Whispering Read online

  ‘I suppose soldiers always do behave badly,’ said Harriet. ‘They’re men, after all, men on the loose.’

  It had been another very hot day but the air was beginning to cool when the carriage lumbered to a stop outside a solid granite building rather like the Carrancas Palace but on the river side of the road. Here, signs of devastation leapt to the eye. The walls were pitted with bullet holes, downstairs windows had been roughly boarded up, and the heavy front door hung askew from the hinges off which it must have been forced.

  ‘But it’s been more than two years –’ said Harriet as the footman tugged at the heavy bell pull by the door. ‘Why has nothing been done to repair the place?’

  ‘The Fonsas have always been strong monarchists,’ Caterina explained. ‘They prefer life in Lisbon where the court is. They were there when Dom John the Prince Regent fled to Brazil with his poor mad mother, the Queen. Of course they went too. Nobody loves them much, here in Porto. Ah, here is old Tomas.’ The big door had opened with some difficulty, just a foot or so, to reveal a ragged, white-haired old man with only one arm.

  ‘Heaven preserve us.’ He bowed low. ‘It really is the Senhora Caterina. A happy day to make up for all the wretched ones! I could hardly believe it when the message came! But come in, senhora, you and your beautiful young friend like two saints straight from heaven. Come in and see what those French ruffians did to our house.’ He tried in vain to push the door further open with his one arm.

  ‘It’s all right, Tomas, don’t trouble yourself, we can manage well enough.’ The two girls slipped past him into the cool damp of the front hall and looked about them, appalled. Even in the half light filtering through cracks in the boarded windows they could see the devastation around them. Oak banisters on the stone stairway hung drunkenly, this way and that. Great damp patches on the walls and sodden carpet underfoot suggested that it had been a long time before the windows had even been boarded up. There was no furniture, no pictures, the cord of a vanished chandelier hung limply from a central boss in the blackened ceiling.

  ‘Oh, Tomas!’ exclaimed Caterina. And then, ‘What happened to your arm?’

  ‘Those French bastards of course.’ He swore and spat on the dirty floor. ‘We held out for two hours, senhora, potting them like rabbits, Manuel and José and I – and a few others. All dead, all gone, tortured, horrible … I’d already got my wound, my right arm of course, when they broke down the door. Senhora, I’m ashamed! I hid – you remember the secret room? I couldn’t fight; I hid. I heard it all; sometimes I wish I had died with the others. It would have been easier –’

  ‘But you have looked after the house for the family, Tomas. Who else could have done that?’

  ‘Looked after! Call this looking after? And much they care!’ A despairing gesture led their eyes from the ruined staircase and a few broken bits of furniture to a pile of sodden tapestries in a corner. ‘What could I do? Not a word; not a scudo from that day to this. At first I waited for orders, for help. In the end, we did what we could, my friends and I. I know how shocked you must be, senhora, after all those happy times when you were children here … But what more could we do? And just you wait until you see the gardens –’ He turned to lead them to the back of the house, down a corridor which showed more signs of systematic looting. ‘The French called them enemies of the people,’ he explained, ‘the masters. Because they had gone to the Brazils with the poor old Queen, God bless and keep her. They took everything that had not been destroyed. The pictures – all the family pictures that had not gone to the Lisbon house. Anything they fancied, they took. And now it is all lying rotting, somewhere in the mountains on the way to the border. They had to abandon everything, senhora, all their loot, even their treasure chests, some people say. There, look at that!’ He had thrown open a door at the end of the corridor to reveal a terrace crazily overgrown by vines. ‘I’m ashamed to let you see it.’

  ‘Well, at least it is cool for us, Tomas.’ She moved over to a marble table where Gomez servants, sent on in advance, had set out a lavish cold collation. ‘And I hope you have somewhere fairly snug of your own where you can entertain my people. You are to be our guest, of course. And no need to trouble yourselves about us. My friend and I will wait on ourselves.’ Desperate, now to be rid of him, she concealed her impatience as best she might as he made her a long speech of thanks.

