Blue Hills of Sintra

by Anne Hampson

  Eleanor said nothing. Terry Kershawe had a reputation for meanness in the college, allowing even the students to pay for his coffee if he happened to join one or more of them in the espresso bar round the corner from the college.

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ she said before ringing off. ‘I’ll see you in about five weeks.’

  Terry arrived that very evening. Eleanor had been asked by Dom Miguel to visit Carlota again and she had agreed, so that she had an excuse for declining Terry’s invitation to go to a movie. She would have refused in any case, but things were made simpler by her having a previous engagement. There could be no argument or attempts at persuasion.

  ‘Then come out with me tomorrow evening,’ he urged. They were in a small sitting-room which was there for the use of the staff, and as they talked Eleanor’s eyes kept straying to the door. If only someone would come in, she thought, then Terry would have to take his leave. But no one did come in and because they were alone he actually tried to take hold of her hand. ‘Why can’t you be more friendly? I love you—’ He broke off, scowling as she put some distance between them. ‘I’m your headmaster,’ he said through his teeth. 'Don’t forget that, Eleanor.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she reminded him, wondering if she were as pale as she felt. It was part anger that brought about this pallor, but part anxiety for the future. Life was going to be exceedingly uncomfortable for the next year, and once again she found herself wishing she could change her job. But she had signed over the stamp, and even to suggest a change

  would be a breach of professional etiquette. It wasn’t as if she had any reasonable excuse to offer. She could scarcely say she was expecting her headmaster to pester her!

  ‘In five weeks, Eleanor. I shall be your boss—a head is like the captain of a ship, remember, and those working under him know this. ’

  ‘The fact that I shall be working for you doesn’t in any way entitle you to foist your attentions on me. I’ve told you that I’ve no intention of keeping company with you—’

  ‘I’ve asked you to marry me, not keep company. I love you—I’ve never loved anyone else before. Eleanor,’ he said adopting a more humble tone, ‘don’t be like this. If only you knew just how much I want you, you’d not be so unkind as to refuse even to go out with me to the cinema. Say you’ll come, please!’

  She looked at him across the room. Was she sorry for him? That he cared for her was evident, but as she could never care for him there could be no hope whatever of their getting together. She told him this, and there followed a frustrating period of argument and persuasion, and in the end, Terry actually uttered a threat.

  ‘You’ll live to be sorry for treating me like this! I’m your superior, and by heaven I’ll let you see it! Turning, he flung wide the door and stormed out, almost colliding with one of the room maids, who was also a student.

  ‘My, but he was in a fury. Friend of yours?’

  White to the lips now, and exhausted by the quarrel, Eleanor said huskily,

  ‘Just the reverse. He’s my enemy—and what’s so awful is that he’s to be my headmaster for the next twelve months.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eleanor did not know just when the decision was made; all she did know was that, as the days sped by and the time for Dom Miguel’s departure drew near, she was filled with a sort of urgency which she could only interpret as something akin to fear. That she should allow her fear of Terry to influence her was something of which she felt ashamed, and yet the idea of having him as her boss for twelve whole months— and such crucial months at that—so filled her with dejection that she decided at last she could not go through with it, and the decision to accept the Conde’s offer was made.

  He had been taking her every evening to the nursing home, and she told him of her change of mind when they were returning one night to the hotel. He went quiet and for one tense moment she wondered if he had now changed his mind, and no longer wanted her as a chaperone for his sister. But he said, slowing down and flicking her a sideways glance,

  ‘Thank you, senhorita; I am happy to know that Carlota will have you for her friend. You have no idea how much she has come to like you during these visits you have been kind enough to pay her.’ He paused and Eleanor thought, ‘How formal he is ... but he’s quite human, really, when you get to know him. ’ Aloud she said,

  ‘There will be things to do, Dom Miguel, and I can’t be ready in three days.’

  ‘That I understand. We can wait.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She thought of the letter she must write to the Education Authority, saying she had decided to go abroad for a while; she had to get a passport, and buy clothes with the money she had earned from the work she was doing. There were one or two friends to whom she must write, and there was June ... But she would understand. And how surprised she would be!

