The Winding Stair (18 page)

‘Despatches,' said Carlota Joaquina. ‘They must be important ones. Come along, child; you're English; you have a right to know.'

Lord St. Vincent had glanced quickly over his letter and now held up a hand for silence. Since most eyes had been upon him already, there was an instant hush in the room, so that Juana could hear the shrilling of crickets outside.

‘Bad news, I'm afraid.' St. Vincent spoke across the crowd to Strangford. ‘I'm sorry to break up your party, but Fox is dead.'

‘God rest his soul.' The Princess's strident voice rose above a little hurricane of exclamation and comment. And then, to Juana. ‘He was one of your Whigs, was he not? Will this mean a change of government, do you think? The Admiral looks sick enough.'

‘Yes,' Juana said. ‘I think everyone loved Mr. Fox.' She was thinking about Gair Varlow. He was Fox's man. What would happen to him now?

Looking around, she could see that the same kind of question was in the minds of all the English. They were not only mourning the death of a great man; they were wondering, every one of them, how it would affect them personally. The party broke up almost at once, with a mixture of condolences and thanks for Lord Strangford, who had already declared his intention of riding back to Lisbon that night. Of course, Gair Varlow would go with him, and Juana was afraid, for a moment,
that in the general confusion he would not manage even to say goodbye.

But he came hurrying up as Pedro was helping Mrs. Brett into her carriage. ‘Mrs. Brett! Miss Brett! This terrible news has made us all forget our manners.' His hand was reassuring on Juana's as he helped her mount the steep carriage step.

She had entered from the far side so as not to inconvenience her grandmother and now was able to bend towards Gair and ask: ‘But Mr. Fox's death: may it not change things?'

‘Miss Brett, nothing can change me!' His hand touched her sprig of jasmine, wilting in his buttonhole; his tone was a lover's; his look, for her alone, before he turned and left them, held a promise.

‘Insufferable!' Pedro was leaning in at the other carriage window. ‘What are you thinking of, ma'am, to let that puppy dangle after Juana?'

Mrs. Brett had sunk with a sigh of exhaustion into her corner, but her eyes and voice were sharp as she answered. ‘I've never objected to the company you keep, Pedro. I hope I'm old enough to choose my own. It's lonely for Juana at the castle. I don't notice that you or your brother have put yourselves out to come and entertain her. As for Mr. Varlow, I've had some enquiries made. He is of perfectly good family, but penniless. Quite impossible, in fact, as a husband for Juana, but if he wants to make a fool of himself over her, it's his own affair. I won't have you interfering. Is that understood?' She closed her eyes. ‘Tell the coachman to drive on.'

The Castle on the Rock had never seemed so dreary as on the day after Lord Strangford's party. The weather had changed in the night, and Juana waked to a darkened room and the sound of rain lashing against the windows. She had forgotten how violent these autumn storms could be, swelling streams to torrents, turning paths to streams. No one would ride out from Lisbon today, or, very likely, for many days to come. If Gair Varlow should feel that his work here was ended with Fox's death, and decide to sail with Lord St. Vincent, he might not even be able to come out and say goodbye.

Was she imagining things? His last words had certainly been reassuring enough. ‘Nothing can change me,' he had said, miming the abject lover but intending her to understand that she could count on him, whatever happened. Doubtless he had meant it at the time. But, if he were suddenly to be summoned home? She was beyond illusions about him. He would obey orders.

She shivered and jumped out of bed, to feel the floor chilly under her bare feet. A pool of water lay by the window she had left open, and as she went to close it lightning tore the sky open, closely followed by its crack of thunder. Rain soaked her nightdress and the window struggled in her hands as she fought to pull it shut. Far below, the Atlantic had been lashed into a fury of white-caps. Surely Lord St. Vincent would never sail today?

Hurrying along the rain-swept cloister, she found Elvira already seated at the breakfast table. ‘ “Great nature weeps,”' was her greeting. ‘ “Weep men and beasts therefore.” The whole ocean would not be tears enough for Mr. Fox.' She poured coffee with a shaking hand. ‘I met him once. At the Duchess of Devonshire's. He was a great man. The world is different this morning.'

‘Yes,' Prospero had entered the room as she spoke. ‘It's wet. You won't get your ride today, Juana. What will you do with yourself?'

