Whispering Page 5

  ‘You mean the front door is the only way out?’

  ‘Yes. My ancestors were thinking of Spanish invasion when they built the house. You probably noticed how solid the door is, and the gate of the stable yard is almost a fortification. It stood in good stead when the French invaded; they didn’t get in here, which is why we still have our valuables, and the gold plate in the chapel.’

  ‘They’d surely not have taken that?’

  ‘Oh yes they would! They took everything, cousin. The silver altar in the cathedral was only spared because someone had the wits to paint it over to look like wood. What they saw, they took, and anyone who protested got killed. Tonio told me about Maria. She was visiting her sick sister when the French stormed the defences and poured into the town. Unlucky for her; it was a house on the main road; a group of soldiers burst in, demanding food. Maria’s niece Francesca was there – she was my age, and very lovely, skin like a lily. Maria and her mother tried to protect her – no use, they killed all three women in the end. With the children watching.’

  ‘You ought not to know these things,’ Jeremy protested.

  ‘Why not? They happened. Better say they ought not to happen, Cousin Jeremy.’ She swept the room with a swift, hostess’s glance. ‘Ring the bell if you need anything. Someone will come in the end. We’ll leave you to your rest.’

  ‘I hope you are not putting me in a guest wing miles from anywhere,’ Harriet said nervously as they retraced their steps.

  ‘No, no, love.’ Caterina squeezed her hand. ‘You are to be next to me in the women’s wing. You will find the sexes kept very strictly separate, here in Portugal. I hope you won’t find it too odd.’

  ‘I think I’ll like it.’ Harriet sounded surprised.

  Having settled Harriet in her room, Caterina put on a wide-brimmed hat and went out by a side door into the gardens. Drifting, apparently aimlessly, from terrace to terrace, she worked her way gradually down towards the lowest level where, in winter, a roaring stream plunged down the narrow gorge to the river. The terraces got rockier and less well cultivated as she descended, degenerating at last into a tangle of vine and jasmine and myrtle bushes. The garden had evidently been allowed to go back to jungle while she was in England. At first she thought the way down from the lowest of the cultivated terraces had been blocked off, but when she reached the seaward end she found the beginnings of the narrow path that led on down. Glad that she was still wearing her serviceable travelling dress, she gathered its skirts in a firm hand and started carefully down. It got easier as it went on; the servants who had made the path as a short cut to their friends working on the estate across the gorge had had the wits to keep its start as unobtrusive as possible. If she had not expected it to be there, she would not have found it.

  Parts of the bottom terrace had been eroded by the winter torrent that was now nothing but a dry bed. She made her difficult way back inland along it and found, as she had feared, that the rustic summerhouse that used to command a view of a small waterfall had been systematically destroyed. She stood looking at it for a long minute, remembering, wondering … then moved on, past its ruins, to where the gorge narrowed enough for a tall man to cross it. Here, too, everything was very much as she had expected. A barricade had been built of the timbers from the summerhouse, but had been subsequently broken down so that the way was open to anyone brave enough to cross.

  She turned to retrace her steps. If she had hoped for a miracle, it had not happened. She had learned nothing that she had not expected, and, furthermore, she must not let herself be found down here. It was hot work climbing back up the path, and she was at the top, sitting on a stone bench, brushing burrs from her skirts, when something told her she was no longer alone.

  The monk had come so silently along the terrace that it was only the smell of incense clinging to his brown habit that alerted her. She stood at once and made him a civil curtsey. ‘Forgive me, father, I did not hear you.’

  ‘I did not mean to startle you, my child.’ He was automatically blessing her as he spoke. ‘You look hot, daughter. Should you be out here in the sunshine after your exhausting journey?’

  ‘The air is doing me good,’ she told him. ‘And I wanted to revisit my childhood haunts, but,’ looking ruefully down at her skirts, ‘the lower terraces seem to have gone to rack and ruin; I could find no way down to the stream.’

  ‘I should hope not!’ He gestured her to seat herself and now sat down beside her, the smell of incense stronger than ever. ‘The scandalous path across the gorge has been blocked for years. That is the past, to be forgotten. I am charged to say that to you by your father. As his spiritual guide, and I hope, his close friend, I am delighted to greet his beloved daughter. We are to be good friends, you and I.’ It sounded as much threat as promise.

