Whispering (16 page)

‘No. I can see that. But where will they be working? Will it be at Lamego or further on? They will want to know that.'

‘I suppose they will.' Reluctantly. ‘And, yes, it may well be further on. There are broken-down gun carriages lying by the roads all the way up to Villa da Ponte. They must be ready for anything. And no women, Frank, no wives, no followers. This is serious, secret work.'

‘Yes, I can see. Am I allowed to ask what the guns are for?'

‘Of course you may ask, and I shall tell you what everyone is being told, and the obvious answer at that. They are to reinforce the fortress at Almeida. It's vital to the defence of the border, and I am sure you remember how the French garrison there managed to give our people the slip, destroyed the defences and got clean away in the night, thanks to some appalling incompetence on our part. It wouldn't have happened if Wellington had been there. He means to refurbish it and have it solid at his back before he moves.'

‘Defence is the best mode of attack,' said Frank thoughtfully.

Dickson laughed. ‘That's it, my boy, that's just it. But let's take my good news across the river; it's just the tonic Oporto needs, I'm sure.'

‘It certainly is,' agreed Frank. ‘And, Dickson, I am more grateful to you than I can say. I'll start work at once.' They had got up and were moving back upriver to where the ferry crossed. ‘I hope this means you will be in town for a while now. My mother is having a party next week; I know she would wish me to invite you.'

‘I'll certainly try to be here, but of course it depends on Lord Wellington's plans; we shall be busy enough for a while before the men are fixed in winter quarters.'

‘Upriver?'

‘Most certainly. Out of mischief's way. But the officers will be another matter, naturally. Your mother may find herself with more distinguished company than she had expected if she is entertaining next week. There was talk, when I came away, that Lord Wellington himself was thinking of making a bolt for it down here for a few days of business and pleasure, and you know what a one he is for sniffing out a private party with ladies present.'

‘My mother would be immensely honoured.' For the first time, Frank thought with satisfaction of his mother's lavish preparations.

‘There will be a dinner at the Factory, of course,' said Dickson, as they approached the landing stage. ‘Men only, naturally. Not the same thing at all. And not a word to a soul till I give you leave. Not even your mother. You know the ladies, God bless ‘em.' And he turned the conversation to indifferent topics as they boarded the boat.

‘Major Dickson is back.' Ralph Emerson came in from the balcony to join Rachel. ‘Chatting away like an old friend with young Ware. Have you heard anything from the old lady, by the way?'

‘Not a word. I did try and give a hint to Miss Gomez, but I'm not at all sure that she took it. She's a close one, that girl, there is no getting to her. And Miss Brown nothing but her dutiful echo. That's a terrible house, Ralph, I'm glad I don't live there. There is a feeling of listening in the air.'

‘You and your feelings! I wish you would feel us out an invitation to the Wares' party; I don't need to tell you how badly we need it.'

‘No. I wonder if Mr Craddock … But it's hard to see just how to set about it …'

‘He'd give you the sun and the moon and the stars if he could, poor young fool.'

‘Yes, I believe he would, but he can't, can he? And the odd thing is I'm not quite sure that he would get me an invitation to Mrs Ware's party, even if he could, and knew I wanted it. There is something about him that I don't quite understand, some corner he keeps to himself. It worries me a little.'

‘You had better step up the pressure a little had you not?'

‘It's too soon, Ralph. This is a difficult one; I'm feeling my way; you must leave me alone to handle it as I think best.'

‘That's all very well, but what about the Wares' party? We have to be there. What's that?' Irritably, as a servant knocked and entered with a note for Rachel. ‘A
billet doux
?'

‘No.' She was looking at it with amazement. ‘It is an invitation to Mrs Ware's party.'

Caterina and Harriet were discussing the party too. ‘We shall look a proper pair of fools if Madame Feuillide doesn't finish our dresses in time,' said Caterina impatiently. The continued silence of both Luiz and the dressmaker was beginning to tell on her nerves.

‘I have been doing some work on the ones we started for ourselves,' said Harriet. ‘They would be quite out of the ordinary, you know.'

‘Yes, but is that what the English colony expects?'

