‘He’s beglamoured,’ said Harriet at last.
‘If only I liked her.’
‘How could you?’
‘How can he?’
‘It’s not liking with him.’
‘No.’ Why did she mind it so much? ‘Time we turned back,’ she said, more cheerfully than she felt. ‘The grooms are getting restless.’
‘Yes.’ Harriet laughed. ‘Views are just not in their line. But what a beautiful country yours is, Cat. No wonder you care about it so.’
‘Do I?’ said Caterina thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I do, but, Harryo, it may be beautiful, but don’t you feel it’s cruel too, and stupid.’ She longed to tell Harriet about Luiz’s plans for a happier country.
‘Oh dear, yes.’ Harriet was thinking of something else. ‘Had you thought of trying to sell your pictures?’
‘My pictures?’ She had been about to kick her mule into movement, but paused.
‘Not the people.’ Laughing. ‘We all know about those. But the little pictures of places and things that you do so well. Might not there be a market for them?’
‘Goodness, I wonder. Harriet, I’ll think about it.’
‘Give it a try,’ said Harriet.
‘It would have to be to the British.’
‘An argument for Mrs Ware’s party.’
‘Well, I am glad there is one.’
‘Oh, I think there are several,’ said Harriet cheerfully.
Frank Ware had been across the river at Villa Nova de Gaia for a gloomy look at the disused family wine vaults that should have been a scene of so much activity at this time of year. Built into the slope of the hill close under the Serra Monastery, the wine lodges had been used as barracks by the French during the short time they had held Porto in 1809, and repairing the damage they had caused had broken his father’s heart, he thought, as well as going near to bankrupting him. But at least Mr Ware senior was not alive now to realise what a serious mistake he had made in selling the vineyards he held near Porto in order to invest extensively in the new lands that had been opened up by the clearing of the dangerous rapids at Cachao de Valeira on the Upper Douro. The land up near the border had been cheap, the conditions for growing the port grape admirable; how was his father to know that the area would be a battlefield one day? But now it meant that whereas other firms that had kept their vineyards on the Lower Douro were still in business in a small way, his own company was at a complete standstill, with maintenance of the huge, cool cellars in the hillside slowly eating away at what capital remained.
And today the old caretaker had pointed out a new leak that would be a disaster when the autumn rains began in earnest. It must be repaired, and here was his mother running him into debt with this elaborate party. Ridiculous. He had neither been facing facts himself nor making her do so. He was not going to propose to Caterina Gomez. He did not love her, and, he was increasingly sure, she would not have him if he were to ask her. Without a word spoken, she had told him this in all kinds of friendly, quiet ways. It would not be the act of the gentleman he hoped he was to propose and put the burden of refusal on to her. Her father seldom appeared, but his shadow lay heavy on the house. He did not like to think how very uncomfortable Caterina’s life would be if she offended him. And then there was Father Pedro, whose silent approach so often broke up the brief tête à têtes he managed to secure with Harriet Brown. He rather thought it was Father Pedro’s constant intrusions that had made him realise he loved Harriet. And what a wife she would make for a working man. There was not an ounce of pretension or snobbery about Harriet. How long had he been thinking of her by her Christian name? I must get work, he thought. I must start earning my way. And came down to the river to see Major Dickson on the quay.
‘You’re back! I am so very glad to see you.’ He hurried forward to wring his friend’s hand. ‘But what’s the news?’ Dickson looked exhausted, he thought, as if he had not slept for days, but cheerful just the same.
‘Good, thank God. But it was a near run thing. Some of the rumours we’ve been hearing were true enough. Marmont did manage to give Wellington the slip up there in the mountains and throw supplies into Ciudad Rodrigo, and there was a moment when it looked as if he had Wellington just where he wanted him, but by a miracle old Hooky escaped. He’s good at miracles, is Lord Wellington. I can tell you, my friend, it was touch and go up there for a day or so, but trust Wellington to smell his way out of danger. Now it’s to be winter quarters, and a little pleasure for us all. And the best of it is, Marmont’s men had eaten up most of the rations that were meant for Ciudad Rodrigo. They only got in supplies for a month or so. They’ll be hungry in that fortress when we come on them in the spring.’ And then: ‘Forget I said that, Frank. Or rather, remember that, if you agree, I want to take you on the strength. I don’t need to read you a lecture about official secrets first, do I?’