  ‘Thank you. But –’ She hesitated. ‘I had thought Father Tomas –’ He had been her father’s resident confessor when she left, an amiable old man who thought of nothing much beyond his food and his drink.

  ‘Father Tomas died two years ago. Of what looked very much like a surfeit, I am sorry to say. I trust things have gone on more regularly in this household since I was so fortunate as to be asked to take his place. I am Father Pedro, child. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. I had hoped that your father would have told you of the rock on which he now, I am happy to say, builds his security.’

  ‘If you know my father,’ she told him bluntly, ‘you surely know that he does not waste much time – or talk – on me.’

  ‘Something that I may be able to rectify, dear child. I am happy to tell you that I have managed, God helping me, to bring Senhor Gomez to a state of grace in which I devoutly hope his daughter will soon join him. The past is to be forgotten; a hopeful future lies before you. I trust you have come back from your exile the obedient daughter so good a father deserves.’ He laid a soft, dry hand on hers and she was suddenly afraid. ‘It was natural to wish to revisit your childhood haunts,’ he told her. ‘But I trust you were saying goodbye to them, Caterina. You are a woman now, and a handsome one, and your father and I feel it is high time you were married.’

  ‘Married? Oh, no!’ It was startled out of her.

  ‘Indeed yes. The friends of your childhood are mothers long since. Your father and I have thought long and earnestly about your future. It has not been easy. I have told you that the past is to be forgotten, but of course it is not quite so simple as that. There were, I am afraid, whispers at the time of your sending away; the best of servants will talk; that Maria seems to have been a chatterbox if ever there was one. But we won’t speak ill of the dead.’ He had recognised her angry reaction. ‘It means, I am afraid, that marriage with a son of your father’s fidalgo friends is out of the question. It would never have been easy, what with your foreign blood, and, now, your foreign education. I am sorry to have to tell you, dear child, that your looks are a little bold for a girl of your age and breeding. You should not meet a man’s eyes when you speak to him. Not even those of a holy father like me.’

  ‘Forgive me, father.’ She made it meek, and sat looking down at her folded hands, fuming, wondering what he would say next.

  ‘As for Luiz de Fonsa y Sanchez.’ He spoke the name that had been in her thoughts all day. ‘You are to forget him, child, as his family have. Or remember him only in your prayers, as a lost soul. When Soult’s French troops fled from Porto two years ago Luiz de Fonsa y Sanchez went with them, as their friend and ally.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ But it would explain so much. All that dreadful silence. She thought about it. ‘What had they done to him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His family.’

  ‘They were angry with him, of course. Rightly so. His fault, the whole sordid business. I think the discovery killed his mother; she had such hopes of him, her only son. And then, when he went off with Soult, his father struck him out of the family records. Cherish no hopes of him, my daughter. So far as Porto goes, he no longer exists.’<
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  ‘And the old lady?’ Caterina made herself ask it. ‘His grandmother? She loved him so.’

  ‘A sad story. A great lady, I believe. I never saw her. She is shut up there, in her own rooms, quite out of her wits. Your doing, and her grandson’s. The house is a fortress these days, shut up. Sanchez sees no one, does not even come to church. A scandalous, shameful business … I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing, father. Only, if you hold me to blame for all this, I am surprised you and my father are even thinking of arranging a marriage for me.’

  ‘That is what I am trying to explain to you, child. It has to be to an Englishman, and soon, before the whispers reach the British community. What of your cousin, Mr Craddock?’

  ‘What?’ Caterina could not believe her ears. ‘But he’s not Catholic.’ It was the first of the objections that crowded her mind.

  ‘Dear child, you have not been thinking about your position, your predicament. If a son of the church were to sue for your hand, it would be our duty, your father’s and mine, to tell him the sad truth about you.’

  ‘Whereas you feel free to pull the wool over the eyes of a mere Protestant!’ She saw she had made him angry, and knew it for a mistake. She needed to know about their plans for her. ‘Forgive me. It was the shock. I have thought of Mr Craddock only as a cousin. And he is not a well man, father.’

