Margarita and the Earl Read online

  “Tomás Boves knew the llanos and knew that an army of llaneros was the kind of barbaric horde that would subdue Venezuela. The llaneros murder for pleasure and torture for pastime. Boves left a train of horror and blood wherever he went; women and children were the victims of his bloody diversions, as well as any captives he might take in battle.

  “One of your wife’s brothers, Ramon, was killed at La Puerta last June. In that battle Boves, with eight thousand men, caught Bolívar who had only twenty-three hundred. Half of the Republicans were left dead on the field, including Ramón, who was acting as Bolivar’s secretary.

  “In July, Valencia surrendered to Boves after a siege that lasted a month. They had no water and no food left. Boves promised mercy. He killed the siege’s leader, who happened to be Don Antonio Carreño, Margarita’s father. He then proceeded to annihilate the town.

  “Boves then headed for Caracas, but all he found there were the old and the sick. Everyone else had left, fleeing with Bolivar to the coast rather than staying to face Boves’s tender mercies. Margarita and her brother Fernando were among the Caraqueños who went with Bolivar. In August, Fernando, the last living member of your wife’s family, was killed at the Battle of Aragua de Barcelona.

  “Margarita was one of the few to make it to the Cumaña, where, thank God, your uncle’s English captain found her and took her off. On October 16, Boves occupied Cumaña and cut the throats of everyone in the town, women and children included.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Nicholas. In the harsh light from the window, his face was as hard as stone. “I had no idea of any of this.”

  “Venezuela is a small country, many thousands of miles away,” Andrés Bello said wearily. “You English have just concluded a war of your own. It is understandable that you do not know about what happened to us.”

  “So it is over?” Nicholas asked carefully.

  Andrés Bello’s face looked very stern. “It is not over. Nearly one third of our citizens may be dead, but one man is still alive. Tell Margarita that Boves is dead and Bolivar lives. He is in Cartagena and he will come again.”

  “Bolivar,” said Nicholas slowly. “Margarita said the same thing, that while Bolivar lives the Venezuelan Revolution is not dead.”

  Andrés Bello’s face relaxed into a smile. “She is, after all, the daughter of Don Antonio Carreño. The revolution was plotted in the rooms of her house by her father and her brothers, among others. And Margarita herself was instrumental in the expulsion of the captain-general in April 1810.”

  Nicholas’s eyes were narrowed. “In 1810,” he said, “my wife was twelve years old.”

  “I know.” Andrés Bello’s smile softened even further. “The loveliest child in all South America, she was, the little Margarita. Half the young men in Caracas were simply waiting for her to grow up.”

  “What happened in 1810?” Nicholas asked patiently.

  Andrés Bello leaned a little forward. “There were a group of us gathered in the Carreño house in Caracas; many of the members of the Caracas Cabildo—the town council, you would say—were there. The royal family had been deposed in Spain, you understand, and we were deciding what we should do: denounce Napoleon and declare our allegiance to the Spanish monarchy, or declare our independence.

  “In the middle of the discussion the door opened and Margarita came in, carrying a pitcher of cold juice. I remember how Don Antonio put his arm about her waist and said, half-jokingly, ‘And you, little one, do you feel allegiance to the King of Spain?’

  “She looked back at him very gravely. ‘Why should I feel allegiance to the King of Spain, Papa?’ she answered. ‘I am not Spanish. I am American.’”

  Andrés Bello leaned back and half closed his eyes. “I remember how we all sat there, silent, looking at that beautiful child. That afternoon—it was Holy Thursday—the Cabildo met with the captain-general. The result of that meeting was that he was escorted down to La Guaira and put aboard a Spanish man-of-war.” He opened his eyes and looked directly at Nicholas. “And that is how, Lord Winslow, the first independent government in South America came into being.”

  Nicholas smiled a little. “‘And a little child shall lead them,’” he quoted.

  Andrés Bello looked pleased. “Precisely, my lord.”

  “I am glad you told me all this,” Nicholas said. “It helps to explain a great deal about Margarita.”

  “She has had a very terrible time of it, the little one,” Andrés Bello said. “And she had been so sheltered. Her father and her brothers would not allow the wind to blow too harshly on Margarita. You must try to be kind to her.”

  “Yes,” Nicholas said briefly and got to his feet. “Oh, there is one more thing, Senor Bello. I promised her I would bring her back a guitar. Perhaps you might help me in this matter?”

  “Certainly, Lord Winslow. I should be most happy to purchase one for you and have it sent to your house.”

  They stood together in the doorway for a moment, Nicholas towering over the slender Spanish American. “If you should care to visit us at Winslow sometime,” he said, “we should be happy to see you.”

  “Thank you, Lord Winslow,” Andrés Bello responded gently. “You are very kind.”

  Chapter Nine

  For I that danced her on my knee,

  That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm,

  That shielded all her life from harm,

  At last must part with her to thee.

  —Tennyson

  It was a thoughtful Nicholas who drove home to Winslow a few days later. An image of his wife’s young and guarded face was before his eyes, and the words of Andrés Bello were in his ears. “She has had a very terrible time of it, the little one,” he had said. “You must try to be kind to her.” Nicholas, rather surprisingly, had every intention of trying to be.