She had been wondering this herself, but put a cheerful face on it. ‘All kinds of things, uncle. I might begin by exploring the
castle. Do you know there are whole bits of it I don't in the least remember.'

‘And all of them full of rats and bats and cobwebs. I'd spare my pretty new dresses, if I were you. Come to me in the library instead. I need a secretary today. You write a better hand than mine, and I promised Lord Strangford I'd send him copies of several passages from Camoens where my reading differs from his. He said he would send his Mr. Varlow out for them – the one who made such sheep's eyes at you yesterday, Juana. I didn't think my boy Pedro liked it much.'

‘No?' Nothing would induce her to discuss Gair – or Vasco either, with her uncle. She turned with relief as the door opened. ‘Good morning, Uncle Miguel.'

‘Bless you, my child.' It was always hard to decide just how seriously Uncle Miguel expected his blessings to be taken.

‘Coffee, Miguel?' asked Elvira, and then, in the same perfectly everyday tone:

‘ “
Upon such sacrifices
The heavens themselves throw incense
.”'

Prospero kept Juana busy most of the day, and in fact she was glad enough to abandon her half formulated plan of exploring the uninhabited parts of the castle. If there really were other secret entrances besides the one in her grandmother's room, was she sure she wanted to find them?

When the failing light released her at last from Prospero's dull verse, she found her aunt sitting in the Ladies' Parlour, stitching away at her embroidery.

‘What are you making?' Juana moved a branch of candles nearer.

‘Thank you.' Elvira bit off her thread and held up the canvas so that Juana could see the exquisitely fine needlepoint. ‘You're an observant child. I don't often work on these. They're a set of chair-covers.' She laughed. ‘They were to be part of my trousseau. English flowers, you see. One on each. But I'd only got to the primrose when he changed his mind. I thought I'd never go on with them.'

‘I'm sorry. I had no idea …'

‘You thought I'd always been old and sad and a little mad? Why not? It's hard for the young to believe in old age: merciful, really, that they can't. But, Juana, I'm anxious about you. What
are you going to do here, all alone? You can't spend all your time roaming about the valley; nor working for your uncles either. Mother's busy just keeping alive. Oh, she'll use you, as she has the rest of us, but that's all. I can't help you. I'm – what you see. You must make a plan for yourself, child, if you don't want to get like me.'

‘A plan?'

‘Yes. What do you want to be? No need to tell me—' Had she seen Juana's instinctive recoil? ‘Just think about it. Men learn how to be the kind of person they want. They go to school, have tutors … We have to teach ourselves. We make ourselves what we are.' She looked up from her work, her eyes unusually bright. ‘I made myself “poor Elvira”. It's an easy part … What's yours to be? Remember, no one here is going to help you.' They had been talking Portuguese, now she switched to English. ‘You might begin with that stammer. There's something rather “poor Juana” about that, don't you think? You could begin by saying: “I'll do my best.” Quickly!'

‘I'll d …' she stuck. ‘It's no use. I can't.'

‘So you want to spend the rest of your life here in Portugal?'

‘I'm not sure.' She was surprised at herself.

‘That's what I thought. You'd better do some thinking too. If you want to go back to England, you must learn to speak properly. You'll never do what you don't try. Practise on me, any time you like. My English is so rusty, a little stammering will give me time. Anyway, who cares what a mad old spinster thinks?'

‘Talking English?' Miguel had come in unnoticed, on slippered feet. His voice was disapproving.

‘Talking? Were we really talking? Did I speak, and did she answer? Shall I talk, and will she listen? No, no, Miguel.' Elvira rolled up her embroidery and rose. ‘It's quite impossible. I am silence, you know, and nobody heeds me. “Goodnight, ladies, goodnight sweet ladies …”' She drifted from the room.

‘Poor creature. You don't mind her too much, Juana?'

‘Of course not. But what's wrong with speaking English?'

‘Has no one explained? We think it best, with things as they are, always to speak in a language that the servants can understand.'

‘In case they are spying on us? To make it easier? Uncle, that's horrible.'

