Beauvallet (16 page)

‘Did you indeed?’ said Beauvallet sarcastically. For the life of him he could not control that disdainful curl of the lip. ‘What I have missed!’

‘Yes, I fear we shall see no more such sights yet awhile,’ said Don Diego regretfully. His wandering gaze came back to Beauvallet. ‘I regret I was not at de Losa's house last night, where I was told I might have had the felicity of meeting you.’ He bowed again.

‘My loss, señor,’ said Sir Nicholas. ‘I looked for Don Manuel de Rada, known to me through hearsay, and – alas! – heard the sad news of his death.’

‘Alas indeed,’ Don Diego answered. But it did not seem to Beauvallet that this sentiment came from the heart.

‘I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon your father, señor,’ said Beauvallet.

‘My father will count himself honoured, señor. Do you stay long in Madrid?’

‘Some few weeks, perhaps. No more, I believe. But I detain you.’ He stepped back, doffed his cap again, and bowed. ‘I shall hope to see more of you, señor.’

‘The pleasure will be mine, señor,’ returned Don Diego.

On that they parted. Later in the day Sir Nicholas sought out his sponsor, Don Diaz de Losa, and had no difficulty in getting from him a letter of introduction to Don Rodriguez de Carvalho.

‘All goes merrily,’ he said to himself, as he walked back to the Rising Sun. ‘Enough for one day, I think. Patience, Nick!’

Upon the morrow he made his way to the Casa Carvalho, and was fortunate enough to find Don Rodriguez at home. If he had hoped to see Dominica he was disappointed. No glimpse of her could be obtained, though he sharply scrutinized the windows that gave on to the
patio
as he crossed it behind the lackey.

He was ushered into a dusky library that looked out on to the walled garden Joshua had discovered. Volumes in tooled leather lined the room; there were several chairs of walnut, tortuously carved, a Catalan chest, with flat pilasters upon its front and sides, and an escabeau over against the window.

Don Rodriguez came in presently with de Losa's letter open in his hand. He was a lean man of middle age, with eyes rather too close-set to be trusted, Beauvallet thought. They shifted here and there, never resting for long on any one object. His mouth bore some resemblance to his son's, but there was weakness in the lines about it, and a kind of petulant uncertainty in the slightly pouting underlip.

He received the Chevalier kindly, and said a great deal that was proper on the sad subject of his brother-in-law's death. His sighs were gusty, he shook his head, cast down his eyes to the floor, and meandered on in his talk of the exigencies of the West Indian climate.

Beauvallet was becoming impatient of this tedious exchange of futilities when they were interrupted by a sound on the gravel walk outside. The long window was darkened, and there was the gentle hush of a lady's skirts.

Sir Nicholas turned quickly, but the lady who stood looking in was not Dominica. She was a large woman, built on flowing lines, and dressed very richly in an embroidered gown of purple mochado. Her hair was extravagantly coiffed, her farthingale brushed the window-frame on either side as she came through, and her ruff stood up high behind her head. She was certainly handsome, and must have been lovely before increasing years made her stout. Her mouth was faintly smiling, and her eyes, almond-shaped under weary eyelids, smiled too. The hinted smile betokened a sort of compassionate amusement, as though the lady looked cynically upon her world, and found it foolish. She moved as one who would never hurry, and in spite of her ungainly farthingale she walked with a certain lazy grace.

‘Ah, Chevalier! My wife – Dona Beatrice,’ Don Rodriguez said. He addressed the lady with a hint of fluster in his voice as though he stood in lively awe of her. ‘My love, permit me to present to you a noble stranger to Madrid – M. le Chevalier de Guise.’

The disillusioned eyes ran over Sir Nicholas; the smile seemed to deepen. Dona Beatrice held out a passive hand, and appeared to approve Beauvallet as he bent over it. Her voice was as languid as her carriage. ‘A Frenchman,’ she remarked. ‘I had ever a kindness for a Frenchman. Now, what do you make here, Chevalier?’

‘Nothing but my pleasure, señora.’

It seemed an effort to her to raise her brows. ‘Do you find pleasure in Madrid?’ she inquired. She went to a chair and sank into it, and began slowly to fan herself. ‘I find it unbearably fatiguing.’

‘Why, señora, I find much pleasure here,’ Beauvallet answered.

‘You are young,’ she said, in extenuation. ‘And French. So much vigour! So much enthusiasm!’

‘Plenty of food for enthusiasm in Madrid, madam,’ said Sir Nicholas politely.

