by Anne Hampson
‘Yes—of c-course.’ Her heart was thudding. ‘Why have you come?’ she asked even before he had been shown into the sitting-room.
‘I said I’d repay you if ever I could,’ he began, and continued in spite of the swift impatient lifting of her hand, ‘and now I believe I can repay you. Eleanor, will you answer me one question first? Do you love Miguel?’
‘Sanches,’ she quivered, ‘why have you come here?’
‘To help you in the way you helped me,’ he answered soberly. ‘You are in love with my brother-in-law, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied simply, wondering if the colour had left her cheeks, as she felt sure it had.
‘It is good, then. Had you not loved him then my journey would have been wasted. Eleanor, do you know that he loves you?’
She brought her lips together tightly, to stop their trembling.
‘Please tell me quickly, Sanches. What is this all about?’
‘You knew he was married—that Dora was still alive, didn’t you?’
Consternation took the place of the misery in her eyes.
‘It’s come out? Everyone knows? Oh, poor Miguel! ’
‘She’s dead, Eleanor,’ he intervened quietly.
‘Dead? His wife is d-dead?’ The beautiful creature of the portrait—young, endowed with all that nature could give. This was all that occupied Eleanor’s thoughts and it was only afterwards that she wondered why she hadn’t grasped at once just what this meant to Miguel and herself. ‘How did it
happen, Sanches?’ she queried dazedly.
‘An accident. And in the car were Lourenco and a maid of Miguel’s who had left him and gone to live with Dora.’
‘Julia! She left—?’ But that was not surprising. She had said she loved her former mistress. ‘Lourenco ...’ murmured Eleanor. ‘Lourenco too?’
‘He was living with Dora.’ Sanches betrayed not a trace of emotion. On the contrary, he was coldly dispassionate and immediately went on to say it was fate that the three had gone together, as no one but Miguel’s own family was in the secret now. Miguel’s own family. Only then did it all register and Eleanor sank down in a chair, offering a belated invitation to her visitor to do likewise.
And during the next five minutes or so she learned a great deal from Sanches.
‘There’s much to tell,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘And I suggest you leave your questions till the end?’ She nodded dazedly and he continued, ‘I’ll begin at the beginning, only in the way I saw it, and fill in the rest later.’ He went on to say that a couple of months after Eleanor had left he and Carlota went to stay at the Palacio for a few days. He and Miguel had been alone on one occasion when, bringing a slim leather wallet from his pocket, Miguel dropped something. ‘I picked it up,’ said Sanches, ‘and to my amazement saw that it was a snapshot of you. Carlota had taken it, apparently. ’ Eleanor nodded, her heart stirring slightly at the knowledge of Miguel’s carrying her photograph about with him. ‘ Miguel looked a trifle embarrassed but he was very cool by the time he accepted it from me and returned it to his wallet. I naturally mentioned this to Carlota, asking if she had noticed whether you yourself had ever betrayed the fact that you cared for her brother. She said no, and I naturally concluded that Miguel had declared his love, was told it wasn’t reciprocated, and that this was the natural explanation for your hasty departure, which neither Carlota nor I could understand at the time.’
He paused then as if he would give her the chance to comment, but she remained silent, impatient for the rest of the story. ‘The next thing that happened was at Christmas. We were at the Palacio again and one day we walked in on the most dreadful scene imaginable. Julia, one of Miguel’s maids, had been caught stealing money from his room, where, it seems, he keeps fairly large sums, having to pay the staff and find money for other expenses. Miguel was white, Eleanor, and I thought he would kill the girl. Carlota and I would have withdrawn, but we had already heard Julia talking about Dora and we knew she was still alive. We just stood there, dumbfounded, and when eventually I said we would leave Miguel told us to stay; as we had heard so much, we might as well hear the rest. Well, I gathered that Miguel had given Julia her dismissal, before we entered, and that Julia had turned on him and told him she was in touch with his wife, and that if Miguel didn’t watch himself she would come out with all she knew and make a scandal for him. Can you imagine any servant talking like that to Miguel?’
