The Winding Stair

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘I suppose so. We haven’t seen him for a while.’

  ‘No,’ Daisy pursued it after Gair had left. ‘I was beginning to think you had tried Senhor de Mascarenhas too far, Juana. Tell me, when are you going to make up your mind between those two?’ And then, laughing. ‘Do you think it’s safe to let them meet? We don’t want them fighting it out in the castle courtyard.’

  ‘D … d … don’t be absurd!’ Irritation at the reminder of Gair’s pseudo-courtship brought on her stammer and she was glad to be interrupted by Vasco himself.

  He had been away, he told them, and had only just heard of Mrs. Brett’s illness. ‘It’s terrible news. Is there anything I can do?’ He, too, spoke English out of consideration for Daisy.

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’

  ‘The doctor holds out no hopes, he tells me.’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’

  ‘Yes – he’s my neighbour in Sintra. That’s how I heard. I wish you had thought to send for me, cousin.’

  ‘But if you were away—’

  ‘My people would have known where to find me. I don’t think you quite understand how entirely my thoughts are devoted to you. My servants do. They know that any message from here must reach me, wherever I am. I’m afraid for you, Juana. Your grandmother’s illness makes your position even more dangerous. I hope you don’t rely too much on Dom John’s declaring you Portuguese.’

  ‘Oh. You’ve heard about that?’

  ‘Yes. I try to be informed of what concerns you. I know, for instance, that you are nursing the old lady yourself.’ His voice held disapproval.

  ‘Of course I am.’ Who was his informant? But, of course, the doctor again …

  ‘I wish you would help us to persuade her that she is overdoing it,’ Daisy said.

  ‘That’s why I came. It’s not at all suitable, cousin. I am come to offer you the services of my old nurse – an excellent woman in a sickroom. She will take all responsibility off your hands.’

  ‘It’s very good of you.’ What a genius he had for rubbing her up the wrong way. ‘But my grandmother would be miserable with a stranger looking after her. We are managing admirably as it is.’

  ‘You may be managing admirably for the old lady, but how about yourself? You’re looking exhausted, cousin.’

  ‘Thank you for the compliment!’ The fact that she knew it was true merely made it more irritating.

  ‘Cousin!’ His voice was reproachful. ‘Don’t insist on taking me the wrong way. You must know how deeply I have your best interests at heart.’

  ‘She ought to by now,’ said Daisy. ‘But after all, you have neglected us for three whole weeks, senhor. We’d almost forgotten what you looked like, hadn’t we, Juana?’

  ‘D … d … d …’ Fatigue, and the necessity of speaking English for Daisy’s sake had brought on her stammer worse than ever. She made a new start: ‘I wish you wouldn’t—’

  ‘I won’t,’ Daisy interrupted. ‘I’ll do as I would be done by and leave you two to talk Portuguese in peace. Does that make you my friend for life, Senhor de Mascarenhas?’

  ‘It does indeed.’ He rose to open the door of the Ladies’ Parlour for her. Then: ‘Juana! Come out on to the loggia with me. I must talk to you. Please?’ He took her hand in a firm grip that sent an involuntary shiver through her. ‘It’s two months, almost to the day, since I last spoke.’ His tone might be pleading, but his arm was firm. The air on the loggia was cool; there had been a sprinkling of rain that morning and the sky was still overcast. ‘No one will come out here to disturb us.’ He led her to a seat screened by sweet-scented jasmine. ‘And the air will do you good,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘I don’t like to see you looking so exhausted, Juana.’

  ‘I don’t much like it myself.’ She could hardly explain that her sleepless night had been spent not at her grandmother’s bedside but down below in the heart of the cliff.

  ‘There are dark circles under your eyes.’ He lifted a hand and she shrank into herself, anticipating his touch. ‘Don’t shrink from me, Juana. You know in your heart that you are mine. Admit it, my love, and make us both happy.’

  Admit it? Was it true? It would be wonderfully easy to let herself lean, just a little, toward him, to admit it without words. ‘I don’t know—’ It was an effort to make herself stay upright.

