Whispering Page 2

  ‘So that’s our story,’ Caterina summed up for her friend. ‘We met when the carriage nearly ran you down. I was on my way to – what did I go to alone? – my drawing lesson. The other girl was ill. I made the carriage stop; you weren’t badly hurt but I insisted on taking you home.’

  ‘You’re a great insister,’ said Harriet Brown lovingly. ‘I take it this gentry cousin of yours has found that out by now.’

  ‘He’s learning. And less of the cant talk, if you please. It was the penniless gentlewoman I recognised in you, don’t forget. There should be a word for gentle girl, should there not?’

  ‘What we are not,’ said Harriet. ‘There,’ she closed the shabby little portmanteau. ‘That’ll do me till we get to Falmouth and the gentry cousin fits you out like the lady you always were. I can’t wait to get into that gown of yours. It’s short on you, and a bit tight; skinflints, those nuns; it’ll do me a treat, but I reckon the cove’s in for the fright of his life when he sees you rigged up proper. Good,’ she wrapped herself in a shabby shawl. ‘That’s the last bit of cockney you’ll hear out of me, Cat my love, and what a strain it is going to be.’ She had modulated into the genteel accents of an abigail.

  ‘No, no,’ protested Caterina. ‘You are coming as friend and chaperone, not abigail. Not so genteel if you love me!’

  ‘Which I do. And so we should, shouldn’t we, you and I. What we’ve been through together.’ Quickly, lovingly, they embraced.

  Jeremy Craddock thought Miss Brown a sad, pale little shrimp of a thing, all bones and angles, in her darned shawl and shabby bonnet, and it surprised him when it was she who asked the question he had been expecting from Caterina.

  ‘I’m ashamed to have to confess it,’ he told her, ‘and to two such intrepid young ladies, too, but I have been ordered to Oporto for my health. The doctors advise some winter sunshine for a problem of mine.’

  ‘I just hope you get it then,’ said Caterina. ‘I thought everyone knew about the winter rains in Spain and Portugal since Sir John Moore’s terrible retreat on Corunna. And Soult’s flight from Porto, come to that. It was the weather saved him, if you ask me. And what a pity that was. But what’s your complaint, cousin? You don’t look like an invalid to me. Is there anything Harriet and I should know? In case you were to take ill during the voyage.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ He had not expected to dislike this so much. ‘A slight tendency to the falling sickness, that’s all. It has unfitted me for the army, much to my regret. There’s an American lady has lived in Oporto for a year or so, a student of Dr Mesmer’s. They say great things of the cures she has worked. I expect you will think me a hypochondriacal fool, but I have allowed myself to entertain hopes of her treatment. It’s a deuced inconvenient complaint to suffer from, as I am sure you two young ladies will understand.’

  ‘I should just about think so,’ said Caterina. ‘We had a girl at the convent for a while. She used to foam at the mouth and fall down, and we had to force her teeth open so she didn’t bite her tongue. I’ll be able to do that for you, cousin, if need be. No need to fret.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ This was very tiresome indeed.

  ‘Oh, Reverend Mother sent her home in the end. She said we were a convent, not a hospital. She wasn’t a great one for loving kindness.’

  ‘I’ve not had a seizure for years,’ he hastened to tell her. ‘But something happened last winter that made the doctors a little anxious. Rest and sunshine, they said. In happier times I’d have gone to the south of France, or Italy.’

  ‘Combining health with pleasure,’ agreed Caterina. ‘Never mind, I don’t suppose it will rain all the time in Porto, cousin, and you will have plenty of distractions if you like cards, and dancing, and gossip. But tell me about the American lady. What in the world is she doing in Porto?’

  ‘She and her brother were expelled from France, where she went after studying with Dr Mesmer in Switzerland. She’s an outspoken young lady, as I believe Americans tend to be. She was a friend of the former Empress Josephine and said something a little too frank when Napoleon divorced her to marry Marie Louise of Austria. The tale is that she and her brother had to leave on the first ship – and it was taking supplies to Soult when he held Oporto.’