‘Life is horrible. Have you not understood that yet, child? I was hoping you might have. That your disability might have taught you something of the truth.' He came closer, to stand over her. ‘Have you not thought, Juana, that the answer for you lies in the service of God? Who knows but that He put the impediment into your speech to give you time to remember Him. Just think how happy you would be in a Silent Order.'

‘I? Uncle, are you mad?' She felt as if, running in the dark, she had come to the edge of a cliff.

‘No, child, just sane with a greater wisdom than you are ready for. But foolish, too, in my generation. I had meant to wait longer before I spoke. Forget it for now, child, but remember when His time is ripe.'

‘If you mean ripe for my entering a nunnery, I can tell you this minute, uncle, it never will be.'

‘Never is a long day. Remember, Juana, that we are all dust before the breath of the Lord. Why should the dust rise up and say, “I will be thus,” or “I will not be so”?'

A little shiver ran down her spine. Why let him frighten her? She jumped to her feet: ‘I must get ready for supper.'

The storm blew itself out in the night and Juana woke to brilliant light and Maria's eager voice at her door: ‘Have you seen them, senhora?'

‘Seen what?'

‘The English ships.' She moved over to the seaward window. ‘Look! You can see them from here. They must have come out with the tide.'

‘They're going!' Juana joined her at the window and watched the six graceful line-of-battle ships beating up the coast, Hibernia unmistakable in the lead. ‘They're really going.' She had not realised what a sense of security those six ships had given her until now, when she saw them sailing away. So far, she could always change her mind, beg Gair Varlow to arrange a passage home for her. Not that she would, of course, but at least it had been possible. Now, they were gone, and she was alone here. And there was worse. Fox's death might well mean a change of government in England. What more likely, if so, than that Gair Varlow would be recalled. He might be out there now, going home with St. Vincent.

Maria was looking at her anxiously. ‘What's the matter,
menina
? Does it make you sad to see them go?'

‘A little. It's nothing.' She managed a laugh. ‘Iago would say a ghost had walked over my grave.'

‘Oh, that Iago! You mustn't listen to him. He's from the Alentejo, you know, and superstitious like all of them down there. If I listened to half the stories he tells, I'd never have a quiet moment in this castle. He thinks it's a trysting place for the
bruchas
. They meet here at the full moon, he says, and Satan comes to them, out there on the cliff.' She crossed herself. ‘It's all nonsense, of course.'

‘Of course.' Not nonsense, but the Sons of the Star. If only the full moon was safely past … All the time, as Juana lived her quiet life in the castle, a kind of metronome was ticking away at the back of her mind, numbering off the days to the full moon, when she must go down the winding stair alone. Not many more now.

Far out to sea, the
Hibernia
had changed course to round Cabo Roca. Soon she would be out of sight. Suppose Gair Varlow was on her. She would suppose no such thing. ‘I'm hungry, Maria! Fasten my dress for me?'

She escaped from breakfast as soon as she could and ran down to the stables to tell Iago to saddle Rosinante.

‘We can't go down the valley today. The stream's in flood this morning, and the paths not much better.' No doubt he was glad of this excuse to keep her away from the Jaws of Death.

‘Yes, I thought it would be. We'll ride, instead, a little way along the Sintra road. That's on the ridge and should have drained off pretty well by now. We might even get a glimpse of the English ships.' It made as good a pretext as any to cover her urgent need to get away from the castle, where, somehow, however lonely, she was never alone. Besides, the dark little wood on the Sintra road must be faced alone some time, and, Vasco was right, the sooner the better.

She rode slowly, deep in thought. Her dreams the night before had been disturbed by echoes of what Elvira had said to her. Waking, she had tried in vain to dismiss it as a madwoman's ramblings. But there had been nothing mad about Elvira when she had spoken of her mother: ‘She'll use you, as she has the rest of us.' What, exactly, had she meant? Was she suggesting that old Mrs. Brett actually wanted her sons to live the lives of drones?

Yesterday, Juana had rejected this idea. Of course her grandmother
was fond of her – was not just using her. Out here, today, with St. Vincent's ships silhouetted against the sky, she admitted doubt. If her grandmother really cared about her, would she have withdrawn, as she had done since Lord Strangford's party, and shut herself up in her rooms with Manuela and Estella, when the moon was almost full and she must know what this meant, in terror, for Juana?