Whispering Page 3

  ‘It’s a dull subject.’ Half of him wished Harriet away and the other half was deeply grateful that she was there.

  ‘Then we will talk about something else,’ said Caterina cheerfully. ‘What shall it be?’

  Inevitably, this meant a little silence, which was just becoming awkward when they came on a cliff-top tavern and stopped to drink mugs of strong local cider and eat cold beef and pickles. ‘Oh, what a happy day,’ said Caterina as they turned back towards their inn.

  But Jeremy had resolved that he would suffer from seasickness on the crossing. To his relief, they were summoned on board that evening and sailed with the dawn wind. He had been glad to find that there were a few other women on board, soldiers’ wives on their way to join their husbands in Oporto or up river. Consigning his charges to the women’s quarters, he made a painful apology. ‘I am so very sorry; I don’t feel quite the thing.’ The ship was listing sluggishly this way and that on a rising tide. ‘If you will excuse me. I know you by now as amply able to take care of yourselves.’

  ‘Of course we can, Cousin Jeremy. You take care of yourself.’ Caterina smiled the smile that was beginning to touch his heart.

  Thank goodness for a moment alone.’ Caterina had steered her friend to a quiet corner on the upper deck of the ship. ‘Now, tell me about your trouble with your mother, Harryo. How could she send you to that dreadful place?’

  ‘To teach me a lesson,’ said Harriet. ‘Mind you, money has been tight lately. Everyone has been feeling the pinch, what with the war going on for ever and the harvests so bad and all. And mother’s is the kind of business feels hard times first. People can be very ruthless, Cat, when their own comfort is threatened. I was one less mouth to feed, see.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve been worth your weight in gold to her, and you know it. There must have been more.’

  ‘Of course there was. She had found me a good match, hadn’t she?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Caterina. ‘Now I begin to see. Tell me about him.’

  Harriet made an expressive face. ‘A tanner in a very good way of business and smelled of it. Twice widowed, eight small children. He’d worn them out, Cat, those two poor wives of his. He needed a new drudge and picked on me. I wouldn’t have minded the children, poor little things, but he was gross, Cat, aside from the smell. If she wanted me to make that kind of match, mother shouldn’t have sent me to Miss Shepard’s school to get ideas above my station.’

  ‘Amongst other things,’ said Caterina dryly. ‘I wonder what inducement he was offering your mother.’

  ‘Just money. Mother would do anything for money as we both know. So when I refused the tanner she sent me away to her friends the Joneses. Ten children, they have. Governess! Maid of all work, more like. Skivvy. And I didn’t much like the way he was beginning to get me in corners. I was never gladder to see anyone than you, love.’

  ‘Thank goodness you let me know where you were. But your mother, Harryo. Is money really so tight with her?’

  ‘Well, she’s missing what the tanner promised her for me. And she’s certainly glad of what she gets from you. No need to worry, so long as you can keep it up.’

  ‘That’s why I am going to Portugal,’ said Caterina.

  ‘There you are at last.’ Five days later, Caterina made room for Jeremy between her and Harriet at the rail as the Anthea drew in towards land. ‘We were afraid you might be dying down there in your cabin, but thought you would not be best pleased if we came to enquire. I do hope you have not had one of your seizures.’

  ‘Not precisely.’ He loathed to have to say it. ‘But I have to confess that the mere possibility of one makes life on shipboard somewhat risky.’

  ‘I should just about think so. Suppose you lost consciousness on the top deck and fell overboard? But we would have looked after you, would we not, Harryo?’

  ‘I don’t suppose Mr Craddock would have liked it much,’ Harriet smiled at him.

  Something had changed about her, he thought. What was it? Pink in her cheeks, something about her hair …’ You are quite right, Miss Brown,’ he told her. ‘I just hope you ladies have enjoyed your voyage.’

  ‘We’ve loved it.’ Caterina answered him. ‘Haven’t we, Harryo? I have taught Harriet some Portuguese, the ship’s officers are our slaves, and the captain has the most improper ideas concerning Harriet. No need to look so alarmed, cousin, he has a wife and six children at home and we have behaved like the patterns of propriety we are.’

  ‘I shall be very glad to see you safe into your father’s hands,’ he told her.

