by Joan Aiken
Sister Euphrasia smiled at me very kindly. ‘You are most welcome to everything in our House. And now we shall redouble our prayers for this poor little one, for we can be sure that we have the ear of God.’
A younger Sister came hurrying along, crying, ‘It is time for the little one’s supper. Shall I take her in for you, Senhora?’
‘Oh, thank you, Sister Luisinha, you are very kind. And now for ten minutes I and Senhora Eliza can have a happy time talking over the old days.—You must tell me, Eliza, everything, every single thing that has happened to you since last we saw one another.’
I cast my mind back to the last time I had seen her, dejectedly climbing on board the Spanish ship at Ashett.
What a great deal had happened to me since that day. Rather too much to tell, really.
‘Oh, by the by,’ said Lady Hariot. ‘Now, this will be of interest to you. There is another English lady who has recently come to this convent. In fact she is thinking of entering here as a religious. But she has not yet made up her mind, has not yet taken final vows. And she is a connection of yours, Eliza.’
‘Indeed?’ I said. ‘What is her name?’
‘She is Mrs Marianne Brandon. Her husband was your guardian – was he not? I understand that he died at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo.’
***
Mrs Marianne Brandon was a most elegant lady. She wore what seemed at first sight to be the habit of a religious, but if you looked closely you saw that the wimple and stole were made of dark blue silk, so dark as to be almost black; that the silver cross around her neck was slung on a chain of sapphires large as peas.
We met just before supper. The guests at the convent – of which there were a dozen or so – ate at a separate table with Sister Euphrasia. She herself ate nothing but peas and rice, but the guests were served superior fare: baked mutton, meat with rice, mullet, hake, cucumber salad, quince and roseleaf jelly, small cakes and biscuits.
‘We are proud of our kitchen,’ smiled Sister Euphrasia, seeing my surprise.—‘And here, dear Senhora Brandon, is another young compatriot of yours, Meninha Eliza Williams.’
Mrs Brandon turned chalk-white. Her soup spoon fell from her hand. I thought she might faint.
But Lady Hariot, who sat next to her, picked up her glass of cloudy vinho verde and said, in a low voice, ‘Quick, take a pull of this. It will do you good.’
And pull yourself together, woman, was implicit in her voice.
‘How do you do,’ said Mrs Brandon to me, coldly.
I said politely that I was well and added – since something had to be done to fill this silence – that some years before I had the pleasure of meeting her sister Elinor Ferrars (I did not mention that I had nursed her after the fever) and I was happy to be able to report that five of her novels were to be published shortly.
‘Five?’ said Mrs Brandon faintly. ‘Novels? Elinor?’
‘Why yes . . . It seemed that she had been writing them, unknown to anybody, for some time. Perhaps she began after you and – and your husband – travelled abroad? And in the end – in the end they were submitted to a publisher. And he liked them very much indeed.’
‘Edward – Mr Ferrars – he permitted this?’ Marianne still spoke in little more than a thread of a voice. But luckily, now, some of the other guests had begun a conversation among themselves.
‘I understand,’ I said temperately, ‘that he was not too favourable at first, but since the publisher’s opinion was so very enthusiastic – and affairs at Delaford somewhat – somewhat straitened – especially since the flood – ’
‘Flood?’ said Marianne vaguely. ‘Was there a flood?’
‘Well, that was two or three years ago now.’
‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘that our English mail does not always catch up with us. And when it does, it is so old that I do not much regard it. And my husband – latterly – was greatly occupied with his military duties . . . ’
Her voice trailed off. She still regarded me as if I were some venomous reptile which had found its way into her boudoir.
Marianne Brandon was a handsome woman. Once, she must have been extremely beautiful. Her complexion was brown, but transparent, her features remarkably regular, and her large dark eyes still retained some of the brilliancy they must have held when she captivated the younger Willoughby and beguiled him away from my mother.
She, in outward appearance at least, was far less altered than my father. If it had been my father.