  As she allowed her mind to wander to the new life upon which she had decided to embark, Eleanor naturally tried to picture the magnificent palace in which Dom Miguel lived. It would be a strange life at first, but as Eleanor had always been adaptable she had no real fears about fitting in. Her main concern in any case was Carlota, whom she had already come to regard with affection, and had a goodbye been necessary, she knew for sure that it would have been a sad occasion for them both.

  In just over a week Eleanor was settled in at the Palacio de Castro, having arrived there with Dom Miguel and Carlota two days previously. Her room looked out on to the Palacio gardens, indisputably magnificent in their exotic splendour of fine trees and shrubs and flowers, many of them brought over from various other countries by ancestors of the Conde. She had her own bathroom, with sunken bath and concealed lighting, and thick rose-coloured carpet to match the curtains.

  With a little sigh of contentment she went downstairs and out on to the terrace. Clear blue skies overhead, bright sun and a myriad colour combinations to delight the eye, peacocks strutting, ornamental pools lined with rare azulejos... What a paradise it was! How had she been so incredibly fortunate as to find herself in such a place? So hurried had been her departure from England, so busy she had been with her preparations, that she had found no time for dwelling on the wonder of it all, but she did now, and she was human enough to feel some considerable elation at her good fortune in meeting up with Dona Carlota and, in consequence, getting to know the Conde Ramiro Vincente Miguel de Castro.

  ‘I am indeed fortunate,’ she said, quite audibly, as she stood on the terrace looking out over the gardens to the Great Park beyond, with its regions of thick woodland alternating with smooth and undulating grasslands where pine-shadows lingered here and there like friendly giants slumbering. Cicadas shrilled in ecstasy; birds flitted and chirped among the bushes in the shrubbery bordering the lawn, peacocks spread their brilliant plumage to entice the unresponsive hens.

  Into Eleanor’s dreamy vision strode the tall upright figure of her employer, noble hauteur in every step he took. Reaching her, he inquired anxiously about his sister, who, since her return to Portugal, had been far from well.

  ‘She’s resting, Dom Miguel,’ replied Eleanor politely. ‘She was asleep when I left her. ’

  Dom Miguel was reassured.

  ‘She’s improving every day now,’ he said gravely. ‘I had feared she might have a nervous breakdown. ’

  ‘She was certainly morose,’ agreed Eleanor, going on to add that Carlota was over that period now and her recovery should not take very long.

  The Conde’s deep-set eyes met hers, briefly.

  ‘You’ve been good for her, senhorita; it was fortunate that we found you. ’

  ‘Thank you, Dom Miguel,’ returned Eleanor, suddenly shy, and blushing faintly. ‘It’s kind of you to say that.’

  ‘It is the truth, senhorita, so there’s no need for you to credit me with kindness,’ and, not anticipating any response to this he walked past her, striding majestically towards the house.

  For a long while she remained on the terrace, musing on the stiffness and reserve that cha
racterized Dom Miguel’s whole demeanour. Only with Carlota was he in any way gentle. And yet, recalling his manner with her, Eleanor, as he mentioned her kindness in visiting his sister, Eleanor remembered her own conviction that he was quite human.

  As the weeks passed Eleanor began to sense a shadow hanging over the Palacio ... and yet no amount of brain-searching on her part yielded the faintest clue. The incipient thread of a mystery was spun when Carlota, having chatted about all sorts of things, went completely dumb when Eleanor in the course of conversation happened to say, apropos of something just mentioned,

  ‘Your brother will of course marry one day? I mean, he will naturally want an heir. ’

  The silence was much more than a hush of indecision; it was palpable in a most disturbing way—so disturbing that Eleanor had immediately put an end to it by changing the subject.