  ‘I just hope he will be as glad to receive me. Oh, look!’ She pointed ahead. ‘I can see the castle at Foz – good God, they have repaired it – and the Clerigos tower beyond. Oh, Harriet, we are almost home!’ She turned to embrace her friend and Jeremy suspected that it was to hide the sheen of tears in her eyes, and could not help being moved by it. Just as well they were nearly there.

  ‘You can see the bar now,’ Caterina told him. ‘Captain Barker knows his business, I can tell; the tide is full and the wind behind us; there will be no difficulty getting past it. When the weather is bad, you have to land here at Foz,’ she explained, ‘and get carried ashore by the fishwives. I have never thought it would be very comfortable.’

  ‘I am glad to hear there is something that daunts you,’ he told her.

  ‘Many things, cousin. I am terrified of mice, and I don’t like thunder much either.’

  ‘What are you afraid of, Miss Brown?’ He turned to include Harriet in the conversation.

  ‘Hunger,’ she told him.

  ‘Oh, Harryo!’ Caterina caught her friend’s hand. ‘I’m ashamed –’

  ‘Nonsense.’ And then, changing the subject. ‘Lord, what a lot of boats. I do hope we don’t run one down.’

  ‘We won’t,’ said Caterina. ‘The Portuguese are nimble as fish in the water. It’s the way to travel of course; the roads are so frightful. All those little boats you see ahead are taking businessmen home from their work at Villa Nova – much quicker than going round by the bridge of boats. Father had his own man – old Felipe. I wonder if he survived the massacre?’

  ‘Massacre?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘Two years ago, when Soult took the town. Horrible. The Portonians were the first to revolt against the French after they invaded the year before. They freed themselves, under that great man, their Bishop, while that lazy crew down in Lisbon waited for the British to come and free them.’ She turned on Jeremy. ‘And then you defended Lisbon, and let Porto go hang.’

  ‘You know that’s not fair, Miss Gomez.’ He must go very carefully here.

  ‘Do I? What about Sir Robert Wilson and his loyal Lusitanian legion? Where were they when Porto needed them? Enrolled there, trained there, and then marched away into the mountains –’

  ‘And very gallantly they served there,’ he told her. ‘Robert Wilson and his tiny band of Portuguese kept the French guessing all that winter. Things might have gone very differently if it had not been for them.’

  ‘They would have been different in Porto if they had been there in the spring.’ She turned to Harriet. ‘The Bishop built fortifications, tried to defend the town, but there was so little time, and too few trained men … The French broke through – they were savage, out of control, people fled across the bridge of boats and it gave way under their numbers. Imagine! A cold April day, and the river in flood … Nobody knows how many died, how many were killed by the French in the town –’

  ‘The French did help to rescue people from the river,’ Jeremy reminded her.

  ‘Some of them did! The ones who weren’t looting and killing –’

  ‘A sack is always a horrible affair,’ he told her. ‘And I did hear that the Bishop had withdrawn across the bridge of boats the night before, even perhaps given orders for its destruction.’

  ‘That’s a wicked slander.’ Furiously.

  ‘Probably. He would hardly have been made a member of the Council of Regents dow
n in Lisbon if anyone had believed it.’

  ‘Yes. I shall be sad he’s not here,’ she said. ‘He’s my godfather; he was always good to me.’

  ‘But what happened afterwards?’ asked Harriet. ‘In Porto, I mean. I’m very ignorant, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Like everyone else in England,’ said Caterina. ‘And why not? A small, unimportant far-off ally.’ And then, with a sudden smile for Jeremy. ‘You’re going to tell me I am being unfair again, and I suppose you are right, really. What happened, Harriet, was that Lord Wellington turned up, like St George in the pantomime, and got his troops across the Douro when Soult wasn’t looking, and retook Porto in a day. I just hope you British are valuing the place a bit more highly now, Cousin Jeremy, but I doubt it. No lines of Torres Vedras for Porto; we must make shift to defend ourselves.’

  ‘I really don’t think the question is going to arise,’ he told her. ‘Oporto’s moment of danger surely passed when Masséna turned east instead of north after giving up hope at Torres Vedras. And if there were any cause for anxiety, I should have thought you would have found this ship’s cargo reassuring.’ He was furious with himself the moment the words were spoken. The less he saw of this dangerous girl, the better.

