The Spanish Marriage (8 page)

Stiffly, Thea nodded and walked past him, past the curious
drinkers at the table, into the women’s room, alone.

After the exhaustion and bitter confusion of her wedding
day, Thea awoke the next morning after far too little sleep with her hair
matted and great dark circles under her eyes. She made a few motions at tidying
herself before she pulled her shawl down firmly over her fair hair and went out
to meet Matlin in the yard. “Very convincing,” he murmured to her. “You
look the complete peasant woman.” Then he began to abuse her loudly in
rough Spanish for a lazy, good-for-nothing wife, and Thea forced herself to remember
the parts they were playing. Later, as they passed women who walked or rode
paces behind their men, or listened to submissive murmurs,
“Si, mi
esposo,”
Thea remembered, and added their mannerisms to her own part.

They stopped each night in grimy, crowded
posadas
much
like the first, where for a few coins they had a place to sleep, and where the
food they had brought with them would be cooked in the same greasy pan which
moments earlier had held the landlord’s dinner or a farmer’s
sausage. Thea would then stumble off, dizzy with exhaustion, to the
women’s bedding, usually no more than one huge straw pallet on which all
female visitors slept, while Matlin stayed behind, listening to the men talk.
In the women’s room there was always gossip, and somehow Thea always was
brought to admit that she was newly wed; after that there was coarse, well-meant
raillery to be endured, all the more uncomfortable for her in her odd halfway
state, wife but no wife. A question plagued her even after her bedmates had dropped
off to sleep: what is wrong with me?

On the fifth day of traveling they stopped under a scruffy
tree at a roadside to eat. During these informal meals Matlin would relax a
bit, talk with her, even amuse her with stories as he had done on the afternoon
of their wedding day. “So far all I have had to do is answer simple
questions and listen,” he admitted ruefully and in English. “I go
in terror that sooner or later I will have to make a full declarative sentence
without grunts or shaking my head, and then our game will truly be up. God, but
I’ll be glad to see England again.”

“So will I,” Thea agreed. “My hair is
nearly brown with all this dirt, and I hate to think what Silvy would say about
my complexion.”

“As to your hair, the browner the better for the
nonce, I should say. A blonde is too easily remarkable, and that is simply
dangerous. As for your complexion—well, you look healthy, except for
those circles under your eyes. Don’t you sleep well, child?”

How can I, she wanted to ask, throwing his solicitous tone
in his teeth. He appeared to find nothing odd in their marriage, in the
pretense in their relations. “I’m all right,” she said at
last. Something in her voice must have disturbed Matlin; he applied himself
more heartily to his bread and cheese.

“I calculate that we have about a hundred fifty miles
to go to Oporto. From there, I should be able to locate a privateer or
man-of-war lying offshore, and we’ll have the last leg of our journey, at
least, in some comfort, child.”

I
am not a child,
she thought furiously. “We
have a way to go today, then,” was what she said.

“We’ve made a good start, in any case.” He
rose to pack away the waterskin and remains of their meal. As he reached his
feet Matlin’s face went white for a moment and he swayed, clutching the
lead rein of one of the mules to steady himself. Then he smiled unconvincingly
at Thea. “Clumsy brute.”

She would not be so easily fobbed off. “Is it your
head that hurts you? Matlin, let me see. Are you still dizzy?”

He waved off her attention irritably. “It was only for
a moment, for God’s sake. The sun—the heat—No!” he spat
as she stood on her toes to reach up and sweep aside the dark hair that covered
his scar. It looked well enough, long, ragged, but with pink healthy tissue
under the grime that covered most of his face. “For God’s sake,
girl, I’m all right.” Brusquely he pushed her aside.

“Lo siento, seguro, “
Thea snapped, as
angry as he, and clambered onto her mule without his help.

They rode silently for the rest of the afternoon, each
regretting the outburst. It was nearly sundown when they approached a largish
village which seemed unusually busy, even for this post-siesta time of day. “You
rest here,” Matlin instructed curtly. “I want to see what’s
happening in the town. If anyone comes, you’re waiting for your man; his
name is, uh, Miguel.”

