The Winding Stair (6 page)

Well, it was all over now. Her small box was strapped and ready. Her step-mother and sisters had said goodbye the night before since she and her father must make an early start in order to pick up the Falmouth coach. She took one last look round the room she had hated, blew out her candle, and was asleep before the raw smell of tallow had ebbed from the room.

The journey was delicious adventure all the way and it was only when they reached Falmouth and found that the wind was fair and the weekly packet just ready to sail that her courage failed her for a moment.

‘Father?'

‘Yes, my poppet?' He had never dared use the old pet name at home.

‘Say I'm right to go.'

‘I hope so.' He was plagued with anxieties of his own. The talk, in the Falmouth coach, had not been reassuring nor had the amazed glances that had greeted his admission that Juana was sailing to Portugal by herself. But of course it was all rumour and moonshine. Mr. Fox and his friends were men of peace. Lord Lauderdale was in Paris, as everyone knew, negotiating with Bonaparte's government. It was only a question of time before the armistice was signed. So why were their fellow-travellers so gloomy?

Juana was looking at him anxiously. ‘You don't mind my going, father?'

‘Mind! Of course not. After all, we must think of your poor grandmother. I only wish the news was more encouraging.'

‘Oh, that.' She had a girl's healthy disregard for world affairs. ‘You've been listening to those dismal men on the coach! Don't worry about me. After all, I'm half Portuguese. And you know everyone loves Grandma Brett. Even if the French should invade, we'll be safe in the Castle on the Rock.'

‘Of course you will.' He was glad to let her convince him. It was only on the coach going back to London that he realised how much he was going to miss her.

No French privateer interrupted their safe, swift voyage. Juana woke on the fifth morning to sense a difference in the ship's motion. Sitting up in her narrow cot-bed, she peered out of the porthole to see that they had passed Fort St. Julian and were well into the first narrow reach of the Tagus. Though it was only mid-August, the hills were golden brown already, throwing into relief their fringe of white-sailed windmills. Now, as they slid along by the left bank of the river, she saw a country house whose brilliant white stucco and blue woodwork stood out against the luxuriant green of a well-watered garden. They must be almost up to Belem. She threw herself into her clothes and hurried up on deck in time to see the Tower of Belem ahead, like some fantastic piece of confectionery served up for dessert at Forland House.

A sharp order, and a scurry of barefoot sailors across planks already hot with morning sun reminded her that incoming ships must lie to and wait for clearance from the Tower. As the sails came down and the ship's pace slowed, she stood quietly at the rail, keeping out of the way and watching for remembered landmarks. There was the towering monastery of the Geronimos. She shuddered, cold in the hot sun. Somewhere along the shore here they had built the scaffolds, years ago, after the Tavora plot (if it had been a plot) against the life of Joseph I. It had been a story to be told, in whispers, at twilight, to a frightened child: the lonely road, the king's carriage, the volley of shots that wounded but did not kill. And then, the long sinister silence.

When the vengeance of Joseph's formidable minister, Pombal, had struck at last, it had been cataclysmic, horrible, like the earthquake that had preceded the so-called plot. The families of Tavora and d'Aveiro had perished, dreadfully, on the scaffold here at Belem. Juana's own mother, a child at the time and merely a remote cousin of the Duke d'Aveiro, had been lucky to be immured in a convent outside Oporto. She had not emerged into ordinary life until Joseph's death and Pombal's consequent fall from power. Joseph's daughter, Queen Maria, had freed Pombal's surviving victims, and indeed her present madness was
rumoured to be partly due to her doubts about the authenticity of the famous attempt on her father's life.

But the d'Aveiro family name of de Mascarenhas was still an unlucky one. When the Tavoras were cleared by Queen Maria's courts, the Duke d'Aveiro's guilt was confirmed. His son was reduced to living on Tavora charity, and there was not much future for his kinswoman in the convent at Oporto. So the kind nuns were delighted when a young Englishman, Reginald Brett, on business there for his mother, had seen Juana de Mascarenhas, just emerged like a gentle moth into the daylight, fallen in love with her on sight, and married her out of hand. Juana sighed. It was all history to her. Childless for ten years, her mother had dwindled away after she was born, and her own first memories were of her Portuguese foster-mother, old Anna, and of kind, vague Aunt Elvira who had brought her up as tenderly as her dread of her own fierce mother, the matriarch, Mrs. Brett, would allow.