Eleanor shook her head.
‘How very dreadful for him, having to bargain with anyone like Julia! ’
‘The girl confessed to having taken clothes and jewellery from her former mistress’s room and passing them to Lourenco, who flew over to receive them. This had happened several times, apparently, and it would seem that despite the money which both Dora and Lourenco were receiving from Miguel they weren’t managing. I suspect the jewellery was sold. Julia got a small payment for her part. She told Miguel that you knew about his wife’s being alive—’ Sanches stopped, appearing unable to continue for a space. ‘Miguel’s face was dreadful to see, Eleanor. He hadn’t told you himself, you see, and he said afterwards that you must be hating him for his deception.’
‘Hate...? Indeed no.’
‘I should have thought the same, had I deceived the woman I loved, so I can imagine Miguel’s anguish,’ Sanches went on. He then said that Miguel had been forced to pay the girl a large sum of money in return for her silence but told her definitely that she wasn’t staying at the Palacio. She left immediately after Christmas and went to join her mistress and her lover on this small Greek island where they had bought a house.’ Sanches then said, looking oddly at Eleanor, ‘Apparently this Julia jeered at Miguel before we entered and said something about having sent word to her mistress that Carlota’s English companion had fallen in love with him. How did she know that?’
‘She guessed.’ Eleanor blushed, but composedly filled in for Sanches, telling him how she had tackled Julia. ‘It was then, of course, that she came out with the information that Dora was still alive. So I was forced to keep silent about her taking things from Dora’s bedroom.’ She looked at Sanches across the small distance separating them. ‘Did Miguel tell you she had jeered at him?’ she queried in surprise, but Sanches was shaking his head.
‘No, we gathered that she had though because as she left the room she turned at the door and said, a vile twist to her insolent mouth, “I will now be able to tell Dona Dora myself about the little English girl who fell in love with you! She will think it very funny—as I’ve already told you she did, in her letter to me. She said she had a good laugh!” I thought Miguel would strangle the girl, Eleanor, and indeed I’m thankful we were there, for if he had done her an injury he’d have damaged his reputation completely. Yes,’ he added with a slight shiver, ‘I’m thankful we were there.’
‘Did Miguel confide in you fully after that?’
‘He told us everything, and a nasty story it is, Eleanor.’
She learned how Miguel, forced to travel round to his other estates, had wanted to take Dora and Carlota with him but Dora refused, so he left Carlota in her care.
‘Their relationship became strained because Miguel felt that she should have wanted to be with him all the while— perhaps it’s an old-fashioned idea,’ added Sanches with a thin, deprecating smile, ‘but I’d feel like that myself. If Carlota refused I should feel dreadfully hurt.’ Eleanor nodded absently and he continued, ‘Miguel admitted that his love waned, but said that he married Dora for love. This I know is true, for she was comparatively poor, so it wasn’t one of our “convenient” marriages that so often takes place between people of the nobility. ’
Sanches went on to inform Eleanor that one of Dora’s lovers began blackmailing her, threatening not only to go to Miguel, but also to spread it far and wide that they had been lovers, going off to stay at a small hotel in Rio Tinto when Miguel was away from home. This man had really bled Dora, every penny of her inheritance from her father
changing hands within a few months. ‘The man wanted more and she began selling jewellery which was in fact family heirlooms and which Miguel never missed until later, as the jewellery had always been passed on to the wife of the eldest son and Miguel had naturally passed it to Dora on their marriage. At last Dora escaped to Greece, telling Miguel she was going to stay for a while with an old school friend who had bought a villa there. In fact, she was joined by Lourenco, and between them they bought a house. Dora then sent for Miguel and told him everything, just as I have related it to you—’
‘Everything! How awful for him to hear all that!’ Unconsciously she wrung her hands; she seemed not to be an important part of this unfolding drama, but merely an onlooker, remote from the stage.
‘Yes, how awful,’ agreed Sanches grimly. ‘Imagine listening to a confession like that from your wife. She then told Miguel that he was to let it be known that she had died, and been buried, on the island, as she couldn’t go on any longer being blackmailed. ’
‘Miguel wouldn’t agree to that!’
