The Spanish Marriage (11 page)

He turned his back to her to allow her some privacy. Thea shed
her jacket and skirt and crawled into the delicious, if lumpy bed. After a
while she heard Matlin’s deepening breath across the room and began to
drift toward sleep herself. On the edge of consciousness a face appeared in her
mind; she recognized it and sat bolt upright.

“Matlin,” she hissed. There was no reply. “Oh,
for God’s sake.” Careless of her appearance she crawled out of bed
and padded across the room to where her husband lay.

“Matlin!” She shook him and succeeded in getting
from him a grumbled acknowledgement. “Wake up; please, you
must.
”

He rolled sleepily over onto his back and peered up at her, one
of his hands moving gently to her chin. “What is it, sweetheart?”
he murmured. Stung by the momentary sweetness in his voice, Thea was almost
unable to continue, but after a moment Matlin’s eyes cleared, and his
hand dropped. “Forgive me,” he said. “What?”

“That man followed us here.” Aware that she was
making little sense, Thea forced herself to start again, reminding him of the
drunken farmer who had hovered so near them in the inn yard the night after
they crossed the border. “He didn’t come in after us, so I supposed
I was just being stupid, but, Matlin, I swear he was one of the men by the
cookshed tonight.”

Matlin swore. “If you’re right, I must tell
Roybal. He is to be trusted, but I couldn’t vouch for any of his men.
Whatever happens, child, you stay here. Keep with the women; you should be safe
enough.”

“You’re going out now?” She heard her
voice go high with panic.

“Hadn’t I best find out what’s afoot now,
rather than wait to see if we’re murdered in our beds? Get some sleep,
Thea. Think of riding in style to Oporto tomorrow: I hope you’re a good
sailor.” It was again the tone of an adult to a child. He turned his back
as she went to bed, and left the room without another word.

Thea could not sleep. She lay on the mattress unmindful of
the comfort, listening for sounds of trouble, wondering what had happened.
Once, not far from her window, she heard men talking in rapid Portuguese. Each
birdcall, the chirping of each cricket assumed sinister proportions. More than
once, silently so as not to disturb the night, Thea prayed that Matlin would be
safe.

Near dawn the doorlatch rattled and Thea sat up, biting her
lip, afraid to scream and wanting very badly to do so. Matlin edged into the
room without looking in her direction and tiptoed toward the heap of blankets
he had left on the floor.

“Well?” she hissed.

“You should be asleep.”

“How could I be? What happened?”

“You were right.” In the darkness his smile was
a white shadow. “We have you to thank, child. Evidently he thought I was
some sort of representative of British intelligence.”

“But what happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Go to sleep. Roybal took care of him.”
Thea shivered at the tone of his voice on those last words, and her curiosity
flagged.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said
very softly.

“Ehh? What?”

“Nothing. Go to sleep.” She turned over.

o0o

The next morning Roybal quietly greeted Thea as a heroine,
the savior of his family and his home. He moved from fluid Portuguese to highly
inventive, broken English and back again. Thea smiled at him and nodded, but
her head hurt, and she felt tired and dizzy from so little sleep. She smiled
again and again by way of thanks to Senhora Roybal as Matlin brought their
bundles out of their room. Finally, after a breakfast of smiles and
enthusiastic nods, Roybal took his guests to find his friend with the barge in
Peso da Regua. He had offered to buy the mules himself, and Matlin’s
pocket now held a few precious gold coins with which to buy their passage. Thea
watched the three-cornered bargaining between her husband, the bargeman, and
Roybal as interpreter, arguing loyally for both men. When at last Thea and
Matlin climbed onto the barge, their bundles with them, he had two of his five
gold pieces left.

