The Malady in Maderia

by Ann Bridge

  “We’ll come again tomorrow” Nannie Mack told Philip and Susan, as she strapped the little boy into his push-chair—Julia wondered whether she would have said so if she had known why Marta had suddenly pronounced that it was time to go home. Back at the house she told her hostess what had happened.

  “Oh, the tiresome old creature! He’s come down again, has he?” Mrs. Shergold said calmly. “He’s after the berries, of course.”

  “He wasn’t eating berries, he was eating ants” Julia remarked.

  “Yes, I daresay. You were rather lucky to see him, Julia—isn’t he a splendid animal?”

  Julia agreed. “But do they never go for people?” she enquired.

  “Oh yes—he might easily make a dash at one of the children, if they teased him. I’ll get Gerald to send some of the men from the golf-links up to scare him off.”

  “How will they do that? He didn’t seem a bit afraid of me.”

  “Oh, beat tin cans, or set fire to a patch of grass and chase him with burning twigs. Anyhow Luzia has got nearly enough jam made. But we’ll see to it.”

  “Pauline, how did wild boars get here, if Madeira rose up out of the sea? They can hardly have been carried from the mainland on that current, like the plants and things.”

  “No, they weren’t” Mrs. Shergold said laughing. “Pigs were brought by the early colonists, and then some escaped and ran wild. But over the centuries they have reverted completely to the wild-boar type; they are quite wild, now. I’m glad you saw him —there aren’t so many of them about, and they don’t often come down as near to civilisation as this; but they do love bilberries! By the way” she went on, “Terence and Penelope Armitage are coming up tomorrow for the weekend, and bringing Aglaia.”

  “Are they? Oh, good. I should like to meet them.”

  “Have you never? Oh, they’re rather fun. Penel is frightfully tough—equal to everything! It sometimes surprises me rather that she and Aglaia get on so well, for nobody could call her tough.”

  “I’ve seen so little of her that I don’t really feel I know her very well” Julia said. “But she’s so gentle and sweet, I should think it would be difficult not to get on with her.”

  “M-m—yes, perhaps. All the same I think it’s hard for very efficient people not to get impatient with ineffectual ones, sometimes. However! I shall be interested to see what you make of Penel; she isn’t naturally a patient person at all. Anyhow, I thought we’d all go over to Santa Ana on Saturday, and walk a bit; over on the north slope there is still some of the native forest left—it’s the wet side. Now you are here, I want you to see as much as possible.”

  The Armitage party arrived on Friday evening, and Julia studied these relations of Aglaia’s with interest. Terence was an enormous man, very tall and very broad, in fact with practically a prize-fighter’s physique; he spoke very slowly in an unusually soft, gentle voice, and gave a general impression of absent-mindedness, almost of bookishness, partly due no doubt to the fact that he was shortsighted, and wore large, dark-rimmed glasses. But all this was in startling contrast to his build. His wife was dark, tall, lean and muscular; she spoke crisply, and all her movements were rapid and energetic. Beside her Colin’s tiny wife looked almost like a doll, with her minute hands and feet, and masses of palish golden hair; the only big thing about her was her eyes, which were dark, dark brown, and immense—the casually caressing manner which Penelope Armitage employed towards her was rather like the way in which an affectionate but careless child might treat a favourite doll, Julia felt. She was at once touched and distressed by Aglaia’s manner to herself; it was self-effacing, no, actually timid—she guessed at the reason, and went out of her way to be nice to the little thing, and engage her in conversation. To Mrs. Hathaway, Julia noticed, Aglaia turned with a happy assurance, an eager warmth—well, that was no wonder; the old lady’s bonté was so marked and strong as to reassure anyone.