But something – it seemed to me – was lost, that must once have been in her countenance: a fire, a spirit. I remembered accounts I had heard of her – the lively, passionate, poetic girl – from Sir John, from Mrs Jebb, from cottagers in Delaford. ‘Ay, ay,’ had said Sir John, ‘she was a witch, a girl in a thousand, no other could hold a candle to her. She was like a candle herself – a whole handful of candles.’ And he burst into hearty laughter, astonished at his own poetic imagery.
But now the candle was extinguished. And the spark, the spirit that lit the flame, had been withdrawn. She was a handsome, well-cared-for woman, but the hunger for experience, the eagerness in pursuit of knowledge, the hope, the awareness, had left her. How old would she be? Barely forty, surely. But she looked and behaved like somebody long settled into middle age, someone who for years had been accustomed to have all her wishes catered for. Whereas I noticed that Lady Hariot accepted no services from the nuns that she could not perform herself, and was evidently accustomed to undertake the most menial tasks for her child, Marianne Brandon sat enthroned like a dowager, and expected all the world to revolve around her.
Me she plainly disliked, and wished to have as few dealings with as possible. I had thought of mentioning that I had recently seen her mother, old Mrs Dashwood, but concluded that, in the circumstances, this would not be tactful, since the old lady was somewhat unhinged; a reminder of so gloomy a fact would be no recommendation.
After supper I left the other guests and sat with Triz in the room that she shared with her mother: a cool, stone-paved ground-floor chamber with a door opening on to an enclosed herb garden. The little nun, Sister Luisinha, was with her carefully administering drops of medicine; she smiled at me and said, ‘Here, cara crianca, is someone you love as well as your dear mother!’ and the poor lost eyes looked at me, and brightened, the poor twisted mouth faltered out sounds of greeting.
‘I have come to play cat’s-cradle,’ I said. ‘Do you remember, Triz, how we used to do that? If Sister Luisinha will be so good as to provide us with a piece of string.’
This the good nun was happy to do, and for an hour or so I manipulated the feeble fingers, which were stiff and thin as chicken-bones, while chatting on cheerfully about the games we had been used to play, the gardens at Kinn Hall, the nursery, her pony, the groom Jeff Diswoody and the poems and stories I used to tell her.
‘Do you remember the Ancient Mariner, Triz? Do you remember how “Ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald”?’
It was like watching the wind blow over water; the response was there instantly, the ripple of recognition; but then it faded again. And, as before, she suddenly fell asleep.
During our talk Lady Hariot had come quietly into the room. After she had settled her daughter for the night – ‘Come into the orchard, Eliza,’ she said. ‘It is early yet, a warm, balmy evening, and the other guests will be all in the visitors’ parlour; we can talk more freely in the open air.’
So we strolled at leisure under the trees. Lady Hariot walked limpingly, with a stick; the years had been hard on her.
‘This Atlantic climate is not the best for my rheumatic bones,’ she said laughing. ‘And being tied up to that devilish loom for twelve hours left me permanently out of shape. But Thérèse and I come from a tough stock, I fear; we survive.’
It seemed to me that Lady Hariot had survived much better than Marianne Brando
n; not in health but in spirit.
‘Tell me about Mrs Brandon,’ I said, presently.
‘Oh, I have talked to her very little. She is not wishful to communicate with strangers. But I know that she was very angry at the death of her husband (he was in command of that band, you know, at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo that the French called “les Enfants Perdus” because they were sent in, as a forlorn hope, in order to draw the first fire and cause the French to set off their mines prematurely; they were all volunteers, and Colonel Brandon, it seems, was one also, though as a man of senior rank it was not required of him). His wife cannot forgive him, or Fate, for this. I think it has soured her.’
‘She was very devoted to her husband, I conclude?’
‘Well,’ said Lady Hariot after a pause for thought, ‘I am not certain that I could say so. My cousin Bess met the couple in Lisbon (he was invalided home, you know, after a wound received in the East, and decided to spend his sick leave in Portugal); Bess knew them tolerably well and she told me that Mrs Brandon was a very sharp, autocratic wife; he was quite slavishly devoted to her, gave in to her every whim. It was she who chose not to return to England, Bess said; he would have been glad to go back to his manor – in Dorset, was it? – and sell out. But then the French invaded. And so he returned to active service under his old commander.’