  ‘I know. The falling sickness. Here on some wild goose chase for a cure from that American charlatan, Miss Emerson. That is why your father and I thought it best to offer you an alternative. I hope you see what a great deal of thought we have put into your unfortunate position.’

  ‘I do indeed, father. I promise you, I am doing my very best to be grateful. And who is the alternative you have to offer?’

  ‘Frank Ware. You must have met him, I should think, as a child. He was finishing at Eton when the French invaded the first time. His parents got out on the last boat, and I am afraid their affairs were not luckily handled for them in their absence. Some say that old Mr Ware died of the shock when he got back and found just how bad things were. His wife sent for young Frank from Cambridge. He’s no fool, that young man. He saw how bad things were and set his mind to practical ways of improving them. There would be no difficulty about your continuing to practise your faith, and bringing up the children in it. And Ware would be happy to join his name with yours.’

  ‘You mean you have talked to him about it?’ Now she could not help letting her fury show.

  ‘Of course. What did you imagine? So long as the young man likes you well enough, and I can see no problem about that. Mind you, if you had arrived on the best of terms with your cousin, Mr Craddock, we might have been prepared to think again. But it does not seem as if that is the case.’

  ‘No. I do not propose to marry, father. Or rather, I look upon myself as already married.’

  ‘Absurd.’ And then. ‘You can’t mean – no, impossible.’

  ‘In the eyes of God,’ she said bleakly, and knew she had made him angry again.

  ‘Childish nonsense. Put it out of your mind, Caterina, and listen to the last alternative I am authorised to put before you. If indeed you do not feel yourself fit to marry, and I would respect you for such feelings, there is, naturally, another path open to you: the veil. Your father is prepared to dower your entry into the convent of the Little Sisters of St Seraphina, here in Porto.’

  ‘The silent order! Never.’

  ‘These are your choices, daughter. If you have been deluding yourself with the idea that your father considers leaving his fortune to you as a single woman, to play ducks and drakes with as you please, I beg you to put it out of your mind once and for all.’

  ‘Thank you, father,’ she said. ‘You have made things very clear to me. The past may be forgotten, as you say, but it is not forgiven. I will think hard about what you have said to me. And now, if you will excuse me, I find myself a little fatigued by my journey.’

  Chapter 4

  One evening with Father Pedro and Senhor Gomez was quite enough for Jeremy Craddock. The two girls stayed almost totally silent throughout the frugal meal. Jeremy did not blame Harriet for seeming overwhelmed by the company, but he was surprised by Caterina’s unaccustomed silence. She did not come to his help when her father and the priest joined in baiting him about the inadequate support they felt the British government was giving to Portugal. Too little, they called it, and too late. He was quietly fuming when they turned to Wellington and dismissed him as a do-nothing Indian general who had retired, they said, to sulk behind the lines of Torres Vedras, leaving the town of Coimbra to its fate. But he held his tongue, and promised himself to find lodgings and move out next day.

  To his relief, Gomez did not appear at breakfast and Caterina seemed to have emerged from the cloud that had surrounded her the night before. She enquired kindly about his health, and told him she had found out where the Emersons lived. ‘You’ll never find it by yourself, cousin. They live in one of the alleys below the cathedral, not the town’s most elegant district. I’ll send a servant to show you the way; he speaks a little English.’

  When he thanked her and went on to say that he hoped to find himself somewhere to lodge, she smiled at last. ‘I don’t blame you, cousin,’ she told him. ‘I only wish I could do likewise. I am afraid it won’t be easy, though, here in Porto. Now I know how things go on in England I can see why the British are so rude about our estalagems – our inns. Porto holds nothing to compare with that splendid inn at Falmouth! Oh, what a happy, hopeful time that was.’

  ‘Indeed it was.’ Jeremy suddenly felt immensely sorry for Caterina, condemned to the company of her dour father and his attendant priest, with only Harriet for support. Just the same: ‘I am glad you have Miss Brown with you,’ he told her.

  ‘And so am I! I owe a great debt to you and Mother Agnes and your concern with the proprieties.’

