The Queen’s Sorrow

Francisco would be lost to those buttons, he’d love them. He’d line them up on the floor, transforming them in his imagination into something else, creating a drama for them and probably talking them through it. He was always occupied. What he was actually doing might well not be clear to an observer. He’d be sitting straight-backed with that downward incline of his head, his attention on his hands, and his hands busy.

Cecily shifted on her cushion and her son’s gaze snapped up to her. However unwelcoming those eyes were to anyone but his mother, there was no denying that they were extraordinary: huge, almond-shaped, and a proper blue, not what passed for blue in most eyes here in England but was really an absence of colour, a mere shallow pooling of what passed for light.

Francisco’s smile was famous, lightning-quick and lightning-bright, all eyes and teeth, almost absurd in its intensity. People would laugh aloud when first faced with it, and turn to Rafael, incredulous and celebratory: What a beautiful smile! Truly it was a gift: such a smile could never be learned. Rafael recalled it from Francisco’s earliest days: Leonor turning around to walk away, and there over her shoulder was the baby and in a flash that cheeky, laughable smile. Nothing withheld, nothing watchful or measured in it. Such a smile anticipated no knock-backs, no caution on behalf of the beholder, nothing but the absolute best in response. It was wonderful to witness and Rafael understood the seriousness of being the guardian of it.

Naïvely, he’d not intended Cecily to see his sketch of her son. But on one of her trips from the room with her silks, she glanced over and exclaimed. Instantly, though, came a hesitancy, as if it might have been presumptuous of her even to have recognised the subject. Rafael sat there with it in his lap, helpless, exposed. Was it a gift? Just because that hadn’t been his intention … It was a gift, wasn’t it, this sketch of her boy. Had to be.

‘Nicholas,’ she said, sounding amazed. ‘Look.’ And then that hesitancy again: to Rafael, ‘May I?’

He handed it to her, and she knelt beside her boy to show him. ‘It’s you.’

He stared at it, no less wary than when confronting Rafael himself, studying it, intent and grave, as if looking for something, before surrendering it back to his mother. She received it with a slight reluctance. In turn she went to hand it to Rafael, but he declined with a smile and a raising of his hands. He hoped to strike the right note – a glad giving up of it, but not too dismissive of it, either – but didn’t know that he’d been all that successful. She withdrew gingerly, looked for somewhere to place it and laid it face-up on the table, where it seemed, to Rafael, vulnerable.

The following evening, he sketched Cecily’s hand; not the one busy with the needle but the other, the steadying one, her left. The one on which she wore a wedding band. And he wondered: was she a widow? He’d been presuming so, but maybe there was a husband working away somewhere – perhaps for Mr Kitson, abroad, or at the country house. Rafael hadn’t a clue as to the ways people lived and worked here in England. Perhaps it was normal for spouses to live – to work – apart. If she was a widow, how long had she been bereaved? The child was only four. Clearly she’d had him late in life, and Rafael wondered if there were others, elsewhere, grown up. Rafael imagined opening the conversation: You know, my wife and I, we only ever had the one, and late. They had so nearly not had him; he had so nearly never happened.

There would become a graininess to the dusk and soon they’d see that it’d already happened: the lovely, velvety mix of light and dark would finally have lost balance in favour of darkness. However hard Rafael tried to see the moment happen, he never succeeded. It was, he knew, in the nature of it: it had to happen unseen or it couldn’t happen at all. This evening, as on all others, they’d been sinking into the shadows, letting themselves and the room be taken. But soon Cecily would get up and begin lighting candles, and the candlelight would gently scoop them up, set them apart and make them observers of those shadows.

He could see how unscarred her hands were: unburned, uncalloused; no signs of hardship. Certainly she endured none in this house. She was a seamstress who didn’t do the laundry; she shopped for food rather than pulling it from the soil or kneading or cooking it. But she’d have come from somewhere. She’d have survived things; there would have been things to survive, there were always things to have to survive. Had she always lived and worked in houses like this? There was no trace of her personal history on her hands, except for the marriage. It shone, the evidence of that. How long had she been here, gliding through this 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, slipped sideways. He adored that cussed little mouth, a glimpse of it never failed to give a kick to his heart. The memory of it, even. Her hair was plain brown and her complexion sallow, which suggested she was delicate when in fact she was anything but. A trick, that. She was no classic beauty, but still Rafael was captivated by her.

