The Tears of Love

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1894-2

“You are going to get well, Mama,” she said suddenly. “We are not going to sit here in misery, hiding ourselves away and dying gradually of starvation. I am going to make money! Enough money at any rate for us to be comfortable.”

“I cannot allow it, Cañuela,” her mother replied. “You do not know what the world is like for someone as beautiful as you. You have always been chaperoned, as Spanish girls are chaperoned, and English ones too for that matter.”

“You are talking about aristocratic ladies who can afford to do nothing,” Cañuela answered. “We have no money, Mama, and therefore I have to make some.”

There was a sudden hard note in her voice that had not been there before.

As she spoke, she talked across the room to a mirror that stood on top of a chest of drawers.

She looked at her reflection for a moment and then she undid her hair, which had been skilfully arranged in a chignon at the back of her head.

It tumbled over her shoulders rippling like fiery gold almost to her waist.

Then she brushed it back from her oval forehead with a hard brush and, putting up her hands, twisted it into a rope, which she pinned into a bun.

She pinned it so tightly with long hairpins that there was not a ripple in the smoothness of the hair that covered the top of her head.

She opened a drawer and, feeling at the back of it, drew out a pair of tinted close-fitting spectacles that had belonged to her father.

He had worn them one summer because he had hurt his eye in a riding accident and the doctor had thought that the light was too strong for the damaged retina.

She put the spectacles on her nose.

Because they had been fashioned for a man they were very large and her small thin face seemed almost hidden behind them.

She turned around.

“Behold, Mama,” she trumpeted. “The efficient secretary!”

Mrs. Arlington stared at her daughter.

“You look terrible, Cañuela!” she said, “and those spectacles are positively disfiguring!”

“That is what I intend them to be,” Cañuela replied. “You must admit, Mama, that no man would look at me a second time.”

“It is certainly a very effective disguise,” Mrs. Arlington agreed.

Cañuela was wearing a black gown.

It was one of the very few she had. After the mourning for her father was over, she and her mother had not been able to afford to buy new clothes.

They had in their trunks the pretty gowns that they had worn in Buenos Aires, but neither of them could bear to think about the dresses, colours and the luxury that belonged to the past.

Cañuela went to the wardrobe and took a small black bonnet from the top shelf.

It was trimmed only with black ribbons and even these she pressed down so that they would not look too smart or gay. She tied it under her chin and covered the bodice of her dress with a tight black jacket that buttoned severely to the neck.

“I am going out,” she announced. “I shall be a little time, Mama, so don’t worry about me.”

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Arlington asked.

“To Brewstead’s Agency in Piccadilly,” Cañuela answered. “I remember when we were in London some years ago I went with Papa there to engage an accountant for the Embassy in Spain.”

“I remember that,” Mrs. Arlington said in a low voice. “He was a very nice young man.”

“I wish that there was someone I could leave with you, Mama.”

“I shall be all right until you come back,” Mrs. Arlington answered. “But hurry, dearest. You know that I don’t like to think of you walking about the streets by yourself.”

Cañuela gave a little laugh.

“I shall be safe enough looking like this,” she answered. “The man who followed me from the shops yesterday would not give me a second glance today!”

“A man followed you? Oh, darling, you did not tell me.”

“There was nothing he could do in broad daylight in a crowded street,” Cañuela answered.

Mrs. Arlington’s fingers trembled as she held them out towards her daughter.

“Do you really think that you are doing the right thing?” she said. “If you were in an office with a man, it would not be as safe as being in a crowded street.”

“I promise you,” Cañuela said soothingly, “I will choose my employer with great care. I will try and find someone as old as Methuselah and as rich as Croesus!”

Mrs. Arlington tried to smile but failed.

When Cañuela had gone, she felt that she should have protested more about her daughter’s impetuous action in going in search of work.

She knew despairingly, however, that the little money they had would not last much longer.

She was well aware that Cañuela was getting thinner and was depriving herself of food so that she could buy the medicines that the doctor kept prescribing despite the fact that they seemed, Mrs. Arlington thought, to do little good.

He was also expensive.

Because they were proud, they insisted on paying him after every visit.

The future seemed so dark and so hopeless that Mrs. Arlington lay back and closed her eyes.

First one tear and then another trickled down her cheeks.

“Oh, Lionel, Lionel,” she whispered to the room, “how can I go on without you?”

*

Cañuela reached Piccadilly after changing from one horse-drawn bus onto another. There were no incidents such as she usually encountered when she was out alone.

It had been impossible for her not to be aware that her looks had an inflammable effect on men and that, while it often ensured her courtesy, assistance and politeness, it also brought her a lot of unpleasantness.

Sometimes it was clerks and racing touts who tried to get into conversation with her.

In the West End there were always top-hatted men who had the appearance of gentlemen, but who did not behave like them.

Today for the first time she passed unnoticed and she thought with delight that her disguise was proving extremely effective.

She also hoped it made her look older.

Few employers were likely to believe that a girl of eighteen was as intelligent and proficient as she was at languages.

She had been born in Argentina, which accounted for her name, for her father and mother had been holidaying in the quiet lovely village of Cañuela when she had arrived unexpectedly.

