Eliza’s Daughter

by Joan Aiken

  Using money Mr Croft sent, I was able to have her transported by litter as far as Amarante, where we now are. We hope to go on to Vila Real, where there is said to be a doctor. But she was so enfeebled by the first part of the journey that I again feared for her life. A priest in this town tells me that in his opinion the extremity of terror and pain suffered by Thérèse has locked her into a kind of catalepsy from which only profound surprise or joy can release her. I believe that he is right. So far, no expedient that I can contrive has proved of any use.

  Now, my dear Eliza, I know this is asking a great deal; perhaps asking something that may not be in your power to grant. For all I know, you may now be a married woman, or engaged in some pursuit that will not permit you to strike camp at short notice, pick up your skirts and sail for Portugal. But oh! if you could come, I think, I truly believe, that your arrival might be the only event that would have the power to deliver my child from her dreadful prison. And I do beg you, if it is within your power, to make this effort, to come.

  How can I be certain that you will even receive this letter? Or that it will not take so long finding you that my daughter’s bondage may have been unlocked by death? I cannot be certain, of course. But I do have such a great faith in your attachment to Thérèse that I believe, if it is at all possible for you to do so, you will come, and that if you come you may be able to help her.

  We move next to Vila Real. Should we for some reason leave that place, make your inquiries of the nuns in Oporto; the various convents are in communication and will know where foreigners are lodged. If you ask for ‘the Englishwoman and her afflicted daughter Teresa’ anybody will be sure to tell you.

  Ever your friend,

  Hariot Vexford.

  I read this letter sitting in the Duke’s rose garden, on a sultry afternoon in July. The drowsy scent of full-blown roses, catnip and hot flagstones enveloped me like a quilt, and a sleepy whirring came from the grasshoppers in the meadow beyond.

  We have been at war, I thought, this country has been at war with the French ever since I was a child, but what do I myself know about war? Battles are fought, Trafalgar, Vitoria, Salamanca, ships are sunk, sailors drowned, soldiers cut down by cannon fire – all to protect this island; but how am I, Eliza Williams, affected by such happenings? I hear about them as if they were in a play by Shakespeare or Sophocles. But these people, my friends, Lady Hariot, Triz – they have met war face to face. And I went on to think about Colonel Brandon and Marianne; I had at times been critical of them in my mind, for paying me so little heed as they moved about India, or travelled from India to Portugal; but how could I know what cares they might have had, what dangers faced them?

  As soon as I had read the letter I longed to show it to the Duke; but he was in London, attending the great fete in Carlton House (in the special pavilion designed by Mr Nash) given in honour of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had been created Duke of Wellington.

  The Duke returned to Zoyland the following day, tired and, for him, out of humour.

  ‘London is nothing but a bedlam,’ he peevishly said. ‘They have covered Hyde Park with oriental temples, pagodas, bridges and towers. There is no milk to be had, the cows are all banished from the parks; and it is impossible even to get clothes washed, all the laundry-women are devoting themselves to princes and foreign visitors.’

  ‘Oh, sir! Pray – pray – read this letter!’

  He read, frowning, his lips pursed in a silent whistle, eyes eclipsed under the bushy canopies of eyebrow.

  Having reached the end he at first made no comment, but puffed his cheeks out in a long sigh. Then he went through it again, slowly and carefully.

  ‘You realize that by this time the poor thing may be no more?’ he said at last, turning the sheet around to study the date.

  ‘Yes . . . ’

  ‘But I suppose you are none the less bent on running off to the rescue. Hey? The clement heart of Miss never yet permitted such an appeal to go unanswered. As I am well aware! Mendicants, cadgers, barkers, touters – every guttersnipe and gypsy in the country comes cap in hand to you for alms.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I know what it is to be alone and friendless – ’

  ‘Humph! And I suppose the chance of seeing Mrs Marianne constitutes no added inducement?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘This post-scriptum – ’

  I had not noticed the post-scriptum, tucked in one corner. It said, ‘I understand that Mrs Marianne Brandon, the widow, I suppose, of your guardian is staying at present with the nuns of the Santa Clara Convent in Oporto.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ I stared at the Duke. ‘Then, that must mean – I suppose – that Colonel Brandon has met his end.’

  ‘Died in some battle, doubtless, poor fellow.’

  ‘No wonder he never returned to Delaford.’

  ‘’Tis to be hoped that Mrs Marianne has informed the lawyers,’ the Duke said drily. ‘But now, my dear – if, as I surmise, you are eager to be off to Portugal on this wild-goose mission, I have but one stipulation.’

  ‘Of course, my dear sir,’ I replied, somewhat inattentively, for my mind was astir with speculation about Marianne Brandon. Did she intend to remain in Oporto, or would she come back to England? Had Willoughby – had my father – ever succeeded in his aim of seeking her out? Might they – if Colonel Brandon was no more – might they be reunited?