  The second thread came into being when, having left Carlota to take a siesta, Eleanor had decided to spend an hour in the portrait gallery, and after gazing up at the magnificent ceiling, which was painted and studded with gold bosses, and after standing a while admiring the statues and the fine Gothic doorway leading off into another beautifully-proportioned room, she began to examine the pictures. Ancestors of the Conde ... how noble they looked! But how austere and autocratic. Vicente Diego Laurenco Henriques de Castro was especially forbidding, and Leonor his wife looked too cold by far to have given birth to Nuno Jose Goncalo Froylas de Castro, but she had. One after another ... there they were, dozens of them, lining two enormous walls, some set in large and florid frames, others much less flamboyantly bordered, but all bearing the distinguished stamp of the Portuguese aristocracy.

  Eleanor actually gave a shudder on first glancing at the bearded Martim Tavira Nuno Ordonho de Castro, so frightening did he appear in his splendid robes and with his thin set mouth and fierce grey eyes.

  ‘Did you have a wife, I wonder?’ she murmured audibly— then started visibly on hearing a voice behind her say,

  ‘Of course.’

  She swung round, colour enchantingly mounting to her cheeks.

  ‘I was talking to myself ...’ She gave a small, deprecating flick of her hands. Dom Miguel said quietly, side-stepping the interruption,

  ‘We can trace our descent in an absolutely pure male line from the year 987.’ Pride in his tone and a hint of arrogance playing about his mouth; he was so tall beside her, tall and broad-shouldered, with very dark brown hair and deep metallic grey eyes. He was like a star out of reach, she thought, then allowed herself a secret smile at this description. He had begun to walk towards the door through which Eleanor had entered; it was right at the end of the long narrow room and automatically she walked in step beside him, not consciously aware of what she did, otherwise she would have stopped to question whether or not he would desire her company. Feeling a little unsure of herself and awkward once her action registered, she endeavoured to recover her composure by remarking on one or other of the portraits they passed. Suddenly noticing a space—but for the moment not noticing the portrait next to the space—she said, flicking an indicating hand,

  ‘Has something been removed from there?’

  Silence. The same awful hush that had prevailed after her suggestion to Carlota that one day the Conde would marry. In the stillness Eleanor’s eyes sought his ... and a dread chill passed through her so that the blood in her veins seemed for one brief moment to be turned to ice. For Dom Miguel’s features—those features which she had described to herself as superlatively handsome—had taken on an aspect of almost satanic harshness. His full, aristocratic mouth was twisted, as if at some indescribably tormenting and hateful memory, a memory that crushed every fine quality he possessed, and left only the quality of baseness which is inherent in every man but which, for the most part, lies dormant his whole life through. His grey eyes were terrible to see, so hard and merciless had they become. What had she said to bring about so dramatic a change? Although she was completely in the dark, she nevertheless opened her mouth to say, ‘I’m sorry, Dom Miguel,’ but before she had time to do so he had turned abruptly, and within seconds he was gone.

  Trembling slightly, Eleanor stood there staring at the great arched doorway through which he had passed, but after a little while she too made for the door, glancing sideways as she did so—then stopped dead. The portrait of the Conde was there, the most attractive and striking of them all. Handsome, proud, superior ... and yet there was an unexpected softness about the eyes that had a most odd effect on Eleanor. An explicable tingling of a nerve ... the almost imperceptible fluttering of the heart ... Her gaze was held to the painting for a long, long while; no doubt at all, there was something compelling about it, something that held her in the same way she was held on the day of her first glimpse of Dom Miguel, in the corridor of the Sherbourne Hotel.

  At last she moved away, glancing for a second at the space next to the portrait of the Conde; there was a mystery, but although she was intrigued by this fact, she soon dismissed the matter from her mind, fully aware that it was no business of hers. She was here as companion-protector to Dona Carlota, and as an employee she must remember to mind her own business.

  Another three weeks passed uneventfully. Eleanor and Carlota rode in the Great Park, they swam in the lovely ornamental heated pool, they went into Lisbon to shop. The only occasions when they were not together were when Dom Miguel entertained, and this was not often. Carlota would of course act as hostess, and Eleanor in her position of employee dined in a small sitting-room which Dom Miguel had told her to use whenever she wished. It was an elegant apartment, though not so luxuriously furnished as the rest of the house. Carlota told Eleanor that it was there for the use of ‘favoured’ servants.

