Francie Again

by Emily Hahn

  Even if Catarina hadn’t actually been a good painter, Francie thought, it was disgraceful that she should have to struggle so fantastically to do something innocent like attending an art class. And it was all the worse, since she was a good painter. Unfortunately, as Maria once said (rather oddly, Francie thought), she was very good.

  “It would have been more convenient if that talent had been given to somebody whose life was not full of other interests,” said Maria. “A woman like Catarina—” She left the observation unfinished, and Francie did not insist that she go on. It seemed wiser not to talk about Catarina very much with the da Souzas; on that subject they were always irritating, both of them. They lacked the slightest sympathy, thought Francie, for their downtrodden kinswoman. Perhaps it was only to be expected that they would take the national point of view, but it was disturbing, and disappointing as well.

  Francie put on her smock, sniffing the air, as usual, with appreciation for the workmanlike smell of paint and wet clay. She carried her easel over near the dais and set it up.

  “Oh, it’s you, Francesca,” said Catarina. “I am so happy to be back, you cannot think.” She gestured as if words failed to express her happiness. “It is as if I had been years in a desert,” she said.

  Catarina never asked questions about the affairs of others. She didn’t ask after Fontoura now, though he would have been the first thought of any other student after an absence like hers. This was typical of Catarina. All her talk, and she talked rather a lot, was about her own life and emotions. But somehow Francie did not find this trait as irritating in Catarina as it would have been in someone else. Catarina was so beautiful and tragic that when you talked to her it seemed quite natural and right that she should be the only thing that mattered.

  “Really I have suffered,” she now continued, pinning a sheet of thick paper on her stand with deft fingers. “Only my work, my work, would be worth all this suffering.”

  She looked pathetic and fragile. “Poor Catarina,” said Francie. “It must have been very bad this time.” She would have liked to ask questions, but she and Catarina would not be alone much longer. In the little anteroom that served as Fontoura’s private office, she heard Monteiro moving about selecting supplies for the day.

  Catarina said her trials had been inexpressible. “My mother-in-law,” she added. “She was so cruel, Francesca. You would not believe her cruelty. For three days I have been in bed with a crisis of nerves, and even now, look at my hand, how it trembles. That is the worst. I am not able to work properly when my nerves are so tortured.”

  “Oh dear, Catarina, I’m so sorry. I am, really. I do wish I could help you,” said Francie. “Anyway, you’re here among your friends now.”

  Catarina sighed and began to draw. The door opened to admit three more students, and she only had time to say rapidly before they came over, “Francesca, never marry a Portuguese.”

  It sounded sinister. Considering her recent thoughts about Ruy, it gave Francie quite a shock. Had Catarina meant anything in particular? Francie stole a look at the other girl’s grave profile, and decided she had not. She couldn’t possibly look so innocent if she had been hinting.

  There was a dinner party scheduled that evening for Mrs. Barclay and Francie, at one of the Lisbon hotels. Their host was an elderly British wine importer who had spent most of his life in Oporto. Mark was invited as a matter of course, because his father was Mr. Sinclair’s friend. As for Mrs. Barclay, she had brought a letter to the Englishman from someone in Paris. The two ladies hired a taxi, because Aunt Lolly did not yet feel well enough to brave the train.

  Francie was unusually silent during the ride, and Mrs. Barclay looked at her inquiringly. She said, “Tired, dear? I’m afraid this going back and forth twice in a day is tedious for you.”

  “Oh, I’m not tired. Not in the ordinary way,” said Francie, “but it does seem an awful waste of time, this social life.” Aunt Lolly looked amused, and Francie went on defensively, “I suppose it sounds funny coming from me, but it’s the way I feel. One party after another—what does it prove?”

  “One art class after another doesn’t prove much more, if it comes to that,” said Aunt Lolly. “Too much of any one thing isn’t good.”

  “You can’t compare them,” said Francie.

  “Perhaps not, but it’s a mistake, I think, to go in for any one activity exclusively,” said Mrs. Barclay. “Of course I wouldn’t like to see you satisfied with a completely idle life, but I wonder if you aren’t inclined to be over-enthusiastic just now about this painting.”