  ‘Why do you say Oporto when Caterina says Porto?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘She is right and I am wrong,’ Jeremy told her. ‘Porto is the Portuguese name for the city. It means port, of course. It’s only we English who have tagged on the “O” from the Portuguese for “the”. Should I try to change my habits, do you think, cousin?’

  ‘It depends which society you mean to join,’ Caterina told him. ‘The English or the Portuguese. They don’t mix much, I should warn you. I wonder where the American lady and her brother have managed to fit themselves in. What is her name, by the way?’

  ‘You’ve not heard about her?’

  ‘How should I have? I have heard about as much from Porto these three long years as I have from the moon, I don’t even know if my friends survived the French massacre two years ago. I don’t know if I have any friends.’ She reached out to clasp Harriet’s hand. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are coming with me, Harriet dear.’ And then, to Jeremy. ‘Is the nameless American lady young?’

  ‘I believe so. Miss Rachel Emerson. Her brother is a good deal older, I understand, and has acted as her manager in this strange career of hers.’

  ‘You mean she is in the way of being a professional healer?’ Caterina had recognised the note of disapproval in his voice.

  ‘She does it for money, if that is what you mean.’

  ‘As a doctor would, surely? Tell me, cousin, is it because she takes money for her healing that you disapprove of her, or because she is a woman setting up as a healer?’

  ‘A bit of both, I suppose.’ Ruefully. ‘I hope you never draw my caricature, Cousin Caterina. You see too far into a man’s thoughts for comfort.’ And that was all too true.

  ‘Ah, but I like you, Cousin Jeremy,’ said Caterina.

  ‘There you are!’ Ralph Emerson came angrily out on to the tiny balcony with its high view down the Douro River to the sea. ‘I’ve been hunting everywhere for you. What is this about Mrs Ware cancelling?’ A big, burly, fair-haired man, he had the remains of what had been striking good looks, marred now by broken veins, too high a colour, and a look of habitual bad temper.

  ‘Not very far to hunt.’ Rachel Emerson put down the shabby sheet she had been darning and looked up at him with large, thoughtful grey eyes. Much younger than he was, she did not look in the least like him. She was small and neat-featured, he was large and flamboyant; where he was ruddy, she was pale. ‘You know I like to work out here in the evenings. The light is better, for one thing, and I love to see the colours changing on the river. You were right to insist on a place with a river view, even if it is such a tiny one.’

  If she had hoped to placate him with this remark, she failed dismally. ‘And whose fault is it, pray, that we cannot afford a better place? What have you done now, to offend Mrs Ware?’

  ‘Nothing that I know of. She just sent a note to say she was sorry, she was too busy to come. One of the children is ill, I expect.’

  ‘More likely she is not satisfied with the treatment she is getting! I’ve told you over and over again that they want a show, these stupid Englishwomen. It’s not enough just to lay your hands on them. They want dark curtains and soft music, all the trimmings old Mesmer supplied. And the group thing, the holding of hands, the magic circles –’

  ‘That was Dr Mesmer’s way.’ She had said all this many times before. ‘Mine is different, Ralph. Different, but just as effective. He told me so himself. He said my hands were quick to feel trouble, and quick to soothe it. He told me to concentrate on that. And you know I have had results –’

  ‘Those suggestible French! Of course you have. Rub them with sweet oil, smile your charming smile, and hey presto, they are cured. The English are quite other; and so I warn
ed you when we came here. They need the hocus pocus.’

  ‘And that is just why I did not want to come.’ This was an argument, if you could call it that since he always won, that they had had many times since they left France. She had longed to go home to New England and safety, had found herself reluctantly in Oporto instead. And now, of course, it was all her fault that the patients who had flocked to her at first were beginning to fall away.

  ‘Closed shutters and dramatic lighting.’ He had said this to her many times before. ‘And the group holding hands, so the electrical magnetism runs through them. That’s what you need. I’ll look after the lights and the music. All you have to do is manage the sufferers, as you so well know how to do.’

  ‘But that’s not the way I can cure them.’ She had said this to him many times before. ‘It’s feeling them, and listening to them, by ourselves, together. That’s how I can help them. You know it really, Ralph. Why do you pretend not to?’

  ‘Because I like to eat, I suppose. Look at that pile of bills! I hope you have some idea of how we are to pay them, because it is more than I have.’