“Si, Miguel, grácias. “
She watched him
tie his mule up with hers, and she stared at the dark, travel-stained back of his
jacket until he was out of sight. Then, because there was little to keep her
from thinking of herself and her husband, Thea settled herself up against a
rock and began to sing one of Sister Ana’s old songs. Gradually the late
heat of the day and fatigue made her drowsy, and she slipped into a light doze.

When she wakened it took a moment for her to recall where
she was and how long she had been waiting there. Matlin was long overdue; the
light was very nearly gone. He said to wait, but she was certain that something
had happened. His Spanish was so chancy and—she admitted to herself—that
dizzy spell of his had frightened her badly.

Standing stiffly, Thea unlashed the mules from the tree
where they were patiently cropping low branches. She pulled her shawl down
again over her filthy, betraying hair and started off in the direction Matlin
had taken. As she walked she could hear the sound of voices, men’s voices
singing boisterously in French. A
frisson
ran down her spine; they were
in the village, right enough, and from the few words she could make out from
this distance she surmised that most of them were very drunk. “Dear God,
don’t let him have been taken,” she whispered. Then, remembering to
drop her shoulders in the self-effacing imitation of a peasant wife, she
started down the hill into the village proper.

She wondered if she dared to ask for him directly.
“Have you seen my husband, a young man so tall, in a blue jacket and
black trousers....” Surely there must be some way to describe him without
drawing suspicion. Then, with the memory of Matlin’s sudden, frightening
dizziness as her inspiration, Thea had her plan, just in time to try her story
on two approaching foot soldiers. They were very drunk and looked at her
owlishly when she began her distracted wailing.

“Sirs, please, Señores, have you seen my husband, my Miguel?”
A touch of the shrew, a touch of Silvy’s worried tone, the edgy humility
of the wife of Manuel in the convent village. “Please, sirs, have you
seen him? This tall, with a blue jacket that my mother made, God rest her soul....”
She crossed herself and rattled on in Spanish, watching them as carefully as
she dared. They were amused by her; that was easily seen, but she suspected
they understood very little of what she said.

“Sposo? Sposo?”
One of them echoed her.
Then, in French, “Come here, darling, give us a kiss.”

Panicked, Thea drew back. It had never occurred to her that
anyone would accost her. Again, invoking the Virgin and all the saints she
could recall, she begged for news of her husband. “Since the mule kicked
him, Señores, Miguel has been, you know? A little funny in the head. Says
things no one can understand....” That, in case Matlin had been captured
and made some sort of slip into English. She prayed, in that case, that none of
the soldiers understood English.

Neither of the men were interested in Miguel, but the nearer
of them reached an arm out for Thea and pawed her shoulder heavily. She
struggled backward with a stifled shriek, frightened in earnest now.

“What’s the noise? Paul, Edouard? What’s
she bawling about?” From a brightly lit doorway a fat uniformed figure
lumbered toward them.
“¿Que es el problema?”
he asked
laboriously. With a sigh Thea began her tale again, of Miguel and his poor,
mule-addled wits.

“He told me to mind the mules, Señor, then—nothing!
Me, I am a good wife; I do what I am told, but he has been gone so long, I was
afraid. Señor, when his head hurts he becomes so strange, for the love of God
and all the saints in heaven, have you seen him, please?”

“A crazy man, you say? In a blue jacket? Edouard, what
of the fool that fell down at Emile’s feet. He wore a blue jacket, didn’t
he?”

While Thea struggled to hide her impatience the sergeant and
his two drunken men debated whether or not the imbecile they had taken in for
questioning could be the man she sought.

At last, “Señora, best you come with me and see, eh?”
The sergeant put a meaty arm out to her in a gesture of courtliness; he reeked
of garlic and sweat, and Thea was glad to have the distance of the mules
between them as they went. She kept up her stream of distracted chatter and fretted
over what would happen to her if she lost her man. “A good husband until
the accident, I swear, and even now when the pain is not bad.” They went
round the side of the
posada,
from which raucous singing still issued,
and back to a tiny shack illuminated by a single tin lantern.