  ‘Harriet, dear,’ she plunged straight in when they were alone at last. ‘Will you forgive me if I leave you here, to keep watch for me? If someone comes for orders, pretend I’m just gone for a moment – on a necessary errand. That will silence them.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Harriet. ‘He’s here, is he? Waiting for you?’

  ‘Oh, God, I do hope so. Harryo, I’m ashamed. I know I should have told you more, but how could I? I promised, you see. I have to talk to him first.’

  ‘And get his permission?’ asked Harriet, putting her finger on it as usual. ‘Caterina, love, I do beg you to be careful. What kind of an assignation is this he has summoned you to? You are walking a knife edge already, here in Porto, and he asks you to put your reputation still further on the line for him? What would your father say?’

  ‘I don’t even dare think about that. But I have to see him, you know that as well as I do. To tell him, if nothing else –’

  ‘Think hard before you do,’ said Harriet. ‘Listen to him first, let him explain. I’m not entirely in the dark; of course I know who it is, why we are here, of all places, why he has to meet you in secret like this. He risks his life as you do your reputation. Fair enough. But if he is a traitor, Caterina, as they say, sold out to the French – what are you going to do?’

  ‘I won’t believe it,’ said Caterina. ‘I don’t for a minute believe it. Of course he will explain; that is what I am giving him the chance to do. Oh dear, if only I had known you knew … I promised him. I solemnly promised I would never tell.’

  ‘And you have kept your word,’ said Harriet. ‘Well, now, love, promise me you will listen to him before you tell him anything.’

  ‘I promise.’ Caterina snatched up some food from the loaded platters and started down the vine-hung steps. Harriet watched her go in silence, then loaded food on to two plates, filled two glasses with wine, drank a little out of each and began philosophically to eat.

  Caterina, emerging on to the next terrace down, had made a discovery. The wilderness ended here, but instead of the formal knot garden where she had played as a child, she had come out on to a well-tended vegetable patch. Onions, aubergines and tomatoes grew in neat rows dominated by a scarecrow in what she recognised as tattered French uniform. But there was no time to waste on admiring Tomas’s peasant practicalness that was making the house pay its way. She hurried on down to the next terrace where the old vines and olive trees also showed signs of careful tending. The folly was one more level down, and her heart beat hard as she hurried down the last crumbling flight of steps. ‘Luiz?’ Very softly. ‘Are you here?’

  ‘At last!’ He came cautiously out from the shadows of the little temple and her first thought was how unlike him it was to be cautious. Her next was that he looked much older. ‘You’re alone?’ He hesitated, watching her, and she had time to see that his uniform was shabby, his dark hair ill-cut. But the deep-set black eyes held the old magic.

  ‘Of course I’m alone. Oh, Luiz!’ The food she had brought was a nuisance now; she put it down on the temple steps and moved towards him, hands outstretched.

  ‘Provident as always, my little Caterina.’ He took them, pulled her to him for a long, hungry kiss. ‘It’s been so long, so desperately long. I began to be afraid I would never see you again.’

  ‘I too.’ Her body trembled against his. ‘But, Luiz, we haven’t much time; tell me quickly, what has happened to you? Why do they call you traitor?’

  ‘Straight to the heart of the matter!’ He put her away a little to look down at her lovingly. ‘And I’m glad. I’m playing the most dangerous of games, my love. I can
’t tell you much; I’m not allowed to. They didn’t want me to get in touch with you at first, but I showed them what a help you could be to us.’

  ‘They? Us?’ She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘Who, Luiz?’

  ‘How should you know, my little darling? And the less I tell you, the safer for you. But there are deep, dangerous currents here in Porto. Have you heard of d’Argent on?’

  ‘Yes – something – I know, wasn’t he in a plot against Soult?’

  ‘You are well informed.’ Was he more surprised than pleased? ‘Yes, he and his friends were plotting to get rid of Napoleon himself. They thought that the army would mutiny when Soult declared himself King of Lusitania, as he meant to do. That would be their chance. D’Argenton risked his life to visit Wellington at Coimbra, to ask for his help, but the French caught him on his way back across the lines.’