  ‘Oh, what are we carrying?’

  ‘Just war material.’ He made it vague. ‘Look, that must be the bridge of boats.’ The river had narrowed and deepened while they rounded a series of bluffs on the north side. Now he could see the unmistakable bulk of Oporto’s cathedral ahead of them, above the pontoon bridge with its busy morning traffic. ‘And is that the Clerigos tower they say is the highest in Portugal?’

  ‘Yes. And we just passed our house. Look, Harryo, on the hill there, with the white terraces.’

  ‘It looks huge,’ said Harriet nervously. ‘And what’s the church we are coming up to now?’

  ‘That’s the Franciscans’, with the monastery behind. Yes, I thought so –’ There had been a quick series of shouted orders and the ship was turning across the river in a wide curve. ‘We are to moor at Villa Nova de Gaia on the south bank. That’s where your war materials will be unloaded, Cousin Jeremy. And very welcome too, if any of them get left here in Porto. That’s the English Factory, by the way.’ She pointed to a solid grey building on the north bank. ‘Where the British wine and dine each other and keep us junior allies at arm’s length.’

  She had tried him too far. ‘Miss Gomez, I beg you to think about what you are saying. You know how small a society it is we are about to join; your father is one of the few people with a foot in both camps. I have been wondering if he has not perhaps sent for you in the hope that you will help him improve relations between the British and the Portuguese, vitally important in these dangerous times. It is true,’ he admitted, ‘I had heard that the British tend to keep themselves rather to themselves in Oporto. But neither of our countries has so many allies against Napoleon that we can afford to affront each other. I do beg that you will try to think of yourself as British as well as Portuguese.’

  ‘After the way I was treated at that school? You ask a good deal, Mr Craddock.’

  ‘That school was not all England. It was Roman Catholic to begin with.’

  ‘And so am I.’ Dangerously.

  ‘I beg your pardon. I had quite forgotten. Well, Miss Gomez, if you cannot think of yourself as British, by all means think of yourself as Portuguese, and remember we and the Spanish are all the allies you have got. Dislike us British if you must, but for all our sakes, do, I beg of you, try to keep a civil tongue in your head.’ He stopped, appalled at his own frankness, and saw with deep relief that she was laughing.

  ‘Lord, what a scold,’ she said. ‘I never had an elder brother, but I am sure that is just what he would sound like. Are you proposing to be a brother to me, Mr Craddock?’

  ‘I should like it above all things.’ He saw with relief that they were nudging their way in to the quay. It was high time this conversation ended. ‘Can you see your father in the crowd there?’ He was glad to be able to change the subject so suitably.

  ‘My father? You surely don’t think he would waste valuable time coming to meet me? One of the servants will be there to see to the baggage, of course, but I imagine that we will be left to find our way home unaided. You are coming to stay with us, I hope, cousin?’

  ‘Your father was so good as to invite me.’ He was less and less sure that this was a good idea. ‘I shall most certainly take advantage of the invitation for a few days,’ he went on. ‘Then I think I must look out for bachelor quarters convenient for the lady who I hope is going to treat me.’

  ‘You make me ashamed.’ Her smile was friendly. ‘I keep forgetting you are a sick man. You conceal it so well. Will it be too tiring for you to cross by ferry and walk home? I promise you, it is much the quickest way.’

  ‘Of course not.’ More and more he hated to play the invalid, but it must be done. ‘I have done nothing but rest on board ship,’ he told her. ‘The exercise will do me good.’

  The quay rocked under Jeremy’s feet. His carefully learned Portuguese seemed useless against this barrage of noise as men in red caps and women in flat black hats swarmed on and off the ship, carrying luggage, shouting greetings, stinking of garlic and something else he could not place.

  ‘There’s Felipe.’ Caterina put a hand on his arm. ‘This way, Cousin Jeremy. Keep close, Harriet.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ said Harriet. ‘This is worse than Bath market any day.’

  ‘Certainly different,’ said Caterina. ‘Here we are, Felipe. It’s good to see you.’ She shocked and amazed Jeremy by kissing the grizzled servant on both cheeks. It was cool comfort to see that it surprised him too. ‘How are you all, Felipe? How is Maria?’

