The Lion Triumphant (32 page)

I never forget that he had allowed me to send a letter to my mother. I used to dream of her in the old Abbey garden and I held imaginary conversations with her. I believed I was never far from her thoughts.

Perhaps by now, I would promise myself, she is receiving that letter. She is weeping over it; she would tuck it into her bodice and say: “My darling Cat’s hands have touched this!” And it would never leave her.

So I must be grateful to Felipe.

He loved me and he loved our son. To us alone did he show that part of his nature which was capable of loving. It had once occurred to me that when he loved it would be with a single-minded devotion. How right I had been! He now gave to love that intensity of passion which he had once given to revenge.

He abandoned himself to moments of great happiness and at the very heart of that happiness was myself and our son.

He loved to lie on our bed with me in his arms and talk of our future. I loved to hear him say our boy’s name. He said it differently when we were alone together. I felt an emotion welling up within me because such a cold stern man could love so much.

“Catalina, Catalina, my love,” he would whisper to me.

He was indeed happy and it is gratifying to realize one has brought such joy to another human being.

His first task was to legitimize Roberto. Ships came now and then from Spain to Tenerife bringing men from the Escorial, where Felipe’s master lived in spartan state. Papers came from Madrid and he gleefully showed them to me.

“Roberto is my firstborn,” he said. “It is now as though we had been married when he was born. There will be no barriers to his inheritance.”

“And Carlos?” I asked.

His brow darkened. He had never liked Carlos although he had accepted his presence in our nurseries to please me.

“He shall have nothing of mine, but his mother’s family will make him a rich man.”

That contented me.

Felipe talked often of the time when we would go to Spain. He was anxious to return now. Don Luis was ready to take over his responsibilities. There was no reason why we should not go.

We were blind to imagine that we could have married and none question it. The Queen of England had not dared to marry her lover after her lover’s wife had died mysteriously. Should the Governor of a small island be less immune?

There were whispers.

It was Manuela who first brought them to my knowledge.

“Mistress,” she said, her brow puckered, “they are saying you are a witch.”

“I … a witch. What nonsense is this?”

“They are saying that you have bewitched the Governor. He were never as he is with you, before.”

“Why should he be. I am his wife.”

“He had a wife before, Senora.”

“This is nonsense. You know what the Governor’s first wife was like.”

“She were possessed by devils.”

“She was simpleminded, half-mad.”

“Possessed, they say. And that you commanded the devils to possess her.”

I burst out laughing. “Then I hope you tell them what fools they were. She was possessed before I ever knew of her existence. You are aware of that.”

“But they says she was possessed and you sent the devils to possess her.”

“They are mad themselves.”

“Yes,” she said uneasily. But that was the beginning.

They watched me furtively. When I went into La Laguna I was aware of averted eyes and if I turned sharply I would find people were looking back at me. Once I heard the whispered word “Witch.”

At the Casa Azul the shutters were closed. I heard that Pilar walked through the house lamenting. She stood at the top of the stairs and called to Isabella to come back to her, to tell her what happened on that fateful afternoon.

Felipe pretended to be indifferent to the tension which was building up, but he did not deceive me. He came to our bedroom one evening and his face was set and anxious. He had spent most of the day in La Laguna.

He said: “I would we were in Madrid. Then this nonsense would end.”

“What nonsense is this?” I asked.

“There has been much talk. Someone has been to La Laguna and talked recklessly. There is no alternative. A certain course will be taken.”

“What course?”

“I am speaking of Isabella’s death. There is to be an inquiry.”

Manuela sat mending Carlos’ tunic. Her hands trembled as she did so.

I said: “What ails you, Manuela?”

She lifted her great sorrowful eyes to my face.

“They have taken Edmundo away to be questioned. He was the one to find her. She was lying at the foot of the staircase with her neck broken. He was the one. They will question him.”

“He will satisfy them with his answers,” I said, “and then he will come home.”

“People who are taken for questioning often do not come back.”