  Something in her tone made him anxious for her. ‘Cousin Caterina, if things do not go right for you here, if you ever felt the need of my help, you would ask for it, would not you? I’m your mother’s kin, after all. I have been thinking about her since I saw her sitting room yesterday. It must have been so strange for her, coming to live here.’

  ‘Do you know,’ she told him, ‘I have been thinking of her too. And, thank you, cousin, I’ll remember your kindness.’

  Jeremy enjoyed the morning walk through the teeming city. They crossed a large, noisy, open marketplace where black-clad country women shouted their diverse wares. The piles of eggs, scrawny, cackling hens and lavish heaps of fruit and vegetables made him wonder about the difficulty the English troops were said to be having in feeding themselves off the countryside. He must come back here on his own. But first he must get to work. They had left the market now and were climbing a narrow, ill-paved street of what looked like a better class of shop.

  ‘Rua são Antonio,’ said his guide, confirming this. ‘And that is Santa Caterina, where the fidalgo ladies order their clothes. But we go this way. The cathedral is up there –’ Pointing to another tangle of alleyways thronged with people and overhung with grimy-looking washing.

  ‘I can’t see it.’ Jeremy stood aside as two sedan chairs confronted each other in the narrow road, followed by a torrent of oaths from the porters.

  ‘Of course not. There are no long views in Porto. It is built too close. That is why you need a guide, senhor.’ He turned into a narrow alley slanting downhill, and Jeremy, who had always prided himself on his sense of direction, knew he was totally lost.

  ‘This is the house.’ The man rapped at a door set in a tiled wall. ‘I will wait, of course, and see the senhor back.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Jeremy had given up hope of being independent for a while.

  The door swung open on to a dark stairway, lit from somewhere far above. A handsome young black woman greeted Jeremy in lilting, fluent English and led the way upstairs.

  Two steep and noisome flights up, she flung open a door and ushered him into a
blaze of light. Dazzled for a moment, he remembered to put his hand to his brow, as if in pain, then advanced into the surprising room. Brilliantly whitewashed, it was hung with coloured shawls of green and blue and azure to give the impression of some fantastic under-sea cave. The light came from a balconied window, where a woman was standing, looking out.

  ‘Mr Craddock.’ She came to him out of the light, like a revelation. ‘I am so very glad to see you.’ She held out a slim hand and he held it for a long moment, gazing at her.

  ‘But you are young!’ She was not only much younger than he was expecting, she was beautiful, with the frail, pale elegance of a wood nymph, a water sprite. Pale golden hair hung unfashionably to frame the ivory face with its huge grey eyes.

  She was smiling at him with pale coral lips. ‘Is that so terrible, Mr Craddock?’

  ‘It is a great surprise. I had imagined –’ He paused. What had he imagined?

  ‘A crone? A sybil with three teeth and tangled grey hair? I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr Craddock, and in fact I have to return the compliment. We had thought you an older man, my brother and I, from what Senhor Gomez said. So what’s to do? You see, I much prefer to work entirely alone with my patients; it is a very personal business, as I am sure you will understand. But I am afraid we may start tongues wagging here in gossipy Porto if we do so. My brother suggests he sits with us and pretends to be made of stone, but the trouble is he is something of a cynic where my gift is concerned. I am afraid I could not hope to succeed with him present, however quiet he kept.’

  ‘No, I can quite understand that. But, Miss Emerson, how can I let you … It is you the talk would harm …’ Should he suggest that Caterina or Harriet might act as chaperone? But to have either of them there, listening, would make things impossibly difficult.

  ‘Oh, talk!’ She shrugged it off. ‘A gift like mine is bound to draw talk, Mr Craddock. I am afraid I have got used to it. We plan to go back to the United States soon, my brother and I, and the Atlantic is a wide ocean. I doubt Portuguese tattle will follow me there. Or Anglo-Portuguese for that matter. So come, sit down here.’ She gestured to a small and surprisingly comfortable-looking sofa. ‘Now tell me what your trouble is.’ She herself had sat down at a little writing table, and Jeremy was sorry. He had very much hoped that she would sit beside him. What in the world was happening to him?