CHAPTER 8
September passed, the sun came out to shine on hills that were green from recent rain. The heather on the plain below them was in splendid blossom, and Camilla and Chloe, in their afternoon rambles, were delighted to find enormous pink and white lilies blooming among the wild moss under the cork trees of a nearby valley. But all the sunshine could not warm Camilla, who continued chilly and wretched, shaken by alarming fits of nausea and faintness. It was Chloe, one golden afternoon, when Camilla had been compelled to sit for a time on a mossy bank to recover from a giddy spell, who suggested an alarming explanation of her state.
“Can it be that you are breeding, Camilla?” she asked, with her devastating schoolroom frankness. “How delighted Grandmamma would be.”
Camilla, with a sinking heart, pooh-poohed the idea. She was merely suffering, she said, from nerves and the intolerably greasy Portuguese food. She convinced Chloe easily enough, but convincing herself was another matter. More and more, as September darkened towards October, she began to fear that Chloe was right. If so, what should she do, how break it to Lavenham that she was to bear his child? How bitterly, now, she regretted that she had not told him the whole story of their night together when he first recovered his senses. And yet, in the face of his total oblivion, his almost unbearable return to the old formal relationship, how could she have? Would he, even, have believed her? Wary as she knew him to be of female guile, might he not have thought she was taking advantage of his admitted forgetfulness? No—it would have been impossible to tell him—and yet, now, how she wished that she had. If it had seemed impossible, before, to tell him that he had broken through a lifetime’s suspicions and slept with her, how much more so, now, when she must tell him, as well, that in that one ecstatic, forgotten night, he had got her with child.
How could she hope that he would believe her? Distrustful, always, of women, he must inevitably think this a ruse on her part to conceal her own unfaithfulness. As she grew, morning by morning, increasingly, despairingly certain of her condition, her one, pitiful consolation was that there was no one else, after all, whom Lavenham could possibly suspect of being the father.
But even this forlorn consolation was snatched from her, one mild October morning, by an unexpected visit from Dom Fernando. Chloe, to whom Camilla had allowed increasing liberty since the departure of the French mission, was out gathering arbutus berries on the nearby hillside, and Camilla, welcoming Dom Fernando with apologies for her husband’s absence, found herself, alone with him, unaccountably ill at ease.
As always, they spoke French, and it was in that language that he assured her that he had known Lavenham was still at Mafra, had, in fact, left him there that morning to return to his own house in Lisbon. He had not been able, he told her, to pass so close to her villa without calling to find out how she did. And then, to her appalled surprise, he seized her hand and burst into a speech of passionate love. He could no longer bear, he told her, to stand by and see how Lavenham neglected her, how carelessly he exposed her to danger. Why, at any moment, the French might be over the border, and here she remained, on their very line of march to Lisbon. It was enough to make a man mad, he said, to see so much beauty and goodness so treated. How pale she was, how thin, her appearance distracted him! He had not meant to speak, had meant to love on in silence, but, seeing her thus, how could he help himself? He must tell her how completely he was her slave, how entirely hers to command.
She had contrived, at some point in this long and vehement speech, to withdraw her hand from his, but there was no stopping him. When he was silent at last, looking at her with a mixture of hope and despair, she found herself strangely moved. He asked nothing, seemed to hope nothing. For the first time in her life she found herself the object of disinterested affection—but with what disastrous possibilities. Here, ready made, if he should not believe her story, was a suspect for Lavenham. Every moment that she continued talking with Dom Fernando was fraught with danger, and yet, she could not bring herself to be less than gentle in dismissing him. She did her best to convince him of the injustice of his criticism of Lavenham, assuring him of her devotion to her husband and explaining that it was at her own insistence that she remained at Sintra. He listened to her patiently enough, but refused to be convinced, and continued to beg her to call upon him if she should find herself in any difficulty. “For, say what you will, I will not believe that husband of yours as devoted to his wife as he is to his politics.”