So, after all, I was wrong, I thought. My notion of Marianne, homesick for peaceful hours with her sister in the room overlooking the walled garden had not been a true picture.
‘Perhaps he grew tired of being her slave and went back to war as a kind of escape?’
‘Perhaps. And now he has escaped for ever.’
‘And she feels defrauded.’
However, she has another string to her bow, I thought; her former suitor, Willoughby. But is she aware that he is eagerly seeking and inquiring for her? Does she know that? Willoughby, it is true, is now a bankrupt émigré; not such an attractive catch as he once was; but would that weigh with her? If she truly loved him? After all, she herself must be very comfortably provided for.
‘Colonel Brandon was a wealthy man, surely? She inherits his fortune?’
She and Willoughby could live well enough on that, I thought.
‘Not all of it, I believe,’ said Lady Hariot. ‘There is some closer relative who comes in for the manor and English estates. Sister Euphrasia told me that Mrs Brandon has money, invested in the Funds, which she would bring to the convent as her dowry, but no land or property. I think that Sister Euphrasia . . . does not consider Mrs Brandon . . . a very promising candidate for the cloister.’
‘I can see that – if she is so filled with bitterness. I wonder why she was so angry? If she was not especially fond of her husband.’
‘Oh . . . lost opportunities, perhaps. But now, Eliza – tell me more about yourself.’
So I gave her an account – a partial account – of my activities.
***
For some weeks, life at the Convent of Nossa Senhora settled into a smooth rhythm. Two or three times a day I sat with Triz for an hour or two, talked, played, joked, tried to warm her poor wits back to a pattern that she could sustain without reminding her of the hideous thing that had happened to her.
And I thought a great deal, at these times and between them, of men, and the violence that they do to each other – and to women – and wondered why the Almighty saw fit to combine in them these damaging, dangerous impulses, along with the ability to write sublime poetry, perform heroic acts of self-sacrifice and create the concept of a benevolent Maker.
Was He indeed so benevolent? I wondered. To me, his creation sometimes seemed frighteningly close to an act of malice.
I was cheered, though, by the Sisters. Busy, broad-hearted, they never paused to trouble their heads with such questions, but went continually about their work of healing the sick and helping the poor. Nossa Senhora had an impressive reputation throughout Portugal and Spain for the excellence of the healing work that was carried on there; and, from watching the activities of the nuns, I was able to gather a vast deal of useful information. If ever, I thought, I happen to be faced again with a situation such as the aftermath of the flood in Delaford, I would be very much better equipped to deal with it.
One thing I did observe here that might be improved: a great deal of the water used in their various decoctions and medicaments was drawn from a great tank filled in part with rain-water, in part from a muddy brook that meandered its way down from a slight rise to the south. This water was not over-clean.
Diffidently I asked Sister Euphrasia if I might be permitted to try my skill at hunting for a spring on their own property, which might supply them with fresher, purer water? She thought, gave gracious permission, and asked where I would search? In the orchard, perhaps, said I, as that lay somewhat uphill from the convent and its cloister.
Half a dozen of the younger nuns cheerfully assembled to watch me make the essay, along with Lady Hariot, who brought Triz along in her basket-chair and established her in the fragrant shade of a lemon tree.
I had cut myself a forked stick (privily, beforehand, in order not to display my formidable knife) and now began systematically pacing through the orchard, section by section. For a long time nothing happened, and Sister Euphrasia, who had come out between duties to cast an amiable eye over the proceedings, said kindly, ‘After all, it would be wonderful if there were water here that had not already been discovered by the Moors! For they were in this region until the twelfth century; and the Moors had a special genius for discovering and making use of water.’
This I acknowledged politely, though it seemed to me possible that a spring might have shifted its location, or been covered up during six centuries. And so indeed it proved; after Sister Euphrasia had smilingly paced away, back to her administrative duties (her gait reminded me a little of Mrs Jebb) the wooden prong in my hands suddenly, as that day at Zoyland, took a decisive plunge downwards. I retraced my steps; it happened again; and again; and again.