  The Duke went on. ‘My stipulation, child, is this. I shall accompany you to Portugal myself. My ship, the Miranda, sails from Bristol in ten days’ time with a cargo of cod and dry-goods – most fortunately as it turns out – so you are assured of a satisfactory passage. And we can reside at the Factory House in Porto, while you make your inquiries. My steward, Bliven, shall accompany us; he can make all the needful arrangements. And Enrique Morton, my agent out there, can put inquiries in train for you.’

  ‘But, sir – ’

  I must confess that I was somewhat aghast at the Duke’s plan. The prospect of travelling thus, with all the consequence and consideration that his presence was bound to entail, did not at all enliven my spirits; to speak the truth, I had hoped to be off on my own, in solitude and freedom.

  ‘I had been planning to send Bliven over,’ the Duke went on comfortably, ‘in order to find out how the quinta was recovering from the effects of the French ravages. But he has always proffered some reason why such a trip would not be convenient. Now I shall go myself, and that will be much better. I shall enjoy a stroll down the Rua Nova des Inglezes. Porto is a pleasing town.’

  I did not voice any of my many objections. And, later, I was glad that I had not. For Dr Swinton issued a most vehement veto against his noble patient undertaking any such excursion.

  ‘Your Grace has been looking fatigued, and of late I have noticed you stumble several times. It would be highly injudicious – unthinkable – out of the question.’

  ‘But a sea voyage might be the thing to set me back on my feet,’ objected the Duke.

  ‘Not across the Bay of Biscay in August, my dear sir! When gales may be expected daily! It would be folly – arrant, irredeemable folly!’

  The Duke would have argued further but, that very day as it chanced, he stumbled again, on the terrace steps, and might have fallen and injured himself severely had not Lamb, his devoted valet, leapt forward and caught him just in time.

  ‘Oh, bless me! I am growing to be a clumsy, infirm old dotard,’ the poor Duke lamented. ‘None of my friends will wish to come near me, soon.’

  Seeing that he was really cast down, I teased him gently.

  ‘Indeed they will not, sir! Since you are so bad-tempered and irritable, and entertain them so stingily, and so completely fail to see the point of any joke they may tell you.’

  ‘Minx!’ He pulled my ear. ‘Well: I see how it is. You must go on your errand of mercy without me. But I do implore you most ur
gently not to dilly-dally any longer than you need over there, but, once your mission is accomplished, hurry back to your poor old friend in Zoyland.’

  ‘Of course, sir. That’s of course,’ I said helplessly, my heart bleeding a little. How could I make any such promise? How could I tell what the case might be, when I found Lady Hariot and Triz? But it was no use to say those things.

  ‘In the meantime, before you set to your packing,’ went on the Duke more cheerfully, ‘I want you to order a goose, or some capons, or a few quail, for I have Mr Nash coming down again tomorrow, and Sir John Middleton said that he would step over to meet him, now his lady is safely brought to bed.—Oh, and, by the by, Mr Nash’s young helper will be accompanying him.’

  This was news to me, and not particularly agreeable news. But I smiled and curtseyed, and went off to give the necessary housekeeping instructions.

  ‘So!’ said Pullett, as I changed my dress for dinner. ‘So! You’re off to Portugal, it seems? And not a word to me about it! A fine thing, to keep your plans from them as is most closely concerned.’

  ‘I was going to tell you,’ I said, twining feathers into my hair. ‘It seems that gossip runs in this house faster than heath-fires. I would have told you.’

  ‘Well, I’m coming with you.’ She set her lips ferociously.

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘But you dread going in a ship! And they all say the Bay of Biscay is the most terrible water in the world.’

  ‘Just the same, I’m a-coming. I’m not having you getting up to mischief alone in foreign parts. Dear knows what you’d be doing. And why you can’t stay and marry that nice young Mr Hobart, I can’t conceive.’

  I accidentally dug a hairpin into my scalp and clenched my teeth. ‘Marriage with him is not in question. He hasn’t asked me.’

  ‘He would, soon enough, if you hit him hard enough. And he has a good ring – a good, clear yellow. Then His Grace would leave him Zoyland, and we’d all be in clover.’

  ‘Will you kindly hold your hush, and hand me that hairbrush and go away.’

  She went off with a flounce.

  ***

  Hoby was much more subdued on this visit. The pretext for it was some summerhouse, or maze, or gazebo that the Duke wanted Mr Nash to design for him, and the three men were off, conferring about it and its possible site for a large part of the first day. And Sir John Middleton came over to dinner that evening, very full of his new baby.

  ‘Smiling little fellow, worth a dozen of his prune-faced elder brother, who is the spit-image of my first wife. Devilish bad luck, I call it, that a man’s constricted by this cursed entail, and can’t bequeath his property where he chooses. If I could help it, I’d not leave a groat to the progeny of that Friday-faced female, my first wife.’

  The Duke sighed in agreement, and drank off a large goblet of claret.

  ‘Sir, sir!’ besought Dr Swinton. ‘You promised me that you would be very abstemious with your liquor.’

