household, fabric over her arm, and ready when required to claim the favoured position of housekeeper? For ever, said her demeanour, but – Rafael felt – a little too deliberately. The child gave her away. That child wasn’t at home, here.
Rafael concentrated again on his sketch. There was plenty for him to do, from the fan of bones across the back of the hand to the indentations on the knuckles. His own wife’s hands, by comparison, were small and featureless. Not that he’d ever actually sketched them, but, then, he didn’t have to, he knew them. Dainty, was how he’d thought of Leonor’s hands, if he’d thought anything of them at all, although the realisation surprised him because he’d never thought of her as dainty. She was small, yes, but strong.
Prettily bejewelled, was what he remembered now of Leonor’s hands. Cecily’s wedding ring, her only ring, was loose. It moved as she moved her hand, dropping back towards the knuckle and revealing a stripe of pallor. She was fussing Nicholas’s hair now and Rafael could almost feel the reassuring clunk of that ring – its solidity and smoothness – as if on his own head. The slight resistance of it, its switching back and forth. He wondered if her feet were like her hands, long and distinctly boned. And then he wondered what he was doing, wondering about her feet. The dusk must be addling him. He wasn’t thinking of her feet, of course: what he was thinking of was proportion and line. Because that was what he did, in life. In his work. Angles. She had begun to walk around the room now with her taper, bestowing glowing pools, and he let himself think of the strong arches beneath those soft-sounding feet of hers.
Then she took him utterly by surprise in coming up and looking over his shoulder. No escape.
The surprise, now, was hers. ‘My hands?’
He cringed. ‘Yes.’
She looked down for a while longer at the drawing, then began to look at her own, real hands – raising and slowly rotating them – as if for comparison. As if seeing them when before, perhaps, they’d gone unremarked. But also as if they weren’t hers. He said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh! – no.’ The briefest, faintest of smiles to reassure him. Then, tentatively, the tip of her index finger down on to the paper, on to a stroke of charcoal, where it paused as if resisting following the line. Then back, locked away into a demure clasp of her hands. She gave him another brief smile, this time as if in formal thanks. This sketch, he didn’t offer her. It was just a study, after all. A technical exercise. That’s all it was.
Thereafter, chastened, he made a show of sketching the far end of the Hall, rigorous in his shading, frowning at his efforts. Cecily had returned to her embroidery, her son was drowsily stroking the dog, and the old man rattled with snores. When Rafael judged an acceptable interval had elapsed, he made his excuses. Cecily’s upwards glance was dazed from the close work she’d been doing and – reminded, herself, of time having passed – she switched that glance from Rafael to Nicholas, to check on him. And there he was, fallen asleep. Rafael hadn’t noticed, either. He wasn’t surprised, though: the child had quite a nasty cold. Cecily huffed, exasperated: he’d have to be woken to go to bed.
Rafael slammed down the impulse to offer to lift him. It would be too familiar of him. But it must have occurred to Cecily, too, because now she was looking at him as if she didn’t quite dare ask. He’d have to do it, then; but here came a flush of pleasure that he could do something, could offer her something. Still mindful, though, of overstepping the mark, he gestured: Shall I …?
Her response was a hopeful wince: Could you? Would you mind?
He set down his sketches and charcoal, convinced that he was going to do it wrong, do it awkwardly and wake the boy, who’d be alarmed to find himself being pawed by the Spanish stranger. Approaching him, Rafael sized him up, deliberated how to ensure least disturbance and greatest lifting power. Cecily fluttered around him as if offering assistance, but in fact doing nothing of the kind – although there was nothing much she could do except wipe her son’s nose. Rafael crouched, slotted his hands under Nicholas’s arms and drew him to his chest. ‘Come on, little man,’ he found himself soothing, just as he would with Francisco. The boy offered no resistance and Rafael nearly overbalanced. Righting himself, he strained for the lift, bore the weight then settled him, marvelling how the little body could feel both so unlike Francisco’s and, somehow, at the same time, identical. His heart protested at the confusion. Breathing in the muskiness of the boy’s hair, he nodded to Cecily to lead the way.
She led him from the Hall to a staircase and up the narrow stone steps to a first-floor door, opened the door, ushered him inside, and drew a truckle bed from beneath the main bed. He made sure not to look around – that would be improper – as he lowered Nicholas on to the mattress. Nicholas frowned, turned on to his side and drew up his knees; Cecily bent over him, wiping his nose again and then busy with blankets. Rafael retreated, risking a glance back from the doorway and getting a preoccupied smile in thanks. She’d be staying in the room. He made his way to his own.
The next day, visitors arrived: Mr Kitson’s secretary – in London on business – with four smartly dressed men whom Rafael didn’t recognise. They, too, talked all through dinner, but just amongst themselves, perhaps on business matters, which left Rafael’s usual crowd in respectful near-silence. Suffering the beginning of Nicholas’s cold, Rafael was content to sit back. He listened not for the actual words but to the sounds, and he found that he was beginning to be able to distinguish between those sounds: yes, there were the blunt ones, particularly concerning things to hand – the food, and the dog, in whom they all took an interest as if it were a child, in fact in place of any interest in the actual child – but then they’d turn into conversation which had more flow, and Rafael would catch notes of French and Latin. It was a ragbag of a language, English.
They’d gone by the following suppertime. After that meal, Rafael retired as usual to the cushions alongside Cecily and her son, and Richard – the old man – and dog, to sketch from memory the front elevation of the house, for Francisco. This is where I’m staying. This – up here – is my window. After a while, it occurred to him that Cecily might be watching him: occasionally there was a quick lift and turn of her head in his direction. Once, he’d managed to meet her gaze but she’d glanced back down, expressionless, as if hoping to get away with it. Having sketched her, he’d unsettled her, which he was sorry to see. She was anxious to know what he was up to, to see if she was once again his subject. But it would be too open an acknowledgement for him to take the initiative and show her his drawing. Instead, he took to putting it down every now and then in what he estimated to be her view, while he blew his nose; and then, when that didn’t seem to have worked, he laid it aside while he paced to stretch his aching legs. After that, there were no more surreptitious glances.
Later that week, he found himself dabbling at the cleft between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. In isolation, the fold wouldn’t be recognisable: just a smudge of charcoal. Nothing, really. A space.
There was something about her brow, though, with its broadness that he’d noticed when he’d first seen her. There was something appealing about that. The eyes wide-spaced, unlike so many English faces, which tended towards the pinched. Hers was an open face. He half-sketched, doodled, seeing how little she had by way of eyebrows or eyelashes. Cursory and incomplete, they were, as if only the briefest attempts had been made at them. He had to be so very light with the charcoal to draw their absence.
He could see some of her hair, even though he wasn’t looking. It reflected light – but whether it was golden or silvery, he didn’t see. Women’s caps here were placed back to reveal middle partings and hair sleek to the head. In Spain, there was never a glimpse of hair: just foreheads, high and bare. Leonor wouldn’t sketch well, even if he dared try. Spanish women were generally soft-faced and doe-eyed, but Leonor had a sharp face with small, slate-coloured eyes, and her mouth was hard, thin-lipped,