  ‘You won’t let yourself know. Why are you afraid, Juana? Afraid to love – afraid to live. You do know, really: you must know that all my happiness lies in caring for you, serving you, protecting you. You look today like someone whose burden is too heavy to be borne. Share it with me, my love, or, better still, let me carry it for you. It’s the man’s place.’

  ‘I can’t …’ This was true. However much she might be tempted, she could not tell him about the Sons of the Star without Gair’s permission.

  ‘You mean, you won’t!’ She had not known that he could explode like this suddenly into anger. The hand that held hers closed on it like a vice.

  ‘You’re hurting me!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He bent to kiss the hand he had hurt. ‘Forgive me.’ He was breathing hard, controlling himself with an effort. ‘You’re driving me mad, Juana. You’re trying me too far. Love like mine is too strong to be trifled with. But I’m a brute to frighten you when you’re worn out. Think it over, my love, quietly, and write to me when you are ready. I shall be waiting at Sintra, counting the hours till I hear from you. Only, don’t let them be too many. I need the right to protect you. Soon now, the country is going to be in chaos. Don’t think that fop of an Englishman will protect you when the French invade. He’ll be off with the rest of them, whisked to safety on a ship of the line. I warn you, there will be plenty of informers to tell the French of this rich castle, and all its land, held by a couple of Englishwomen. What will they care for a document signed by Dom John? It will suit them to treat you as English, and English you will be. But – married to me: de Mascarenhas twice over … Juana, you and I are each other’s fate. It was planned in our cradles … fated long before that. Trust me, believe in me … I can’t tell you more now … But there is a great – an unbelievable future awaiting us—’ He looked past her, toward the castle. ‘There’s somebody coming. Juana, write to me soon. You know you’re mine.’ The hand that had held hers abandoned it to move upwards, touch her breast for a moment and send a pang of pure fire through her, then catch her other hand to pull her to her feet. ‘Mine,’ he said again. ‘Write soon.’

  Elvira had emerged from the doorway of the Ladies’ Parlour. She looked about her vaguely: ‘ “I sent a letter to my love And on the way I dropped it Somebody” – Oh!’ Miguel had followed her. ‘It’s cold out here. What has happened to the sun? I want sunshine—’ She moved carefully round Miguel and went back into the castle.

  Miguel greeted Vasco warmly and urged him to stay to dinner, but he refused. ‘My cousin is worn out with nursing,’ he said. ‘I’ll not tire her further.’

  When he had gone, Juana hoped her uncle would leave her alone to her chaotic thoughts, but instead: ‘Sit down a minute, child, he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I consider myself responsible for you, now your father is gone and my mother beyond caring. It’s time you made up your mind, Juana.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, child. I’m not a fool. Senhor de Mascarenhas has asked you to marry him, has he not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did you say? He did not look like a successful lover.’

  ‘I’m to write to him.’

  ‘Well, thank God for that. I was afraid you had been fool enough to refuse him outright. It’s a good match, Juana; a better one, I think, than you understand. Your mother planned it for you in your cradle. You would not want to flout her dying wishes? Besides, there are the rest of us to be considered. When my mother made you her heir, she gave you a great responsibility. Now is the time t
o face it, Juana, and decide what you will do with it. The French are coming; make no mistake about that. And when they get here, your flimsy document of Dom John’s is not going to be worth the paper it’s written on. As I see it, you have three courses of action open to you.’

  ‘Oh?’ She wished she could see any way of avoiding this.

  ‘Yes. First, you marry Senhor de Mascarenhas, who adores you and is strong enough to protect both you and the castle. Second, you take that poor thing of an Englishman who has been dancing attendance on you all this time, hand over the castle to your cousins, and go back to England. I think you’d be mad to do it, but that’s your affair.’

  ‘And the third thing I can do?’

  ‘What I have always urged on you, Juana; what God intended for you. Give the castle to your cousins and take the veil yourself. That’s where true happiness lies for you. I have already spoken to a friend of mine, the head of a convent in Lisbon. They will welcome you with open arms.’ He was standing over her now, black and oddly threatening.

