Eliza’s Daughter

by Joan Aiken

  Here it occurred to me to reflect that, in fact, for the somewhat dismal circumstances of my own upbringing, Mrs Marianne Brandon was rather more blameworthy than Willoughby. True, he had never sought me out; but then quite possibly he was never even informed of my existence. But Marianne Brandon, jealous of my mother – though Heaven knew she had no need – had actively worked against the Colonel ever coming to visit me, or taking any but the barest interest in my concerns. And if letters about my school fees, or about the needs of the people at Delaford, had gone unanswered, it was to Marianne’s account that this must be laid. Probably the Colonel, busy at Salamanca or Ciudad Rodrigo, had never even heard of these matters.

  I went in to pass an hour with Triz (now rid of mud); rather absently I sang to her, and drew her pictures of sheep and oxen and men digging. She seized the pencil from me and herself drew more pictures, of men on horseback. At first, with an icy heart, I thought they might be portraits of her ravishers; but then, smiling, she explained them:

  ‘Carthur – Gal-had – Bidvere.’

  ‘Yes, darling. King Arthur, Galahad, Bedivere. Beautifully drawn.’

  ‘I wish we had a few more drawing materials,’ said Sister Luisinha. ‘I think it is a very remedial activity for her to portray events and men, like this, on paper.’

  I had a brilliant idea. ‘Why should I not take a boat to Oporto and there purchase a packet of papers and paints and brushes? I should be happy to present them to the convent. And then other sick people could use them as well. I could go and return very quickly – in a very few days.’

  The Sister was enthusiastic. ‘Yes! And there are other commissions that we could lay on you – several! I will inform Sister Euphrasia; she is always saying what a pity it is that we have nobody to spare for these errands. Silk thread for the altar frontals – medicines – needles – it is true the little Teresa will miss you, but it need not be for more than a few days, as you say.’

  ‘Do you think she will ever recover, Sister?’ I asked. (Lady Hariot was not in the room.)

  She looked at me gravely. ‘No, Meninha,’ she said. ‘You are doing her immense good. Her mind is clearing of the poisons that were in it. And that is the best that we can hope for. She is no longer living in a cloud of horror. But that she may ever be restored to full, normal living – this I do not believe. I think she was always something a little different from such a person as you or I – weaker in body. Perhaps closer to the Eternal Spirit.’

  A changeling.

  ‘Yes, Sister, I believe you are right.’

  ‘Of course I am right.’

  ‘Well, I will go to Oporto and get some paints.’ But first, I thought, I will write to the Duke.

  And I retired to my cell and did so. I wrote him a long, loving letter, giving a fairly full account of all that had befallen me, explaining that it might still be weeks, perhaps months, before I would feel free of my commitment to Lady Hariot and Triz – unless the Duke might feel inclined to offer them hospitality at Zoyland? Which, of course, could prove a most happy solution for all concerned. And I was, ever and always, his loving ward, Lizzie.

  At supper that night Sister Euphrasia had a lengthy list of commissions for me to undertake in Oporto. Lady Hariot asked for some muslin kerchiefs. She had used all hers for mopping and bandaging. Innocently I inquired of Mrs Brandon if there were any errands or messages that I could perform for her? I would be visiting the English Factory, I added. No, she said coldly, she thanked me, but there was nothing. She looked as sour as the vinegary wine we were drinking.

  ‘You have to excuse her,’ said Sister Luisinha to me later. ‘She receives considerable pain from her ulcerated leg.’

  ‘Oh, poor lady. I did not know. Was she wounded in battle, then?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that. I think she hurt her leg when a mule she was riding ran up against a rock. For some reason the gash will not heal. She has had it for a long time.’

  ***

  Now the convent vintage was in full swing. I passed the yard, as I rode down to the Douro, where, in the great granite lagar about seventy men, in rows of ten, each with their arms over the shoulders of the row in front, were tramping and chanting out, left! right! left! right! interspersing their shouts with wild cries and shrieks.

  ‘They will go on like that for many hours,’ said the overseer.

  I looked to see if, by any chance, my friendly rescuers were among the lagares. But it was impossible to tell, they were all so locked together. Then they began bawling out a song to a very catchy refrain. I could see that the words must be very bawdy; my guide hurried me away with a face full of disapproval.

  At this time of the year there was continual traffic up and down the river, of dinghies, canoes, caiques, and boats like gondolas. The convent barco was about to set off, and I had a rapid passage to Oporto, both wind and current being favourable. We reached the town before dusk fell on the following day, and I was able to perform at least half my errands and leave my bundles, bespeaking myself a bed (on Sister Euphrasia’s recommendation) at the Convent of Santa Clara.

  Here, the portress – the same who had, on my former visit, declared herself unable to furnish Willoughby with news of Mrs Brandon’s whereabouts – on hearing my name, uttered a soft exclamation, and begged me to give myself the inconvenience of waiting a moment or two while she went in search of the English-speaking sister. This person, soon making her appearance, gliding up to me at speed in her felt-soled slippers, ejaculated: ‘Ah, it is so fortunate that you have returned to us, Meninha! For we have, a few days since, received tidings concerning a friend of yours – or so we believe. A poor lady was picked up (doubtless by the especial intervention of Sant Iago himself), rescued half-drowned from the waves –’

  ‘No!’ I exclaimed in utter astonishment. ‘Not Senhora Pullett?’