When she was five, her father had been posted to Spain and after three years in Madrid he had been offered a higher position in Lisbon.

From there they had returned to Argentina and for Cañuela, like her father, it had seemed like coming home.

Lionel Arlington had been like a boy showing her all the places he had known during his last appointment in Buenos Aires before he married.

They rode miles every morning into the fresh green empty land outside the City.

They set off at weekends when the British Embassy was closed to explore the beautiful lush sunlit country that Cañuela grew to love as much as her father did.

“I am convinced,” Lionel Arlington said once to his wife in Cañuela’s hearing, “that this is the original Garden of Eden and, if I am Adam, I could never ask for a more attractive Eve than you, my love.”

Mrs. Arlington had laughed at him, but there was an adoring expression in her eyes.

They were supremely happy together, which was fortunate because Mrs. Arlington, a daughter of Lord Merwin, to the fury of her family had run away with an unknown penniless young man in the Diplomatic Corps.

What had made her action worse was that at the time she was engaged to a Nobleman of high standing, a fiancé chosen for her by her father.

“My family will never forgive me,” Mrs. Arlington told her daughter, “not only because I married the man I loved but because I caused a scandal! In my father’s eyes to appear in the newspapers, except when one is born or dies, was an unforgivable offence.”

Cañuela remembered those words when she realised that she could not buy her mother all the luxuries necessary for her health.

She had considered the idea of approaching her grandfather, if he was still alive for help. Then she knew that not only would her mother forbid it, but he would undoubtedly refuse her request.

If he had resented the few paragraphs in the newspapers concerning the breaking off of his daughter’s engagement, what would he think of the headlines, the editorial comments and endless speculations about his son-in-law’s supposed treachery and dramatic death?

‘No, I have to look after Mama myself,’ she told herself and, reaching Brewstead’s Agency, she climbed the narrow stairs to the first floor.

Mr. Brewstead was an elderly sharp-faced man with beady eyes who gave the impression that he expected every applicant who called to tell him lies.

He looked at those who sought employment with a disdainful air that made them feel humble and subservient from the moment they entered the Agency.

Any pretentions they might have about themselves quickly crumbled as he interrogated them skilfully from long experience and was able to extract information that they had been determined not to give.

For prospective employers he had an ingratiating manner that made them declare with satisfaction, ‘Brewstead is always so obliging.’

Cañuela waited her turn until a grey-haired man who was seeking a post as cashier had been humiliated into thinking that he was in his dotage and long past being employed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mr. Brewstead said disparagingly, “but it’s unlikely I’ll be able to find you anything to equal the positions you have held in the past. You can call again tomorrow.”

Dismissed with a look of something like despair in his eyes, the man turned away and Mr. Brewstead gave his attention to Cañuela.

He shrewd eyes observed the black dress. At once he was aware that the material was not of the best despite the fact that it fitted superbly.

He noted the plain bonnet and his eyes lingered on Cañuela’s glasses.

“Well?” he asked uncompromisingly.

“I am looking for a position as a secretary,” Cañuela began.

“Anything wrong with your eyes?”

“Nothing, except I prefer to wear glasses.”

Mr. Brewstead obviously tried to think of a retort for this but failed.

He opened his ledger.

“Name?”

“Gray.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-four”

Mr. Brewstead gave her a hard glance, but made no comment.

“Address?”

Cañuela gave it slowly and it was duly written down.

“Qualifications?”

There was something in Mr. Brewstead’s voice that told Cañuela that he did not expect her to have any.

“I speak Spanish, Portuguese and Italian,” Cañuela said, “and a little French.”

She was pleased to see that Mr. Brewstead look surprised as he wrote this down without comment.

“Can you use a typewriter?”

“Yes,” Cañuela replied, “and I can also use a shorthand of my own that is quick enough to follow most people’s dictation.”

She thought as she spoke how lucky it was that her father had always used her as his unofficial secretary when he was at home.

“We don’t want the staff of the Embassy coming here at all hours,” he used to say. “Cañuela can do all I want done. I like my home to myself.”

Sometimes when he had reports to submit, he would tell the Embassy that he would not be in for two or three days and he would ride away from the City with his daughter on one of their explorations.

Cañuela would take down his reports in the evening after they had spent the day in the saddle and would spend half the night typing them out for him.

It had all been great fun and she had loved every moment of it.

Now she was glad that it gave her qualifications that even Mr. Brewstead found impressive.

“Let me see your references,” he said in a tone of one who likes to find fault.

“I am afraid that I have always worked abroad,” Cañuela replied. “It therefore will take a little time to write to my previous employers and ask them to speak on my behalf.”

Mr. Brewstead put down his pen.

“Surely,” he exclaimed, “you had the common sense to ask for written references before you left your last employment?”

“As a matter of fact I did not think it necessary,” Cañuela replied in a lofty tone. “I did not expect to have to work when I arrived in England and therefore at the time a reference did not seem necessary.”

She paused to add,

“However, if one is required I will be able to produce it, but not, of course, at a moment’s notice.”