For the rest of the day, and all the next morning, I scarcely stirred from my room. I had intended going to see Dona Amalia as usual, but just before ten-thirty, her maid Josepha came with a message that the senhora condessa was feeling very tired. Although I was disappointed, I guessed she wasn’t quite ready yet to swallow her pride and admit how unfairly prejudiced she’d been against my mother all these years. I still felt confident, however, that the barrier keeping us apart was gone now, and there was nothing to prevent my grandmother and me from achieving a real sense of closeness.
At lunchtime, when my tray was brought up by a footman, there was a letter, too. It bore an English postage stamp. I stood for a moment holding it in my hands, looking down at the familiar lavender stationery addressed in Mrs. Carlisle’s flowing script. Oh, to be back once more in Harley Street, back to the calm, orderly life there. The prospect was wonderfully tempting, and nothing could be simpler to arrange. And yet, in my heart I knew that it wasn’t merely concern for my grandmother that held me in Portugal. Although my hopes and dreams about Stafford had been cruelly shattered, I still felt compelled to remain here. I had a strange feeling that the curtain was yet to rise on the final act of the drama at Castanheiros, and I had to know the truth, however terrible it proved to be.
Quickly, I slit open the envelope and withdrew Aunt Mildred’s letter. It was written in her usual chatty style, crammed with small details of domestic news …that she had given a dinner party two evenings ago, although it had been most aggravating because the poulterer had mixed up the order and failed to deliver the Aylesbury ducklings in time … that the promising new chambermaid, Elsie, had departed to take a post nearer her married sister in Wimbledon … how difficult it was to decide between Cambridge blue and eau de nil for the new decor in the drawing room … and what did I think? The doctor, she was delighted to say, had recently been consulted by a prominent member of Mr. Disraeli’s cabinet. On the last page, though, Aunt Mildred told me she had some serious news to impart that she hoped would not cause me too much distress. Oliver, during the past month, had become very engrossed with a certain Miss Catherine Blakeley, the sister of one of his colleagues at the hospital.
I fear it is serious and that an engagement is imminent. Catherine is a thoroughly charming young woman and well-connected, but naturally the doctor and I are saddened at having our long-cherished hopes dashed like this. Alas, young men can be very fickle in their affections. I only hope, my dearest Elinor, that with the diversions of your stay in Portugal you can overcome your disappointment and find it in your heart to wish them well.
I felt a stab of envy for the unknown Catherine Blakeley. Not that I begrudged her winning Oliver for one moment. It was the happiness and fulfillment in store for her I envied. But I determined to write back to Aunt Mildred very fulsomely, and I would drop a line to Oliver, too—a line of warm, sisterly congratulation. I owed him that.
Early in the afternoon I prepared for my visit to Maria’s home. Although I dreaded the prospect, I felt I had to go. I decided that I’d walk into Cintra. I was in no hurry to arrive, and since the accident at Miramar, I didn’t fancy the idea of riding in a carriage.
The knot garden simmered under the blazing sun as I set out, and I was grateful for the shade of the cypress avenue. At the gates, I turned left along the winding lane. Beside me, a tumbled mass of summer jasmine and purple heliotrope cascaded over an old stone wall, and the languid perfume hung like a cloud in the warm, still air.
I hadn’t gone far when I heard the sound of a carriage. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the green and gold phaeton from Castanheiros just rounding a bend beneath the darkly spreading branches of a cedar tree. My uncle held the reins, with Carlota beside him. I prepared myself for an exchange of stiff courtesies as they went past, but, surprisingly, my uncle reined in the horses and drew the phaeton to a halt beside me. He raised his straw hat, and Carlota smiled at me sweetly from under her parasol.
“What are you thinking of, Elinor dear,” she protested, “walking in the heat like this?”
“I’m not going far, Carlota. I hardly thought it worthwhile asking for a carriage.”
“It’s fortunate, then, that we have come along and can offer you a ride.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t trouble you ---”
Already, though, my uncle had jumped down and was extending his hand to help me up the step. So I could hardly refuse. “Where are you going?” Carlota inquired, when I was settled in the seat behind them.
“I’m on my way to the bakery to offer my condolences to Maria and her parents.”
“Maria? Oh yes, the sister of the coachman Pedro. A most regrettable incident. Your uncle and I have been so worried about you, Elinor. I cannot tell you how much.”
So very worried, I thought dryly, that they hadn’t even bothered to come and ask me how I was. This was the first I’d seen of either of them since the accident. Though now, it seemed, Carlota couldn’t be friendlier.
“Do not concern yourself unduly about the girl, my dear,” she advised me. “Everything necessary will have been done, I can assure you.”
“But she is my personal maid, Carlota. Besides, I was in the carriage with Pedro, and it is only right that Maria and her family should hear exactly what happened from my own lips.”