  There seemed to be no reply necessary, which was fortunate. Francie couldn’t trust herself to speak mildly. “This painting” indeed! She wondered what the reaction would be with the crowd at Fontoura’s if she should repeat Aunt Lolly’s speech to them. Sheer amazement, most likely. They wouldn’t understand Mrs. Barclay at all.

  Everyone seemed determined to rub her the wrong way that night. Mr. Sinclair hit on another unfortunate phrase when he was talking about Portuguese life. He had asked Aunt Lolly if she’d met any of the local families.

  “A few,” she said, “those who are friendly with our American and English acquaintances, and they’ve been very kind. I must say I like the Portuguese way of life. I like their devotion to their families.”

  Mr. Sinclair was pleased. “That’s very true. Yes, it’s charming,” he said.

  “Devotion?” cried Francie in emphatic tones. “I think they’re perfectly disgusting.”

  Everyone turned to look at her in surprise. “That sounds very convinced in such a young lady,” said Mr. Sinclair mildly. “In what way are they so disgusting?”

  “Oh, it’s all hypocrisy,” said Francie, thinking of Catarina. “The men pretend they’re nice quiet types when really they’re the most terrible tyrants. They’re awfully mean to their wives.”

  “I say,” said Mark, protesting. “That’s a pretty sweeping statement. Anybody would think you speak from personal experience.”

  Mr. Sinclair laughed as if Mark had made a joke, and began talking to Mrs. Barclay about some less controversial subject. Mark regarded Francie with a puzzled, displeased stare.

  “If you don’t mind a word of advice,” he said, “I’d go easy on the criticism if I were you. They’re inclined to be sensitive in this country. Of course, I don’t know just what called forth your outburst, but that’s my advice for what it’s worth.”

  “I’m entitled to my opinions,” said Francie.

  “Never said you weren’t. Shall we dance?”

  They danced. Mark seemed to have forgotten Francie’s bad manners, but she was uneasily aware of a certain coldness that remained in his treatment of her. Francie didn’t like undercurrents. She said impulsively, “Mark, I was wrong. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I don’t know why I’m so crabby. I guess it’s something I heard today at Fontoura’s. I’m sorry.”

  He thawed immediately. “That’s quite all right, poppet. I was sorry for poor old Sinclair, that’s all. You gave him a turn, I think, speaking up like that. In his world, little school chits know their place.” Francie laughed. “And speaking of Fontoura’s,” went on Mark, “am I ever to see something of this wonderful place, or is the door closed to outsiders? I’ve only had my nose in the door, remember.”

  “Well,” said Francie dubiously, “I don’t know. I don’t suppose there’s any reason you shouldn’t come. They’d let you in, of course …”

  “But you don’t urge me, is that it?”

  She hesitated again. “I’m not good enough yet,” she said at last. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t come for a while. Hardly anybody does drop in except other students, and people in Fontoura’s crowd. People who understand.”

  “I see,” said Mark.

  “When I think I’m getting along better,” said Francie, “I would like you to come, honestly.”

  “Don’t give it another thought,” said Mark coolly.

  “Oh dear,” she said to h
erself, “now I’ve offended him again.”

  Uncomfortably she braced herself for a few words of rebuke from Aunt Lolly as soon as they were alone together in the car. Mrs. Barclay could hardly be expected to overlook her speaking out of turn as she had done at dinner. But to her relief, nothing was said until they separated for the night.

  “Good night, my dear,” said Aunt Lolly. “I wish you could sleep late tomorrow; I’m sure you need a rest. You did seem tired tonight.”

  “I’ll be getting a rest soon enough. I forgot to tell you,” said Francie, “that Fontoura’s going away to an exhibition in Madrid, and while he’s gone the studio closes down for a week or two. I’ll have a rest whether I like it or not.”

  “Splendid!” said Mrs. Barclay. Nothing more was said about the dinner party.

  CHAPTER 8

  I suppose it was a sensible thing to come away on our own.” Mrs. Barclay sounded as if she didn’t believe what she was saying; she glanced suspiciously around the unfamiliar dining room. “Obviously we are early for lunch. Now if we’d come on a properly conducted tour—” She broke off and looked reproachfully at Francie. They had come rather suddenly on this trip, by ordinary bus, and she hated impromptu decisions.