This came uncomfortably near the bone, and it was a profound relief to Camilla when she heard Chloe singing “Lady Fair” in the garden. When she appeared with her basket of arbutus berries, Dom Fernando stayed only long enough for the necessary polite speeches, then took his leave, begging Camilla, once again, to let him know if he could be of the slightest service to her.
“Do you know,” said devastating Chloe after he was gone, “I really believe the old goat is sweet on you, Camilla. And if he did not stink so of garlic and salt fish, he would be a proper enough conquest.” She was quite surprised and hurt when Camilla rounded on her, telling her to mind her manners and try to speak like a lady, if she could not think like one. And Camilla herself was so taken aback by her own vehemence that she ended by bursting into tears, apologising to her sister-in-law and retiring to bed.
Morning brought no comfort. Ill and wretched as usual, she wandered from room to room under the pretence of making arrangements for the sudden move Lavenham had warned them might be imminent, but in reality driven by the restlessness of despair. Until yesterday, she had continued to hope that it might yet be possible to tell her story to Lavenham and be believed. Dom Fernando’s outburst had changed all that. When she remembered how he had haunted the house while Lavenham was away, she could not bring herself to hope that Lavenham would not suspect him. In fact, now that her eyes had been opened, she felt that she had been mad not to have thought of him as a possible suspect sooner. Perhaps it was as well she had not tried to tell Lavenham ... and yet, how she wished she had. Her thoughts went round and round like this, till, finding them and the house alike intolerable, she made her way out on to the terrace and down into the sloping walks of the garden. The day was fine, with a new crispness in the air that helped to revive her spirits, and she drifted up and down the alleys, trying not to think, and noticing instead the mosaic patterns of the fallen leaves, red, black, and yellow, that strewed the walks. They were another reminder that winter was coming, and she found herself passionately hoping that before it began in good earnest the crisis that had been looming over them for so long would break. Anything would be better than this desperate inaction. If only the French would attack, they might at last go home. At the thought, a pang of fierce home-sickness overwhelmed her and with it the glimmering of an idea. It was cowardly, perhaps, but might she not persuade Lavenham that she was not well enough to stay? At home, she might be able to convince his grandmother of the truth of her story. Old Lady Leominster would be a powerful ally, and surely her desire for an heir would help to persuade her. And yet ... it would mean leaving Lavenham, for however eagerly she had defended him against Dom Fernando’s criticisms, she was sure he would put his work first and stay to see it through. And quite right, too, she told herself angrily, particularly as her illness must seem to him nothing but an affliction of the nerves.
Returning at last, reluctantly, to the house, with nothing decided, she found Chloe looking for her. Her first words chimed oddly with Camilla’s thoughts. “I have been looking everywhere for you,” she said reproachfully. “Do you think you are well enough to be wandering off alone? The girl tells me you have eaten no breakfast. I wish you will sit down and take something now. And will you not let me send a messenger for Lavenham? You do not sleep, you do not eat ... Camilla, do you not think we should go home?”
“But how?” Camilla had sat obediently down, enlivened by a faint amusement at this odd reversal of their roles, and had begun to pick idly at a bowl of fruit.
“Someo
ne told me there was an American boat at Lisbon. We could take passage on her. I know you do not wish to leave Lavenham, but truly, Camilla, he is much better, it is about your health that we must be thinking now. Do, pray, send for him at once. The Jane has already unloaded her cargo, I believe. There is no time to be lost. Oh, Camilla, think of London, the blessed English food and clean sheets at night. Or we could go to Brighton; I know you would recover your spirits there: it is the enervating Portuguese air, I am sure, that has made you ill. Please, let us go home, Camilla; I am tired of it here: I do not wish ever to smell garlic again, and as for their sunshine, they are welcome to it: I would give anything for a comfortable London fog.”
Camilla could not help laughing. “Ungrateful girl, I am sure you will sing another song when we do get home and encounter one. But, tell me, how do you know about this American boat—the Jane?”
Chloe was elaborately casual. “Oh, somebody told me— one of the men, whose family is in Lisbon. Was it Pedro? Or Jaime? I vow I do not recall, but it is certain enough, I tell you, and no time to be lost. Only let me send for Lavenham and he will arrange everything.”