  It was late afternoon by the time he reached Winslow. He found his wife in her sitting room. She rose when he came in and said softly, “Welcome home, my lord.”

  He stood in the shadow of the doorway looking at her. “Did you get my letter saying when to expect me?”

  “Yes. Thank you for writing.”

  Her face looked very pale in the firelight, and there were shadows under her eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked abruptly.

  “I am fine.” He came across to stand next to her and tipped her face up. She stood quite unresisting, looking up at him, waiting for what he would do next.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “Perhaps I am, a little.”

  He let go of her chin. “Come into your bedroom and see what I’ve brought you.”

  Her dark eyes sparkled a little. “A guitar?”

  “Come and see,” he repeated and stood aside for her to precede him.

  Lying on her bed was a guitar. Next to it was a wine-velvet cloak. “Oh,” said Margarita softly. “For me?” At his nod she went over to the bed and picked it up. It was floor-length and fully lined with sable.

  “Nicholas,” she breathed.

  That should help to keep you warm in this cold English climate.”

  She came to him then and touched him lightly on the arm. He thought that she could not have ventured to touch a complete stranger more tentatively. “Thank you,” she said, and her grave face flashed for a moment its rare smile.

  “You are most welcome,” he replied. “After dinner I expect a sample of that guitar.”

  *

  He had to postpone his guitar concert. Margarita was paler than ever at dinner, and although she made a pretense of eating, in actuality she consumed almost nothing. It was not until dinner was almost over that he noticed these things, having been occupied in giving her a strictly edited version of his visit to London. When dinner was over, he sent her to bed. “You look exhausted,” he said to her in the drawing room. “You can try the guitar tomorrow. Go to bed and get some sleep.” His voice had a note of protective authority she recognized, and automatically, she obeyed.

  After breakfast the fol
lowing morning, he came back upstairs and tapped at her door. He wanted to take her to the stables to see the filly he had bought for her to ride. There was no answer, and he was raising his arm to rap more sharply when there came to his ears the unmistakable sounds of someone being sick. He opened the door and walked in. Margarita was bent over the basin on her nightstand, retching uncontrollably. He strode across the room and put an arm around her, supporting her against him. When the attack was over, he wiped her face with his handkerchief and lifted her back into bed.

  When she was reclining against the pillows, he searched her face. It was pinched and sallow looking. Her eyes told him nothing, wide and dark and fathomless. “How long have you been ill like this?” he asked sharply. “I am going to send for the doctor.”

  “There is nothing wrong. He has already come. I am going to have a baby, that is all.”

  His eyes flickered with surprise. “A baby?”

  “Yes.”

  His finely cut nostrils were a little dilated. “When?”

  “In October, I believe.”

  “I see.” He looked at her in some concern. “Are you sick like that all the time?”

  “It is worst in the morning. The doctor says that after three months it usually passes.”

  “Three months!” He sat down on the side of the bed and picked up her hand. He stared for a moment at her wrist, exposed by the sleeve of her night dress. It looked so frail, so delicately veined and fragile against his own big hand. “A baby,” he said slowly. “I can’t quite take it in.”

  She gazed at him for a moment longer with that unreadable face, and then she suddenly smiled at him. It was a smile he had never seen before and in her eyes were acknowledgment and recognition. “I know,” she said softly.

  His hair had fallen over his forehead, like a schoolboy’s, and the line of his mouth as he looked at her was unexpectedly tender. “You stay in bed,” he said, and he did not mean it as a suggestion. “I’ll get someone to clean this up.” He rose from the bed. “Did you have Dr. Macrae?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll speak to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Try to get some sleep.”

  “I will try,” she said obediently and closed her eyes. He stood looking for a minute at the dark lashes as they lay on her pale cheek. Quietly, he left the room.

  *

  She insisted on dressing and coming down to dinner. He had protested when she first appeared, but she would not allow herself to be sent back upstairs. “I wish to join you at dinner,” she said stubbornly, and he had acquiesced. It was as though she had set herself a standard of behavior and clung to it fiercely.

  He watched her all through dinner. Everything about her was so delicately made: the straight, slender brows, the fastidious nose, the curves of her mouth. Yet her back, straight as a lance, never once touched the back of her chair. There was steel in that back, and endurance and strength. This small, slender girl had already in her short life shown a power of resistance and of survival far beyond what he had ever had to demonstrate.

  After dinner he told her what Andrés Bello had said. “I am glad Boves is dead,” she said after a minute. “I would very much have liked to kill him myself.” The lines of her mouth were severe. She meant it.

  “I heard something further,” he went on slowly. “Not from Senor Bello, from someone in the government. Spain is sending a great expedition against South America. It is to be commanded by General Morillo: five warships, over forty transports, and ten thousand soldiers was my information. One of the most imposing expeditions ever to leave a Spanish port. It may have sailed already.”

  “Madre de Dios,” said Margarita.

  “Spain does not want to lose its empire.”

