Black Sheep's Daughter (4 page)

"How did you know?"  She sat back on the well-worn leather and gazed at him in surprise.

He took both her hands in his and looked at her seriously. "I see now that I have been selfish," he said, to her astonishment and distress. "Most young women your age are long since married, with families of their own, but I wanted you to be always my little girl. And we have all grown to depend on you to keep us comfortable, when you ought to be busy with a family of your own."

“But Mama is not well enough to manage the household.”

“Nonsense," said Don Eduardo briskly. "She and your sister-in-law could cope between them, and I wager that when Oscar returns from Jamaica he will wed your cousin, the pretty one, what's her name?"

“Rafaela. In any case, I have never met anyone I had the least desire to marry. I had rather stay at home with you always."

“The young men hereabouts are uneducated, provincial boors. When you turned eighteen, I realised that none of them were worthy of you and I seriously considered sending you to England. Somehow the right opportunity never came. So you have never before met a gentleman of breeding and education..."

"Other than you and my brothers!"

"...So it is only natural that you should wish to impress Graylin. I want you to have a choice of husbands fit for a duke's granddaughter.
Querida,
you will always have a loving home here, but I have discussed it with Graylin and he is willing to escort you. When he leaves I want you to travel with him to make your bow to Society in London."

Chapter 3

"London!"  In that one word Teresa expressed all her feelings of shock, distress, excitement and rising anticipation. "I am to go to London?  No, surely I need not go so far to seek a husband!"

"That is not my only reason, my love. It pains me to say this, but I have come to realise that I have allowed you too much freedom. Your escapade yesterday was such as could never be condoned in a gently bred female. The Spanish idea of propriety is so restrictive that I have gone too far the other way and let you grow up with no idea of propriety at all. When I left  England I vowed to be a very different sort of father from my own, but I do want my daughter to be a lady. There is no one here to teach you how to go on."

"I do not care to be a lady, and besides, who is there in London to teach me?  I know no one there."

"I shall send you to my brother. If his wife cannot undertake to bring you out, he must find someone who will. And you need not fear that you will be a poor relation. I have never taken a groat of my income in twenty-five years and more. Though it was but a pittance, by now it must amount to enough to give you a Season."

"But to travel alone, all that way!"

"Now there you are out."  Don Eduardo was triumphant at his own ingenuity. "Oscar goes with you as far as Jamaica, and I have decided to send Marco to complete his education in England."

Teresa was silenced for a moment. What an adventure it would be!  She had always wanted to see the world beyond the narrow confines of her jungle home. Then she imagined facing an unknown uncle and aunt, trying to measure up to the standards of the society to which Sir Andrew, censorious Sir Andrew, belonged.

"Papa, I shall never be able to learn all the rules of polite behaviour!" she cried, panic-stricken.

"If there is one thing I had never thought to fault, Teresa, it is your courage. I have every confidence in your ability to adapt to the notions of the Fashionable World, and your birth and beauty must make you an unexceptionable member of the Haut Ton. However, there is another reason I am sending you. Marco is a dreamer, too young and too impractical to do this for me, and I cannot spare any other of your brothers, with Oscar gone. You know my plans for developing a trade in coffee. I must find buyers. I want you to take a sample of our best beans to the coffee merchants of London, and to send me back the best contract you can obtain."

"You trust me to do that?"  Teresa was overwhelmed.

"I do, child. You've a sensible head on your shoulders, when you are not being a complete goosecap. I'll explain just what I am looking for, and the rest will be up to you."

"Oh Papa, I shall bring you back the best coffee contract anyone ever had."  Once again, Teresa was enfolded in her  father's loving arms.

Having made up her mind to go, Teresa was impatient of delays. Don Eduardo assured her she should have a complete new wardrobe when she reached London, so she packed up a few skirts and shirts, a warm poncho and a couple of pairs of sandals. She was ready to leave.

However, no one else was. Sir Andrew had to write his report. Oscar was busy collecting samples of soil and insect pests from the coffee plantation. Marco changed his mind a dozen times a day about which books he simply could not do without.

