The Spanish Marriage (3 page)

“Perhaps she would not take the girl no matter what,
Clara. First, I think we must learn what sort of man this stranger is and a
little more of how things stand between England and Spain. You will not tell
Dorotea about your heart?”

“Would it make her happier to know that I am ill?
Would it mean that I would grow well again? I think not.”

Mother Beatriz agreed reluctantly. “Thank God she is
still only a child.”

Fortified by bread and milk and with half a dozen apricots tucked
into the deep cuff of her sleeve, Thea made her way back to the cottage. Sister
Juan Evangelista was waiting for her. She was drying her hands on a white
towel. Beside her was a pile of debris: bloodied bandages and towels, a basin
of dirty water, a pile of torn filthy rags barely recognizable as a man’s
shirt.

“Whatever happens to the young man, he would not have lived
long lying out in the sun. The Blessed Virgin brought you to him, child.”

Thea nodded anxiously. Sister Juan made her feel tiny, weak,
and clumsy. Next to the Infirmarian’s tall, sturdy form, her serene,
brisk competence, Thea saw herself as the child the nuns, even Silvy called
her. “How is he, Sister?”

Sister Juan smiled faintly. “I think he will live.
Prayers work miracles; my herbs and rest should do the rest. Now, you will sit
with him. It will mean long hours, child. It is not a game.”

“I
know
that. You saw, I sat with Silvy....”

“I saw you sit with a woman you love, one who has been
a mother to you. It is harder to give such patience to a stranger. Even one who
looks like
that.
”

Thea looked steadily at the Infirmarian. “I can do it.”
“You will have to,” Sister Juan agreed. “Well, for the
present, he is asleep. When you hear the bell for Compline you must rouse him a
little and see that he takes this.” She pointed to a jug on the one table
in the little anteroom. “A cupful. It is not pleasant to taste; he will
not want it, but it helps to bring the fever down: white willow bark and feverfew.
If he is thirsty, you may give him water, all he will take. If he wakes and
will not sleep again, make him some chamomile tea; I have left the flowers for
you. You know how to make it? Good.” She handed Thea a small wooden box
which smelled faintly of the dull, musty flowers.

Thea felt a response was needed. “I understand,”
she said seriously. Half her mind was already with the man in the other room.

“I have put a bandage on his head to draw out the
poison from his wound. What he needs now is sleep. Later, perhaps, food.... Now
you,
you must not run off unless someone is with him. Is that clear?”

“Of course it is.” Thea shrugged angrily. “Sister,
I am not a baby.”

She might as well not have spoken. “If it were not for
the sickness in the village and the Feast next week, I would not expect you to
do this, child. It cannot be helped. If you need me, send for me.”

“Yes, Sister, I will.”

Sister Juan Evangelista smiled again, a little grimly. “Take
the bottle then and the herbs. I will send water; there is wood by the brazier,
if you make tea.” A little more kindly, she laid a hand on Thea’s
shoulder. “We will save him,
niña.
Trust in God.”

By the time Dorothea had made her curtsy and risen up again
the Infirmarian was gone. Balancing the jug and wooden box, the apricots
rolling in her folded sleeve, Thea entered the second room where the stranger
slept.

Manuel had stripped his filthy clothes from him and dressed
him in a white nightshirt which only accentuated the pallor under his tan. Most
of his forehead and his left eye were obscured by the immense bandage Sister
Juan Evangelista had bound there. He was no less handsome than Thea had
remembered, but now she saw, too, the droop of exhaustion and pain on his lips,
the cluster of small lines by his eyes, a heavy furrow between his dark brows.
Not just a hero, she thought; a tired man. Gingerly Thea set down the jug and
box and took her place silently on the chair by the bed.

Then began the waiting. There was little to do until the bell
for Compline rang but watch him in the flickering candlelight. When Sister
Scholastica, the youngest of the novices, arrived with a bucket of water,
Dorothea was startled to find how little time had passed: barely an hour.

“Mother thought you might like to have this,”
Scholastica whispered to Thea when they were both in the anteroom. Thea held
out her hands to receive her embroidery threads and frame. What she felt was
not gratitude, but she conveyed her thanks to the Superior and her love to
Silvy, and settled back in the sickroom with her frame and her threads in hand
to work at the pattern.

