The Winding Stair

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘No, indeed.’ Juana brushed past him and ran in her turn across the sunny centre of the courtyard. She found her grandmother prowling furiously about her room, a letter crumpled in her hand. ‘It’s intolerable!’ She almost shouted at Juana. ‘Why did you take so long? Not that it matters. There’s nothing we can do. He took good care of that. The fool! The idiot! I thought Prospero and Miguel were enough to bear, but this passes everything. Here! Read this! You might as well.’

  Her father? She took his letter, then felt a qualm of doubt. ‘Should I?’

  ‘Why not? You might as well know what a poor worm you have for a father. It’s that woman of course. She dictated it. You can read her in every crawling line. Go on, child, read it. And tell me what in the world we are going to do with them.’

  What could it mean? Juana banished her scruples, smoothed out the crumpled letter and began to read. ‘Oh, dear!’ Her grandmother was right; it was a pitiful letter. But she could be sorry for her father having to write it, with his wife’s scorn for spur. He had speculated, it seemed, on the chances of peace with France, and had lost heavily when Lauderdale returned to report failure. ‘I don’t quite understand—’ Juana turned to the second page of the closely written letter.

  ‘You don’t need to. Any more than your father does. I could have told him that if he speculated, he was bound to be unlucky. He’s that kind of man. But to use the house as security! That passes everything.’

  ‘They’ve lost it!’ Juana had reached the heart of the matter. She had always thought she hated that house, now, suddenly, she was not so sure. ‘They’re coming here?’ She could not believe what she was reading.

  ‘Yes! On the next packet. No time to put them off. There must be an accumulation of debt that Reginald does not dare mention.’

  Juana thought this all too likely. She finished the letter quickly. ‘Oh, the poor things!’ There was something extraordinarily pitiful about the little messages her father put in as from Daisy and Teresa. ‘So looking forward to seeing Portugal,’ indeed. She remembered how they had condoled with her on her exile to that barbarous country.

  ‘ “Poor things!” That’s all very well, but what about us? What are we going to do with them? Reginald and his wife are one thing: I suppose if my son has to run for it to escape the debtors’ prison, I must take him in, and his wife, too, though I know I’ll detest her. But why I should be saddled with her two daughters! A couple of strapping English wenches with not a thought in their heads – everything you have told me about them has made me dislike them more. And Protestants, too, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Juana’s conscience was pricking her horribly. Talking about Daisy and Teresa to her grandmother it had been dangerously easy to turn them into figures of what she now saw to have been rather cruel fun. Poor Daisy; poor Teresa … ‘They’re not so bad, really,’ she tried, now, to undo some of the damage she had done. But how could she have dreamed that they would ever come here? ‘It was a good deal my fault, I’m sure, that we didn’t get on.’

  Her grandmother snorted. ‘Changed your tune a bit, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m ashamed of myself. You see – I find I’m glad they’re coming. I’m looking forward to seeing them.’

  ‘It’s more than I am. Well: in that case, you can just be responsible for them. Everything. The arrangements for meeting them; their rooms; I don’t want to hear anything more about it. And still less do I want to see them when they get here. They’ll be here for Christmas, probably.’

  ‘I suppose they will.’ Once again, Juana was amazed at her own reaction. Had the prospect of Christmas in the Castle on the Rock been so dismal? ‘Don’t worry, grandmother. I’ll look after everything. If you don’t think Aunt Elvira will mind?’

  ‘She’d better not. If you have any trouble with anyone, refer them to me. Once. That will be enough. I refuse to be bothered with this affair. I suppose you’ve thought how you will get away from those step-sisters of yours when it comes time to go down the winding stair again?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘You’ll not tell them.’

  ‘Of course not. But, grandmother, one other thing.’ It was hard to say it, but she must. ‘They’ll need money.’

  ‘Money? Why?’

  ‘If father’s in debt?’

  ‘That’s his problem. I didn’t ask him to come – or to bring his embarrassments with him. Food they shall have, and shelter. That’s all.’