  “It will, though.” There was a little frown of concentration between her brows. “In fact, this sending of a fleet may prove to be a very good thing.”

  “How so?”

  “The war so far has been a war carried on by the Criollos, the upper class,” she said seriously. “The rest of Venezuela, the pardos, the Indians, the llaneros, they either did not care or they fought, not for Spain but against us. They had no concept of national liberty.”

  Her lovely face was very somber. “Let them taste the tender mercies of Spanish rule, and independence will seem sweet. Bolivar will come back, and the final war will commence, a war of Venezuelans against Spaniards, a war of independence.”

  He was listening to her intently, his greenish eyes narrowed in concentration. “There is one thing in all this I do not understand. You tell me it was the aristocrats who made the revolution. You told me of all your father’s possessions; he was obviously a very wealthy man, a very influential man. Why would such a man, such a class of men, wish to change the established order?”

  Those grave, level eyes of hers were steady on his face. “You find it strange to contemplate the spectacle of a revolution planned and carried out by those who had everything to lose by it.”

  “Precisely.”

  “George Washington was one of the richest men in all North America,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, I suppose he was.” He grimaced a little. “You must think me most damnably materialistic.”

  “No. I think you have never known what it is to feel that foreigners are running your country when you are perfectly capable of running it yourself. How would you like it, my lord, if the only people who could sit in the English Parliament were Spaniards—Spaniards, born in Spain, I mean. No one born in England would be eligible.”

  There was the sound of a log falling on the fire. “I see what you mean,” he said.

  “I thought perhaps you might.”

  *

  The sickness did not get better, and Margarita was forced to go to bed and stay there. At first she could not lift her head from the pillow without being sick; it took all her concentration and energy to keep down a few spoonfuls of broth. Gradually the sickness got better, and she was able to sit up a little and even to read a bit.

  Nicholas was worried about her and, during the two months she was in bed, would come faithfully every night after dinner to sit with her, to talk with her, to read to her. He had searched his library without success for a novel that would appeal to her and would have no mention of war. Upon his mentioning his dilemma to Catherine Alnwick, she had given him a copy of Pride and Prejudice, which he read with an enjoyment he had not expected. He and Margarita laughed over Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, sympathized with Jane and Elizabeth and went from despising to admiring Mr. Darcy. After they finished Pride and Prejudice, he borrowed Mansfield Park, and they enjoyed that as well.

  Margarita’s attitude toward Nicholas had altered after the night she woke up screaming in terror and he had comforted her. It changed even more during the months she lay in bed. Far from dreading his presence, she found herself looking forward to his visits. Health and strength and steadiness walked into the room when Nicholas came; he made her feel she would get well, would be able to once again do the things she wanted. As she lay listening to his strong, even, clear voice reading Jane Austen to her, she felt more at peace than she had in over a year.

  Chapter Ten

  “…and in my breast

  Spring wakens too, and my regret

  Becomes an April violet.”

  —Tennyson

  It was a lovely spring morning in April when Nicholas took Margarita out into the garden for the first time. She drew in her breath in wonder and delight at the sight of the daffodils, whose golden heads greeted her first excursion out-of-doors since February. The world had awakened. The sun was warm on their heads, the scent of the damp earth was in their nostrils.

  “I always think the advantage of living in a climate like this is that you have spring,” said Nicholas. “In a country like Venezuela, where one is constantly surrounded by flowers, how can one feel the sense of wonder, of deliverance, that the first daffodils of spring have here? The deadness of winter is over. The ea
rth is alive again. It is like a resurrection.”

  She listened to him and then bent to cup her hands around one of the brilliant yellow flowers. It felt so cool and delicate under her fingers. She stared at its sunny beauty and knew that Nicholas was right. She felt herself coming back as well, from the shadows into the light. But I can’t bear it, she thought. She released the flower and stood up. “They are very beautiful,” she said in a low voice.

  Her face had the dark, lost look he had seen on it only a few times before. “Don’t you want this child, Margarita?” he asked gently. “I thought, from what you said to Mrs. Frost, that you would be happy.”

  “It is hard to be happy when you are sick.”

  “I know. But I thought you were better.”

  “I am. It is—oh, it is so difficult to explain what I feel.”

  “Try.” He guided her to a stone bench and they sat down.

  “It is that I feel I have no right to be happy, no right to be sitting here in this lovely sunshine. There is too much suffering, there has been too much suffering, for me to be happy.”

  “I see.” He spoke slowly, carefully, seeking to find the right words. “It is not wrong of you to be happy if you can be. It would be wrong of you to deny in yourself all those feelings and hopes and dreams your people fought for. You owe it to them to live the fullest life you possibly can, to use all the talents your parents so carefully nurtured in you. Do you think your father would be proud of you for being unhappy?”

  Her profile was pure and delicate and unresponsive. “No,” she said. He looked from her to the daffodils, and when he looked back her head was bent. He saw a tear fall onto her wrist, and he reached out to put an arm around her. He could feel her holding herself hard, trying not to let the tears come. He put his cheek against her hair.

  “I am so sorry, little one,” he said softly. “I have been so unkind to you.”