  ‘No!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Never that, uncle. I tell you, I have no vocation. Nor, since we are talking so frankly, have I any idea of marrying Mr. Varlow. As to Senhor de Mascarenhas, I will tell you what I told him, that I am going to think it over.’

  ‘Don’t take too long,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty

  September drifted into October. Juana woke each morning in her new turret room to see the castle islanded in autumn mist, so that it seemed more than ever a fairy place, cut off from the real world.

  ‘Iago says this is Sebastian’s weather.’ Maria was brushing Juana’s hair by the open window.

  ‘Sebastian?’

  ‘You know, senhora. The lost king who will come again when things are at the worst, and save us. Iago says he has slept for two hundred years on a secret island somewhere out there in the ocean. If the French really invade, he will sail up the Tagus with a fleet and drive them out.’

  ‘Surely you don’t believe that, Maria?’

  ‘I don’t know. On a morning like this, anything seems possible. And they all believe it down in the valley. He’ll come here first, you know.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Don’t you know the story? He never married, poor King Sebastian, but there was a Spanish lady, here, at the Castle on the Rock. She was the last person he visited before he sailed away to Morocco, and, they say, when he comes back, he will come here first to look for her. Who knows? Perhaps he will find her. Perhaps she is sleeping down there in the cliff somewhere, and will wake when his ship sails into the cove. And then, you see, senhora, one kiss and he will mount his horse and ride away to beat the French as they have never been beaten before. That’s why no one’s doing anything, don’t you see? They’re waiting …’

  Juana sighed. What was the use of arguing? She was beginning to hope that Maria and Iago would make a match of it, and if this meant that Maria must share her future husband’s superstitions, she felt she had best not interfere. Besides, she thought, running down the winding stair to her grandmother’s rooms below, Maria’s idea was not much more fantastic than the situation it explained. Almost a month had ebbed away since the French ultimatum had expired and the ambassadors had left, and, simply, nothing had happened. Dom John was still at Mafra and Carlota Joaquina at Ramalhao; the old mad queen wailed up and down the orange walks at Queluz and, according to Senhor Macarao, who went there most weeks, life in Lisbon went on as usual: ‘But the English are beginning to leave.’

  Was there a note of warning in his voice? There might well be. She seemed caught up in the general inertia. It was more than two weeks since Vasco had asked her to marry him and still she had decided nothing. When she tried to think about it, to think about Vasco, there was nothing but a strange blankness. When she was with him, it had been easy to imagine marrying him; now he was gone, it seemed quite fantastic. But she must decide soon, for all their sakes. Which meant, surely, that she must decide to marry him.

  She put it off from day to day. There was always a good reason. After all, a French invasion had been threatened the year before and nothing had come of it. Might not Napoleon change his mind once again and march off in some quite different direction? The news of the British bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish fleet, though it shocked her deeply, yet had its element of hope. It might rouse Napoleon to turn that way and give the unlucky Danes a lesson in neutrality. Surely she could wait for the news that a French army of invasion had actually started before making up her mind? Besides, she could not marry Vasco withing telling him of her connection with the Sons of the Star, and she could not possibly do that without first warning Gair Varlow. It was a relief to have decided this, though she knew in her heart that once again she was merely making excuses.

  The grape harvest had begun, and provided her with an admirable pretext for avoiding the anxious, questioning glances that haunted her in the castle. Since her grandmother’s illness, she had found herself, inevitably, acting as Senhor Macarao’s final authority, and spent much of her time down in the valley watching the great baskets of grapes brought in to the press. It was just part of the general madness of things that she was at the same time thinking of marrying Vasco, who would help with the estate, and almost in the same mental breath imagining herself fleeing to England as the French invaded. Who would run things then? She supposed Roberto or Pedro would have to come home, but they had not been to the castle since August. Even the news of their grandmother’s illness had brought merely letters of apology and condolence. No doubt they were entirely occupied in helping their royal master and mistress respectively to do nothing.