Camilla knew Chloe well enough by now to be sure that she was lying. Who, then, had told her about the Jane? Could it be that she was still seeing—or at least corresponding with —M. Boutet? Had he not gone with the French mission after all? With a chill memory that his friend M. Mireille was a self-acknowledged spy in England, she wondered what sinister role her brother filled in Portugal. “Chloe.” She had just begun the essential question when they were interrupted by an excited servant who announced that milord was riding up the hill.
Inwardly noting Chloe’s look of relief, Camilla ran with her to welcome Lavenham, who had just dismounted from his exhausted horse. He, too, looked infinitely weary and Camilla hurried him indoors to comfort and a glass of wine, before she would do more than exchange the most routine greetings. Sitting, he sighed with relief. “Ah, I was ready for this. I have been to Lisbon and back since yesterday,” he explained. “And on a fool’s errand, too, I fear. There is an American ship in the harbour.” Camilla and Chloe exchanged glances as he took another long draft of wine. “The Jane. I hoped to get you passage on her, but my information came too late. She was loaded to the gunwale when I arrived; her captain said he could not take aboard so much as another child. They are paying twelve hundred pounds for one family’s passage to England. I wish I had heard of her sooner. I am afraid I have done wrong, gravely wrong, in letting you stay so long.”
He looked so tired and depressed that Camilla forgot her own anxieties and hurried to comfort him, reminding him that it was she who had insisted on staying. “And, besides,” she went on, “surely there will be other ships? It is true that Chloe and I have been saying, only this morning, that we should be glad to get home. Should we, perhaps, move to Lisbon and await the next one?”
He made an impatient gesture. “But that is the whole point,” he said. “Dom John has signed the edict. Tomorrow all Portuguese ports will be closed to British shipping, and who knows how long it will be before another American boat touches here? No, I have done wrong,” he said again, “and regret it too late. For I fear that now he has yielded this point, the Regent will soon give way to the other French demands. It is only a matter of time until he orders the arrest of British subjects that remain and the confiscation of their property.”
“But surely,” protested Camilla, with sinking heart, “that will not apply to us? You have diplomatic immunity. He cannot touch us.”
“I wish I could believe it. I fear I have let Araujo lull me into a false sense of security. I am increasingly convinced that it is he, not Dom Fernando, who is playing the French game. I only wish I had realised it, and listened to Dom Fernando’s warnings sooner. He has been urging me, this month or more, to send you both home without delay. And now it is too late. I shall never forgive myself—” He stopped in the middle of this gloomy sentence and changed his tone. “But there is one crumb of comfort. Strangford has received information that a British squadron, under Sir Sidney Smith, is on its way to Lisbon. We must hope that they arrive before conditions here become impossible, or before the French invade, which, I am sure they intend to, whatever last-moment concessions Dom John may make. In the meantime, I think you had best move back to Lisbon: this house is too lonely, and too close to what must inevitably be the French line of attack, for it to be a suitable home for you now. Can you be ready to leave this afternoon, for if so I shall be able to give myself the pleasure of escorting you.”
Camilla assured him that they had everything in readiness and could easily make their final preparations in time for an afternoon journey, but could not help asking, “And you? Will you be able to remain with us in Lisbon?”
“Not beyond tonight, but at least the Prince Regent plans to move his court tomorrow to Queluz, to join his mother. So at least I shall be only an hour’s journey from you.”
