Scandal at the Dower House (9 page)

For several hours Joanna wept and railed against fate, then swore she would soon die of agony. The midwife came and looked at her, told her she would be several hours yet, and she had to attend first to another lady who was much closer to giving birth. She would return in the morning.

Joanna screamed abuse at her, demanded that Catarina find another midwife, or send for a doctor.

‘There are doctors who act as midwives,’ she wept.

By morning Catarina was exhausted. Joanna had wept or screamed the whole night, had clung to her hand with such force when the spasms gripped her that she felt they would never again be capable of holding anything firmly.

The midwife returned, looked at Joanna, and told her, with considerable relish, that her previous patient had given birth to stillborn twins.

‘And she did not make nearly so much noise about it as you do, my girl!’

‘How dare you speak to me — ow, ow, ow! I’m splitting apart!’

‘Should have thought of that nine months ago. Here, bite on this leather strap, it’ll help.’

Joanna glared at her, panting. ‘It’s filthy! How many other women have bitten on it? Ow, give it to me!’

An hour later a tiny girl was born, and Joanna subsided onto the pillows with a sigh of relief.

‘A good size, even though she came a few weeks early. She’ll do,’ the midwife said, wrapping the child in a sheet and placing her beside Joanna.

‘No! Take it away! I won’t have her!’

‘Let me hold her,’ Catarina said, and took the baby into her arms. She looked at the tiny face, red and puckered, the pale blue eyes, the dark curly hair, the tiny fingers curling round her own, and fell instantly in love. At that moment she determined that her niece would not be given away, to finish up heaven knew where, with some unknown family, or given, when she was old enough, into some kind of service. She was of her blood, and she had never expected to have a child, married to Walter. Joanna might reject her, but she could depend on her aunt.

* * * *

Nicholas wrote to the Quinta das Fontes, and received a reply saying Catarina and Joanna had left months ago, to visit friends in Lisbon. He was tempted to forget it, assuming they would be home soon, but Staines kept appearing whenever he rode past the Dower House, asking if he had any news.

‘Dan’s wife says she had nothing to do with the attack on Ellen,’ he reported one day. ‘She was at home, and there are neighbours who support her story. But if Annie’s convicted she’ll be hanged, or sent to that Botany Bay the other side of the world, and she’ll not see her family again.’

‘Do you believe her?’

Staines rubbed his forehead. ‘I believe the neighbours,’ he said at last. ‘And they can’t have got the day wrong, as he was helping us with that barn roof. I wish her ladyship was at home, she’d help.’

So Nicholas thought of Thomas Winterton, the fellow officer who, wounded when Oporto had been recaptured six years earlier, and unfit for more fighting, had married the daughter of the family who had looked after him, and settled to grow olive trees in the Douro valley. Perhaps he could ask more questions and find a trace of Catarina and her sister.

He admitted to himself he was concerned, and would have gone to Portugal in search of the girls if he had spoken the language, but he accepted he would be of little use without it.

All he had from the Quinta was the family name of the friends they had been meeting in Lisbon, and the hotel where they had stayed when their cousin Antonio escorted them there. They had said something about travelling further south, but Antonio had no notion where. Nicholas wrote to Thomas begging for his help, either in searching himself or employing someone to do so. Thomas promised to do his best, but said he held out little hope without more clues.

Nicholas told himself that Catarina’s return could make little difference to the accused woman. She had not been there, she could only give her a character testimonial, and there were others who could do that. But he was by now seriously worried for Catarina. She had, as far as he could discover, corresponded with no one in England since she had left. What had happened to her? He was missing her, thinking of her every day. He knew he loved her, wanted to see her, to hold her safe in his arms, to care for her for the rest of her life.

Jeremy, he knew, guessed something of this, but with rare tact his brother made no reference to it, pretending that the real reason for contacting Catarina was to help the suspected murderer.

‘If she did not do it, who did?’ Jeremy would ask, but no one in the village could supply a name. Ellen had, they discovered, been walking out with a young man from her own village before she came to work at the Dower House, but his friends vouched for him, saying he had been with them on the fateful night. They could discover no other liaisons, no one else with a motive.