He was stuporous when she roused him to force half a cup of
the antipyretic brew down his throat. In the middle of the night, when Thea had
been deep in sleep for several hours, he woke her with his mutterings.

“Sir? Señor?” Groggily, remembering what her
task was, Thea fanned the flame in the brazier and set the kettle to boil. The
man’s eyes were open, his face a mask of terror; his hands clutched
convulsively at the sheets. “Sir....” If only she had a name for
him, Thea thought distractedly.

“Fire. For God’s sake, something’s afire.
Water.” Thea reached hurriedly for a dipper of water and managed to get most
of it into his mouth despite the way he thrashed. When he had drunk the man
looked at Thea; he seemed to focus on her for a moment. “Who
are
you?”
he asked querulously, but when she began to explain he shook his head.
“Words—don’t anyone in this devilish country speak a human
language?” he slurred and tried again to sit up.

“Please, oh God, sir, please lie back,” Thea
entreated. One hand came up and tried to slap her away. “I’m trying
to
help
you!” She wondered if she should call Sister Juan for help,
and filled the dipper again, this time with the feverfew decoction; she hoped
it would help. Plainly, he was delirious.

“Tryn’ pois’n me,” he spat
furiously.

This time her temper was up, invaluably. “Oh no you
don’t.” With one hand Thea pushed him down, her fist dead in the
middle of his chest. “You stay there for a minute.” With the other
hand she reached behind her for the carved wooden box that held the chamomile
flowers. The water on the brazier was nearing a boil when she put a handful of
leaves into the pot. She let it stand then for a few minutes and, at last,
poured the thin, pale green liquid into a mug and turned to her patient again.

“You drink this,” she ordered.

He looked at her over the rim of the cup. “Adele?”

“No, I’m not Adele, whoever she is, and you’d
better drink this, or I shall....”

Unable to think of a consequence dire enough to impress a grown
man half-mad with fever, she never finished the threat. Coercion was
unnecessary: he drank down most of the tea in one draught and finished the rest
with a thirsty gulp. Surprised, Thea poured another cup for him, which he drank
greedily.

My angel,” he said finally, faintly, “from the
field. Thank you, little angel.”

Thea smiled at him uncertainly, and wondered what to say. By
the time she murmured, “Sleep,” he was already unconscious.

Sister Juan Evangelista woke her before Prime and opened a
shutter so that a little of the pale morning light filtered into the room.
Briefly Thea explained what had happened the night before and what she had
done.

“It is good,” the Infirmarian said at last. “He
sleeps deep now; I think the fever will break. I will ask Sister Scholastica to
take your place for a while after Prime, child.”

“I don’t want....”

“It is not what you want, but what is best for your
patient, yes? Some time to wash, something to eat....” She ignored the
evidence of Thea’s small midnight supper of apricots. “Señorita de
Silva will want to see you,” she finished.

That was unanswerable. “When may I come back?”

“In an hour or so. Sister Scholastica will take good
care of our patient,
hija.
I will go now and send her to you after
Prime.”

In fact Thea was gone for several hours, first to breakfast
in the refectory, then to visit with Silvy. The older woman looked tired,
unrefreshed by her night’s sleep, and her hands were as cold as ice.
Silvy refused to answer questions about her own health; she was all eager to
hear about the stranger.

“Well, it sounds as if you are doing a good job,
niña,
but I still do not like the idea, a man we do not know, a girl your age
alone for hours with a stranger....”

“Who is burning up with fever and never sure from one
minute to the next whether I’m an angel or someone called Adele! Why is
it,” she continued, teasing, “that most of the time I am ‘that
child’, and now, suddenly, I am ‘a girl of your age?’”

Silvy did not return the smile. “It is the way the
world thinks,
niña;
you know as well as I. This stranger....”

“When he’s well and we can ask him questions he
won’t be a stranger any more. I mean to ask him
everything.”
Thea
retorted.

“Poor Señor Mysterioso,” Silvy smiled. “He
little knows what he will be wakening to. You want to go back now? All right,
but Dorotea,
meniña,
be careful with this man. He is....”