  ‘But yes, but yes! That was the name.’

  ‘Is she here? Can I see her?’

  ‘No, no. She is in Spain. Many leagues distant from here. At our sister convent, in the holy city of Santiago de Compostela. But, as soon as the poor thing was sensible and could make herself understood – which, we were told, was not for some little while – she was most urgent that you should be told of her whereabouts. She told the Sisters there that you were travelling to Porto, so messages were sent here. And we were not certain where you now were –’

  ‘She is really alive – really, really alive?’

  What a weight off my heart!

  ‘Indeed, yes! Picked up by sardine fishers – so we were told – and taken to the Holy Sisters at Santiago. But now, at this present, still very feeble, very frail. She is mending, though, the Sister Infirmarian wrote. And her one hope is that you will come, as soon as you are able, to fetch her away.’

  ‘May I write to her? Can a letter be sent to Santiago?’

  ‘But certainly.’

  So I wrote Pullett a joyful note, describing how I had finally found Lady Hariot and Triz (I skirted over my experiences prior to this), explaining that I could not immediately abandon them, but had plans for them, involving the Duke, which I hoped to put into effect as soon as possible, when Triz should be a little further amended in health. Meanwhile I besought Pullett to be patient, reiterated my great delight that she was still in the world, urged to her learn Spanish and embroidery from the Sisters, and promised that, as soon as lay within my power, I would return to England, calling at the port of La Coruña – or wherever was most convenient – to pick her up.

  The English-speaking Sister undertook that my letter should be dispatched with their next budget of convent business to Compostela.

  Now, with a huge expansion of spirit and a belief that, as all seemed in such propitious train just now, Fate might continue to smile on my enterprises, I made my way to the English Factory, handed in my letter for the Duke, which I was assured would go with the following day’s packet,
and inquired for the address of a Mr Willoughby.

  ‘Certainly, Senhora. He lives in the Rua dos Flores, among the silversmiths.’

  I was given the directions, which involved climbing up and down a great many steps and traversing many of the narrow ilhas, or alleys, which thread between the greater thoroughfares of this steeply pitched city.

  I found the door. I knocked at it. And thought of various probabilities: that the man I sought would have gone off to Lamego to be closer to Marianne; that he would not be the man I sought; or that he would simply not be at home.

  But he was at home, and he was the man I sought. It was the same shaggy-locked, haggard-faced man whom I had seen making his inquiries at the convent. Only now he was not wearing hat or cloak, but simply indoor dress of shirt, velvet waistcoat and pantaloons, all decidedly shabby. His face, full of hope and delight as he pulled open the door, lit up momentarily – even more when I first pushed back my hat – then closed into a mask of disappointment as he realized I was not the person he expected.

  ‘Senhora – I think there must be some mistake. I am not expecting anybody.’

  And that’s a lie, I thought.

  He began to close the door.

  He had spoken in Portuguese. I replied in English.

  ‘No, sir, there is no mistake. You were not expecting me, but allow me to introduce myself. I am your daughter, Eliza Williams.—Or, I suppose I might say, Eliza Willoughby.’

  Chapter 16

  ‘I am your daughter,’ I repeated to the man who stood silent in the doorway.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t understand! What is this? Go away! Go to the devil!’

  But I said, ‘I have not travelled all this way in order to be shooed off so easily. You may as well allow me ten minutes of your time. Besides’ – I produced the crumpled sheet of paper which I had picked up in the pine grove – ‘I have come from the Convent of Nossa Senhora. I can tell you – if you like – about the reception of that.’

  He snatched the paper, glaring at me. His eyes, I saw, were red and bloodshot.

  ‘What did she say – what did she say? Have you a message?’

  ‘Let me in,’ I said.

  So – ungraciously – he retreated and I followed him into a large shabby room with a worn grass carpet, a wooden ceiling, walls papered in dark red, a table with a soiled red damask cloth, two chairs and very little else. Some papers and a few books were strewn on the table. There was a bottle of wine and a glass, a plate with a lump of hard bread and a slice of sausage.

  The room smelt stale, of smoke and dirt.

  I sat down on one of the chairs.

  ‘I am your daughter,’ I repeated.

  ‘What is that to the purpose?’ He looked hastily at the letter, then, as if it stung him, flung it into a charcoal brazier where it flamed up, adding to the acrid smells in the room. ‘What do you want of me? Do you want money? I haven’t got any.’

  ‘Of course I don’t want money!’ I shouted angrily. ‘If I did, I certainly would not come to you! I just wished to see you – to meet you – is that so strange?’

  Apparently it seemed so to him.

  ‘What is your purpose in coming here? – Did, did she send you? M-Marianne?’

  ‘No, indeed she did not. If the truth must be told, I think she detests us both equally. You, I suppose, for leaving her; me, for being your daughter by another woman.’

  ‘Did your mother send you then?’ he said suspiciously. ‘Eliza, was it?’