‘Of course not. You really want me? I can’t tell you what good news that is.’
‘I don’t just want you, I need you and your local knowledge. It’s like this –’ He took Frank’s arm and walked him a little downstream, away from the crowded quay, to a place where a convent stood a little back from the river. Its landing stage was deserted and they sat down there on a baulk of timber. Dickson was silent for a moment, looking at the busy scene on the river, marshalling his thoughts. Then: ‘I probably don’t need to tell you that Wellington plans ahead. He’s not going to find himself short of big guns again. He ordered a siege train out from England, back last winter, and when it reached Lisbon in July he had it shipped up here at once. It is upriver from here that he plans to make his next move. In fact, there is no need any more to be secret about that. Marmont learned about it early this month; that’s why he went to the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo. He must have an informer here in Oporto, Frank, and I want you to keep your eyes and ears open as to who it may be.’
‘I certainly will. But that’s hardly the work you mean?’ Frank was at once flattered and disappointed.
‘No, no. That’s just a sideline. You must have shared the general curiosity about the heavy loads that came out from England on the Anthea and the Chloe.’
‘There has been talk, of course. Mainly because they were so very swiftly and efficiently trans-shipped.’
‘Yes, that was efficient enough!’ Savagely. ‘Wait till I tell you the rest. When the first shipments of the siege train got upriver to Lamego and were unloaded, they discovered that there were no block carriages for the guns. Would you believe it, Frank? Guns and no carriages for them. They’ve been getting them across the mountains – you could hardly call them roads – on their own carriages or on makeshift sledges, but the result has been all kinds of damage to their wheels. We need wheelwrights, Frank, urgently, at Lamego. And carpenters.’ He laughed angrily. ‘The minute Wellington heard of the lack of stock carriages he sent off an urgent appeal to London. They came out on the Anthea and the Chloe. Only they are the wrong size! Each one will have to be altered. Wheelwrights and carpenters. That’s your job, Frank. As many as you can find, the best of their kind, ready for a hard winter’s work upriver. The pay will be good, the conditions hard, tell them. I rely on your local knowledge to help me on this. I don’t need to tell you how important it is.’
‘No. I can see that. But where will they be working? Will it be at Lamego or further on? They will want to know that.’
‘I suppose they will.’ Reluctantly. ‘And, yes, it may well be further on. There are broken-down gun carriages lying by the roads all the way up to Villa da Ponte. They must be ready for anything. And no women, Frank, no wives, no followers. This is serious, secret work.’
‘Yes, I can see. Am I allowed to ask what the guns are for?’
‘Of course you may ask, and I shall tell you what everyone is being told, and the obvious answer at that. They are to reinforce the fortress at Almeida. It’s vital to the defence of the border, and I am sure you remember how the French garrison there managed to give our people the slip, d
estroyed the defences and got clean away in the night, thanks to some appalling incompetence on our part. It wouldn’t have happened if Wellington had been there. He means to refurbish it and have it solid at his back before he moves.’
‘Defence is the best mode of attack,’ said Frank thoughtfully.
Dickson laughed. ‘That’s it, my boy, that’s just it. But let’s take my good news across the river; it’s just the tonic Oporto needs, I’m sure.’
‘It certainly is,’ agreed Frank. ‘And, Dickson, I am more grateful to you than I can say. I’ll start work at once.’ They had got up and were moving back upriver to where the ferry crossed. ‘I hope this means you will be in town for a while now. My mother is having a party next week; I know she would wish me to invite you.’
‘I’ll certainly try to be here, but of course it depends on Lord Wellington’s plans; we shall be busy enough for a while before the men are fixed in winter quarters.’