Christmas came. Jeremy was by now able to ride round the estate, and Nicholas frequently rode over from Brooke Court. He visited London and his other houses occasionally, but remained away for no more than a few nights. Rationally he knew he would hear any news just as quickly in Gloucestershire, but in Somerset he felt closer to Catarina. He would wait there until they had news.

* * * *

When Catarina told Joanna she intended to keep the baby herself, Joanna merely shrugged.

‘As long as I don’t have to have anything to do with her,’ she said.

She even refused to select a name, so Catarina called her Maria, after her mother. She wanted to name her Brooke, but reluctantly accepted that if she did people would assume the child was her own, so she called her de Freitas, for her family.

‘We will tell people she is a cousin’s child, who has been orphaned, and I have adopted her.’

‘I really don’t care what name you give the brat.’

Joanna had swiftly recovered her health, though she was plumper than before, with a voluptuous bosom. By the new year she was fretting to become involved in Lisbon society.

‘It’s a great shame your friend Delphine had to go home,’ she said more than once.

Catarina silently disagreed. She had been involved in so many uncomfortable lies since Joanna had been pregnant that she dreaded to have more to contend with. How could she account to Delphine for Joanna’s presence in Lisbon when she had not been visible before? If people came to know about the baby they would soon realize the truth.

Joanna wanted to explore Lisbon, so Catarina sent her out with Luisa. She remained in the apartment, partly because the baby was ailing and she was concerned, partly because she did not wish to be seen with Joanna by any of Delphine’s acquaintances.

Her precautions were, however, of no avail. The doctor had prescribed medicine for the baby, and when Catarina went out to fetch it from his dispensary she met Joanna at the end of the street, talking to an elderly Portuguese lady. The woman turned to Catarina and smiled.

‘Oh, you too! You are both so like your mother,’ she exclaimed. ‘She was one of my best friends when we were children. That’s why I spoke to your sister, to ask if you were related. I am giving a reception next week for some Brazilians who are about to go back to Brazil. I have also invited some of the English officers who have been administering the country. There will be some Portuguese friends there too, quite an international gathering. You must both come.’

There was no way to refuse without giving offence.

‘But if we meet any English we know, how do we explain your presence?’ Catarina demanded when they were back in the apartment.

Joanna was unconcerned. ‘We’ll tell them I have just arrived in Lisbon, after visiting friends.’

Catarina, who had considered herself honest before this imbroglio, thought she was turning into the most mendacious creature imaginable, she had told so many untruths in the past few months. The sooner they could leave Lisbon the better, but baby Maria was still frail, and they had been advised not to travel until the weather improved.

Joanna was thinking more of her first party. ‘How do you like this blue silk? I am going to have a gown made of it.’

‘I don’t think you should wear colours yet. It isn’t a year since Walter died.’

‘Don’t be so odiously correct, Cat! It’s been almost a year, it’s February now. I’m no longer pretending to be a widow. As it happens we didn’t have to tell people that, so if I want to wear colours, I will! I simply refuse to wear this unflattering black any more!’

Catarina gave way and was herself tempted into half mourning, a silver grey shimmering silk, and privately admitted she was glad to be wearing something which suited her after so long. Little Maria could be safely left with Clarice, her wet nurse, who adored her and regarded her as her own. She had lost her own baby, and her husband, a sailor, had been lost at sea some months before, and she said she wanted to go to England with them when they ventured to make the sea journey. That solved a big problem, and Catarina longed for the day when she would once more be in her own home.

The reception was a large one, with many Brazilian and Portuguese guests as well as English. Joanna, enjoying her first party for months, sparkled, and whenever Catarina saw her seemed to be surrounded by admiring men. Surely, thought Catarina with an inward shudder, she had learned her lesson and would be careful not to make the same mistake again.