The dream of the past was shattered by a shout from the Tower of Belem, and the quick exchange of question and answer, through speaking-trumpets, that cleared the ship to go on into the main harbour of the Tagus. Juana shook herself. These thoughts of the past were morbid, foolish … Why, almost, for a moment, she had felt a twinge of fear at the thought of the return she had longed for. Nonsense, of course. Pombal and all he stood for were dead long since. There were no scaffolds now on the dusty shore beyond Belem; only the gardens and menagerie of the Ajuda Palace. And why did that make her remember, as a child, being shown the pillar marking the spot where the Duke d'Aveiro's palace had stood before Pombal had had it razed to the ground, and the site symbolically sprinkled with salt?

A shout from the masthead brought her back to the present. ‘Ships of the line! Ours. One two … six of them!'

Hurrying across to the starboard side, Juana saw the six ships anchored in formation just below the tangle of shipping in Lisbon harbour, lying, she noticed, where they could command a view both up river and down to the bar.

‘Six of them!' The packet's captain joined her, an anxious little cross-eyed man with a hearty respect for the name of Brett. ‘I don't much like the look of that. It's the most we're allowed to bring in here, by treaty. I hope it doesn't mean the French have invaded – or are going to.' He peered at them anxiously
through his glass. ‘That's the
Hibernia
, Admiral St. Vincent's flagship, and flying his flag. What brings him here from his station at Brest? I don't like it, Miss Brett; I don't like it above half. You won't think of going ashore till we know what it means. Not that you'll be free to do so for a day or so, if I know anything of the way they go on here.'

‘No. My father said I would have plenty of time to let my grandmother know I was here before we were cleared for landing. I have a note ready for her, if you'd be so good as to have it sent ashore by the first boat?'

He took it, still looking doubtful. ‘But, Miss Brett … those six ships may mean that the French have invaded. If so, you will have no alternative but to return with me.'

‘No alternative? After coming this far? I am here because my grandmother needs me, Captain Fenton. If the French really have invaded, she will need me more, not less.'

‘Quite so.' Her tone of authority had surprised him, but after all she was a Brett, if a young one. ‘I'll send your note, Miss Brett. I'm sure your grandmother will be the first to forbid your going ashore if there is really danger. At all events, we should know soon enough. There's a boat pulling off to us from the
Hibernia
now.'

His verdict, after the young lieutenant from the
Hibernia
had been and gone, was not encouraging. ‘There's no invasion – yet,' he told Juana. ‘But Junot's at Bayonne, with 25,000 men, and the Spaniards are massing on the frontier. It don't look good, Miss Brett. Remember, Napoleon's no respecter of persons – or of the rules of war. He makes prisoners of civilians-look what he did three years ago. I'm sure I don't know what to do for the best. But,' cheering up, ‘we're invited to dine on the
Hibernia
. They'll advise you there, I'm sure. Lord Strangford, our minister, is to be there.'

‘Oh, what a pity.' Juana really meant it. ‘But I'm afraid I am not well, Captain. I must ask you to make my apologies.'

He did not try to hide his astonishment. ‘But, Miss Brett—'

‘I'm sorry.' She was not prepared to invent an ailment. ‘Say all that is proper for me.' Back in her cabin, she unfolded and reread the note she had found on her pillow after the
Hibernia's
boat had left. It was short and to the point: ‘If you are invited on board the
Hibernia
, refuse. This is no time to be seen with the English. And, when you land, insist on saying a prayer of
thanksgiving to St. Roque. Whatever happens, your grandmother expects you. Remember Sebastian.'