  ‘But didn’t he escape when the French retreated?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why I went with the French. To contrive his escape on that wild flight through the mountains. A brave man, that, a French patriot, and a good friend to us.’

  ‘Us?’ she asked again.

  ‘The Friends of Democracy, here in Porto. D’Argenton and his fellow conspirators wanted France for the French, not an Empire forged in blood. They were glad to let us Portonians plan for the future of our city, for our own free Kingdom of Lusitania. Free from both the French and Lisbon. No one but us gives a thought to what will happen here when the war is over. Your friend the Bishop has gone off to be a great man on the Council of Regency in Lisbon. As for the Prince Regent, the word is he is very happy in the Brazils; they’ll have the devil’s own job to get him back across the Atlantic. It’s going to be the great chance for a free independent state of Lusitania, and we mean to be ready for it. But to be ready, we must be informed. That is where you come in, Caterina, my little love. I cannot clear my own name without implicating my friends; I’ve resigned myself to that; I am happy to work in the shadows until the day of freedom comes. I’m promised great things then. So, you are to be my eyes and ears, here in Porto.’ His arms were round her now, his hands tracing familiar, thrilling paths about her body. ‘Caterina! It’s been so long. Come –’ He was urging her towards the shadows of the temple.

  ‘Luiz, I can’t.’ She held back, against her will. ‘There’s no time. Harriet – you know about Miss Brown, of course – she is up at the house, keeping guard for me; I can’t stay.’ Did she want to? Of course she wanted to. ‘How do you mean, your eyes and ears?’

  ‘There is so much we need to know. The boat you came on: what was on it? And the rest of the news. Is it true that Marmont has given Wellington the slip and is on the march this way? Old Tomas does his best, but he’s not in the position you are for gathering information.’

  ‘Tomas is in it?’ This was a relief; Tomas would be keeping her own servants busy eating and drinking.

  ‘Of course. He has good cause to hate the French, and not much reason to love his employers, come to that, left here alone to fend for himself as he has been. He welcomed me with open arms, a great weight lifted from his shoulders, poor faithful, stupid fellow. If any disaster were to befall my cousins the Fonsas I am the next heir, you know. It gives me some authority with him, and he is glad of it. And glad to run my errands, in so far as he is able. But, Caterina, my questions, they are important.’ His busy hands were telling her a more important tale.

  She made herself concentrate on what he had asked her. ‘The ship’s cargo? Heavy stuff; I didn’t take much notice of it; it was hidden under tarpaulins and they didn’t start unloading until we were all on shore.’

  ‘But you could find out. That cousin of yours who brought you over, he would know. And which way did it go?’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ she said. ‘Upstream. I watched from the terrace.’

  ‘But you can’t see the landing stage from your terrace.’

  ‘No.’ Surprised. ‘But I could see the whole downstream reach, and there was no extra traffic there, so whatever it was must have gone upriver.’

  ‘My clever little love! I am sure you are right. How I longed to be there, that day, in our secret place, to greet you. But I am under orders, just as much as any soldier. Only they are deadly dangerous ones, never forget that. My life is in your little hands.’ He kissed them, one after the other.

  ‘Harriet knows.’

  ‘The devil she does!’ She had forgotten his sudden frightening rages.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’ She pulled away the hand that was savaging her breast. ‘I didn’t tell. I kept my promise. Harriet worked it out for herself. She’s no fool, and safe as houses; a friend in a million. She’ll help. She is helping, up there, this minute.’ It reminded her. ‘I must go back.’ She had been relieved to feel the dangerous tide of fury ebb away in him as she talked. For a moment, she had been frightened. For herself? For Harriet? ‘We’ve been away as long as I dare. Father Pedro has been hurt. He likes Harriet to read to him.’

  ‘He is conscious then?’

  ‘Oh yes, the doctor said he was lucky; it might have been much worse. But he is lying there, in bed, listening to everything that goes on in the house.’

  ‘Damnation! Too soft a blow! But, Caterina, my other question. Marmont.’