  She was silent for a long minute, gazing across to the south bank of the Douro and its busy fringe of shipping. Then she looked up at him: ‘You do not think there might be something you could do? With the town so busy as it is, and the troops and supplies coming in for Wellington, and business beginning to look up just a little at last?’

  ‘And what, pray, do you think I should do? Hire myself out as a copy clerk, perhaps, to one of those stiff-necked British merchants? You know what would happen then! We’d be done for socially, you and I, and you could whistle for any more customers. God knows we are on sufferance enough as it is. A little better than the sawbones, and not quite so good as the Chaplain. God, how I hate the British.’ And then, gripping her wrist with a hand that hurt. ‘And if you are fool enough to tell anyone I said that you’ll be lucky to live to regret it.’

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said. ‘Who would I tell? I’ve no friends, only customers, as you choose to call them. Yes, Tilly, what is it?’

  ‘A note for you mum. No answer needed, the man said.’ Tilly was a handsome black girl who spoke the lilting English of the southern American states. In hiring her in preference to a Portuguese servant Ralph Emerson had imitated the British merchants he disliked so much. Like them, he had not troubled himself to try and learn the difficult language of the country and preferred to be waited on by servants who could understand his shouted commands. ‘Well, what is it?’ he asked impatiently.

  ‘It may be work.’ Rachel handed him the letter, preferring to do so than to have him demand to see it. ‘It’s from Senhor Gomez –’

  ‘Rich as Croesus. Lives beyond the Franciscans –’ He was reading the letter. ‘Of course! He’s the one married an English vineyard, and the girl died. Some whispering about it, by what I’ve heard. The baby was a girl. They don’t reckon much to girls, here in Portugal.’

  ‘Who does? This must be a relative of his wife. Coming out from England for his health.’

  ‘The falling sickness. You are going to cure him, my girl. And I am going to make the financial arrangements with rich Senhor Gomez.’

  ‘I did cure someone of it once, do you remember? Dr Mesmer had given up, gave me a free hand, said I could hardly make matters worse for the poor girl.’

  ‘Pity it was a girl,’ he said. ‘Let’s just hope you can bring it off with this Jeremy Craddock.’

  ‘I must do it my own way.’ She had been steeling herself to say this. ‘If I am to have any chance of success I have to work on Mr Craddock as I did on poor Lucy.’

  ‘And how did you work on poor Lucy?’ His tone was faintly mocking.

  ‘I saw her alone. Many times. We talked. I – it’s hard to describe –’ She hated talking to him about her cures, but knew she had to make this clear. ‘I touched her, felt what was wrong, we worked together on it.’

  ‘A lot of female mumbo jumbo. It will be interesting to see how you go on with this Mr Craddock. Do you think he will be consumptive too? An interesting invalid with long golden hair and deep sunk eyes.’ While they were talking his eyes had gone on looking past her to scan the animated scene on the river below, even busier than usual at this evening hour when merchants were being ferried home from their wine lodges at Villa Nova de Gaia on the south bank. They had one floor of a tall, thin house, tucked in among the steep alleys that led down from the Cathedral to the river, and the windows looked across the bridge of boats that spanned the river and downstream to the far view of São João da Foz and the sea. ‘There’s a ship coming in now,’ he said. ‘She must just have made it across the bar with the tide. Heavy loaded by the look of her.’ He had picked up the glass he kept handy. ‘English, of course. Maybe your patient is on her. Had you paused to consider, my dear, what the Oporto tabbies will say if you insist on seeing this interesting young invalid alone?’

  Chapter 2

  Jeremy Craddock was amazed at how much money the two girls contrived to spend in Falmouth, and taken aback at the results. ‘I see now just how right your dragon of a nun was to insist on a chaperone,’ he told Caterina, when she and Harriet joined him in their inn parlour, transformed into young lady of fashion and respectable friend.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she dropped him one of her demure curtseys. ‘We will do, you think, Harriet and I?’

  ‘You will most certainly do. Aside from the fact that Miss Brown is much too young! May I pour you a glass of wine, Miss Gomez?’