Comforted by this news, Camilla set about her preparations with a will, and felt better, so occupied, than she had done for some time, so that when, over a light luncheon preparatory to departure, Chloe raised the question of her health with Lavenham she was easily able to scout their anxieties. It had been, she assured them, nothing but an affliction of the nerves: the move back to Lisbon would doubtless be a cure in itself. And indeed the drive back, in mellow afternoon sunshine, was a pleasant one. The heath below their house was still brilliant with a profusion of wild flowers and when they reached the Valley of Alcantara, which had been so parched and dry when they last traversed it, they found it resplendent with an almost springtime green. The orange and lemon trees under the pillars of the gigantic aqueduct that crossed the valley were vividly green again and brilliant with ripening fruit. When, at Chloe’s insistence, they stopped the carriage for a few moments so that she could pick some of the flowers that enamelled the close and fragrant turf, they could hear larks singing, far above them. Camilla, who had found the carriage’s jolting over the rough roads far from pleasant, was delighted at the excuse Chloe had given her to sit for a while in the benevolent sunshine with Lavenham beside her. He seized this opportunity, when Chloe had wandered away a little in search of some particularly luxurious myrtle blossoms, to question Camilla more closely about her indisposition, and did it so kindly that she was on the point of risking all and telling him the truth when Chloe came running back with her armful of blossom, and the opportunity was gone.
Still, it was a happy day, with Lavenham kinder than he had been for some time, teasing Chloe and taking care of Camilla so that she began to feel that, if this had been achieved by her lie to him on his last visit, it was almost worth it. She was relieved, too, to find that he no longer seemed to suspect Dom Fernando of spying on him and began to hope that before he left she might have the chance, and the courage, to tell him her secret. But the chance never came. They found the servants they had left to look after the Lisbon house in a state of panic, the house itself in rack and ruin with a family of toads six inches across in the cellar. Lavenham was busy all evening putting some heart into the servants, who had been convinced they would never see master or mistress again, while Camilla and Chloe had their work cut out for them in making the house habitable once more.
And first thing next morning Lavenham rode off to visit Dom Fernando, explaining to Camilla that, since he had no reliable English manservant to leave as their protector, he intended to entrust their safety to Dom Fernando. “He will be, I am sure, a reliable protector, for really, Camilla, I believe him to be more than a little in love with you,” he finished teasingly. And Camilla, laughing and blushing, longed to seize the chance to tell him of Dom Fernando’s amazing declaration. But Chloe was there, and Lavenham’s horse awaiting him: once more she let the opportunity slip.
Lavenham returned to assure them that Dom Fernando promised to watch over them like a brother, and that he himself would come at once if any new crisis arose, and then took his leave urging Chloe to look a
fter Camilla, and Camilla to take care of herself. “I hope to see your health quite re-established when I next visit you.”
Camilla, who was now thoroughly convinced that it would be nine months before her health was re-established, found cold comfort in this speech, with its suggestion that her husband was only on visiting terms with her. Left alone once more, she resumed the old round of “if onlys.” If only she had told Lavenham in the first place ... If only she had seized that chance in the Valley of Alcantara ... If only ... If only ...
A visit from Dom Fernando was almost a relief, because a distraction, and she was grateful for his assurances that she and Chloe should come to no harm that it lay in his power to prevent. To her relief, too, he made no reference to the scene he had made her two days before, behaving once more merely like her husband’s friend. As such, she found him easy and entertaining company and was surprised when he rose to take his leave and commented on Chloe’s prolonged absence. Apologising for her, and bidding Dom Fernando a grateful farewell, Camilla found herself a prey to renewed apprehension. Surely it was impossible that M. Boutet was still in the country? Or, if he was, secretly, he would never risk visiting Chloe here? And yet—Chloe had been out in the garden for over an hour. She wandered out on to the terrace and stood there irresolutely unable to decide whether to go and look for Chloe. After all, she told herself, Chloe had never made any secret of the boredom Dom Fernando’s visits caused her. She might well have seen him arrive and contrived to avoid him. So hesitating, Camilla accused herself of cowardice. Her real reason, she knew well enough, was that she could not face the possibility of another scene with her brother, for whom, on the strength of one brief meeting, she felt an aversion so strong as to amount almost to terror. Even thinking of him brought on one of her faint spells; she was compelled to hurry indoors and lie down on an uncomfortable chaise longue in the salon. And it was thus that Chloe found her when she came running up the steps from the garden, her cheeks flushed, her arms full of late gleanings from the rose-bushes.
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