  Next day they all, except Mrs. Hathaway, drove over to Santa Ana in the Shergolds’ Landrover and the Armitages’ car. From the col where the road crossed the backbone of the island Julia saw, for the first time, the northern slope—a remarkable sight. The ribeiras, the valleys carved out by the rivers, were so steep-sided, and so densely covered with vegetation that the ridges between them looked, as Pauline Shergold said, like wedges cut out of a green cake. Down near the sea they got out and walked, seeing this rich growth from close to—the glossy leaves of myrtle and wild laurel glittered on the steeply hanging slopes, interspersed with heaths and ferns; here and there the tree-heath, Erica arborea, rose to a height of thirty feet or more, on trunks as thick as a man’s thigh. “There!” Pauline Shergold said to Julia, patting one of these massive boles; “that’s what I specially wanted you to see. Some heather, isn’t it?”

  After walking for some time through this damp, fragrant undergrowth they made their way back to the cars, and drove eastwards to a point beyond another village, where they again got out and climbed up an open valley beside a stream bordered with silver-blue canas, the tall reeds so much used in Portugal for fencing; here there was some cultivation, and Julia commented on the beauty of the contrast between the reddish soil and rocks, and the silver-blue patches of field-cabbage—“and the reeds too; just the same colour, but such a completely different foliage. It’s enchanting.” At the head of the valley they came out onto the sea-face; to their left the cliffs fell away below them almost vertically. “There’s quite a fair path along this stretch” Gerald Shergold said, “and then we can cut down by another valley which will bring us back to the cars. It’s only about three miles. That all right for you, Julia?”

  “Perfect” Julia responded cheerfully. But after about half a mile she began to wonder if it was so perfect. The path, barely two feet wide, now skirted the very edge of the cliff; a small water-channel rather less than a foot broad ran along between the path and the slope above. Presently they met a peasant carrying a bundle of sugar-canes six feet long on his shoulder; to let him pass Gerald stepped into the water and stood there—Julia did likewise. “Where’s he taking that?” she asked.

  “Down to the road—every so often a lorry comes up and takes the canes down to Funchal to the sugar-factory. You must see that sometime.” A little later they encountered another peasant with an even more eccentric load: he appeared to be carrying a dead pig, or goat—it had no head—slung from his shoulder on a stick.

  “What on earth has he got there?” Julia enquired.

  “Wine. That’s going down to Funchal too, to make Madeira” Gerald replied, stepping into the channel again. “Goatskins are much the most practical way of transporting wine on these paths.”

  “Oh well, I never did care much for Madeira as a drink,” Julia said, causing her host to laugh—in fact, as the man passed them a strong smell of goat was perceptible.

  A little farther on Gerald’s “fair path” became even narrower, and splashes from the water-channel beside it made the surface muddy and slippery in places; the cliff fell away to the sea below them with dizzying abruptness. “Don’t go so fast, Gerald—I can’t skip along this like you do” Julia said.

  “Have my stick—we ought to have given you one” he said, turning back to her. “Hullo, what goes on?”

  Julia too looked back. The rest of the party had come to a standstill a little way behind them; they heard Penelope say brusquely “Oh nonsense, Aglaia; it’s perfectly safe.”

  “I don’t like it” Aglaia said faintly. “How much more of it is there?”

  “Only about a mile—come on. Hold onto my stick, if you like.”

  “I—I don’t think I can do it; it makes me feel sick” Aglaia faltered.

  “Everyone does it” Penelope said, still brusquely. She was immediately in front of Aglaia; they were all strung out like beads on a cord, Pauline behind Aglaia, and Terence Armitage bringing up the rear. He now stepped into the channel. “Watch out, Pauline,” he said in his slow, gentle voice; “I’m going to pass you.” He held her arm a
s he did so; his great bulk so filled the space between the slope above the tiny path that this was a wise precaution. “I’ll take Aglaia down, Penelope” he said, still gently, still slowly; “there’s no earthly reason why she should walk here if she doesn’t like it.” Rather to Julia’s surprise, his wife subsided. “Now, stand by me in the water, Ag dear” he went on, “and let Pauline pass. That’s right—on you all go. We’ll meet you at the bottom.” When Pauline had passed him he took off his jacket and spread it against the slope above, which was also mossy and muddy. “We’ll sit here and have a cigarette,” he said pleasantly to his little cousin, “and then take our time going down.”