‘Upriver?’
‘Most certainly. Out of mischief’s way. But the officers will be another matter, naturally. Your mother may find herself with more distinguished company than she had expected if she is entertaining next week. There was talk, when I came away, that Lord Wellington himself was thinking of making a bolt for it down here for a few days of business and pleasure, and you know what a one he is for sniffing out a private party with ladies present.’
‘My mother would be immensely honoured.’ For the first time, Frank thought with satisfaction of his mother’s lavish preparations.
‘There will be a dinner at the Factory, of course,’ said Dickson, as they approached the landing stage. ‘Men only, naturally. Not the same thing at all. And not a word to a soul till I give you leave. Not even your mother. You know the ladies, God bless ‘em.’ And he turned the conversation to indifferent topics as they boarded the boat.
‘Major Dickson is back.’ Ralph Emerson came in from the balcony to join Rachel. ‘Chatting away like an old friend with young Ware. Have you heard anything from the old lady, by the way?’
‘Not a word. I did try and give a hint to Miss Gomez, but I’m not at all sure that she took it. She’s a close one, that girl, there is no getting to her. And Miss Brown nothing but her dutiful echo. That’s a terrible house, Ralph, I’m glad I don’t live there. There is a feeling of listening in the air.’
‘You and your feelings! I wish you would feel us out an invitation to the Wares’ party; I don’t need to tell you how badly we need it.’
‘No. I wonder if Mr Craddock … But it’s hard to see just how to set about it …’
‘He’d give you the sun and the moon and the stars if he could, poor young fool.’
‘Yes, I believe he would, but he can’t, can he? And the odd thing is I’m not quite sure that he would get me an invitation to Mrs Ware’s party, even if he could, and knew I wanted it. There is something about him that I don’t quite understand, some corner he keeps to himself. It worries me a little.’
‘You had better step up the pressure a little had you not?’
‘It’s too soon, Ralph. This is a difficult one; I’m feeling my way; you must leave me alone to handle it as I think best.’
‘That’s all very well, but what about the Wares’ party? We have to be there. What’s that?’ Irritably, as a servant knocked and entered with a note for Rachel. ‘A billet doux?’
‘No.’ She was looking at it with amazement. ‘It is an invitation to Mrs Ware’s party.’
Caterina and Harriet were discussing the party too. ‘We shall look a proper pair of fools if Madame Feuillide doesn’t finish our dresses in time,’ said Caterina impatiently. The continued silence of both Luiz and the dressmaker was beginning to tell on her nerves.
‘I have been doing some work on the ones we started for ourselves,’ said Harriet. ‘They would be quite out of the ordinary, you know.’
‘Yes, but is that what the English colony expects?’
‘Do we care what they expect?’
‘I wish I knew.’ Caterina thought about it for a moment. ‘Nothing has worked out as we planned, has it?’
‘Nothing ever does, it seems to me.’ Harriet was looking over Caterina’s shoulder at the picture she was working on. ‘I think you have got it just right now. They’ll love them!’
‘But will they buy them?’
‘I was thinking about that,’ said Harriet. ‘Had it struck you, Cat, that in a way you can’t lose.’
‘What in the world do you mean?’
‘You aren’t thinking, Cat. How long, as things go here in Porto, will it take for your father to hear that you are selling pictures to your lady friends? And how will he like it?’
‘Oh,’ said Caterina.
‘Precisely. And if he wants you to stop, he will have to pay you to. Either way, you get the money you need. And we do need to send it by the next boat, love, or I would indeed be worried. Mother is not a patient woman.’
‘I almost wish we hadn’t come,’ said Caterina.
‘What else could we do? Don’t look so desperate, Cat. Mother is not wicked, she is just hard-headed. Well, she has to be. It’s a woman’s lot. Specially a poor woman’s. Don’t ever forget that when times are hard for the likes of us they are really hard. It’s not just inconvenience, it’s starvation. Sometimes I look at myself in the glass, here in the luxury of your father’s house, and can hardly believe what I see.’