‘Do we care what they expect?'

‘I wish I knew.' Caterina thought about it for a moment. ‘Nothing has worked out as we planned, has it?'

‘Nothing ever does, it seems to me.' Harriet was looking over Caterina's shoulder at the picture she was working on. ‘I think you have got it just right now. They'll love them!'

‘But will they buy them?'

‘I was thinking about that,' said Harriet. ‘Had it struck you, Cat, that in a way you can't lose.'

‘What in the world do you mean?'

‘You aren't thinking, Cat. How long, as things go here in Porto, will it take for your father to hear that you are selling pictures to your lady friends? And how will he like it?'

‘Oh,' said Caterina.

‘Precisely. And if he wants you to stop, he will have to pay you to. Either way, you get the money you need. And we do need to send it by the next boat, love, or I would indeed be worried. Mother is not a patient woman.'

‘I almost wish we hadn't come,' said Caterina.

‘What else could we do? Don't look so desperate, Cat. Mother is not wicked, she is just hard-headed. Well, she has to be. It's a woman's lot. Specially a poor woman's. Don't ever forget that when times are hard for the likes of us they are really hard. It's not just inconvenience, it's starvation. Sometimes I look at myself in the glass, here in the luxury of your father's house, and can hardly believe what I see.'

‘Do you think he is hungry?' asked Caterina.

‘Oh, Cat, I do hope not.' It was the best she could do for her friend, and she was almost relieved when a servant appeared with an unusual summons for Caterina to her father's study.

‘At once?' asked Caterina, with a quick glance for Harriet.

‘If you will,
minha senhora
. The holy father is with him.'

‘Oh.' This was not good news. ‘I'll come, of course.'

The two men were seated on either side of Senhor Gomez's huge writing desk. Both made token gestures towards rising when she entered the room, and the friar muttered a statutory blessing.

She curtseyed, bowed her head for the blessing, took the upright chair that had been placed facing the desk. ‘You sent for me, father?'

‘Yes. Father Pedro has heard a rumour that we find disquieting.'

‘Porto is full of rumours, always.'

‘You will not bandy words with us, Caterina. You have been here for almost a month now. Father Pedro made your position entirely clear to you when you arrived and we had thought, by your behaviour, that you had understood it. We had expected an announcement at Mrs Ware's party next week, and now what do we learn?' He paused impressively for the question she would not ask.

‘You appear to have lost your cavalier,' Father Pedro spoke into the little silence. ‘Why would Mr Ware seek work with the British army if he was expecting to make an advantageous match?'

‘Is he?' Now she was forced to the question.

‘You did not know?' This was Senhor Gomez.

‘He has not called for a few days.'

‘Because he is busy recruiting labour for the British. And you did not know?'

‘Nor that he had been making chances to see Miss Brown alone?' asked Father Pedro inexorably.

‘Which leaves your other gallant,' said her father. ‘And we do not get the impression that he has been exactly punctilious in his attentions.'

‘Everyone knows he is making a fool of himself over that imposter of a clairvoyante,' said Father Pedro. ‘You seem not to have been applying your mind to the matter in hand, daughter. You will hardly get a husband by riding about the countryside with Miss Brown. Even if there had been a chance of it, no respectable Portuguese gentleman would think of you after the hoydenish way you have been carrying on since you got back here to Porto. So your father has decided, in his great goodness, to give you one last warning. His house has been turned upside down for quite long enough. Female frills and female talk. You have until after this party there is so much talk about. Find yourself a suitable husband, English or Portuguese, one your father need not be ashamed to have as his heir, and you shall be married as the daughter of this house should be. Or it will be the Little Sisters of St Seraphina. And this house quiet again.'

‘But – so soon?' It was the first of the protests that thronged in her mind.

‘You had your warning. It is not good for your father's health, still less for his spiritual well-being, to have so much disturbance in his house. Talk and laughter in the hallways, guests coming and going … And besides, there is the burden of the estate. You have not thought to notice, I think, that your father is not a well man, not fit to bear the burden of all his business affairs. It is
time for him to compose his mind for the life hereafter. Give him a son-in-law who will bear his burdens and the problem is solved. Or you know your alternative. Take yourself – and that Miss Brown – off to the Sisters of St Seraphina and I and my brothers can step in and take the burden of his affairs off his hands.'