  ‘Oh, deuce take it! Not allowed above a mouthful of wine – and Lizzie going off on a wild-goose chase to Portugal – and McPhee tells me that caterpillars have got into the succession houses so that we shan’t have any apricots – ’

  I caught Hoby’s eye fixed on me anxiously.

  After the meal, when the elder men were still at their port, he came into the drawing room where he found me playing Cimarosa sonatas.

  ‘Why are you going to Portugal? And when?’ he demanded without ceremony.

  ‘Do you remember Lady Hariot? And Triz?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  I told him about Lady Hariot’s letter.

  ‘But this is folly,’ he said. ‘Complete folly! Firstly, how will you ever find them? Secondly – if the letter took so long in reaching you, it is odds but the poor girl has died long since. How old is she?’

  ‘I suppose, sixteen or seventeen.’

  ‘She will have died, you may be certain, and your trip will have been for nothing. And you yourself may be in considerable danger out there – the country still upheaved from the effects of war and French occupation, swarming with lawless men – you don’t speak the language – you have never been abroad before – why should you do this? Lady Hariot never did so much for you, that I recall –’

  ‘She was as kind to me as a mother –’

  ‘And I’ve heard it said that Boney is not safely confined in Elba, that he might escape and the French would rise up again in support of him – Liza, you must think again. This is a most ill-considered caper.’

  I said coldly, ‘The Duke himself raised no objections to my going. I must ask you, Mr Hobart, to confine your advice to those over whom you have some authority. Over me, you have none.’

  And, as he still stood lowering at me, I rose up from the piano and walked towards the door.

  ‘Since you and the Duke have become such fast friends,’ I added as I left the room, ‘you might come down and visit him while I am away.’

  Chapter 14

  Parting from the Duke proved a severe, an unanticipated ordeal. It was little short of agony, indeed. He looked up at me from his chair like some sad old dog who cannot understand why he is not permitted to accompany his owner for a walk. His eyes, under the bushy brows, were brimming with tears. He could not speak.

  ‘I will come back to you as soon as I possibly can, sir, I promise. Truly, truly.’ The words came from me, though I had not intended saying any such thing. But his look smote me to the heart. Why, I wondered, why are human beings obliged continually to give one another so much pain?

  And quitting Zoyland was very bad. The domestics were downcast to see me go, and many besought me not to make any prolonged sojourn in Portugal, but to hurry back without too much delay. ‘Indeed, we and His Grace can’t spare ye, Missie,’ said old Tark.

  Pullett had sunk into a gloom for days beforehand. Her glances of farewell, as we drove away, at every bush, every tree, every turn of the road, each seemed intended to convey a reproach. To make matters worse, the sea voyage, on the ship Miranda, was wretched from start to finish. The only thing for which I was thankful was that the Duke himself had not carried out his intention of accompanying me.

  We were over a fortnight at sea, with contrary gales, and the waves in the Bay of Biscay so raging and mountainous that even the sailors were sick, and poor Pullett more dead than alive, weak as a ghost, unable for six days to take any nourishment apart from cold water, since her stomach was in such a condition of irritation that it rejected even a crumb of bread.

  Thus befell a most distressing occurrence. One evening Pullett left our cabin (a tiny, cramped compartment, not much larger than a dog kennel) complaining that the air stifled her, she could not breathe; and crept out on deck.

  I, unlike everybody else on the ship, had not been taken sick, but was utterly exhausted from unceasing care of Pullett for the last six days. I wearily inserted myself into my hammock – a process akin to mounting a fretful horse – with the intention of resting for ten minutes and then going to see after Pullett. Instead, I fell into a profound slumber which lasted until daybreak. To my horror, when I next awoke, Pullett had not returned to the cabin and, when I scrambled out on deck, nobody could tell me where she was; or had even laid eyes on her. The storm was still raging, and it became dismally plain that the unfortunate woman must, in her weakness and disability, have been swept overboard during the hours of dark. She could not swim, I knew; there seemed not the slightest possibility of her having survived.

  If only I had accompanied her on deck, I thought, again and again, this dreadfully sudden end could have been averted, and she would probably have continued to live for many more years. I had no idea of Pullett’s age; she might have been in her late fifties, but, wiry and healthy, she often boasted that she had never felt a day’s illness in her life. She had no family, no friends
but Rachel and Thomas.—Her untimely death lay, a heavy weight on my conscience, for a great while thereafter; the heavier because, in the past, I had often found her self-appointed authority over me decidedly irksome and uncalled-for, annoying rather than amusing or touching. But now, more than I could have believed possible, I missed her tart, admonishing, censorious guardianship.

  And oh, how I missed the Duke’s fond, easy, uncritical company!

  At last the ship changed her course eastwards and we made our way up the river Douro (dodging the dangerous sand-bar at its mouth) and came to Oporto, which, as the Duke had told me, is a fine, precipitous old town, with steep streets, roofs and spires rising up in layers, very grandly, on either side of the river. In many ways it is not unlike Bristol; or so I thought. We tied up near the armazem, or warehouse, from which the Duke’s wine was shipped to England, and at last I was able to step ashore into a new world.