Fortunately it was in a space between four trees.
‘Ay, ola!’ cried the nuns. ‘It is as if the finger of Our Lady herself had pointed. Now, what happens?’
‘Now, we dig,’ I said stoutly. Though my confident manner concealed a certain anxiety, for supposing we dug and dug and nothing resulted?
The gardening nuns fell to with a will, and so did I; Lady Hariot offered to help, but I told her that it would be too much for her injured back. She had loved gardening at Kinn, I remembered, and so had Triz; we gave Triz a handful of wet earth to roll and knead in her fingers, and she murmured and babbled happily over the warm gluey wetness.—For very soon the earth, as we dug, began to grow wetter and wetter; a pool of muddy water collected at the bottom of our hole. Now the old man, Jorge, who helped in the nuns’ vineyard, came and took over: ‘It will be a fine well,’ he said, hissing with approval. ‘We shall make a fine big pool, and face it with stone, and set in a spout in the side wall. Indeed, I do remember that there was a spring spoken of hereabouts in the days of my great-grandfather; I suppose it will have been blocked up at the time of the terrible earthquake.’
‘The earthquake was felt here, then, as well as at Lisbon?’
‘Oh, yes, though not so severe.’
Sister Euphrasia reappeared, full of cordial praise.
‘We shall sing a special chant of thanksgiving tonight after evening prayer! Now there will be no more water disputes with the vine-growers farther up the valley. You have done us a most useful service, Meninha Liza.’
Marianne Brandon had wandered into the orchard, attracted, I suppose, by the commotion, to see what was going on. But when she saw that I had some hand in the business, her lip curled and she walked away again. I saw her at a distance, in the pine grove, pacing to and fro (limping slightly, I noticed); as she walked she read and reread a letter, plainly with dissatisfaction, for in the end sh
e crumpled it in her hand and threw it on the ground.
‘Pai dios! Look at that child!’ cried Sister Luisinha, for Triz had by now completely lathered herself with mud, and was smiling like a happy nixie. She was wheeled away, and the nuns followed.
I, ever curious, went over to the pine grove, which Marianne had now quitted, and picked up the paper which she had thrown down.
‘My Adored Marianne,’ it said, ‘for so you will always be, though well I understand that I have no shadow of a right or claim upon you. I know that I once did you an irreparable injury, I know that to you I must seem the greatest villain upon earth. I left you – I callously abandoned you, to marry a rich woman for whom I had no regard, then, or ever. It was you – you – that I always loved. Yours is the image that has been constantly before me. I have been in continual agony since that parting. O God! what a hard-hearted rascal I was. There is nothing to be said in my defence. Yet I beg you – I beseech you – to consider my misery and my penitence. I have heard that you are now free again – that your excellent husband who, I am aware, deserved you as I never did – that he is no more. Can you ever consider returning to one who, likewise free, thinks of you continually, mourns you, longs for nothing but your company? I understand that you are contemplating a permanent retirement to the cloister; that you are at present in retreat at Nossa Senhora dos Remedios. O pray, pray think again before taking leave of the world! Remember one who loves you would be overjoyed to spend the rest of his days in your service. W.’
‘Post Scriptum. A letter in care of the English Factory at Oporto will find me and bring me speedily to your side.’
Well! What a thing to find lying crumpled on the pine needles of a quiet and God-fearing community of nuns! And, also, what an expostulation, what an outpouring to find from one’s own father! I read and reread the missive in astonishment, wondering how I should feel if somebody ever addressed such a cry to me. (I tried to imagine Hoby penning such sentences, but wholly failed.) I wondered if Marianne would ever find it in her heart to soften her resentment against this man; judging from her reception of this letter it seemed unlikely. Did I blame her? I cannot say that I did. After all, he had used my own mother even worse; had never made any inquiry after her at all (so far as I knew) or any attempt to save her from the results of his careless seduction. It was entirely due to her own efforts – and the good fortune of attracting the Duke’s attention and affection – that my mother had passed the latter portion of her days in some comfort and security. While, as for myself – when had Willoughby ever displayed the least concern for my welfare?