A tense silence followed before Sanches said, between clenched teeth,
‘Miguel had no alternative. She threatened to tell everyone that Carlota was having a baby.’
‘She—’ A deep hush fell on the room, while Eleanor just stared, trying to assimilate the fact that a woman as innocent-looking as Dora could conceive of so invidious a bargain. ‘It—it seems impossible,’ she breathed at last, and her companion nodded grimly in agreement.
‘Dora demanded a large allowance for herself, and an increase in the allowance that Lourenco was already receiving. This Miguel agreed to pay.’
Eleanor frowned.
‘But the man couldn’t have blackmailed her any longer, because she had confessed all to her husband.’
‘He had threatened to spread it far and wide, remember. No, Eleanor, there was nothing else Miguel could do but agree. Dora made it absolutely clear that she was cutting right away from her old life. She told him Lourenco had been her lover before marriage and she wanted him again now. ’
‘No wonder Miguel looked so murderous when I—’ She broke off, but it was too late. Sanches obviously expected her to elaborate and she told him about the space in the portrait gallery and Miguel’s reaction when she mentioned it. She also told Sanches about the scene in the attic. ‘So much is explained now,’ she added, recalling how she had wondered if Miguel had agreed to the deception under pressure. Her vague suspicions had turned out to be correct. ‘It must have been dreadful for Miguel, having to live a lie,’ she added, speaking her thoughts aloud.
‘Indeed, yes,’ fervently. ‘He’s gone through hell, but fate has taken a hand and he’s free.’
‘Free—’ She looked at Sanches and her eyes were very bright. ‘There’s a little bit more,’ she told him, and he smiled and said,
‘He went over to this island a short while before our wedding—he told me he just had to know if Dora would agree to a divorce. He could have divorced her quite easily, of course, but owing to the deception it would have to be done extremely quietly. Dora refused to be a party to any quiet divorce. She knew about you from Julia and wasn’t going to let Miguel have his freedom so that he could remarry.’
‘It’s scarcely believable,’ cried Eleanor. ‘How could anyone be so selfish and wicked! ’
‘When a woman is bad, she is worse than ten bad men put together,’ declared Sanches with conviction. ‘She was a fiend with a superlatively beautiful veneer. ’
‘I see now why Miguel changed his mind about my staying in Portugal.’ He had asked her to stay, she explained when Sanches threw her an interrogating glance. ‘But after he’d been away I saw a change in him; I knew instinctively that he wanted me to leave after the wedding. When I told him I was going he made no demur—’ She broke off, her voice faltering. ‘It was awful, Sanches, b-because I l-loved him so. You see, I didn’t understand anything, but I do now. Thank you,’ she ended simply, and asked the obvious question, which, although it had been hovering on her lips almost from the start, had not been voiced owing to lack of opportunity as the narrative progressed. ‘Dora ... how long has she been dead?’
‘Just a fortnight. Dora wasn’t killed outright, though the others were. She managed to telephone Miguel from hospital, but although he went immediately she was dead when he got there. He had to arrange for all the funerals, and he’s had to go over again—he’s there now—to see to the disposal of Dora’s belongings. The house was in her name, apparently, but he’s employed a lawyer to see to making it over to a young Greek couple who were working for Dora and Lourenco—gardening and seeing to the house generally. Julia, it seems, was acting as lady’s maid.’
‘It’s generous of Miguel to give the house away.’
‘The couple are very poor, and were living in a tin shack at the bottom of the garden. I expect they’re lighting candles every day to St. Nicolas and St. Andreas and the rest,’ he ended, on the lightest note spoken since his arrival.
‘You’ve come over here to tell me all this,’ she said after a long moment of thought that had eventually left her frowning. ‘But Miguel ... is he coming, later?’
‘ I asked him this as soon as he told us Dora was dead. He seemed dreadfully downcast, saying you could never forgive him for treating you so badly—’
‘Treating me badly?’