“You won’t, I hope, mention anything about this strange fancy of yours that someone deliberately threw a firework to frighten the horses?”
“No, Carlota, I won’t say anything about that.” But I added quietly to myself. Even though I believe it to be true.
“Well, that’s a relief. Otherwise, we would have all manner of wild rumors spreading around the neighborhood. Just keep your visit short and as formal as possible. One can sometimes be too kind to these sort of people. Is that not true, Affonso?”
He agreed readily. ‘They are very quick to take advantage if you give them the least opportunity.”
“I’m sure Maria’s family is not like that,” I objected. “But in any case, I’m anxious to do whatever I can to help them in their sorrow.”
“Naturally, one wants to do what one can. I applaud your kind heart, my dear.” Carlota turned in her seat and smiled at me. “I hear that you have very sensibly decided to return to England. It is by far the best thing.”
For the moment, I was too amazed to speak. Then I inquired coolly, “Who told you that?”
“Surely, I’m not mistaken, Elinor? We have so enjoyed your visit, but I’m convinced that after the dreadful experience of being thrown from the carriage, you would be wise to return to the familiar surroundings of home. Your uncle and I, all of us, will miss you greatly, but these things have to be accepted.”
“I presume it was Vicencia who told you that I was going home?
“Well, yes, she did happen to mention it.”
I felt a sudden reckless urge to commit myself, to put an end to my vacillation. “Then Vicencia misinformed you, Carlota. I have no intention whatever of leaving Portugal. I shall stay here to be with Grandmama until ... until—”
Carlota swung around again abruptly. “But I am certain she does not expect it of you, Elinor.”
“I believe she does—now,” I said slowly. “I think that my presence will be of some help and comfort to her in her last days.”
Carlota was frowning deeply. ‘That is not the impression I received from Dona Amalia herself. She seemed quite reconciled to your departure, Elinor.”
“When was this?” I demanded. “When did you speak to her?”
“Today, just before luncheon.”
“It’s really intolerable,” I burst out. “Poor Grandmama must be imagining that I’ve turned my back upon her just when we seemed to have reached a new understanding. She will be feeling terribly hurt. The instant I get back, I must go and tell her that it’s all been a mistake.”
“Why bother to do that?” said Carlota, in a voice of sweet reason. “Dona Amalia obviously accepts the fact that you will be going home very soon, so why not just leave quietly while she is resigned to it?”
“But it’s important that she does not feel I’m deserting her,” I said doggedly.
“I think you are behaving in a very foolish way, Elinor. A childish and selfish way. I ask you to think again.”
That was what Vicencia had said. Think again. For once the two women were in accord—both of them wanted to be rid of me.
“I shall not change my mind, Carlota,” I insisted quietly. “I intend to stay at Castanheiros.”
Affonso flicked me a glance over his shoulder. “You should listen to your aunt, Elinor. Her advice is for your own good.”
Fortunately, we had now reached the main square of the town, so I was spared further pressure from my aunt and uncle. Climbing down, I thanked them politely for the ride and turned away.
The bakery, I already knew from my wanderings in Cintra with Vicencia and Julio, was up a flight of steps near the Misericordia, next-door to an apothecary’s. A large black dog lay stretched across the threshold, sleeping in the sun, and I was obliged to step over him as I entered the tiny, tile-lined shop.
Maria was at the counter wrapping a pile of cheesecakes into little packets with squares of white paper. Seeing me enter, her face lit up in a sad, shy smile. “Oh, minha senhora, it is kind of you to come.”
I took both her hands. “I felt I had to come, Maria. I am so very sorry about your brother.”
She led me through to the stuffy parlor where her mother and two aunts sat behind closed shutters, three grieving women in black shawls. I talked to the mother, murmuring polite, complimentary phrases about her son. With tears in her eyes, she insisted on showing me treasured relics of Pedro’s babyhood, his baptismal robe, a carved wooden rattle, a tiny pair of shoes in kid leather. Her husband, a short, swarthy man whose face was scarlet from the heat of the ovens, was called in from the bakehouse. They pressed me to accept some refreshment, producing a bottle of astringent red wine and some sweet almond cakes that had been baked that morning.
When I finally left, Maria said she would walk a little way with me. I was touched by the concern she showed for me, asking repeatedly if I were really and truly quite unharmed. What a dreadful experience it must have been, she kept saying over and over again.
I closed my eyes, trying to blot out the horror of it—the horror and the fear that had followed in its wake as I came to understand the cause of the accident. “How I wish I had never gone to Miramar that day,” I said fervently. “Then your brother would still be alive, Maria.”
“Oh, minha senhora, Pedro was wonderfully good and kind. And so clever. He would not have remained a coachman for much longer.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked, suddenly alert. “Did he say something to you about having other plans?”