‘Ah! But when you attain to my years, señor, you will realize that there is nothing in the world to feed enthusiasm.’

‘I shall hope to preserve my illusions, madame.’

‘It is far better to have none,’ drawled the lady.

Don Rodriguez, hovering solicitously about his spouse, smiled deprecatingly. He found himself in constant need to temper her oddities by this fidgety, excusing smile.

‘Let us talk in your own tongue, Chevalier. I speak it very indifferently, but it is a polite language.’ She spoke it very well.

‘My love, the Chevalier had hoped to find your poor brother. We have been speaking of his sad death.’

She answered without taking the trouble to look at him. ‘Why sad, señor? One must hope that he has found repose. So you were acquainted with my brother, Chevalier?’

‘No madame, but I knew a friend of his once, and I had hoped to present myself to his notice upon that score.’

‘You would not have found him at all entertaining,’ said Dona Beatrice. ‘It is far better to know me.’

Sir Nicholas bowed. ‘I am sure of it, madame,’ he said, and was inclined to think he spoke sooth.

‘I must have you come to my ball on Friday evening,’ she announced. ‘It will be very painstaking and very dull. You shall solace my boredom. I suppose you must meet my son.’ She signed and addressed Don Rodriguez. ‘Señor, Don Diego is somewhere at hand. Pray send for him.’

‘I have already had that pleasure, madame. I met your son upon the Mentidero yesterday.’

‘Ah, then you will not want to see him again,’ she said, as though she perfectly understood. ‘You need not send, señor.’

Sir Nicholas bit his lip. ‘On the contrary, I shall be charmed, madame.’

Her eyelids lifted for a moment. He thought he had never seen eyes so curiously cold, so cynical, yet so good-humoured. ‘Señor, send for Don Diego,’ she sighed.

In a minute or two Don Diego came in, and with him the scent of musk. He was very punctilious in his manner towards Sir Nicholas, and while the two men spoke together his mother lay back in her chair watching them with her omniscient smile.

‘You will see the Chevalier at your ball, my son,’ she said. ‘My dear Chevalier, how remiss I am! I did not tell you that it is in my son's honour. His anniversary. I forget which, but no doubt he will tell you.’

‘It can be of no interest to the Chevalier, señora,’ said Don Diego, annoyed.

‘I shall hope to have the felicity of meeting your niece, madame,’ said Beauvallet. ‘Or perhaps she does not go into public yet?’

Don Diego looked cross; Dona Beatrice continued to fan herself. ‘She will be present,’ she said placidly.

It struck Beauvallet that both father and son looked sharply at her, but she gave no sign. He rose to take his leave, kissed her hand, and was ushered forth.

When the door had closed behind him Don Diego gave a pettish shrug of the shoulder, and flung over to the window. ‘Why must you invite him for Friday?’ he asked. ‘Are you so enamoured of him? He walks abroad as though he had bought Madrid.’

‘I thought he might amuse me,’ his mother replied. ‘A very personable man. It is most entertaining to see you at such a disadvantage, my son.’

Don Rodriguez expostulated at this. ‘My love, how can you say so? Diego is a proper caballero – the properest in Madrid, I dare swear. His air, his carriage –’

‘Very exquisite, señor. I have never seen him otherwise, and I fear I never shall.’

‘I do not profess to know what you would be at, señora,’ said Don Diego, with a half-laugh.

She got up out of her chair. ‘How should you? You should live in a painting, Diego; a painting of soft lines and graceful attitudes. I doubt the Chevalier would never stay still in it.’ She went out, chuckling to herself.

Father and son looked at each other. ‘Your mother has a – has a odd twist in her humour,’ said Don Rodriguez weakly.

‘My mother, señor,’ said Don Diego tartly, ‘likes to be thought enigmatic. She said that Dominica would be present, but will she?’ He opened the little comfit box that he carried, and put a sweetmeat into his mouth. ‘If she consents it will be for the first time.’

‘Leave her to your mother. She – she is a very remarkable woman, Diego.’

‘Likewise is my cousin a very remarkable self-willed chit,’ said Don Diego. He licked his fingers and shut up the box. ‘She is as cold as ice,’ he said impatiently. ‘Bewitched. A scornful piece that wants schooling.’

‘Bethink you, it is very soon after Don Manuel's death for her to be thinking of bridals,’ Don Rodriguez said excusingly. ‘You would maybe do well to deal gently.’