  ‘No!’ I almost spat at him. ‘My mother is dead! How or where she died is no concern of yours. I am sorry, now, that I came to find you. Nobody sent me. I just wished – wished to make the acquaintance of my father. But now I see that it was a wasted errand. I am glad’ – I was almost choking with rage and disappointment, though Heaven knows by this time I should have been prepared for disappointment – ‘I am glad that I have good friends, friends of my own.’

  And how brightly they shone in this dismal atmosphere: the Duke, Lady Hariot, even Hoby and poor little Triz.

  Willoughby seemed to me like a man dried up, a husk, with no juice or meaning left in him. The same thing had happened to him, I thought, as to Marianne: the vital spark had ebbed away and left them.

  Now he seemed a degree less antagonistic. He sat down, rubbed his forehead, and addressed me, rather hopelessly, ‘She did not answer my letter? There was no message? None?’

  ‘She threw the letter away. I picked it up. But I think,’ I said scrupulously, ‘that she is very unhappy. She is not well. Perhaps, if you waited a while, and tried again –’

  ‘How can I?’ he muttered. ‘Already I owe rent on this place – twenty milreis. Wretched as it is, I can’t afford it. I must leave Oporto and find some cabin in the mountains. She was my final hope.’

  ‘You are courting her simply because she has money now? Is a rich widow?’

  ‘No! Damn you! Get out! May the fiend fly away with you.’

  He sprang up, so full of rage that I instinctively dropped my hand to the hilt of the knife in my boot. But then he sank down on his chair again, muttering wretchedly, ‘Oh, what does it matter what you think? Only go. I have nothing for you, nothing at all.’

  ‘No,’ I said coldly. ‘I can see that very plainly. But perhaps I have something for you.’

  And I laid forty milreis on the table, before letting myself out of the door.

  Outside in the street I was not particularly surprised to observe a man leaning against the wall; a man who looked as if he had been waiting and listening there for some time. But I was dismayed when he slunk up to me and said: ‘Aha! It is the young Senhora who killed my friend João! And now, what will you give me, Meninha, not to inform the authorities and lead them to the spot where you concealed the body?’

  At another time I might have been alarmed by this threat.

  But the man, Manuel – now I recognized him – was such a small, unimpressive, ratlike character, and I was worked up into such a wrathy passion from the recent interview with Willoughby, that I simply thrust my right hand menacingly under his nose.

  ‘Do you see that hand, friend? Do you know what it means? It means that I have the power to change myself into a wild beast at night! I can tell you, now, that if you “inform the authorities” about me, you will never have an easy night in your bed again. Never! For I shall come, one night, in the dark, and get you with my teeth and claws; I shall come and deal with you as I dealt with your friend João.’

  And I showed him all my teeth and thrust my face towards his.

  He turned white as chalk, gave a lamentable cry, and scuttled away down the dirty alleyway.

  I walked wearily uphill, feeling no triumph at all; and climbed the steps towards my hard narrow bed at the Convent of Santa Clara. Not until I was undressed and lying down did I remember that I had eaten nothing. But at that time I could not have taken any supper. It would have choked me.

  ***

  Next morning, having performed what remained of the various commissions for Sister Euphrasia, I returned to the English Factory to pick up my other purchases. There I was greeted cordially by the manager, who, on hearing my name, exclaimed that he was holding letters from England for me.

  ‘Why, thank you, sir! I am greatly obliged to you. I will read them on the boat.’

  I had bespoken a boat the day before, and was wild to be on my way. I wished that I had never come to Porto.

  I waited until we were clear of the city, battling our way upstream between the huge terraced hillsides, before opening my letters.

  One was from the Duke’s doctor.

  My dear Miss Williams

  This will be sad news for you, I fear. I must break it at once. His Grace is no more. He fell into a melancholy after you had gone, from which it proved impossible to rouse him. He seemed to have a
premonition that you would not return. ‘I shall never see her again,’ he kept repeating. And, alas! this proved to be true.

  But pray do not blame yourself, dear Miss Williams. I had been apprehensive of his failing ever since the spasm that he suffered prior to your departure. I think that your leaving only hastened an inevitable outcome. And, be assured, his end was an easy one; he simply fell asleep one evening and, the next morning, failed to wake.

  He spoke of you a great deal – almost continually.

  He has left you – as the men of business will inform you – amply provided for in funds and jointures.

  I had rather expected that he would leave you Zoyland – since he knew that you are greatly attached to the house; but instead he has, rather oddly to my way of thinking, left the house to young Mr Hobart, with a proviso that you, during your lifetime, are always to have the use of your own apartments there. Doubtless you will be hearing also from Mr Hobart and his own lawyers about this. (I fancy the Duke cherished some matrimonial hopes in regard to you and Mr Hobart – since he was most deeply attached to you both – and planned by this means to further such a scheme.) He had Mr Hobart frequently with him before he died.

  I send my best regards to you and Miss Pullett, and hope that your business in Portugal has prospered and is within sight of a happy conclusion. All the staff at Zoyland join me in good wishes and strong hopes of seeing you back here within the not too distant future.