‘Deceiving you; he said there was no excuse, that he should have taken you into his confidence. Also, he said he’d hurt you abominably by letting you go so easily—’
‘But he had to—when his wife refused the divorce. He knew there was no future for us.’ She shook her head indignantly, just as if Miguel were here to see her reaction to this self-condemnation. ‘He mustn’t blame himself for that.’ Sanches gave a shrug.
‘He said you couldn’t possibly love him now, not after the way he’d treated you. Perhaps he would have changed his mind eventually, but I wanted to be the one to bring you together, so I told Carlota we were coming over here to tell you everything. Then this morning she woke up with the most dreadful cold and her head was aching. I said I’d wait, but she insisted I come on my own. It would be the nicest thing if, when Miguel returned, he found you at the Palacio, she said. So here I am. I catch the midnight plane back to Portugal. Are you coming with me?’
‘He thinks I don’t love him?’ she asked incredulously, forgetting his question. ‘Surely he knows I couldn’t stop loving him, just like that.’
‘You haven’t written much to Carlota, and she mentioned this to Miguel. He seemed to think that you wanted to make a
clean break with the Palacio and the people you’d associated with in it.’
She shook her head, feeling somewhat puzzled by this reluctance of Miguel’s to come to her. Deciding that it must be pride which was holding him back she felt a strange disappointment in him, but she could not allow her chances of happiness to slip away by bringing her own pride into play at this time.
‘When will he be back?’ she asked, and was told he was expected to return on Saturday afternoon. ‘In that case, I’ll see if there’s a plane on Saturday morning. I don’t want to be there when he returns—not to arrive before him, I mean, because it doesn’t seem quite the thing for me to enter the Palacio in his absence.’ She lifted a hand as Sanches would have made a protest. ‘It isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘If there’s a plane I shall arrive at the Palacio about teatime. I shall arrange it like that, staying a while in Lisbon if necessary. ’ She went on to say that the school half-term break was on Monday and Tuesday, so she could get a return flight that would enable her to be in school on Wednesday.
‘ So you won’t come back with me tonight?’
She shook her head.
‘I have to be in school tomorrow, Sanches. But in any case, as I’ve just said, I don’t want to get there before Miguel.’
The gardens of the Palacio were ablaze with all the exotic splendour of late spring; the valleys and vineyards beyond were lush and green, the
hills behind Sintra blue, just as Miguel had described them once to Eleanor. She had paid the taxi-driver a little way along the road, feeling the need to walk the rest of the distance, and to think, preparing herself ... for what? It was now about three weeks since Dora’s death; it was hardly decent to be going to see Miguel, she told herself, footsteps beginning to flag. ‘But they weren’t really married,’
she whispered to herself, ‘not when she was living with someone else.’
She reached the courtyard, looked up at the armorial crest, looked down again at the Fountain of the Mermaids with its decorations of exquisite azulejos; white peacocks strutted about on the immaculately-cut lawn, hibiscus and poinsettias and jacarandas flaunted their colours against a background of evergreens. A brilliant sun shone down on the whole peaceful scene. She rang the bell, heart pounding. Was it fear, or excitement—or a little of both? Supposing Sanches were wrong? Supposing she herself were wrong? Miguel had never declared his love, nor had there ever been anything even approaching a love scene between them—a few intimate interludes, yes, but looking back now Eleanor admitted she could have attached far more importance to those than had the Conde.
The severe Joao came to the door; his eyes flickered, but not with a welcome. The equivalent of an English butler, he had always seemed rather grand to Eleanor and in spite of her confidence she had never been quite at her ease with him.
‘Is Dom Miguel in?’ she asked, and to her bitter disappointment he shook his head. ‘He hasn’t got back yet?’
Joao opened the door wider and she entered.
‘Back from where, senhorita?’
‘From—’ She stopped, wondering how much these servants knew. Perhaps Miguel had not even told anyone he was going to Greece. ‘He was expected to be home this afternoon. ’
The old man nodded slowly.
‘He arrived home and went off again within the hour. He
had to catch a plane to England.’