  ‘Ha! It’s “Miss Gomez” now! And glasses of wine! I am grown up at last.’ It was the first time on the journey that he had offered it. She sipped. ‘And very nasty it is too. You wait till you taste our Colares wine, Mr Craddock.’ She emphasised the surname, teasing. ‘You will find it quite a different thing. Oh, I can’t wait to get home. Will we sail in the morning, do you think?’

  ‘If the wind holds. Captain Barker expects a swift and easy voyage, I am happy to tell you. Are you young ladies good sailors?’

  ‘I am,’ said Caterina, and, ‘Lord knows,’ said Harriet.

  ‘I don’t know either.’ Smiling at Harriet. ‘This long war has made travel impossible. I was too young to take advantage of the peace in 1802 – or at least that is what my tutors said. I was wild to go.’

  ‘And the grown ups wouldn’t let you?’ said Caterina. ‘Poor Cousin Jeremy, I know just how you felt. Just the same, you must have been grateful to them when war broke out again and Boney clapped all the English tourists into gaol. Just think, you might be there still.’

  ‘A monster of a man,’ he told her. ‘A danger to the world. We have to beat him. Do you think your father will quite like your calling me Cousin Jeremy, Miss Gomez?’ More and more he felt things going too fast for him.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’m not sure I care very much either. To have a father’s rights, you need to act like a father.’ She flashed him one of her wicked smiles. ‘I’m sorry. I am shocking you again, am I not, cousin?’

  ‘I am beginning to think it was a very odd nunnery of yours,’ he told her.

  ‘That they did not teach me better manners? Oh, to do them justice, they did try, those poor nuns. With prayers and fasting, mainly. The fasting on my part, you understand, and the prayers on theirs.’ And then, suddenly sober. ‘But I should not laugh at them, they were wonderfully good to me, really. And I repaid them with mockery. I sometimes think I am not a very civilised person, Cousin Jeremy.’

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ put in Harriet lovingly. ‘You’re a savage, Cat, but sometimes in this world one needs to be.’

  ‘You’re certainly a chameleon,’ Jeremy said. ‘A man does not know where he is with you.’ It was true. He found her profoundly disturbing. He wanted no truck with women, never had, not since the childhood night when his adored mother came to his bedside, cried over him, kissed him passionately, and was gone in the morning. She had eloped with his father’s best friend, and he had promised hi
mself, as he grew painfully up, that he would never let a woman get under his guard again. Now he shepherded his little party briskly off to an early bed and retired himself hoping strongly that they would be able to sail next morning.

  But they woke to the still, clear light of what felt almost like an autumn day, and a message from the Anthea confirmed that there was no hope of sailing until that evening at the earliest.

  ‘Wonderful.’ Caterina smiled across the breakfast table at him. ‘Harryo and I had to waste all yesterday shopping, today we can explore this nice town. Do you know it used to be called Pennycomequick, Cousin Jeremy? The girl who brought our water told us.’

  ‘And how you understood her is a mystery to me,’ said Harriet. ‘So broad as she speaks.’

  ‘I love languages, they interest me. I even contrived to persuade one of the nuns to teach me a little Latin until Reverend Mother found out and put a stop to it. A waste of everyone’s time, she called it. But, come, cousin, where shall we start? Out on the cliff walk or over to the castle?’

  ‘The cliffs, perhaps, if your shoes are stout enough for such walking.’ He had been very much aware of curious glances at their little party and had even wondered whether he should not hire a local girl to go along as abigail, but something Caterina had said about her father had made him baulk at this extra expense.

  It was a happy day. The girls proved good walkers with none of the squealing and demands for help he expected from young ladies. They found a broad turf path along the cliff overlooking Falmouth Bay where they could walk three abreast and listen to larks singing high above them. ‘This is better than the castle.’ Caterina turned to look back at Pendennis Castle on its headland. ‘I needed this air. And so did you, Harryo love, though you were never one to grumble as I do. But you begin to look yourself again today, I am glad to say. Oh –’ She turned impulsively to Jeremy. ‘I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am, Cousin Jeremy.’ And then: ‘But what a wretch I am. I never thought to ask whether you felt well enough to climb up here. You don’t talk about yourself much, do you?’