governess, and Silvy would never have countenanced that. “You
are Ibañez-de Silva,” she protested when Thea first offered the idea. “Even,
you are Cannowen. Your papa would never have allowed such a thing!”

“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 Mother 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.”