  ‘I see. Well then, I need some money. You asked me to come. Remember? We haven’t talked about money before. I didn’t like to. And I brought a little with me. Father was always generous with what he had. But it’s almost all gone now. You know how it is. The servants expect their vails. One can’t be mean, as a Brett. And then there’s charity …’ She reached into the pocket of her dress and brought out the purse she had netted herself (how long ago it seemed) in England before she came away. ‘That’s all I’ve got left.’ She emptied the few small coins it contained on to the table beside her grandmother. ‘If you want me to take over the housekeeping from Aunt Elvira (and that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?) you’ll have to pay me.’

  For a moment, she was afraid she had gone too far. Then, surprisingly, Mrs. Brett laughed. ‘You sound just like your grandfather,’ she said. ‘Poor James. I’d be a pleasanter person if he’d lived. As it is, don’t expect me to play the sweet old lady. Not even for you, and I’m fond of you. Still less for your family. As to your allowance; you should have spoken up for it sooner. I’m an old woman. Why should I be expected to do all the thinking? Of course you must have one. And back-dated, too, to when you got here. Send Senhor Macarao to me this evening and I’ll give him my orders. And what you do with it is your own affair. Just don’t tell me.’ Did she see this as an easy way out of the problem of her son and his family?

  When she learned the size of the allowance she was to get, Juana thought this must be the case, ‘But that’s too much, grandmother.’ She wished at once that she had not spoken. Too much, perhaps, for her, but not for all her family.

  ‘Nonsense. You’re my heir, remember? And that reminds me, I think I’d better announce that. Arrange a Christmas party to welcome your family. It’s time your cousins came to see us, Pedro and Roberto. I’ll have an unpleasant surprise for them.’

  Juana sighed and took her leave. Was it all an illusion that old age brought wisdom, benevolence and so forth? Had her grandmother always been the tartar she seemed now, or was she getting worse with the years?

  She was glad to find Elvira alone in the Ladies’ Parlour, working at her set of embroidered chair-covers. It was always a good sign when she got these out; it meant that she was at her most rational. Now she looked up and smiled her sweet, vague smile at Juana: ‘Did you manage to calm poor mother down?’

  ‘A little.’ She loved her aunt for not asking what was the matter, and hurried to tell her. ‘My family are coming out from England. Poor father’s in debt. Grandmother’s not at all pleased.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she is.’ Elvira set a few stitches in her pattern. ‘But I don’t know what else she expected, when she refused to give him an allowance.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure.’ Her step-mother had hinted at this often enough, but one never knew how much to believe of what Cynthia Brett said.

  ‘Nothing,’ Elvira said. ‘She said if he wouldn’t stay here, he could do without her help. But she gives Miguel and Prospero allowances. Your father was always my favourite. I suppose he’s lived on what your mother left him. And that wasn’t much, I can tell you. Poor Reginald, I shall be glad to see him.’

  ‘Aunt Elvira, grandmother says I’m to make the arrangements for them. Do you mind?’

  ‘Mind? Why should I mind, child? I am the wind that blows where it pleases; I am the moon that waxes and changes … Prospero! I didn’t hear you coming.’

  ‘Why should you?’ Prospero c
losed the door quietly behind him. ‘How’s poor mother, Juana? What’s upset her so?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gair Varlow learned of the Brett family’s impending arrival in a letter from his sister. ‘Those dull Bretts have done a midnight flit,’ Vanessa wrote. ‘Just ahead of their creditors, by all reports. Will you be pleased to see them in Portugal, I wonder?’

  He was very far from pleased. Their presence at the Castle on the Rock would further complicate a situation that was bad enough already. But at least Vanessa’s letter had come in the diplomatic bag and by fast cutter. The first packet the Bretts could have caught would not arrive for another day or so. There was time to confer with Juana. He asked leave of Lord Strangford and rode out to the Castle on the Rock that same afternoon. It was a clear December day, with a brisk wind from the sea turning the wings of the windmills along the shore and blowing lateen sails about like butterflies on the Tagus. But Gair hardly noticed them, or the spring flowers that were beginning to come up already, now the autumn rains were over.