‘Do you think he is hungry?’ asked Caterina.
‘Oh, Cat, I do hope not.’ It was the best she could do for her friend, and she was almost relieved when a servant appeared with an unusual summons for Caterina to her father’s study.
‘At once?’ asked Caterina, with a quick glance for Harriet.
‘If you will, minha senhora. The holy father is with him.’
‘Oh.’ This was not good news. ‘I’ll come, of course.’
The two men were seated on either side of Senhor Gomez’s huge writing desk. Both made token gestures towards rising when she entered the room, and the friar muttered a statutory blessing.
She curtseyed, bowed her head for the blessing, took the upright chair that had been placed facing the desk. ‘You sent for me, father?’
‘Yes. Father Pedro has heard a rumour that we find disquieting.’
‘Porto is full of rumours, always.’
‘You will not bandy words with us, Caterina. You have been here for almost a month now. Father Pedro made your position entirely clear to you when you arrived and we had thought, by your behaviour, that you had understood it. We had expected an announcement at Mrs Ware’s party next week, and now what do we learn?’ He paused impressively for the question she would not ask.
‘You appear to have lost your cavalier,’ Father Pedro spoke into the little silence. ‘Why would Mr Ware seek work with the British army if he was expecting to make an advantageous match?’
‘Is he?’ Now she was forced to the question.
‘You did not know?’ This was Senhor Gomez.
‘He has not called for a few days.’
‘Because he is busy recruiting labour for the British. And you did not know?’
‘Nor that he had been making chances to see Miss Brown alone?’ asked Father Pedro inexorably.
‘Which leaves your other gallant,’ said her father. ‘And we do not get the impression that he has been exactly punctilious in his attentions.’
‘Everyone knows he is making a fool of himself over that imposter of a clairvoyante,’ said Father Pedro. ‘You seem not to have been applying your mind to the matter in hand, daughter. You will hardly get a husband by riding about the countryside with Miss Brown. Even if there had been a chance of it, no respectable Portuguese gentleman would think of you after the hoydenish way you have been carrying on since you got back here to Porto. So your father has decided, in his great goodness, to give you one last warning. His house has been turned upside down for quite long enough. Female frills and female talk. You have until after this party there is so mu
ch talk about. Find yourself a suitable husband, English or Portuguese, one your father need not be ashamed to have as his heir, and you shall be married as the daughter of this house should be. Or it will be the Little Sisters of St Seraphina. And this house quiet again.’
‘But – so soon?’ It was the first of the protests that thronged in her mind.
‘You had your warning. It is not good for your father’s health, still less for his spiritual well-being, to have so much disturbance in his house. Talk and laughter in the hallways, guests coming and going … And besides, there is the burden of the estate. You have not thought to notice, I think, that your father is not a well man, not fit to bear the burden of all his business affairs. It is time for him to compose his mind for the life hereafter. Give him a son-in-law who will bear his burdens and the problem is solved. Or you know your alternative. Take yourself – and that Miss Brown – off to the Sisters of St Seraphina and I and my brothers can step in and take the burden of his affairs off his hands.’
‘No!’ Now she saw it all. Idiotic not to have done so sooner. Of course Father Pedro had left her alone, he had hoped for just this outcome, this rich estate for his brotherhood.
‘Father –’ She turned to her real father, hands outstretched, to say … to say what?
But he was already rising to leave the room.
Chapter 9
‘It’s all my fault,’ said Harriet. ‘If you hadn’t brought me, Cat, they might have been able to bear it, those two cross old men.’
‘There was no way I could have come without you. Never think that. But what are we going to do, Harryo? If only I would hear from Luiz!’
‘Your father would never accept him. You’re not thinking, Cat. A proclaimed traitor.’
‘If I told my father what he told me? About the free Kingdom of Lusitania?’
‘He wouldn’t listen, or believe you. And would your Luiz let him tell Father Pedro? He’d be bound to, you know.’
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