“Why should not Edmundo?”

“When they question,” she said, “they will have the answer they want.”

“Edmundo will be all right. He was always so good with Isabella. She was fond of him.”

“She is dead,” said Manuela, “and he is taken for questioning.”

I had learned since Manuela came to us that she and Edmundo had both been in the retinue Isabella had brought with her from Spain. Manuela had been one of her maids and Edmundo had known how to look after her when she was “possessed.” When the raiders had come Manuela had hidden and so saved herself; and she had been with Isabella during the months of pregnancy and the birth of Carlos. She had loved the child and tried to protect him from the alternate devotion and dislike of his mother; and when the boy had been put in charge of that dreadful harridan she had done what she could to help him.

It was understandable that she should be sad because Edmundo had been taken in.

I was astonished at the outcome of the questioning. Edmundo confessed that he had murdered his mistress. He had stolen a cross studded with rubies from her jewel box to give to a girl whom he wished to please. Isabella had caught him in the act of taking the cross and because he feared the consequences he had suffocated her by placing a damp cloth over her mouth. Then he had thrown her down the stairs.

He was hanged in the plaza of La Laguna.

“That is the end of the affair,” said Felipe.

I could not get out of my mind the memory of big Edmundo lifting poor Isabella so gently in his arms as I had seen him do when she was suffering.

“He was so gentle,” I said. “I cannot believe him capable of murder.”

“There are many sides to men and women,” Felipe answered.

“It is hard to believe this of Edmundo,” I said.

“He has confessed and the matter is at an end, my love.”

I was disturbed but glad that I could consider the mystery solved.

Christmas came and went. I thought of home and the mummers, the wassailing and the Christmas bush. I wondered whether John Gregory had reached England yet and whether my mother had my letter.

What a Christmas gift that would be for her!

To Felipe’s disappointment I had not conceived. I was not sure whether I was disappointed or not. I longed for children, and yet I could not forget Isabella; even though Edmundo had confessed to murdering her, she still seemed to stand between me and my husband. Sometimes I felt that my husband was a stranger to me. I never thought for one moment that he had ever loved Isabella. I believed him when he said that there had been one love in his life and that I was that love. That was something he could not hide. His love for me was expressed a hundred times during a single day. It was in the very inflection of his voice. Moreover, I had given him Roberto—a sturdy little fellow now three years of age… But there was something Felipe held back even from me, and perhaps for this reason I willed myself not to conceive. The fact remains that I did not, although I was not unhappy.

It was never cold in Tenerife, for there was very little difference between the winter and summer; the only unpleasant days were those when the south winds blew from Africa and this was not frequent. I liked the damp warm atmosphere and I did not want to leave it for the extremes of temperature which I believed we should experience in Spain. I often thought of the cold winter days at home in the Abbey. Once the Thames had frozen and we had been able to walk across it. I remembered sitting around the great log fire in the hall and how the mummers had slapped their frozen hands into life before beginning their performance. I remembered so much of home; and sometimes I felt a dull pain in my throat, so great was my longing for it.

Yet here I had a husband who loved me and a sweet son.

In January the Cavalcade of the Three Wise Men took place and we took the children into La Laguna to watch it. What excitement there was and I listened with delight to the chattering children.

Yes, there was so much that I enjoyed.

Time slipped away and it was Holy Week and this was a time of great celebration. There were more processions in the town and when I saw the white robed figures coming from the Cathedral I was reminded so poignantly of the day I had sat in the plaza and looked on the misery of men, I felt suddenly nauseated; and a poignant longing for home swept over me.

I had talked of my sudden desire for home to Honey and she admitted that she felt this too. She was adored by Don Luis; she had her little daughter even as I had my son; but our home was something we should never forget; and I believe that at the very heart of it was my mother—for Honey as well as for me.

We had ridden into La Laguna on our mules to see the Holy Week procession and left the children at home because we feared they might be hurt in the crowds. Honey and I stood side by side. There were two grooms with us; we were never allowed to go far without protection. And as we stood on the edge of the crowd I felt someone press against me.