  The rest went on, Julia half regretting that she had not had the enterprise to say that she would rather turn back too; the whole proceeding seemed to her both unpleasant and risky, though none of the others seemed to mind it in the least. She was greatly relieved when, at the head of the next valley, the horrid little path left the cliff and turned inland. But how nice Terence Armitage was, she thought; he had done it beautifully.

  They didn’t at once go down; Gerald led them across to the valley’s farther side, where three bare-legged men were treading grapes in a small, roughly constructed, wooden lagare in the open air; several of the goatskins, empty and deflated, lay on the ground beside it. “There, that’s the first stage of your un-favourite drink” he told Julia.

  “Doesn’t she like Madeira?” Mrs. Armitage asked in surprise.

  “Not all that much” Julia admitted.

  “Oh, but that’s practically treason here!” Pauline said gaily. “For goodness sake keep quiet about it when you meet the Funchal people, or they’ll have you deported! It’s our bread and butter.”

  “It’s our bread” her husband corrected her.

  “What puts the butter on it?” Julia asked, as they turned and began to walk down the valley, which was again ornamented with the straight silver-blue spears of canas along the bottom, and patches of the rounded shapes of field-cabbage on both sides.

  “Sugar—and now tourism,” he said.

  “And the sprinkling of brown sugar over the butter is wicker-work and embroidery” Pauline added. “I’ll take you to get some when we go down into Funchal.”

  “You’ll ruin yourself!” Gerald warned her.

  That evening Julia made a point of seeing all she could of Aglaia, sensing, rightly, that she might be feeling that she had made rather a fool of herself on their expedition. At one point, when they were alone, she said abruptly—“I hated that path along the cliff. I wished afterwards that I’d had the courage to say I wouldn’t go on, as you did.”

  Aglaia turned her little face up to her, glowing.

  “Courage? I felt an awful coward. But don’t you think it was rather dangerous, p’raps?”

  “Yes—I think we ought to have been roped” Julia said laughing.

  “Was there much more of it?”

  “I suppose a good mile—it seemed like ten to me. No, you did quite right, Aglaia. I suppose people here get so accustomed to these giddy little paths that they don’t realise how frightening they are.”

  Aglaia was obviously encouraged by this; she talked much more freely to Julia than before, and the following day she actually suggested that they should take a turn in the garden together. They strolled across the lawn, and walked along beside the hedge of sweet peas. Suddenly—“There’s something I want to ask you” Aglaia said.

  “Ask away.”

  “When you were in London, I expect you saw the people in the Office” Aglaia said.

  “Yes, of course” Julia responded, surprised that Aglaia should mention that miserable interview when she had been told about her husband’s death.

  “And did you get the impression that they were blaming Colin for—for any of it?”

  “No” Julia said slowly. “No, Aglaia, no one said an thing about Colin at all, except of course that he had had to take over, and had brought Philip’s body back to India. Why?”

  “Well, they are blaming him,” the girl said. “I’m not quite sure what for, because of course he can’t say much, and he doesn’t like talking about it.” She turned aside, and began to pull at a spray of bloom in the hedge; her tiny hands were trembling. Julia was slightly shocked that Aglaia, in the first open reference to her own appalling loss, should be concentrating so entirely on Colin; but she realised that the girl was seriously troubled, and tried to overcome her feelings.

  “How do you know that they are blaming Colin?” she asked. “I mean, are you sure about this?”

  “Oh, it was Hartley’s manner, when we met him, and then little things that people have let drop—and now his being sent back to this dim job in Spain! Yes, I know they feel that he failed in some way.” She turned back to Julia, her cheeks scarlet, and burst out—“After all, it wasn’t Colin’s fault that Philip left his respirator behind.”

  “His respirator?” Julia was completely puzzled, as well as more shocked than ever by Aglaia’s reckless words. “What do you mean? Philip was shot” she said, rather repressively.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I oughtn’t to have said that—please forgive me” Aglaia said, her brown eyes beginning to fill with tears. “Only I am so worried about Colin.”

  “Well, now you must tell me everything you know” Julia said slowly. “Why were they wearing respirators, to begin with?”