  ‘Dead.’ The old man turned to spit on the quay. ‘The French killed her.’

  ‘Maria? Dead?’ She reached out a groping hand, and Jeremy caught it. ‘She can’t be! How?’

  ‘Not now,’ the man said gruffly. ‘Later, minha senhora. This way. The boat is waiting for you. I will see to the luggage.’ And they obeyed him in taut silence.

  ‘I think I have spotted your patient.’ Ralph Emerson made room for Rachel beside him on the little balcony and passed her the glass. ‘Standing with two ladies on the quay just upstream from the ship.’

  ‘Yes, I am sure you are right, that must be Mr Craddock. I wonder which of the young ladies is the romantic Miss Gomez.’

  ‘What makes you think her romantic?’

  ‘Have you not heard the story? Mrs Ware told me the last time she came for treatment. Of course it was given out that Senhor Gomez sent her home for safety during the first French invasion in 1808, but the facts of the case were that he had found her in a compromising position with a young neighbour of theirs. You know how those houses beyond the Franciscans’ all have gardens running down the slope of the bluff. Well, there was a path through at the bottom, a convenient summerhouse, a charming young Romeo of a neighbour. Boy and girl stuff, of course, nothing to signify, but you can see why Gomez thought he should pack her off – a motherless girl – to some reliable English nuns.’

  ‘So,’ Ralph Emerson said thoughtfully, ‘damaged goods!’

  ‘Nothing of the kind! She was a child, remember, can’t have been more than twelve or thirteen.’

  ‘ “Younger than she are happy mothers made,”’ he quoted at her.

  ‘Romeo and Juliet! And look what came of that. Do, please forget I told you, Ralph.’

  ‘I like you to tell me things. Who was the Romeo?’

  ‘Mrs Ware didn’t say, but she did mention that he had left town. Joined the Loyal Lusitanian Legion, I think she said.’

  ‘He is probably dead in that case. Their casualties have been frightful, I believe. End of a sad little story.’ He took the glass back from her.

  ‘They are preparing to unload the cargo already. Wasting no time I see. You have to give it to the British, they are hard workers. What does it look like to you?’ He passed her the
glass.

  ‘Heavy stuff. Hard to see. The hatches are open; they are swaying it up, but look, Ralph, it’s not going ashore.’

  ‘No more it is. They are loading it straight into river boats. Someone must have worked hard to have them organised and ready. You’re right, it is heavy stuff, by the look of it. Now, I wonder: downriver to defend the harbour mouth, or upriver for some mad plan of Lord Wellington’s. Either way, the Portonians won’t be best pleased when they see it being dispatched elsewhere. Look, there’s Craddock helping his young ladies into a boat to cross the river. The one in colours is most probably Miss Gomez, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. The other will be her companion. Mr Craddock is much younger than I expected. From what Senhor Gomez said, I had thought him middle aged.’

  ‘He don’t look precisely crippled with illness either. Quite the young gallant. I think I shall have to chaperone you when you start on him with your miracle hands, my dear.’ His tone was faintly mocking as it so often was when he talked of her healing powers.

  ‘No!’ She turned on him angrily. ‘You know I would be able to do nothing with you there, laughing at me.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should invite Miss Gomez’s companion. She don’t look much of a dragon to me. You might find her presence less formidable than mine. Lord, look at that for a heavy load!’ He turned back to watch the activity on the dockside.

  ‘It’s dinner time, Ralph.’

  ‘To hell with dinner. Let it wait.’

  Other eyes, behind other spyglasses, were also watching the unloading of the Anthea. On the second floor balcony of a prosperous house in the Rua Nova dos Inglesas, Mrs Ware handed the glass to her son. ‘There’s Caterina Gomez! I’d know her father’s boat anywhere, so shabby, and that dour old Felipe of his. At least she looks quite the lady.’

  ‘And why should she not, mother?’

  ‘Well, you know the stories. We are going to forget them, of course. After all, poor child, motherless, no proper female companionship, and that ramshackle household full of hangers-on and priests. How was the poor child to know how to go on? I just hope she proves educable. Lord knows, she’s young enough still.’