  Francie laughed at her. “Be a big girl, Aunt Lolly, and try to enjoy your adventure. You wouldn’t be so timid in France.”

  “People speak a reasonable language in France. You know where you are with them.”

  “I know where we are now,” said Francie. “We’re in Evora, enjoying every minute of it.”

  She went on talking until the soup came, gently teasing her godmother as gaily as she could manage, but her heart was not in it. Her thoughts kept straying back to the letter she was carrying in her handbag, right there on her lap under the table. It had come yesterday, and she had not yet spoken of it to Aunt Lolly, though usually she reported on every letter of Pop’s. She had a feeling he didn’t want her to mention it, even to Mrs. Barclay.

  It wasn’t at all the kind of letter she would have expected from Pop, because it was vague and he was always very downright. “Keep this under your hat,” he wrote, “until I have a better idea of where we stand, but I just wanted to tell you we ought to cut down a little on expenses. I can’t say any more as yet, but don’t go in for anything that costs very much, not at the moment anyway. Wait till I give you the go-ahead signal, but don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry! How could she help worrying? Never in her whole life had Pop told her to be careful about money. There must be something very wrong if he was saying it now. Francie thought with a qualm of conscience about a number of her recent extravagances. That shopping trip last week, for example—and the fees for Fontoura! She had insisted on paying them all in advance, though it hadn’t been necessary.

  “I wish I could be sure it’s all right to tell Aunt Lolly,” she reflected, “but Pop didn’t say definitely that I might. I’ll have to wait.”

  Mrs. Barclay was looking with alarm at the glass of wine that stood by her plate. “I’m sure we haven’t ordered this,” she said.

  Francie said, “It comes automatically with the meal, I think.”

  Resolutely she put Pop out of her mind for the moment. After all, what was the use of worrying until she knew more about it? She sat back and looked at the surroundings. The thick walls of the Alentajano were faced with white plaster, on which hung gay, hand-woven blankets and a few medieval weapons. A barred window looked out on a courtyard and a whitewashed house gleaming in the sun, against the high, dark tower of the church across the square.

  Francie said, “It’s like being in a fairy story. I love the way their castles stick up on mountain tops, with roads circling round and round, going up. It’s like the picture books I used to read when I was little.”

  “All Europe must have looked like this at one time,” said Aunt Lolly.

  After lunch they lost themselves trying to find their room. The hotel was an immense building, full of puzzling corridors and passages that took sudden twists, or went up or down by means of unexpected steps. It was a very old palace, and had been used as a combined prison and court of justice during the Inquisition. Thinking of this, Francie felt that the lower rooms would always be cold, no matter how brilliant and warm the sun might be out of doors.

  “It’s probably imagination, but it does feel much colder the minute you come in,” she reflected. “Yet it was terribly hot in the bus. All those funny little cork trees on the way looked hot, too.” She resolved to make a sketch of the cork trees now, before the effect was dulled in her mind. In the room, she began unstrapping her sketch-block.

  “What are you going to do?” demanded Mrs. Barclay. “You’re not going to paint here and now, are you?”

  “I thought I might.”

  “But my dear Francie, we’ll waste the whole afternoon if you do that sort of thing. Don’t you want to come out and look at Evora? The book says it’s the most interesting town for architecture in the entire country. Or at least, one of the most interesting.”

  “I might as well be on a conducted tour,” said Francie in resignation. “Oh, all right. What a bully you are, Aunt Lolly!” She put down her sketch-block and with feigned resentment meekly trotted out of doors in Mrs. Barclay’s wake.

  They were soon lost, on the wrong side of the square. Evora is closely built, and carefully planned to save space on its steep slopes, so that it is almost impossible to see plainly where you are going unless you stand very high up in one of the towers. Resignedly the Americans retraced their steps and started off again in the opposite direction. This meant following a curving street like a cool white canyon between high houses, which went under an arch and suddenly brought them into a market square with a fountain, farther away than ever from their destination.