  He had too much to think about. Juana had done admirably so far, but he had been well aware of the strain it had been on her. Sometimes he thought he had been mad to involve her; often his conscience told him he had been wicked. The murder of his messenger, the attack on Juana herself and, worst of all, the death of Tomas had been a series of threats he could neither ignore nor entirely understand. Impossible to tell how close to Juana the danger was, but no use to try and pretend it did not exist. Sometimes, in the dark hours of early morning, he thought he should persuade her to go back to England. But how could he? Too much depended on her.

  And now her family’s arrival must inevitably mean a new burden for her. Only her father spoke Portuguese. She would have to interpret for the others, would have to speak English with them, would stammer … What would this do to her? He did not like to think.

  His pretext for calling was, of course, Vanessa’s letter, and the chance that Mrs. Brett might not yet have heard of her son’s imminent arrival. But Juana’s first words, when Jaime ushered him into the Ladies’ Parlour, settled that. ‘You find us all at sixes and sevens,’ she sounded surprisingly cheerful. ‘My family are arriving any day now and we are having such a spring-cleaning of apartments for them! I didn’t know there was so much dust in the whole of Portugal! And as for spiders! Do you know, Mr. Varlow, we found toads as big as dinner plates in one of the cellars? If you’d only got here a little sooner, I could have showed you. Would you like to see the rooms I’m getting ready for them? Not the toads: my family.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ No hope of talking to her here, with Elvira stitching away at her embroidery, and her uncles liable to appear, soft-footed, when least wanted.

  ‘Such a battle, too, to settle where to put them.’ Juana led the way down from the parlour to the central courtyard. ‘You’d think in a vast place like this, it would be no problem. But Uncle Miguel didn’t want them in rooms off the cloisters, because he and Father Ignatius like to say their prayers there, and when I suggested putting them in the old wing, Uncle Prospero nearly had a fit. My grandmother won’t have them anywhere near her, and I don’t much want them looking out on to the terrace. So in the end’ (she opened a door leading off a corner of the cloisters) ‘they’re in the haunted wing, poor things. But you’re not to say so. I’ve sworn the whole household to secrecy. If you tell Daisy and Teresa and start them having hysterics on me, I’ll never speak to you again. What are you going to do about them, by the way?’

  It was what he had been wondering himself, but that did not make her question any less disconcerting. ‘Do?’

  She laughed. ‘No need to pretend with me. You know perfectly well you were courting Daisy with your left hand and Teresa with your right, back at Forland House. And now look at you! All’s well.’ She had seen his anxious glance up and down the range of empty rooms. ‘The servants are at their dinner. I’ve got the only key.’ She held it up. ‘I want to be friends with Daisy and Teresa,’ she went on. ‘It’s important to me. Besides, it will make things so much easier. So what are you going to do? They’ll be furious if they think you’ve really changed!

  He almost said, ‘But I have.’ This was no time for that. ‘What do you advise?’ How odd to be asking her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since we heard they were coming, and I believe I’ve got the answer. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’ She paused, and he found himself glad to see her at a loss for a word. It was curiously disconcerting to have her take the lead as she had been doing.

  ‘Yes?’ He moved over to the window to look out at the Pleasant Valley.

  ‘It’s about my grandmother. She’s not a bit well, you know. And she’s worried about what will happen if she dies. About the stair; because it goes down from her room. And everything.’ It was very difficult to say it. ‘She sent for her lawyer a while ago and changed her will. She’s going to announce it at Christmas dinner.’ She hesitated, watching him.

  ‘Announce what?’

  ‘That she’s made me her heir. Only’ – in a rush – ‘she doesn’t know this, but I must tell you. I shan’t keep it; not a moment longer than I have to. It wouldn’t be right. I shall share it with the others. It won’t come to much that way, because of course Pedro must have the castle, as the eldest. But, for the time being (do you see?)it provides an admirable pretext for you to court me.’ This came out in a rush as she moved away into the next room, muttering something incomprehensible about toads and cobwebs.