“He could have done anything he wanted,” she said with pride, and I noticed her hand straying to her throat, where I guessed the silver pendant hung beneath the black crepe of her mourning. “Pedro told me he would soon have plenty of money, senhora—as much money as he pleased, because of the things he knew.”
My heart quickened. “What did he mean, Maria—because of the things he knew?”
Her smooth olive brow creased into a puzzled frown. “I do not know. Pedro did not explain to me.”
“Somebody must have thought very highly of Pedro to be willing to pay him so much money. I wonder who it was?” She shook her head helplessly. Clearly, she had never thought to question whatever her beloved brother told her.
I endeavored to keep my voice light and casual. “I suppose it must be somebody living at Castanheiros. But who? Did Pedro give you no clue at all?”
“I am sorry, senhora,” she said, distressed that she was unable to tell me what I wanted to know.
In my desperation, feeling so near a final unveiling of the truth, my sense of caution went to the winds. “Think Maria. For heaven’s sake, think. Your brother must have said something to you.” Her gentle brown eyes misted with tears, and I knew I was being unkind to the poor girl. But at the moment, Maria’s feelings had to take second place. “Now go over in your mind all the things Pedro said to you in the past few days, from the time he gave you the pendant. When he told you about having a lot of money, Maria, he surely said something about the reason he was going to be paid it?”
“Oh, senhora, you do not think Pedro was doing a wrong thing?” she cried in alarm.
I had gone too far. I was putting new and disturbing ideas into poor Maria’s mind. “No, no,” I lied quickly. “It is just ... just that I want to find out who the other person was— for reasons of my own. You have nothing to fear, Maria.”
Her face relaxed, and I could see she was trying hard to recall some piece of information that would please me. Suddenly, she stopped walking and gave me a quick, darting look. “Pedro did say one thing. It was the day before ... before he was killed. Senhora, he had drunk some wine, I think, and I did not take too much notice.”
“Never mind that, Maria. Just tell me what Pedro said.”
She screwed up her face, remembering. “He said ... he said that Senhor Darville had been talking to him. Pedro said that as long as he did not tell anyone what he knew, he would become a rich man.”
I gave an involuntary gasp, causing Maria to look at me curiously. Up till this moment, Stafford’s involvement had been merely a dark suspicion in my mind. Now here was proof. My knees seemed suddenly to be giving way. Luckily, just a few feet further on, there was a stone bench under a weeping pepper tree, and I drew Maria toward it. Otherwise, I believe I would have fallen.
“Try to remember every single word your brother said to you, Maria,” I begged her. “It’s very important for me to know. You need not be afraid. No harm will come to you or your parents.”
Maria dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her black dress. “There is nothing else, senhora. When I asked Pedro what he meant, he just laughed and said he would buy me lots of other nice presents if I was a good girl. That is all he would say—I swear that is all. Please, senhora, may I go home now?”
“Yes,” I said absently. “Yes, of course. Go home to your parents, Maria.”
Long after she had left me I remained sitting beneath the pepper tree, sunk in despair. By questioning Maria, I’d hoped that she’d be able to tell me something to clear Stafford of all suspicion. But instead, she had done just the opposite. With every single word she had given further confirmation of what I’d dreaded. Stafford had been responsible for his wife’s death by drowning, and somehow Pedro knew of it—perhaps he had even been Stafford’s agent in carrying out the terrible deed. Pedro, subsequently, had extorted money from Stafford as the price of his silence, until Stafford finally decided to rid himself of the blackmailer. And to rid himself of me, too, because of whatever I might have overheard of their conversation in the pagoda.
And so the accident at Miramar had been planned with care and calculation. Stafford Darville was a ruthless, devious man who would stop at nothing. I closed my eyes, remembering how I had loved him, remembering how I had been swept away in a dream of delight when he held me in his arms and kissed me. Even now, if Stafford were to kiss me again....
I had despised Vicencia. I had been sickened by her story of a sordid, selfish love. Yet such was Stafford Darville’s power over women that perhaps I’d been too quick to condemn Vicencia. She loved him with passionate abandon, heedless of the harm it did to others. But if she knew the sort of man he really was, the extreme lengths to which he would go to remove obstacles that stood in his way....
Vicencia must be told, I decided. She had been my friend—as far as her possessive love for Stafford permitted her to be any woman’s friend. She must be warned about him.
I rose to my feet, but at once I felt overcome with faintness and swayed alarmingly. Near me, two small urchins were playing with pebbles in the dust. I opened my purse and held out a vintem, asking them to go and fetch me a carriage from the square. Their eyes stretched wide at the sight of a whole penny, and they ran off delightedly. Within a few minutes I was seated, in a rather dilapidated coupe, jogging along the tree-shaded lane on my way back to Castanheiros.