‘It’s quite a large delegation going to Brazil,’ one the men Catarina talked with informed her. ‘There are many celebrations now the Prince Regent has given it the status of a Kingdom. It is only just, since so much of our wealth derives from there. Brazil, Portugal and the two Algarves will from now on be a United Kingdom of Portugal.’

It seemed rather remote to Catarina. She was on edge wondering what Joanna was doing. Joanna was fizzing with excitement as they drove back to their apartment afterwards.

‘Eduardo Gonçalves has invited me to drive with him tomorrow. He’s a Brazilian, incredibly handsome, and has a huge estate there. They found gold on it, and he is fabulously wealthy.’

‘Is that all you care about?’

‘Of course not, and though he is so handsome and charming, having a great deal of wealth does add to a man’s attractiveness. But he is sailing for Brazil in a week’s time. There will be few opportunities for us to meet.’

Catarina was thankful. She wanted no further complications in their lives. Eduardo, when she met him, was suave but charming, and she looked forward to the day when he would be gone from Lisbon.

* * * *

Nicholas went regularly to Marshington Grange, even though Jeremy was now fit enough to ride about the estate. His friend in Oporto could discover nothing of Catarina, and the anxiety made him short tempered. What had become of her? Staines had no news of her return.

‘Annie has been convicted,’ the butler said when Nicholas stopped to ask how they went on.

‘I thought she had an alibi.’

‘That was only for the first part of the evening. Apparently they went to bed early, tired like I was, and Dan slipped out, thinking Annie asleep. But she followed him. She was seen by old Simeon, who was out poaching. He let it out when he was drunk.’

‘So she’ll be executed?’

Staines shook his head. ‘No. The sentence has been commuted to transportation. Dan’s beside himself. Mr Lewis has threatened to turn him out of his cottage, since he does little work. He’s incapable most of the time. I don’t know where he finds the money for so much ale.’

Nicholas rode on, having asked Staines to inform him the moment he heard when his mistress was coming home. he had other problems more urgent to think about.

Jeremy was encountering considerable opposition to his proposals. The villagers welcomed the drainage scheme, for it would give them work, and some of them expected to benefit when he had more sheep. But life was harder for them than it had been for several years, and some of them blamed him.

‘As if I could do anything about the high duties on malt and barley which leads to more smuggling of brandy and other spirits!’ he complained to Nicholas as they sat over dinner. ‘Or the size of the tithe and the poor rate!’

‘There will be proposals before Parliament soon,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hear some of them relate to imposing more duties to protect our own agriculture, and alleviating the poor rate.’

‘Then I hope you will go and tell them how badly the people are suffering. Yet they won’t see that the changes I am suggesting will help!’

* * * *

Joanna went riding or driving several times with Eduardo. There was always a groom accompanying them, and sometimes other friends of the Brazilian. Catarina relaxed, more concerned over the health of the baby. She scarcely listened to Joanna’s chatter, merely thankful that her sister had recovered her high spirits and was no longer querulous and dissatisfied.

She did listen when Joanna told her Eduardo’s ship was to sail that Saturday, relieved he would be out of her reach. Joanna was rather quieter than usual, and Catarina assumed she was dreading the parting. On Friday night, when they went to bed, Joanna hugged her tightly.

‘I do realize how good you have been to me, Cat! Thank you.’

Catarina hugged her back. Perhaps Joanna was growing up.

On Saturday morning Joanna was gone, and the note she had pinned to her pillow announced she was leaving with Eduardo, and would be married to him aboard his ship.

Without waiting for Luisa Catarina ran from the house and hurried down to the quay, her emotions overwhelming her. She had little hopes of finding the ship, it would have sailed early, but she had to try.

As, ignoring the shocked glances of the inhabitants, she picked up her skirts and ran, the memory of her mother’s frequent stories of the earthquake flitted through her mind.

Many people, Mama had been told, had gone down to the river Tagus in the hope of escaping the horrors of the falling city. Some had boarded boats, but these had been overturned and swept away by the enormous wave which then flooded much of the lower town. Those on the Quay de Pedra, newly built of marble, had drowned when the quay itself had collapsed and fallen into the raging river.