  He let her go, too angry to speak. She had been afraid that if he thought she was her grandmother’s heir he would start courting her in earnest. Well? He stood there a minute, looking at himself with dislike. She might have been right. The unwelcome bit of self-knowledge did nothing to improve his temper. But the silence was drawing out too long. He followed her into the next room: ‘You think I’ll make a convincing fortune-hunter?’ He could not help it, nor his tone.

  ‘I expect you’ll manage. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but you’ve told me often enough that no sacrifice is too great. This will be their sitting room.’ She changed the subject ruthlessly. ‘I think it will do admirably when we’ve found some furniture for it. I’m trying to make them as independent as possible.’

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’ He followed her lead into this safer topic.

  ‘Just about. I’m afraid I’m the only one who’s pleased to see them. But I am.’ She made it almost an ultimatum.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said peaceably. ‘I hadn’t thought how dull it must be for you here.’

  ‘No. Why should you have?’

  He rode back to Lisbon in a thoroughly bad temper.

  The packet arrived a few days later and Gair debated with himself whether to go aboard, pay his respects to the Bretts, and, incidentally, try to establish the new relationship with Daisy and Teresa. But the sight of the carriage from the Castle on the Rock standing in Black Horse Square made up his mind for him. Almost certainly, Juana would have come in person to meet her family. He would leave her a free field for the first encounter. After all, she seemed almost disconcertingly competent, these days, to handle her own affairs.

  Lord Strangford had just had official news of Napoleon’s Berlin Decrees and his staff were unusually busy as a result. Gair felt he could not possibly ask leave to go and find out how things were settling down at the Castle on the Rock. It made him oddly restless and he wished more than ever that it had been possible to find a safe messenger to go between him and Juana. But they had agreed that the risk was too great.

  He was accordingly delighted, two days before Christmas, to receive a note from Mrs. Brett inviting him to a small Christmas party, ‘to celebrate my son’s arrival from England’. No word of Juana, or of anything else that mattered. The note was entirely formal and gave no hint even as to whether Juana might have suggested the invitation. He found he badly wanted to know.

  Christmas Day was fine, with larks singing abo
ve the ridge road, and the scent of gorse heavy in the air. Gair had been late in starting and rode hard. Dinner was to be at three o’clock, Mrs. Brett had said. It was not an occasion for which one was late. Coming up the last long slope toward the Castle on the Rock, he recognised two horsemen ahead of him as Pedro and Roberto Brett-Alvidrar. He had not met either of them since that curious occasion in the autumn when Roberto had seemed actually to be encouraging his suit to Juana. Now, grateful for this chance to see how they would receive him, he spurred on his horse to catch them.

  ‘You are coming to our Christmas dinner?’ Pedro’s question, after the formal greetings were over, came out curiously neutral.

  ‘Yes. Mrs. Brett was so kind …’

  ‘To meet the new arrivals.’ The sneer in Roberto’s voice was not directed at Gair. ‘So much the better. An outsider should make a difficult family occasion go more easily.’

  ‘Hardly an outsider,’ said Pedro, but his brother did not seem to hear, and changed the subject to politics. He wanted to know, disconcertingly, how likely Gair thought a change of government in England. It was a question that had exercised Gair a good deal since Fox’s death. If the Tory party should return to power before he had had a chance to make his mark, he might be condemned to a life of obscurity. It did not bear thinking about. And nor did the idea, that came, unbidden, along with it, that he was risking Juana’s life to advance his own career.

  Juana received them in the seldom-used grand saloon. ‘Pedro! Roberto!’ As tall as they, she let them kiss her brown cheek in turn, and Gair, watching, felt a queer little pang of envy.

  ‘And me?’ Was it getting too easy to play the lover’s part?

  She laughed. ‘No, no, Mr. Varlow. Not you! I have two old acquaintances for you. Daisy! Teresa! See who’s here!’

  The two girls had been busy arranging a great bowl of sweet-smelling rosemary, bay, and whole branches with oranges, nearly golden, hanging among dark green leaves. Now they came forward, smiling, hand-in-hand, their pink and gold prettiness like light in the dark room. And yet, Gair found his eyes moving instinctively back to Juana. She’s worth ten of them, he thought. And, lord, how she’s changed since I last saw them all together.