‘Do I not deal gently?’ The sneer was clearly marked now. ‘And while I stay supplicating she but grows the colder, and every caballero in the town is eager to hazard his luck. She is like to be off with another if this continues. Or her uncle de Tobar will take a hand in the game, and try to get her for that overgrown fool, Miguel. Oh yes, she hinted that she might write to him! A vixen!’

Don Rodriguez murmured a vague expostulation. ‘I don’t think it, I don’t think it. She has no mind to wed yet, and your mother hath an eye on her. Belike you do not go well to work with her.’

‘I will use her more hardly if this coldness endures,’ said Don Diego. His eyes glinted, and Don Rodriguez looked away.

‘Leave it to your mother,’ he advised feebly. ‘It is early yet to despair.’

There was some excuse for Don Diego's ill-humour. He had a very pretty cousin, heiress to great wealth, marked clearly by heaven to be a bride for him, and the devil was in it that the girl must needs flout him. Such a thing had never happened to him before. He was at first incredulous, then sullen.

As for Dominica, there was a good reason for her refusal to fall in with the wishes of her family, had they but known it. How should a maid think of Diego who had lain trembling in Beauvallet's arms?

Since those mad days at sea much had happened in her life. She found herself bewildered, undaunted, certainly, but wary. Her father came home only to die, and he left her in the ward of his sister Beatrice. She discovered that she was wealthy, mistress of large estates in the south: a rare matrimonial prize, in effect. She was gathered under her aunt's ample wing, and knew not what to make of that lady.

There was no gainsaying Dona Beatrice's kindness, but there was more to her than mere indolent good humour. Dominica had not been long under her roof before she discovered that her uncle, even her cousin too, were puppets, whose strings were pulled by Dona Beatrice. She suspected that she also was to be a puppet, and lifted her chin at the thought. Dona Dominica, accustomed for many years to be mistress, did not take kindly to a subordinate position, nor could she stomach the strict rule under which well-born maidens lived in Spain.
She let it be seen that she had a will of her own, and tossed up her head to face wrath. None came; no one had ever seen Dona Beatrice put out. She blinked her sleepy eyelids, and continued to smile. ‘Charming, my dear, charming! It suits you admirably,’ she said.

Nonplussed, Dominica stammered: ‘What suits me, aunt?’

Dona Beatrice made a little gesture with her fan. ‘This display of spirit, my dear. But it is wasted, quite wasted. Show my poor son these flashing looks: I am much too old to be moved, and far too lazy.’

Dominica, aware even then of the family's designs, chose to come into the open. ‘Señora, if you mean me for my cousin's bride, I think it only fair to tell you that I will have none of him, so please you.’

‘Of course I mean you for his bride,’ her aunt said calmly. ‘My dear, pray sit down. You fatigue me sadly.’

‘I had guessed it!’ Dominica said indignantly.

‘It was not very difficult to guess,’ said Dona Beatrice. ‘But we shall not talk of bridals yet. Decency must be observed. I have often thought how absurd is this to-do we make over death, but it is the way of the world, and I never go against custom.’

‘Señora – I do not like my cousin enough!’

Dona Beatrice was not at all disturbed. ‘No, my love, I had not supposed you did. I find him very lamentable myself, and I bore him. But what has that to do with marriage? Do not make that singular error of confusing liking with marriage. It has nothing to do with it.’

‘I choose to think it has, aunt. I could not marry where I did not love.’

Her aunt yawned behind her fan; she looked amused, tolerant. ‘Be advised by me, my dear, and be rid of such notions. Marry for convenience and love at discretion. I assure you, these things smoothe themselves when one is married. As
a maid you are bound to be prim. It is all very different when you are comfortably established.’

Dominica started, and could not forbear a giggle. ‘Do you advise me to wed my cousin, señora, for the sake of taking a lover afterwards?’ she asked, half-shocked, half-entertained.

‘Certainly, child, if you wish. Only pray use discretion. Scandal is very odious, and there is never the least need to incur it if you observe care in these little affairs. You have only to look at me.’

Dominica looked at her, almost aghast. ‘Aunt!’

‘What is it now?’ inquired Dona Beatrice, lifting her eyes for a moment. ‘You did not suppose that I married your uncle for love, did you?’

Dominica felt herself to be young and foolish, at a disadvantage. ‘I did not know, señora, but for myself I do not mean to wed my cousin. He is – he is – in short, señora, I do not care for him.’

Her aunt only looked at her with the tolerant amusement she found so galling, and would say no more.