“A stranger,” Thea finished. She kissed one of
Silvy’s papery, cool cheeks and smiled. “I’ll be
so
good,”
she promised, and left.

In the gate house Sister Scholastica was drowsily telling
her beads at the stranger’s bedside. He was quiet, but his skin was
frighteningly hot to the touch.

“Quiet as a lamb,” the novice reported to Thea. “I
only hope it is not a bad sign, Señorita. Sister Juan will be back later, when
she has done in the village.” Sister Scholastica left with a last glance
for the man on the bed and a smile for Thea.

“Who
are
you?” Thea asked the sleeping
form. She puttered about the room and made certain there was a supply of the
feverfew decoction and that fresh water had been brought. Finally, with nothing
more to occupy her than her embroidery, Thea settled herself on the chair by
the bed. “Who are you?” she asked again. Of course there was no
reply. After a moment she sighed and took up her needle again.

o0o

The fever burned on for three more days, and the man went
from fits of delirium to equally frightening periods of deep, motionless
stupor. Thea was at his bedside most of the time; alone, it took all her
strength to calm him in delirium. “If I were like Sister Ana, I could sit
on him and make him lie quiet,” she complained once to Sister
Scholastica, who giggled but looked shocked.

At the dawn of the fifth day Thea was roused from sleep by
Sister Juan Evangelista. The Infirmarian was smiling.

“The fever is broken,” she said. “He is
sleeping normally. He will live.”

“Thank God.” Smiling lopsidedly, hoping she
would not shame herself with tears, Thea admitted, “I don’t think I
could have stood another night of wrestling with him.”

“Wrestling?” Sister Juan’s eyebrows shot
up almost into her veil. “Child, I hope Señorita de Silva does not have
reason to regret these liberties she has allowed you. Wrestling,
por diós

“Well, now he’ll be quiet.”

As she stared down at her patient’s pale, damp face,
Sister Juan shook her head. “Not this one, Señorita. I warrant we shall
have as much trouble with your mysterious stranger now as before.”

She was right. When the man awoke from his first exhausted
slumber he was weak, querulous, and arrogant. “What in God’s name
has been done with my clothes?” He held up a hand and regarded the cuff
of his shabby nightgown. “Where in Hell am I?”

“Nowhere in Hell, sir. You’re in the
gate-cottage of a convent near Sepulveda.”

All the arrogance went from his voice. “In Spain. I
dreamt I was in England again.”

Briskly, because it was quite a different thing to touch him
now, when he was awake and aware, than it had been before, when he was raving,
Thea took his arm and found his pulse. It was strong, a little fast, but no
skips or flutters in the rhythm.

“Spain,” he said bitterly. “Might as well
be Hell. If I might ask, Sister, what the devil does an Englishwoman do in a
Spanish convent in wherever-the-devil you said it was? You are English, aren’t
you? No Spaniard I ever met sounded so much like Somerset.”

“I was raised in Somerset,” Thea snapped,
irritated by his tone. She had imagined gratitude at the very least, not his tense,
arrogant questioning. She had some questions of her own. “I found you in
the convent orchard, quite delirious. Sister Juan Evangelista says you would
have died had we not brought you in. As to how you came to be
there....
”
She faded off expectantly.

“I suppose I should thank you.” Rallying, he
smiled at her, a slow thoughtful smile that lit his eyes and set Thea’s
heart pounding uncomfortably. “Well then, little Sister, I do thank you
and the other good Sisters of your order, for your well-intentioned interference
in my otherwise inevitable demise. I only hope that you, that is, the convent,
don’t regret the day you took me in.”

“I hope so, too,” Thea answered tartly. “Lie
back, Señor Mysterioso. You’re still far from well.”

He lay back but did not cease his questioning. “How comes
an English girl of, unless I miss my guess, good family to be in a convent in
Spain, and in these days, too? Aren’t you a trifle young for...” he
waved his hand idly, “this sort of thing?”

“This sort of thing? You mean holy orders? I only hope
you’ll have a little more respect when Mother Beatriz or the others are
by; they’d be hurt by your discourtesy.”

“Again, my apologies. You haven’t answered my
question. You don’t look old enough to be out of the schoolroom. What
were your parents thinking of....”