The trip down the river took less than a full day; the currents
were good, and the bargeman was familiar with the journey. Thea concentrated on
the scenery, trying to distract herself from the mild discomfort in her stomach
and the fierce pain in her head. She was achingly tired but unable to sleep
and, when Matlin brought out their food that afternoon, she was unable to eat
either. The bargeman offered Matlin wine, which he refused with a significant
glance at Thea. He seemed a little kinder today, she thought hazily. Even
without counting that “sweetheart” of the night before which had so
deeply affected her, Thea thought the distance was a little less. Perhaps there
was hope after all. She kept silent, still unsure of what to say or how to
please him. It was enough for now that there was hope.

o0o

The sun had almost set when the bargeman docked in Oporto.
Matlin left Thea in the charge of the bargeman and his wife, who met the boat
at the dock, and went off to learn the news of ships in the harbor. There were
soldiers everywhere, but Thea had worried so much that, now, curiously, she
could not worry more. His Portuguese, at least, was little worse than his
Spanish, which was more than Thea could say. While she sat with the bargeman’s
wife in the shelter of a patio and watched crates being unloaded on the dock,
Matlin reappeared, dirty and fatigued but with a grin of triumph.

“I’ve found us passage, a trifle unconventional.
It’s a privateer from America that does a little, uhh, traffic in Exeter.
For a price, which I had, and the promise of silence when we reach England, a
promise which I was happy to make for both of us, the Captain was willing to
take us on. We may have to go ashore in a rather rough and ready manner, you
understand.”

“Smuggled in, I gather.” Thea said dryly.

“Scruples?”

“Me? I was just trying to clarify the situation.”
She turned and made shift to thank the bargeman’s wife. Then she picked
up her bundles and pronounced herself ready to go. One of the privateer’s
crew would take them out to the ship in a dory, Matlin explained. By habit Thea
fell in behind Matlin and thought as she did so that this would be the last
time she needed to adopt that subservient, wifely manner.

By the time they reached the
Lark
Thea was thoroughly
chilled and shivering. The
Lark
was a small, fast-looking boat; her
fittings reflected the moonlight with a dull glow. Her captain was obviously
anxious to sail as soon as possible. “The mate will show you your cabin,
miss. I’d suggest, begging your pardon, that you stay there for the trip.
The crew is made up of a good sort of lads, but a woman on board is what they
ain’t used to.”

“I’ll undertake to see that she stays below,
sir,” Matlin assured him, and he followed after as Thea was led to a tiny
cubby that showed signs of rapid evacuation of the mate’s belongings.

“You’ll be all right? You look tired. You
needn’t fear—I will be bedding down with the crew, so....”

Bitterness vied with exhaustion: Matlin was so determined to
have nothing to do with her. It was best to show him she cared not in the
least. “I want only one thing,” she croaked.

“What?”

“A basin. You asked yesterday if I was a good sailor?
I’m not, I was wretched all day on that barge, and I don’t imagine
I’ll be any better now.”

The look which crossed Matlin’s face was so comical a
mixture of panic and concern that, once he had left the cabin, Thea laughed a
little, until the ache in her head made her stop again.

Thea spent the endless week on the
Lark
in the mate’s
cabin and was too miserable most of the time to do more than yearn for sleep.
Her seasickness was compounded by influenza; reality and dreams had an
uncomfortable way of confusing themselves. She hovered between feverish
hallucination, nausea, and an endless, punishing thirst. Matlin attended her
with the scant amenities of the
Lark’s
surgeon’s chest:
lavender water sponged on her forehead and wrists, water with lemon and barley
sugar. He was awkward enough as a nurse, but his patience would have surprised
his wife had she been well enough to notice it. When the
Lark
anchored
in a cove a few miles west of Highcliffe, Thea had recovered enough to register
the fact that they would be put ashore at midnight, but she was still too tired
to take much interest in the fact. It was Matlin who saw to their transportation,
a dogcart belonging to one of the American captain’s contacts ashore.
They made a trip of several miles through the chilly night air and arrived at
last at an inn in Bournemouth. There she was aware of being carried up stairs
and deposited on a bed that neither pitched nor smelled of stale straw, and she
slept at once.

In the morning Matlin brought her breakfast to her. Thea had
struggled up from the bed; she was wakened by the noise from the stableyard
below her window, and sat, lightheaded but more comfortable than she had been
in a week. “You’ll do,” Matlin pronounced after a brief
inspection. “God knows you look better than you have in days. Eat your
breakfast; as it is, my aunt will say I’ve been mistreating you, the way
you look now.”