With his own hands, Don Eduardo sorted through his precious coffee beans and packed the best in a small chest carved from a glossy chestnut-coloured native wood. These were the samples with which Teresa was to persuade the coffee merchants of London that trade with Costa Rica could be lucrative. He wrapped the chest in several thicknesses of mastate, a cloth made of bark, and tied it with a well-knotted rope.

He also wrote letters to his brother, his lawyer and his bank.

Teresa's patience was tried to the utmost by her mother. Doña Esperanza had long since given up hope of influencing her daughter when her husband was so determined to treat her as another son. About to lose her to the wicked world beyond the hacienda, she kept her by her side and in her soft voice attempted too late to inculcate those precepts upon which she herself had been raised. Teresa heard not more than one word in ten, and ignored that. Papa had said that Spanish rules of conduct were too restrictive for an English lady; she would wait and see what there was to be learned in London.

At last everything was ready. On a grey, humid Monday morning the cavalcade assembled in the stable yard:  Oscar, Marco, Teresa, Sir Andrew, and his servant Rowson. With them  were a young Spanish maid and her brother, who were to be abigail and manservant to the Danvilles. There were half a dozen pack mules to carry all their belongings, and a couple of peons to bring all the animals back from Limón to the hacienda.

Teresa embraced her father, her mother, all her brothers who were staying behind, and then her father again. She was too excited to shed any tears, though there was a hollow feeling in her chest at the thought that she might never see them again.

Now everyone was waiting for her. She mounted, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Gayo appeared from the jacaranda and took up his usual post on her shoulder.

"Oh no," said Sir Andrew. "I may or may not be able to persuade a captain of the Royal Navy to take on board five unexpected passengers;  it’s conceivable he won’t mind a parrot, as seamen sometimes own one; but I can tell you here and now that there is not the least chance of the Duke of Stafford accepting a foul-mouthed fowl into his household."

Teresa looked at him in shock. "But I cannot leave him behind. I cannot go to England without him."

"I fear you have no choice, Miss Danville."

"Papa?"

"He is right,
querida
. What Gerald would say if you arrived at Stafford House with a parrot doesn’t bear thinking of."

"He depends on me!"

"I promise you we will take the greatest care of him, love."

"He will not be happy, and nor shall I."  Teresa read sympathy in her father's eyes, but he shook his head. "At least let me take him to Limón!  Juan and Jorge can bring him back with the horses."

Relieved to have won his point, Andrew conceded that there could be no harm in taking the bird to the coast with them—though he wasn’t so sure about that when Gayo, suddenly noticing his presence, shrieked, "Hello, dinner," and swooped to his shoulder. He sat there muttering "
Hijo de puta, hijo de puta
," and other choice insults, until Andrew was prepared to wager he knew exactly what had happened.

They set out on the well-travelled track between the Hacienda del Inglés and Cartago. A few hundred yards from the house they entered a belt of thick jungle, but they soon emerged into another cleared area where the rich, black, volcanic soil supported rich agriculture on the gently rolling hills.

At midday they reached Cartago and stopped to rest at the house of one of Doña Esperanza's brothers, who had a post in the colonial government. Cartago, capital of the gobernacion of Costa Rica, was a small town of adobe houses hidden behind high walls, with wide, straight dirt streets. The great stone cathedral of Nuestra Señora de los Angeles had more than once been ruined in the earthquakes associated with the eruptions of Irazù.

Teresa had been there many times, visiting their relatives and to the various fiestas. For the first time, she regarded it with a critical eye. She had seen woodcuts of the cities of Europe but they had always been so remote as to seem unreal. Now, she was on her way to London, greatest city of them all. "How does Cartago compare with London?" she asked Sir Andrew.

He roared with laughter, then apologised. "Cartago would fit easily into one of London's parks," he explained. "In English terms, it scarce qualifies as a town, more of an overgrown village."

"Tell me about London."

He shrugged. "You could live a lifetime in the city without knowing the half of it, Miss Danville. I cannot possibly describe it in terms that you will understand. You must wait and see."