  “Never mind, Aunt Lolly,” said Francie. “We’ll find your Temple of Diana if it’s the last thing we do.”

  “But one feels such an idiot. Why, it was right there. I could almost have touched it through the window!”

  Francie said, “I should have brought my sketch-block. I’d like to do this square. Don’t let me go out without it again—that is, if we ever get back.”

  Fortunately they now happened on a shop that sold postcards and books and maps of the city, and there they got their bearings and started to work their way carefully back towards the Alentejano. “‘The Temple of Diana, so-called,’” read Aunt Lolly aloud as they climbed a steep cobbled road, “‘stands next to the Cathedral.’ There, I knew it. Francie, where are you going? That isn’t the way back.”

  “No, but let’s save the Temple and follow one of these bigger streets to the edge of town, shall we? We can’t possibly lose our way now.”

  For an hour they walked outside the little city, near the great thick walls. Two men driving small donkeys loaded with firewood and vegetables passed them and said something in greeting; a little boy accompanied them quite a long way, chattering incomprehensibly; they met a family of girls and old women in black, who smiled at them. Everything was intensely quiet otherwise. The ground looked nearly as barren as the deserts of Arizona. For the first time since they had arrived in Portugal, Francie felt as if she were really far away from home, alone in a strange land. It was a good sensation.

  When they turned their steps towards the Alentejano again, Aunt Lolly insisted upon stopping here and there to look at cathedrals. “We didn’t come only to relax, remember,” she admonished Francie. “We can always go for walks and picnics, anywhere in the world. This is a unique chance. My hip? It never felt better; this dry air is doing me a lot of good.”

  “I really think, Aunt Lolly, that this is the right way to go traveling. I’d rather go with you any time than anybody else in Portugal,” said Francie. “It is a lovely place. We’ll have to bring Pop and make a longer stay. But this is the right season, not too hot. I’m so glad Fontoura decided on a holiday just now.”

  Mrs. Barclay made absent rejoinder; she was trying to negotiate cobbles and
read the guidebook at one and the same time.

  But it was Francie who spotted the building, which, though it had no sign they could read, nevertheless bore the indefinable look of a place open to the public.

  “It’s a kind of cathedral, I’m sure,” she said. Mrs. Barclay hesitated, but an old priest or monk, who had been lurking within the darkness, settled it by making his appearance in the sunlight and motioning them to come in. Though Mrs. Barclay explained to him in her best French that they spoke little Portuguese he continued to talk as he ushered them through an anteroom where a few large books and holy figures stood about as if in a museum. They went down into a cellar, and paused at a door over which hung what appeared to be a fairly lengthy poem. Their guide waved his hand at the words, inviting them to read.

  Nos, ossos, que aqui estamos,

  Pelos vossos esperamos.

  “I can’t make out a word,” said Francie in despair. “Does it make any sense to you, Aunt Lolly?”

  “No more than to you, my dear. Isn’t it miserable to be so stupid?”

  However, they smiled gratefully at the old man and pretended for politeness’ sake to have appreciated the legend. He led them through the door. Then he stepped back, smiling proudly, so that they could get the full effect.

  They gasped. “What in the world?” said Francie.

  “It’s like the Sicilian catacombs, in a way,” said Mrs. Barclay, “but I don’t think they are anything like as elaborate.”

  They stood in a large room that seemed to be made completely of human bones. Hundreds and thousands of these grisly relics were embedded in walls and ceiling. Here the bones were chosen and arranged for their length, like giant matchsticks; there a number of differing lengths were disposed in the form of a star. One place was tastefully made of nothing but skulls.

  “Is it real?” asked Francie in hushed tones. “Are they all genuine?”

  Mrs. Barclay said that they were quite genuine. “I don’t know where they all might have come from,” she added, “but you can be sure there was nothing criminal in it. Probably somebody stumbled on genuine catacombs, or perhaps they were excavating to build a big palace, and came upon a forgotten cemetery …” She paused at the sight of Francie’s face, which in the dim light of the cellar was rather green. “It’s not meant to be horrible, you know,” she said.