  ‘Have there been other favoured servants?’ Eleanor inquired with some amusement and, aware of what she had said, the girl blushed rosily.

  ‘I should not have referred to you as a servant, should I?’ ‘That’s what I am, Carlota,’ and then, ‘Tell me about these other favoured ones?’

  Carlota bit her lip and glanced away; it was not difficult to see that she was endeavouring to avoid her companion’s gaze. ‘We had a sort of lady’s maid...’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘Yes,’ so swiftly that it was clearly a lie. ‘Yes, for me.’ Eleanor had allowed the matter to drop—but the more she pondered on it the more she sensed a mystery.

  This was considerably deepened one day when the housekeeper came upon Eleanor as she was going upstairs. She spoke in English, complaining about her rheumatism which, she said, was becoming so bad that she had difficulty in going upstairs. In her hand she held a gold-backed notebook and a matching pencil. Dom Miguel had left them in the saloon; but they belonged on the table by his bed, she told Eleanor, adding that he always liked to keep them there so that he could jot things down which he wished to remember.

  ‘If they weren’t there he would be furious,’ she ended dramatically, and Eleanor had to smile. Formidable as the Conde was she could not by any stretch of imagination imagine his being furious for so trivial a matter, especially as he himself had left the pad and pencil downstairs.

  ‘Would you like me to take them up for you?’ offered Eleanor as with difficulty the woman began to climb the stairs.

  ‘Would you, Miss Eleanor? I am much obliged to you, I’m sure.’ The pad and pencil changed hands. ‘You know which is Dom Miguel’s room?—but of course you do.’

  The room was entered through an arched doorway decorated in gold, and as she pushed the door inwards Eleanor experienced a faint fluttering of nerves even though she knew for sure that the Conde was out. She had stood with Carlota on the terrace an hour or so previously and watched the silver-crested chauffeur-driven car glide noiselessly out of the courtyard. Dom Miguel had lifted a hand in salute to his sister, and he had also acknowledged Eleanor with a faint inclination of his head.

  So there was nothing to fear, and once the bedroom door had swung wide open Eleanor entered without hesitation
, walking over the deep soft carpet towards the table by the bed. But suddenly she stopped in her tracks, stiffening as she realized there was someone in the next room. The connecting door was slightly ajar and at first Eleanor thought that on the other side there was either a dressing-room or a bathroom. Could Dom Miguel have returned unnoticed either by Carlota or herself? Trembling, she glanced wildly around as she glimpsed a movement through the crack where hinges connected the door with the jamb; she panicked and instead of making for the corridor she flung herself behind the heavy velvet curtains hanging at the side of a large window.

  Fool! she told herself immediately. Dom Miguel had come back and now she was trapped. Perhaps he would go out of the room immediately ... or perhaps he might even decide to take a siesta! In which case he would surely get undressed first!

  ‘What a stupid idiotic thing to do,’ she chided herself. ‘The obvious thing to have done was act naturally, putting the pad and pencil down and, when he came out, explained that I was saving Ina’s legs.’

  What was to be done now—? Her question was cut short as she heard the communicating door close, very softly. Two curtains hung at each side of the window and on the side on which she was hidden they had been drawn back in a way which left a minute space between, and through this she saw to her surprise— and relief—that the person was a woman. She was moving across the floor of Dom Miguel’s room, and over her arm was a beautiful fur coat. Mink... Puzzled in the extreme now, for the woman was easily recognised as one of the maids, Eleanor moved closer to the chink in the curtains and watched the woman look furtively at the door she had closed, go back to it and try it, to make absolutely sure she had in fact closed it properly, then move silently across the room again and out through the main door, pulling it to behind her.

  Eleanor came from her hiding-place, put down the pad and pencil, and stood for a long moment staring at the connecting door. A fur coat... What was a fur coat doing in Dom Miguel’s dressing-room?