Teresa turned away, resentful of the toplofty young Englishman's scorn. It was easy for him to sneer, who had not had to build a nation from nothing in a land of earthquakes and tropical storms and ever-encroaching jungle.

* * * *

They soon rode on, anxious to reach the farm of another uncle before nightfall. As far as the tiny hamlet of Paraiso, most of the land was cleared and it was easy going. Then the hills grew steeper and the horses slowed to a walk on the slippery, yellow clay track.

Huge trees with buttressed trunks closed in on either side and soon they were enclosed in a gloomy green tunnel. Rope-like lianas hung in festoons like giant spider-webs; tall ferns sprang from every nook and cranny. Here and there, where a splash of sunlight managed to reach through the forest canopy to the ground, shrubs bloomed in violent purples and scarlets.

Frequent rocky streams crossed their path and had to be forded with care.

They reached the bottom of a valley, where the track wound between stagnant pools. A constant whine of insects kept Sir  Andrew slapping at every inch of exposed skin. The mosquitos seemed to recognise him as a thin-skinned foreigner and concentrated their efforts on him.

Teresa thought it a very good revenge on him for his derision of her country. However, she had no desire to see him come down  with jungle fever so she kept watch for a certain plant and when she saw it, dismounted to pluck some leaves.

"Put a couple of these in your hatband," she suggested, handing them to Sir Andrew.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Go on," she said impatiently, "they will help to keep the biters away."

He looked sceptical, but when her brothers demanded some for themselves, he followed suit.

Marco took pity and explained. "There's a wandering Talamanca Indian
sukia
comes to the hacienda now and then."

"Sukia?"

"
Curandero
; a witch doctor, or medicine man. Teresa has learned a great deal of plant lore from him. They are clever fellows. Like Hippocrates, they believe in the importance of proper diet, and they know a great deal about the properties of native plants."

Andrew was unconvinced, until he noticed a definite diminution in the number of insects buzzing about his head. They seemed to be concentrating on his hands, instead.

"Miss Danville," he begged sheepishly, "have you any leaves to spare for my hands?"

Feeling distinctly superior, she showed him how to crush them and smear the juice on his skin.

"It stings on your face," she explained, "but let me put some on the back of your neck."

He stiffened at the gentle touch of her fingers on his nape.

She looked at him in surprise, then flushed. "I beg your pardon," she murmured. "I had forgot you are not one of my brothers."  Still pink-cheeked, she went back to her horse, mounted, and began a determined argument with Oscar as to whether they were going the right way.

The track wound out of the valley, and soon they entered a clearing. Here the way branched.

"I told you so," said Oscar. "Our uncle's house is just beyond that papaya grove."

Teresa, her usual sunny spirits quite restored, grinned and said, "I hope my aunt can quickly put a meal on the table. I am quite famished."

Her hopes were fulfilled. Though their farm was much smaller than the Danville hacienda, Doña Esperanza's brother and his family expressed in edible form their delight at seeing their relatives. The table was loaded with fried chicken and yucca cakes, black beans with onions and chiles, guavas, papayas and coconuts.

Their host was thrilled to meet the British envoy, and had to hear all about the Cartago talks. Teresa noticed that Oscar's attention was torn between the political discussion and his  pretty cousin, who sat on his right. She wondered whether, on his return from Jamaica, he might take Rafaela back to the hacienda as his wife. She would not be there to see, to dance at their wedding.

Did she really want to go to London?  Was she crazy to agree to give up everyone she loved to follow a will-o'-the-wisp?  She glanced at Sir Andrew, and suddenly she knew that whatever happened, it would be worth it.

After the meal, Teresa and Oscar and Marco were begged to take out their ocarinas. Rafaela fetched her guitar and sang as they played a plaintive melody.

Sir Andrew sat listening with a far away look on his face.

Teresa was sure he was comparing their crude efforts with the magnificent performances he must have attended in England. Don Eduardo had mentioned that all well bred young ladies played the piano or the harp, and there were operas and orchestras also.