‘No!' Now she saw it all. Idiotic not to have done so sooner. Of course Father Pedro had left her alone, he had hoped for just this outcome, this rich estate for his brotherhood.

‘Father –' She turned to her real father, hands outstretched, to say … to say what?

But he was already rising to leave the room.

‘It's all my fault,' said Harriet. ‘If you hadn't brought me, Cat, they might have been able to bear it, those two cross old men.'

‘There was no way I could have come without you. Never think that. But what are we going to do, Harryo? If only I would hear from Luiz!'

‘Your father would never accept him. You're not thinking, Cat. A proclaimed traitor.'

‘If I told my father what he told me? About the free Kingdom of Lusitania?'

‘He wouldn't listen, or believe you. And would your Luiz let him tell Father Pedro? He'd be bound to, you know.'

‘No. Never. He is deeply sworn to secrecy, And so am I! I didn't mean to tell you, Harryo dear.'

‘I know.' Smiling. ‘I wormed it out of you, didn't I? And I'm glad I did. I long to meet your Luiz.'

‘I long to see him,' said Caterina. ‘Or at least hear something. But you're right, of course. He would never agree to my telling my father. How could he, when he has resigned himself to waiting until the war is over to clear his name.'

‘All very well for him,' said Harriet. ‘But it hardly helps you, does it?'

‘Nothing seems to help me. But the first thing is money for your mother. Next time Jeremy Craddock comes, I will ask him for a loan. There's no one else to turn to. If I tell him about my pictures, show them to him, perhaps he will believe that I will be able to repay him presently.'

‘If your father has not shut you up in that convent,' said Harriet. ‘I think you should tell your cousin about that threat. He did promise to help, after all.'

‘And might feel forced to offer me marriage if he thought me hard pressed enough. And we both know how he talks of Rachel Emerson. Never, Harryo!'

‘Oh, very well.' Harriet looked at her friend with surprise, and some interest.

It was a relief to both of them when a summons arrived, for the day after next, from Madame Feuillide. ‘It must mean Luiz is back,' said Caterina. ‘I think I have to tell him everything, don't you?'

‘I wish I could meet him,' said Harriet.

Caterina received another summons that same afternoon, one that amazed her. ‘It's from Luiz's grandmother,' she told Harriet after a swift look at the signature. ‘Father Pedro told me she was mad, but her note doesn't read like that.'

‘When did you start believing what Father Pedro told you?'

‘You're quite right. I'm a fool, Harriet, she wants to see me. It reads like a royal command.' She handed over the brief note.

‘It does, doesn't it? “Tomorrow, first thing. Ask for my son. You will be brought to me.” Will you go, Cat?'

‘Of course. She is his grandmother.'

‘ “Alone,” she says.' Harriet had been re-reading the note. ‘How will you manage it, Cat?' They were out on the terrace, quite alone, and she was glad of it.

Caterina had been thinking about this too. It was unthinkable that a young unmarried lady should call on an older widowed man, but that was what the old lady told her to do. Strange suddenly to remember her so clearly. She had been a formidable old autocrat who kept to her own wing, sending out, from time to time, a sharp instruction that the children should play more
quietly. It was an order that was always obeyed, but the old lady had been loved as well as feared, she remembered. Well, she was going to obey her now. But how? Father Pedro had told her the Sanchez house was a fortress, and it had looked like one when she and Harriet had driven by: closed, shuttered, lifeless. Impossible to drive up to that forbidding entrance and demand admission. She made up her mind. ‘You will help me, Harryo?'

‘You know I will.'

‘We'll take our sewing and a cold collation down to the second terrace early in the morning, before the hour of visits, the time when Father Pedro prays with my father. I shall go on down and cross the ravine – don't look so anxious, there is a path, it's just a long stride. The servants do it all the time so there must be a way up on the other side. And you will sit and sew and look as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, and if a servant should bring a note, which is the worst that could happen, you'll blush a bit and suggest I am off on a natural errand.'