  ‘I know nothing about that. I’ve been tied to the house, looking after Father Pedro. And my cousin has left us, he is staying with the Wares now.’ She was talking almost desperately as his hands became more insistent and she felt her body begin to betray her, melting towards him. So easy to give way, to lose herself in the old ecstasy. ‘Mrs Ware’s giving a party for me; there will be talk there, but how shall I see you? I can’t come here again. Will a message to your house reach you?’

  ‘No!’ Explosively. ‘The old bitch, my grandmother, is in her dotage, believes everything they say against me. The servants love me, of course, would do anything for me, but it’s not safe. I dare not go near the place.’

  So that was the real reason why he had not been able to come to their old meeting place. Disconcerting to realise this. ‘Oh, Luiz, she loved you so much. I am so sorry. She must really be out of her mind.’

  ‘Oh, she is that all right, and dangerous with it. I’m told she seems to make sense some of the time, poor old hag. But you won’t be seeing her, that’s one thing certain. I hear you’ve not exactly been welcomed with open arms by the nobility and gentry of Porto. Never mind it, my little love, it will all be changed when we come into our own. In the mean time, I’ve found a dressmaker for you.’

  ‘A dressmaker?’ She was amazed at the sudden change of subject.

  ‘Where we can meet, child. A safe house, on the edge of town. She is a true friend of liberty. Here’s her direction.’ His questing hands left her body at last and she shivered with a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. ‘Here. Put it away safe and be sure and visit her tomorrow with news for me. Late afternoon, like this. I’ll try to be there, but I’m not entirely my own master. The cause I serve is greater than any of us. Hush!’ He put a finger to her lips, but all she heard was a bird’s cry. ‘That’s Tomas. We must part, my darling. It breaks my heart.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘Did you tell him?’ asked Harriet when they were safe in the carriage, rumbling back towards town.

  ‘There was no time. So much to say …’ She was sorting through their brief, tense talk in her mind, trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘And now you have to decide how much to tell me,’ said Harriet, startling her. ‘Not a word more than you want to; there’s no need; I’m your friend whatever happens. You know that. And what I don’t know, I can’t betray. Are you going to see him again?’

  ‘Oh, yes! He’s found us a dressmaker.’ She pulled out the scrap of paper and read it for the first time. ‘Good gracious. It’s Madame Feuillide! Now, how in the world am I going to manage about that?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Harriet. ‘Tell Mrs Ware you have changed your mind. A woman’s privilege. No need
to say more; she’ll be delighted. I have no doubt she’ll be getting commission from Madame Feuillide.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t like it.’ She could not think why it made her uneasy, but it did. ‘He wants me to go tomorrow; I’ll have to send a note to Mrs Ware as soon as we get back. And I think maybe I’ll suggest a date for the party at the same time.’ It would be a chance to get the information about the Anthea’s cargo that Luiz wanted.

  ‘Why not?’ said Harriet. But it was with a sharp look for her friend.

  The streets were emptier now and they got back more quickly than they had come, but the servant who opened the big front door told Harriet that Father Pedro had been asking for her impatiently. ‘And the Senhor Ware is on the terrace waiting for you, minha senhora.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll be with him directly,’ said Caterina, exchanging a quick glance with Harriet. This at least made things easier. He could take a message to his mother.

  Frank Ware was standing at the edge of the terrace, watching the busy traffic on the river. ‘There’s talk of a ship at the bar, in from England,’ he told her. ‘The first since you arrived; I wonder what news she will bring.’

  ‘Will she bring mail?’ Eagerly.

  ‘Oh, bound to. Do you find yourself missing your friends at home, Miss Gomez?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t many. It is Miss Brown who longs for news of her mother, who was not well when we left. I do hope there is something for her.’ Here was a chance. ‘I wonder if this ship is as heavily loaded as the Anthea was. Do you know, someone was asking me what she carried, and I was ashamed to have to admit that I had no idea.’ And, oddly, as she said this, she remembered for the first time that Jeremy had told her it was war material.

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ said Frank Ware. ‘If I may give you a piece of advice, Miss Gomez, don’t ever dream of answering that kind of question, and look a little askance at the people who ask them. This is a military base, remember, and information like that might be invaluable to the enemy. Who was it asked you, I wonder?’