Page 23 of Homeless

“You consent very civilly for a gentleman about to lay himself upon the altar of necessity.”

“Civility costs nothing. I consent because no gentleman could do otherwise and still call himself one. Do not dress it up as anything kinder.”

“I had not asked for anything kinder.” She was already turning for the door. “Your name will do. You may keep the rest.”

Pilar was still crying when Elizabeth took her by both shoulders and turned her toward the hearth.

“Enough! We have done with tears for ten minutes. After that, you may drown the house, if you please.”

The girl stared at her through wet lashes and flour, breathing in little broken catches.

“Listen to me. Is there a priest who may be had tonight?”

Pilar crossed herself by instinct before she answered in Castilian. “Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. A poor one would be best. A poor one, and not too curious.”

The girl blinked. “For confession?” she asked in Spanish.

“For marriage.”

Pilar made a sound between a gasp and a laugh and clapped her apron to her mouth.

“Surely, you must know of someone. With luck, even someone close enough to be had without hiring a mule to find him?”

Pilar lowered the apron. “There is Padre Tomás, at Santa María Magdalena. He marries anything for money, and some he marries twice.”

“Excellent. Is he sober?”

The girl considered. “At night, not always.”

“Better and better. What does he require?”

Pilar counted them off on her fingers. “Money. Witnesses. Names. Papers.”

“Names, we have, and money, some, if he can exchange dubloons for something more practical. Papers we have almost none — they went into a soldier’s pocket this afternoon with everything else worth taking.”

Pilar looked doubtful. “He is old, and frightened of soldiers. If it is late, and paid in silver, papers become less beautiful to him.”

“How many witnesses?”

“Two.”

“The landlady and you will do.”

Pilar recoiled. “I?”

“You can stand upright and say that you saw me. Those are the principal qualifications.”

“I am only a servant.”

“So am I, to judge by the apron in which your country has preserved me this afternoon. You are perfectly cast.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “But the gentleman — does he know?”

“He has been informed, cornered, contradicted, and brought to consent. I hope he knows. If he has forgot it already, I shall remind him on the road.”

Pilar crossed herself again, this time for the Englishman’s soul.