Gair Varlow? It must be. Who else would refer to Sebastian? But what in the world could it mean? Puzzling over it, she had obeyed, so far, instinctively. But – a prayer to St. Roque? She could not see the church yet, on its hill above Lisbon harbour, but there could be no question of what the note meant. Nor would it be difficult to do. Her father's lapse from the Catholic church had exacerbated his breach with his mother, and, in England, Juana had gone, with the rest of the family, to the local church. But she had missed the strong framework of Catholicism and had already decided that, once back in Portugal, she would return to her mother's church. She was ashamed of herself for having left it, and would have much to say to St. Roque, her own saint. Only – it was certainly not for that reason that the note told her to go there. Was it absurd to hope that she would find Gair awaiting her in the church on the hill?

She decided to recover and be back on deck by the time the Captain and her three fellow-passengers returned from dining on St. Vincent's flagship. After all, as the only woman on board, she might allow herself a certain unpredictability.

They returned early since Captain Fenton wanted to take advantage of the evening tide to move his ship up to the main harbour. ‘I'll not waste a moment, once I've got my clearance,' he told Juana. ‘The sooner I'm safe out at sea again, the happier I shall be. And if I were you, Miss Brett, I'd resign myself to making the return voyage. Disappointing for you, I know, but better than spending years in a French prison.'

‘Are things so bad?'

‘They're not good. No one really
knows
anything mind you. Those goddamned Portu – I beg your pardon, Miss Brett – the Portuguese have been keeping St. Vincent at arm's length. That Prince Regent of theirs – Dom John – is still up at Mafra hobnobbing with his monks. There's been no one here for St. Vincent to talk to – he only received
pratique
yesterday, when their first minister, d'Araujo, finally got back from Mafra. Polite as you please now, of course, and all apologies, but it don't alter the fact that St. Vincent's been cooling his heels here in the bay for the better part of a week, and you can imagine how the old fire-eater has liked that. And Lord Rosslyn too – they let General
Simcoe ashore, as a great concession because he's ill, poor man. He's at Sintra, and not likely to recover, they say.'

‘Rosslyn and Simcoe are here too?'

‘Yes. Their frigate must have passed us on the way out. You can see why I say it's serious. They're here to arrange for military aid, if it's needed. Which it probably will be. We've an army all ready at Portsmouth, standing by to embark the minute the French cross the frontier. Mind you, they'll have to be quick about it, if they are to do any good. The Portuguese army couldn't hold back an invasion of mice. So you see, Miss Brett—'

‘You say yourself that nobody really knows anything. It may all be a false alarm. My father was sure that we'd hear, any moment, that Lord Lauderdale has signed an armistice in Paris.'

‘I'll believe that when I hear it! But no need to look so anxious. Judging by what happened to St. Vincent, we've not a hope of receiving
pratique
for a while. Plenty of chance to hear from your grandmother between now and then. And maybe time, too, for news from the frontier.'

In fact, time crawled. Anchored well out from Pombal's handsome
Praça do Comércio
, they were still near enough to see the stir of life in the square and hear the innumerable bells of the churches scattered over Lisbon's seven hills. Standing at the rail, Juana was content for a while, to make out the various landmarks, remembered from childhood visits to the city. There was the Castle of St. George, up above the Cathedral and the tumble of red roofs that represented the old Moorish district, spared by the earthquake. And there, much nearer, was St. Roque itself, reminding her of the question that lay, all the time, at the back of her mind. Was she really going to make an excuse to go up there when she landed? An excuse of her religion? She was angry with herself even for considering it, angrier still with Gair Varlow (if it was he) for asking her. She turned impatiently away, to look downstream to where a crowd of small boats kept plying between the English warships and the shore. The sight made it all the more maddening that they themselves had lain incommunicado all the long, hot day, waiting on the whim of the Portuguese authorities.

‘Mind you' – Captain Fenton stopped beside the canvas shelter he had had rigged for her on deck – ‘no news is good news. St. Vincent promised he'd let me know if anything happened.'

‘Yes.' She had been pretending to work on her detested embroidery.
Now she dropped it. ‘Look! There's a boat coming.'

‘The officials already?' He admitted it grudgingly, unwilling to find anything good about the Portuguese. ‘The Inquisition too, by the look of it. You've got nothing out of the way in your baggage, I hope?'

‘You forget, Captain. I'm a Catholic.'