MY WIFE WALKS IN BEAUTY

#9 Challenge Quote:

She walks in beauty like the night,
of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that's best of dark and bright
meets in her aspect and her eyes
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
which heaven to gaudy day denies.

~~~~~

Gaspar returned home well after dark from a meeting with the other Dons. The meeting wasn't one to determine how best to deal with Montoya, or how to make their workers work harder, or how to consolidate their wealth and make it grow, or which properties in the county were ripe for the picking, or to get news from their homeland. No, the meeting was a poker game. Gaspar halted the horses and then stepped down from the carriage with the help of a stable worker. "Will you be needed the carriage further?"

"No," Gaspar said as he walked toward the house. "Have a pleasant evening." He enjoyed the extra weight to the bag of reales that he had taken to the poker game. He jiggled it in his hand to hear the coins clank. He had been pleased that Doctor Helm had been called away on a medical emergency as he was an excellent poker player. You couldn't tell what was going on behind those eyes if you had Helm's head in a vise and a concentrated light flashing in his face. Gaspar hadn't won a pot since Don Sanchos started inviting the doctor to their gatherings, thinking it would be easy to get whatever coins the Brit had. So far, Gaspar had lost 1200 reales and a prized horse from his stables to the doctor.

Lamps were lit throughout the house, but Gaspar couldn't find his wife. The maid, Angela, was just entering the side door with the empty dish tub as he entered the kitchen. "Will you be needing anything this evening, senor? A snack?"

"No thank you." Gaspar said. "In fact, here." He reached into the bag and pulled out two coins to give her. She held them in her hand with a confused look. "I was quite lucky this evening. Buy something nice for your children."

"Muchos gracias, Senor!"

"Good night." Gaspar asked her as she was opening the door to return to her family, "Where is Vera?"

"She is in the garden, senor. It is such a beautiful night."

"Yes, it is." Gaspar walked with Angela out of the house. They walked through the yard, then Angela curtsied then walked to the line of houses where his workers resided. Gaspar walked to the flower garden. He heard soft singing as he neared it. He lessened his steps and tip toed down the cobblestones between tall trees that sheltered the garden. When he turned the corner to see Vera among the flowers in full bloom, he quietly sat on the stone bench and just watched her.

Byron's poem fluttered into his head as he watched his wife slowly sway as she stepped down the path amidst her flowers. She walks in beauty like the night, Gaspar said to himself. As the words of the poem went through his head, he listened to her soft singing of a lullaby. Children. That was the only thing that they did not have that would make their lives perfect.

Gaspar remembered the first time he had sat on a bench and just watched Vera. It was in a square in Barcelona when she was just a child herself. Her long blond hair was wild, not wanting to stay trapped in the barrette that he was sure that her mother had clipped. She was playing a game with boys who were at least a foot taller than herself. Her dress hiked up to her knees as she kicked the ball, expertly keeping it away from the lad who was 'it'. She was agile, had powerful kicks and was laughing all the while. She was so full of life, so knowing of the effect she had on the boys. Gaspar, a student ready to graduate from the university, had determined that he was at ten years older than she, but had begun taking that same bench to eat his lunch every noon time. He knew that Vera and her friends would be playing.

He had been watching them for months before a stray ball flew in his direction. He dropped the apple to deftly catch it. He was going to throw it back into the fray, but saw Vera run in his direction to collect it. Gaspar set it on his lap and smiled as she at first ran, then walked to him. When she stood before him, she curtsied. "Apologies, senor," were her first words to him. She had spoken in a grown up, respectful manner. Soon her precocity shown through. Her face lit up in a smile and she gushed, "But you caught that ball! I thought it would hit you in the head!"

To finally be face to face with the untamed spirit, Gaspar was speechless. He had wondered if he would ever meet her, and how it would happen. He could have just walked up to her and introduced himself, but that didn't seem right. He knew she wasn't from a prominent family as he was, he was older, he didn't want to scare her. He wondered if she knew that he thought of her all the time.

"Senor?" Vera was motioning to the ball that laid on his lap. "May I have the ball?"

"Yes, senorita," Gaspar replied, but did not move. He only looked at her smile, her wrinkled and soiled dress, her willowy arms. He then saw that the boys and girls were standing with their hands on their hips waiting for the game to resume. Since she wasn't going to take the ball on her own, he picked it up and held it out to her. "My name is Gaspar Hidalgo. What is your name?"

"Vera," she said as she let the ball fall into her waiting hands. "It is nice to meet you, senor. I have watched you watch us for quite a while now."

"I have my lunch here every day."

"I know." She bowed her head and turned. Over her shoulder she smiled and said, "Why do you think I have been insisting that we play here, at the same time, every day?"

END

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