I turned sharply and looked into a pair of fanatical eyes which looked straight into mine.

“Pilar,” I said.

“Witch,” she hissed. “Heretic witch.”

I started to tremble. Crowds in this plaza brought with them such hideous memories.

I said to Felipe: “I saw the woman Pilar in the town. She hates me. I could see by the way she looked at me.”

“She was devoted to her charge. She had been with her since her birth.”

“I think she believes that I am responsible for her death.”

“She is distraught. She will grow away from her grief.”

“I have rarely seen such hatred in any eyes as was in hers when she looked at me. She called me a witch … a heretic witch.”

I was unprepared for the change in Felipe’s expression. Fear was clearly to be seen as his lips formed the word “heretic.” Then suddenly that control which was so much a part of his character seemed to desert him. He took me into his arms and held me tightly against him.

“Catalina,” he said, “we are going to Madrid. We must not stay here.”

A terrible fear had begun to overshadow me. When darkness fell I would often fancy I was being watched. I could not specifically say how. It was just that I would hear footsteps which seemed to follow me; or the quiet shutting of a door when I was in a room, so that it seemed that someone had opened it to watch me and then quietly shut it and gone away. On one or two occasions I fancied someone had been in my room. Some familiar object had been moved from its place and I was sure I had not done this.

I admonished myself. I was allowing my imagination to take possession of my good sense. Since Isabella’s death and my marriage—the one a natural sequence of the other—the tension had been gradually rising. I could not forget Pilar’s face when she looked at me and whispered those words: “Witch. Heretic witch” and in my mind had conjured up such horror as I dared not brood on.

It came into my mind that there was hatred around me. Some evil force was trying to destroy me. I knew this was so when I found the image in my drawer.

I had opened it unsuspectingly and there looking up at me was the figure. It was made of wax and represented a beautiful girl with black hair piled high and in that hair was a miniature comb. Her gown was of velvet and the resemblance struck me immediately. Isabella! It could not be meant to resemble anyone else.

I picked it up. What horror possessed me then, for protruding from her gown, at that spot beneath which her heart would have been, was a pin.

Someone had put the thing in my drawer. Who? Someone had made that thing in the image of Isabella. Someone had stuck a pin through the heart and put it in my drawer!

I stood there with it in my hand.

The door had opened. I looked up startled and saw a dark reflection in the mirror.

To my relief I realized that it was only Manuela.

I held the figure crushed in my hand and turned to her. I wondered whether she noticed how shaken I was.

“The children are ready to say good night,” she said.

“I’ll come, Manuela.”

She disappeared and I stood staring at the thing in my hand; then I thrust it to the back of the drawer and went to the nursery.

I could not listen to what the children were saying. I could only think of that horrible thing and its significance.

Who had put it there? Someone who wished me ill. Someone who was accusing me of bringing about Isabella’s death. I must destroy it with all speed. While it was there I was unsafe.

As soon as I had tucked the children in and kissed them good night I went back to my room.

I opened my drawer. The figure had disappeared.

I told Felipe what I had found and I was immediately aware of the terrible fear this aroused in him.

“And it was gone?” he cried. “You should never have put it back in the drawer. You should have destroyed it immediately.”

“It means that someone believes I killed Isabella.”

“It means,” he said, “that someone is trying to prove that you are a witch.”

I did not have to ask him what that meant.

“I was accused of that on the ship,” I said. I shivered. “I came near to a horrible death.”

“Some of the sailors must have talked. We must get away from here quickly.”

He speeded up preparations for our departure.

Fear had certainly entered the Hacienda. The great shadow of the Inquisition hung over us. Sometimes I would awaken shouting, having dreamed I was in that square. I was looking on from the box … looking on at myself in the hideous sanbenito. I could hear the crackle of flames at my feet. I would awake crying out from my dream and Felipe would take me in his arms and comfort me.