That night, for the first time in a long time, he thought of Beatriz. She’d been his mother’s maid and she’d seemed to him, aged fifteen, to have been in the household for ever. But it had probably only been two or three years, and she was likely no older than he was. He’d never looked at her: that was the truth. Not like that. She was just there, his mother’s maid. Later, he puzzled how he’d missed that she was so extraordinary-looking with her pale face and amber eyes. Her hair – an abundance of tiny copper curls – he couldn’t have known about.

One afternoon, while he was sitting in the garden, she approached him, coming up close as if curious. She bent to look into his eyes, and held the look. His worry was that he’d done something wrong and been discovered, because there was a knowingness to her expression. There was nothing for him to do but look back at her, and wait. He’d never before looked into her eyes – of course not – and he was intrigued by their colour. Not a colour that he’d ever seen in anyone else’s eyes, nor even imagined possible for eyes. Amber. Then she had her fingers in his hair, lifting it back off his forehead, away from his face, as if he had a fever. He was suddenly conscious of her laced-up bosom, so close. The easing of his hair from his scalp was causing him a physical stirring of the kind he’d felt before – no use pretending otherwise – but never in direct response to someone’s touch. But then she was gone, across the garden, back towards the house.

He knew something. He was suddenly in possession of a knowledge, he felt sure, that was going to make all the difference to his life: a touch – the mere touch – of a woman was all that mattered, was reason enough to be alive.

From now on, he hungered for her presence. That was all. He was sure she’d come to him again; he understood that was what she’d wanted him to know. And a couple of days later, she did come to him. In the garden, again. She stopped as if he’d called her to a halt, which he hadn’t. And gave him that same look, albeit from a distance. He was to come to her, then. Her stillness reminded him of childhood ‘catch’, the pause before the dash. His blood beat inside his ears, great giddying thwacks. When he reached her, he didn’t know what to do; he didn’t know what it was that he was supposed to do. Washed up, he was, there before her. Her face. The linen band of her cap, its edge proud beneath his fingertips; the tiniest drop down on to bare skin and along to the scarcely perceptible well of one temple. The rough silk of her eyebrows. Folds of her nose, one side and the other. Crest of her lips, its resistance. Then the lips themselves, the drag of them in the wake of his fingertip, his complete, so-slow circle. Her lips, their fingertip-breadth, as if made for this.

They opened, those lips, just a little, just enough to catch his fingertip in her front teeth: the very lightest of bites, very smallest of threats. The serrated edges of her teeth and the unevenness of their set. And then her tongue, a burst of soft, wet warmth.

He withdrew his fingertip, but only because he wanted to put his own tongue there against hers, just inside her lips. Her breath was hot, which he hadn’t anticipated, and musty. The tip of her tongue lifted his, and he was surprised by its strength.

Fearing he was about to disgrace himself, he took his mouth from hers, but within a heartbeat he was prepared to take the risk and was back there. Suddenly, though, she pulled away, was on her way across the garden, and only then did he hear what she must have been listening for: footsteps. Into view came the kitchen boy with a handful of herbs. All Rafael could think was how he and Beatriz could continue. It was as urgent as if someone had stopped his breath.

When he next encountered her in the garden, she did the stopping and looking but then moved off and he realised he was to follow her. She led him through the gate into the woods; and from then on, that was where they met. She’d take off her cap and shake free her wonderful hair. The cap was all she ever took off; he never saw her less than fully dressed. They’d lie down and kiss; she’d lie on him and he’d be all too aware of the pillow of her bosom. They lay pressed together, pushing against each other to get closer still. After a week or so of this, she did reach underneath herself to unlace him, but he assumed that she was merely making him more comfortable. She’d have known that he’d never dare do it himself in her company, so she was doing it for him, allowing it, tolerating his indecorous state.

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