Antonio looked dazed, still catching up with her. ‘She’s the house –’ He frowned, and then it came to him: ‘She’s the housekeeper?’
She was. A skeleton staff was staying behind, of which she was the backbone, the housekeeper. Later, Rafael would learn that the Kitsons lived for most of the year at their manor in the countryside and, like many of their friends, had only been at their townhouse to witness the splendour of the royal newlyweds’ entrance into London and the elaborate pageants held in the streets to celebrate it. They’d ended up having to be patient. The wedding had taken place at Winchester Cathedral just days after the prince had come ashore at Southampton, but the royal couple’s progress to London thereafter had been leisurely, taking almost a month.
Now, though, in the first week of September, festivities over, the Kitsons were heading back to their manor. In Spain, the land was for peasants: that was the unanimous view of Rafael’s fellow countrymen. Something, then, that he had in common with the English: the dislike of towns and cities, the preference for open expanse and woods.
The first evening after the Kitsons’ departure, he arrived back alone. Antonio was using the departure as an excuse for his own absence – as he saw it, he no longer needed to play the part of the guest. Not that he’d ever really done so. Rafael took it to mean the contrary, considering himself obliged to show support for the pale woman who’d been left almost alone to cater for them. He knocked on the door – wielded the leopard’s head – and was disappointed to hear that one of the dogs remained in residence. The pale woman opened the door, dodging the animal; the boy, too, was behind her. The woman wasn’t quite so pale – flushed and somehow scented – and Rafael guessed she’d been cooking. He wanted to apologise for having interrupted her, but didn’t know how. She looked behind him. ‘Mr Gomez?’
‘No.’ He didn’t know how to say more.
She shrugged, seemed happy enough to give up on him, and stepped aside to let Rafael in. He noticed the bunch of keys on her belt: all the house keys, he presumed. She said something that sounded concerned and, frowning, touched his cloak. Said it again: ‘Drenched.’ Drenched. Then something else, faster, and a mime of eating, a pointing towards the Hall.
Having hung up his cloak, he went along to the Hall and, self-consciously, took a place at the single table alongside the others: the porter who’d let him through the gate; a man who he was fairly sure was one of the grooms; and a quite elderly man whom he’d seen around but had no idea what he did. And the dog, of course. The old man was talking to the others – dog included – and didn’t let up when the pale woman began bringing in the dishes. Rafael rose to go and help her, but she shook her head and then he saw that she had the child in tow as helper. When an array of dishes was on the table, she helped the boy on to the bench and took her place beside him. After Grace, the old man resumed his chat and the others took him up on it, although the child kept quiet. Clearly, mealtime silence was only for when the whole household was in residence. Perhaps they were catching up on a day spent mostly alone.
Eventually, Rafael felt he should say something. ‘Very good,’ he said to the woman, indicating the spread, even though it was yet more meat – poultry of various types – served as usual with the jellies which he guessed were made from berries of some kind, whatever kinds they had in England. She frowned and shook her head, and he understood her to mean it wasn’t her doing – this food had been left by the cook for them. But to this, he smiled back his own dismissal: the food was well presented and that would have been her doing; there was still plenty that she’d done. And this time, albeit with a small show of reluctance, she allowed it, bowing her head. To follow the meats, she fetched a bowl of something sweet, causing much excitement among his fellow diners. Usually there wasn’t anything sweet, just the soft, wet cheeses. This was a sweetened, fruited cream with the unmistakable, delectable flavour of strawberries.
When the table had finally been cleared, Rafael wondered what he should do. Usually, he’d go to his room and work on his design, but surely it would be rude to walk away openly from this small gathering. The woman indicated that he should join them on cushions around the fireplace – in which no fire was lit – and so he did, only to find to his embarrassment that both the porter and the groom were excusing themselves. The old man took a heap of cushions and lay back immediately for a sleep, and the dog muscled in. The woman seemed to have produced from nowhere an article of clothing to adapt or repair, and her little boy began working on another, unpicking stitches for her. Rafael felt profoundly awkward: he had nothing with him, nothing to do. Pretend to doze, perhaps; perhaps he should do that. He had a cold and was conscious, in the silence, of his snuffling. But then the woman spoke to him: ‘Spain, England,’ and she drew a horizontal line in the air with her index finger. ‘How many days?’ She laid the fabric in her lap and held up both hands to display her fingers: ‘Five, six, seven …?’
‘Five,’ he said. ‘Five days.’
She looked appreciative of the answer – that he had answered – but then didn’t seem to know what to make of it, didn’t seem to know if a five-day sea-journey was long or short, or indeed longer or shorter than she might’ve guessed. There was nothing to say.
He indicated her son: ‘Four, five years?’
‘Four.’
So, he’d been right; and of course, because Francisco was almost four. ‘Big,’ he said, careful to sound impressed.
Looking at her boy, she shrugged with her mouth as if considering. She was being modest; the boy was tall, and – Rafael saw it – she was pleased he’d noticed. Sad, too, though – Rafael saw this, too – if only for a heartbeat: a fleeting sadness, perhaps at her little boy growing older and leaving his infant years behind. ‘Nicholas,’ she said. Rafael repeated it with obvious approval. ‘My son,’ he said, making a fist over his heart. ‘Three years. Francisco.’
‘Oh!’ Her eyes lit up, and she looked as if she’d like to ask more. Instead, though, a small gesture, and unconsciously, Rafael felt, a reflection of his own: a brief, steadying touch of her own hand to her own heart. Which rather touched him.
‘Rafael,’ he said, tapping his chest.
‘Cecily,’ she reciprocated. This, he hadn’t expected, and suffered a pang of anxiety that he’d pushed her into it. ‘Madam’would’ve been fine. Again she looked expectant and he guessed that he was supposed to repeat it, to try it out, which he did and to which she looked amused although it had sounded all right to him.
After that, he’d felt relaxed enough to excuse himself and go up to his room to fetch paper and charcoal, and for the following couple of hours in Cecily’s company he sketched and half-worked on ideas.
Subsequent evenings, this became the routine, sometimes with him working at the table, sometimes on a letter home. The old man, Richard – and dog, Flynn – would sleep; and Cecily would continue her work on a gown. Fine wool, it usually was: definitely not her own. ‘Frizado,’ she said, once, holding it up for him to see and relishing the texture between her fingertips. Another time, ‘Mockado,’ and another, ‘Grogram.’ Later, every evening, though, she’d put her work aside and then, standing up, standing tall to stretch, she’d reach to the small of her back to release her apron’s bow with a tug. As it dropped away, she’d swoop it up, giving it a shake to release any creases and looping it into a couple of easy, loose folds. Then she’d reach into the linen basket for the little unassuming roll of undyed linen in which were pinned and pocketed her own special needles and threads.
The first time, she’d held up a needle, presented it to him although it was so fine that it vanished in the air between them, and said, ‘From Spain.’ She said it with a depreciating little laugh: there wasn’t a lot they could talk about
