Father Fogden turned to the graven image. “Have we not something this unfortunate lady might wear, Mamacita?” he asked in Spanish. He seemed to hesitate, swaying gently. “Perhaps, one of the dresses in—”
The woman bared her teeth at me. “They are much too small for such a cow,” she said, also in Spanish. “Give her your old robe, if you must.” She cast an eye of scorn on my tangled hair and mud-streaked face. “Come,” she said in English, turning her back on me. “You wash.”
She led me to a smaller patio at the back of the house, where she provided me with two buckets of cold, fresh water, a worn linen towel, and a small pot of soft soap, smelling strongly of lye. Adding a shabby gray robe with a rope belt, she bared her teeth at me again and left, remarking genially in Spanish, “Wash away the blood on your hands, Christ-killing whore.”
I shut the patio gate after her with a considerable feeling of relief, stripped off my sticky, filthy clothes with even more relief, and made my toilet as well as might be managed with cold water and no comb.
Clad decently, if oddly, in Father Fogden’s extra robe, I combed out my wet hair with my fingers, contemplating my peculiar host. I wasn’t sure whether the priest’s excursions into oddness were some form of dementia, or only the side effects of long-term alcoholism and cannabis intoxication, but he seemed a gentle, kindly soul, in spite of it. His servant—if that’s what she was—was another question altogether.
Mamacita made me more than slightly nervous. Mr. Stern had announced his intention of going down to the seaside to bathe, and I was reluctant to go back into the house until he returned. There had been quite a lot of sangria left, and I suspected that Father Fogden—if he was still conscious—would be little protection by this time against that basilisk glare.
Still, I couldn’t stay outside all afternoon; I was very tired, and wanted to sit down at least, though I would have preferred to find a bed and sleep for a week. There was a door opening into the house from my small patio; I pushed it open and stepped into the dark interior.
I was in a small bedroom. I looked around, amazed; it didn’t seem part of the same house as the Spartan main room and the shabby patios. The bed was made up with feather pillows and a coverlet of soft red wool. Four huge patterned fans were spread like bright wings across the whitewashed walls, and wax candles in a branched brass candelabrum sat on the table.
The furniture was simply but carefully made, and polished with oil to a soft, deep gloss. A curtain of striped cotton hung across the end of the room. It was pushed partway back, and I could see a row of dresses hung on hooks behind it, in a rainbow of silken color.
These must be Ermenegilda’s dresses, the ones that Father Fogden had mentioned. I walked forward to look at them, my bare feet quiet on the floor. The room was dustless and clean, but very quiet, without the scent or vibration of human occupancy. No one lived in this room anymore.
The dresses were beautiful; all of silk and velvet, moiré and satin, mousse-line and panne. Even hanging lifeless here from their hooks, they had the sheen and beauty of an animal’s pelt, where some essence of life lingers in the fur.
I touched one bodice, purple velvet, heavy with embroidered silver pansies, centered with pearls. She had been small, this Ermenegilda, and slightly built—several of the dresses had ruffles and pads cleverly sewn inside the bodices, to add to the illusion of a bust. The room was comfortable, though not luxurious; the dresses were splendid—things that might have been worn at Court in Madrid.
Ermenegilda was gone, but the room still seemed inhabited. I touched a sleeve of peacock blue in farewell and tiptoed away, leaving the dresses to their dreams.
I found Lawrence Stern on the veranda at the back of the house, overlooking a precipitous slope of aloe and guava. In the distance, a small humped island sat cradled in a sea of glimmering turquoise. He rose in courtesy, giving me a small bow and a look of surprise.
“Mrs. Fraser! You are in greatly improved looks, I must say. The Father’s robe suits you somewhat more than it does him.” He smiled at me, hazel eyes creasing in a flattering expression of admiration.
“I expect the absence of dirt has more to do with it,” I said, sitting down in the chair he offered me. “Is that something to drink?” There was a pitcher on the rickety wooden table between the chairs; moisture had condensed in a heavy dew on the sides and droplets ran enticingly down the sides. I had been thirsty so long that the sight of anything liquid automatically made my cheeks draw in with longing.
“More sangria,” Stern said. He poured out a small cupful for each of us, and sipped his own, sighing with enjoyment. “I hope you will not think me intemperate, Mrs. Fraser, but after months of tramping country, drinking nothing but water and the slaves’ crude rum—” He closed his eyes in bliss. “Ambrosia.”