  There was no sign of Gair either as the bright October days drew on and the gallegos down in the valley were once more at work treading the ice-cold must. Senhor Macarao, returning from Lisbon, reported that the English were now leaving in droves – They are paying as much as £1,200 for a family’s passage.’

  Once again the remark held a warning, but she had her answer to herself ready now. She could do nothing till she had talked to Gair. He must be busy helping to arrange for the repatriation of the English; but was bound to visit her on the day after the next meeting. The full moon was on October 16th. She would make up her mind on the 17th.

  It meant making Vasco wait a whole month for his answer and something in her was frightened at this. At last, under pressure from Miguel, she wrote him a note of explanation and apology. Of course she could not give the true reasons for her delay, but there were plenty of false ones. Her grandmother was so ill … she herself was busy beyond thought directing the vintage … she was thinking, deeply, about him … she hoped he would forgive it and understand her delay …

  Sending Iago off with the letter, she found herself wondering whether it might not bring Vasco back in person to plead his suit once more. If he came, if he touched her with those incendiary hands, would she forget everything, forget what she owed to Gair, forget her own doubts and yield to him?

  She did not know whether she was glad or sorry when Iago returned to report that Senhor de Mascarenhas had been away from home, but that his servants had promised he would be sent the letter without delay. ‘They seemed to expect it, senhora.’

  Of course they did. But Vasco would expect a definite answer. Suddenly, she remembered the moment, at their last meeting, when he had exploded into rage. She was glad she would not be there when he read her temporising letter.

  She had grown almost used to going down the winding stair by now, but when she slid back the secret panel for the October meeting, she was at once conscious of a new tension in the air.

  ‘… just returned from Bayonne,’ the leader was saying. ‘Junot arrived there the day before I did, to take command of the French army. He had messages for me from Napoleon. We have the Emperor’s promise, Brothers.’

  ‘His promise of what, exactly?’ Juana was sure this was the Brother of the Silver Serpent even before she saw the emblem on his hood.


  ‘That as soon as they have Portugal under control, they will hand over to us.’

  ‘And what must we do in exchange?’

  ‘See to it that their entry to the country is unopposed. And that, evidently, is to our own advantage. Without bloodshed, with the royal family gone to Brazil, we have the ideal opportunity to give Portugal, at last, a democratic government.’

  There was an enthusiastic murmur round the table. But, ‘Without bloodshed?’ asked the Brother of the Silver Hand.

  ‘With as little as possible,’ qualified the leader. ‘We all know that there are some enemies of Portugal who must be disposed of before we can begin to think of freedom. You know your duties, Brothers. On the day Dom John goes aboard ship you strike, each your appointed victim. In the meantime, it is understood that we each, in our own way, do all we can to help in the French invasion. First, of course, we deny that it is happening. Napoleon himself intends to leave for Italy in order to throw dust in his enemies’ eyes. We will make much of this. We will stress that last year the French threatened to come, and did not. Then, when the news of their invasion can no longer be denied, we insist that the French will have the mountains to cross … the weather will be against them … how can they get here before winter sets in? You, Brother of the Broken Cross, will keep Dom John at Mafra as long as you possibly can. When he does come to Lisbon, it must be simply to embark with the fleet.’

  ‘And his life will be spared?’ The Brother of the Broken Cross rose to his feet. ‘He’s a good enough man, in his way.’

  ‘If he leaves for Brazil, he is safe. The same goes for his wife and all their family. But if any of them stay behind, for whatever reason, whether by chance or by design, the Brother responsible for them knows his duty. We cannot let any squeamish scruples stand between Portugal and her day of freedom.’

  ‘Will there be free elections?’ asked the Brother of the Broken Cross.

  ‘As soon as the country is ready for them.’ It seemed a doubtful enough promise to Juana, but the Brothers greeted it with a shout of approval. There was little further business. Questioned by the Brother of the Ragged Staff the leader said he did not know exactly how soon the French Army planned to march. ‘Very likely we will have one more meeting, Brothers, here in secret, before we emerge into the light of day, masters of our country. And now, we meet only to part …’