“Well, Señora? Is this your husband?” The
sergeant leaned unnecessarily close to push the door open for her, and there,
sullenly crouched into a corner on a pile of straw, was Matlin. Quickly, so as
to give him no time to slip and destroy her beautiful fiction, Thea rushed into
the room, babbling her thanks to the sergeant, to Providence, and to the
entirety of the occupying forces which had taken pity on her addlewitted
spouse. Then, dropping to her knees before him, hoping that she would block any
sign of astonishment on his face from the sergeant’s sight, she began to
alternate apology with wifely abuse. “Don’t you know me? Miguel, I
was so worried! You go wandering and getting into trouble, and now we shall
never reach my uncle’s house, and the wedding is tomorrow....”

Turning again to begin her litany of thanks to the sergeant,
Thea saw him exchange a look with Matlin that plainly said “Women!”
Then, with a courtliness which belied his girth, he bowed to her. “Perhaps
the Señora will take a cup of wine with me?” Thea felt Matlin stiffen at
her side. She rose, tugging her shawl down and tight about her head, and bobbed
a rustic curtsy. “Thank you, oh a thousand times, Señor, but Miguel and I
are promised for my cousin’s wedding, and now he has made us late with
his poor head and....” Looking up into the man’s moon-shaped face
and willing him to believe her, Thea did not see his large arm reaching for her
waist.

“Come, Señora, a little kiss for a soldier of the
Empire,” he wheedled.

Thinking quickly, Thea twisted away with something between a
laugh and a cry of outrage. “Sergeant, I am a good wife! If I were a
young girl again...” she managed, back safely by Matlin’s side, to
imply that alone she would have been his for the asking. The assurance was
enough, it seemed. With another creaking bow the sergeant closed the door and
left Thea alone with Matlin.

They looked at each other for a long moment, paralyzed.
“Are you all right?” Thea asked at last, low and in English. “They
said you’d fallen at someone’s feet.”

“Tripped, more likely. My Spanish began to fail me
and, thank God, they seemed ready to believe the same fable you so capably
spread about: that I was an imbecile of some sort.” His smile was white
in the dim light. “You’re a valuable companion, child; my
congratulations.” Thea tried to pull away, bristling, but his arm was
around her. “We’d best get clear of this town before your suitor
decides to try his luck with you again. Bastard,” he added viciously,
under his breath.

Leading the mules between them they left the town in silence
and listened for sounds of other soldiers, ready to fall into their roles again
if necessary. Not until they had put a good two miles between the encampment
and themselves did Matlin let them stop, and they made camp a short way from
the road, under a circle of fir trees.

“Do we dare have a fire?” Thea asked when he had
handed her the hamper which held their dwindling supply of food.

“Can you manage without? I don’t think it will
be very cold tonight.”

Thea only nodded and busied herself in tearing apart the stale
loaf. It was a grim enough meal: cold, stale water, crumbling bread, crumbs of
cheese left from the generous piece the Sisters had given them. For the first
time Thea thought kindly of her small cell at the convent. When the food was
gone and she had not even the entertainment of a fire, when she was worn out
with worry, play-acting, and Matlin’s strained silence, there was nothing
for Thea to do but pull her shawl about her shoulders and curl up miserably against
one of the trees. A few feet away Matlin sat, absorbed by his thoughts; he was
staring at nothing. Just before she drifted into exhausted sleep Thea opened
her eyes to look at him and heard again the French footsoldier’s words,
esposo?
esposo?
A question indeed.

o0o

Matlin was aware of Thea’s misery but not sure of its
origin, and as there was nothing he could do for her, certainly nothing he
could do that would not increase his own sense of shame at the sorrowful figure
he had cut that day, he said nothing, did nothing. It had not occurred to him.
He thought of her as such a child still that he had never imagined she could be
offered the sort of insult she had met with that day.
She
had handled
it; she had let him know with a quick pressure of her hand against his side
that she must be the one to answer the sergeant’s advances. That she had
been correct made no difference. What treatment had she met before she found
him in the hut? The joke of it, a child barely in her teens handling those
damned brutes of soldiers while he sat there struggling to keep his mouth shut.