  “It was something to do with what they went to find out about —that’s all I know. They were supposed to wear them all the time; it was dangerous not to. And Colonel Jamieson did go out without his that last morning, and I know Colin thought that was why he got shot.”

  Julia was utterly mystified by this, and greatly distressed. She questioned Aglaia closely, but could get no more out of her: they had to wear respirators all the time, Philip Jamieson had gone out without his, and so he had been shot; in the end she was convinced that that really was all Aglaia herself knew. But alone, she puzzled over it endlessly. What did one wear respirators against? Well, in the first War, gas, of course—but why should one expect gas in Central Asia? And if gas, improbably, had killed Philip, why was he shot as well? It didn’t add up—it didn’t make sense, she told herself wretchedly. And why had Major Hartley said nothing about the respirator to her? Alas, the answer to that did make plenty of sense; obviously the use of respirators was connected with “what they went to find out about,” to use Aglaia’s words—in fact it must be the key to that particular mystery, and she could only conclude that this was something considered too important and too secret for even her to be told.

  Julia felt rather rebellious about this. She was Philip’s wife—surely she had the right to be told all the facts about his death? After all, she had worked with and for Intelligence for years; it was not as if she were an irresponsible outsider. She thought of writing to Colin, guardedly, to ask him for the facts, but decided against it; it would only worry him—and the more so if he anyhow felt himself to be under a cloud. And was Aglaia right about that? Here she thought of writing to Major Hartley, if only to get some reassurance; but again she decided against it. Any hint of indiscretion on Aglaia’s part would do Colin still more harm. That was the worst of Intelligence work: all your nearest and dearest somehow got drawn into the net, got involved, if only by implication, through your connection with them. She remembered how this aspect of his profession had worried Philip, for fear of its effect on their married life. Oh well, he and she had got by all right; their life had been perfect. Only now it was over—so soon, so soon! But learning about the manner of his death wouldn’t bring him back, and any attempt to find out could only harm the living—Colin and poor Aglaia, who must be worried almost out of her wits to have spoken as she did. No, there was nothing to be done—except help those two in any way that she could.

  4

  “That Was Penelope” Mrs. Shergold said, coming out onto the verandah, which she had left to answer the telephone, a day or so later. “She wants us to go down this next weekend, and go u
p into the Paul da Serra on Saturday or Sunday. Mrs. H., will you come too? She’d love it if you would, but it’s rather a long drive.”

  “How kind of her! How long a drive is it?”

  “Well, it’s between two and three hours on from Funchal, rather depending on how many hold-ups you get! The road is frightfully twisty, and so narrow, often, that if you do overtake a flock of goats in charge of a small child, you may have to follow it for half an hour.”

  “Do you know, Pauline, if it isn’t inconvenient I really think I’d rather stay here” the old lady said. “You have made me so comfortable that I’m disinclined to stir! Will Mrs. Armitage mind?”

  “I’m sure she won’t; she just wanted you to come if you cared to. It’s apt to be rather a hot drive, too. You’ll be all right with Madame Bonnecourt, and you can ask Marta for anything you want. Don’t let the children pester you.”

  Julia and Mrs. Shergold drove down together on the Friday morning—Terence Armitage was going to bring Gerald with him in the evening. Beyond Funchal the country was all new to Julia, and much of the road seemed rather alarming—steep cliffs above, a vertical drop below; an endless succession of hairpin bends as the road contoured round the lombos or ridges and the ribeiras, more ravines than valleys, which cut up the coast here, where the mountains press down on the shore; more over,the road was very narrow much of the time, and to pass even a large car meant driving nearer the lip of the cliff than she found at all pleasant. Pauline Shergold tackled it with the same insouciance which she had shown on that horrible little path the previous Sunday, driving at a speed which seemed slightly reckless to her guest, constantly pulling up short, with a scream of brakes, when rounding a corner they encountered some obstacle. Mrs. H. was well out of this, Julia thought to herself.

  At one point Pauline slowed down on a fairly open stretch, saying—“There’s something I want you to see.” She indicated a very peculiar tree with thick succulent-looking leaves and stems, standing a little above the road.