Obediently Thea started on the thick porridge in her bowl.
It tasted wonderful, but she could only eat a few bites before she was full,
and neither Matlin’s reproachful look nor her own common sense could make
her eat more of the stuff.

“At least drink your milk, then. That’s the way.”
He watched her approvingly and made Thea feel five years old again. “Now,
do you think you can travel? I’m afraid I’ve run us shockingly into
debt, and I’ve sold the last of my belongings for the price of a post
chaise to London. We can take that this morning and be in London tonight. Or I
can leave you here, hire a horse from someone, ride to London alone, and bring
back my own carriage. We haven’t the blunt to stay another night here
and
to hire a chaise on the morrow.”

Her head ached, and she was suddenly, irrationally afraid of
being left there. “Don’t leave me,” she cried quickly. It was
an effort to smile after that and to assure him that she would be ready to
travel in half an hour. All she wanted was to crawl back into the narrow bed
and to lie there forever, but the thought of Matlin’s going, his leaving
her there, was more than she could bear. “If you can give me just a
little while to make myself presentable? I must look horrible.”

“If you can worry about that, you must be recovering.
Half an hour, then...I’ll send for you.”

When the landlord’s daughter appeared, Thea had
changed into the cleanest of her Spanish clothes, combed her dirty hair into a
semblance of order. She hoped the worst tangles were covered by her shawl and
washed her hands and face with the cold water that stood in the ewer by her
bed. With a look of regret at the bed, she picked up the smallest of her
bundles—the others held only scraps and filthy remnants of her other
peasant dress, and she hoped never to see them again—and followed after
the girl, down to the post chaise waiting in the courtyard. It was a shabby
vehicle, the upholstery on the seats barely containing its stuffing, but Thea
saw that someone, Matlin probably, had provided blankets and warm bricks, in an
effort to make it comfortable.

Matlin climbed into the carriage and took his seat across from
her; he composed himself quickly to nap in the far corner. Tired herself, Thea
closed her eyes and nestled into a blanket. Then, as an afterthought came to
her: “Matlin?” she murmured.

“Ummm?” He did not open his eyes.

“ Thank you...for taking care of me, I mean. It must
have been horrible, having to tend to me on that boat, and....”

“Returning my debt to you, my dear child.... Go to
sleep, if you can.” He shouldered himself deeper into the corner, away
from her.

Repaying a debt, Thea thought dully. For a moment it had seemed
to her, as it had seemed before at other times, as though he must care for her
a little. No, it was all a debt to him, one to be repaid like money. Staring
across the carriage at him, she thought: my husband. The words sounded
ridiculous. She closed her eyes, pulled up the blanket a little farther.
Married. What good had that marriage done for her after all? she wondered
sadly.

It was dark when they drew up in Hill Street; flambeaux burned
before most of the townhouses. The postboy jumped down from the box to ring the
bell of Ocott House, then stood dubiously back as if he did not expect his
passengers to have legitimate business there. Matlin busied himself with
helping Thea to the curb; he encouraged her as he might a baby, with a smile
and a “Brace up, child, we’ve come home at last!” When he
offered her his arm Thea took it, and they went up the stairs together.

A liveried manservant had opened the door and stood, mouth
frankly open, in the light from the hallway. “Sir?” he faltered.
“Godamighty, Sir Douglas, it’s never you, sir, is it?”

With a spark of enjoyment Matlin asked if his uncle was at
home.

“But Sir Douglas, we was like to go into black gloves
for you, just about. Six month back someone brought word out of Spain that you
was taken a prisoner, sir, and....”

“I’m sure it was all very dire, Platt. But must
we stand on the doorstep to discuss my untimely demise?”

Flustered, the footman backed into the house to admit Matlin
and Thea.

“There are a few parcels in the chaise which should be
fetched in, and I’d appreciate it, Platt, if you would give the postboy
his vail; I’m afraid I’m a trifle purse-bit just now.
Is
my
uncle at home?”

Over his shoulder Platt called back that Lord Ocott was dining
at White’s that evening, as his lady was at a musical evening at
Melbourne House. “I’ll send for him at once, sir. Shall I have my
lady brung home too?”