‘I do,’ Luiza replied without a flicker of emotion. ‘Besides, you need worry no longer about Senhor Brouilly. He is leaving tomorrow for Paris.’
‘You are still spying on him?’ Gustavo raged.
‘Not at all. I halted my patronage as soon as your wife left for the fazenda with her mother. Without a commission, and your wife gone from Rio, I knew it would not be long before he decided to return to Paris. He wrote me a letter only two days ago informing me of his departure and thanking me for my assistance. Here,’ Luiza said, handing him an envelope, ‘you can read it for yourself. You will note the address of his apartment in Ipanema at the top of it.’
Gustavo grabbed the envelope from his mother and stared at her in hatred. His hands were shaking so much that he had difficulty stuffing the envelope into his trouser pocket.
‘Although you say you did this out of love for me, there is not one part of your son who believes you did. And I will not hear another word about any of it. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes.’
With a small smile, Luiza watched her son leave the room.
Somehow, Gustavo managed to maintain an outwardly calm demeanour as Izabela left with her maid to visit Madame Duchaine. As he watched the car snaking down the drive, he thought that one way of discovering immediately whether there was any substance to his mother’s story was to ask Jorge, the driver. But given that Jorge had worked for Luiza for over thirty years, Gustavo couldn’t trust him to tell the truth. Walking into the drawing room, his first instinct was to grab the whisky bottle, but he refrained, knowing if he took a little, it would not be enough and he needed a clear head to think now.
Pacing back and forth across the drawing room, wondering how the joy he’d woken to this morning could have dissipated into such anger and uncertainty two hours later, he tried to rationalise everything his mother had said. Even if there was a grain of truth in her story, to accuse Izabela of foisting another man’s baby upon him was surely the ranting of a lunatic? After all, many married women had admirers and Gustavo was not stupid enough to think that his beautiful wife did not have her fair share too. Perhaps this Brouilly had grown fond of her during their time in Paris – had even asked her to sit for him again here in Rio – but he could not bring himself to believe that she had surrendered physically to him.
However, one thing his mother had said to him which had made him uneasy was the lack of bloodstain after they had made love on their wedding night. Gustavo was no biologist and perhaps Izabela had been telling him the truth that night, but . . .
Gustavo slumped into a chair, his head cradled desperately in his hands.
If she had lied, the depth of betrayal was simply too awful to contemplate. He had encouraged Izabela to go to Paris out of purely altruistic reasons, because he truly loved her and trusted her.
Surely, he thought, the best thing to do was to leave the whole sordid matter be? The letter he’d read from Brouilly to his mother indeed confirmed he was travelling back to Paris by steamer tomorrow. Whatever might have passed between the two of them, surely it was over now?
Yes, Gustavo decided, as he stood up and walked determinedly to his father’s study to read the newspapers. He would forget all about his mother’s nonsense, he told himself sternly. But as he sat trying to concentrate on the financial carnage, both in Brazil and in America, he found he could not. His mother’s words had sown unstoppable seeds of doubt in his mind, as she had known they would. And until he knew for certain, Gustavo realised he could not rest. Seeing that Jorge had returned from taking Izabela into the city, he grabbed his hat and climbed into the car to follow her.
Bel stood in front of the mirror as Madame Duchaine showered her with congratulations and assured her it was a simple enough job to alter the clothes she had made to fit her burgeoning body over the coming months.
‘I always think the shape of a pregnant woman has a magic all of its own,’ Madame Duchaine twittered as Bel caught Loen’s eye and gave her a barely perceptible nod.
Loen stood up from her chair and walked towards her mistress. ‘Senhora, I should go and collect the tonic your doctor has suggested you should take from the pharmacy. It is only around the corner, and I shall be back as fast as I can.’
Bel suppressed a painful smile as her maid repeated parrot-fashion the sentence she had suggested she say to her. ‘I’m sure I will be fine in Madame Duchaine’s capable hands,’ she replied.
‘Of course she will.’ Madame Duchaine smiled benignly at Bel.
As Loen nodded and left the salon, Bel could see that her eyes were large with trepidation. It was a lot to ask of her maid, but what choice did she have? ‘God speed,’ she whispered inwardly, then took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror.
Gustavo had ordered Jorge to take him to his club, which was only a few minutes’ walk from Madame Duchaine’s salon, and the address of the apartment where Brouilly apparently resided. He left the club and walked briskly along the street, deciding that as he was twenty minutes behind his wife, he would go directly to Brouilly’s apartment block. Finding there was a café on the other side of the road, Gustavo secreted himself in a corner of the pavement terrace and, feeling foolish, used his newspaper to disguise himself. Above the pages, his eyes flicked nervously back and forth along the busy street. The waitress came to take his order, and without diverting his gaze, he asked for a coffee.
Twenty minutes later, there was still no sign of his wife scurrying along the road to attend a rendezvous with her supposed lover. Every instinct in him wanted to leave, forget the whole thing. But, he rationalised, perhaps Bel would have a fitting first, giving her an alibi. So he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay where he was.
And not long afterwards, Gustavo spied a familiar face walking fast along the street. It was not that of his wife, but her maid, Loen. Standing upright and knocking over his still full cup of coffee with a clatter, he threw some coins onto the table and darted through the traffic to the other side of the road. Walking past the apartment block and away from Loen,
who was approaching tentatively, stopping occasionally as if she was unsure of her destination, Gustavo secreted himself inside the doorway next to the entrance of Brouilly’s apartment.
Let this be a coincidence, he prayed, but a few seconds later, as Loen halted outside the next-door entrance just a few feet away from him, he knew it was not. Just as she made to enter the building, Gustavo stepped out in front of her.
‘Hello, Loen,’ he said as pleasantly as he could. ‘And where are you headed?’
If Gustavo wanted proof of his wife’s guilt, it was there in the terror that showed on her maid’s face as she stared at him.
‘I . . .’
‘Yes?’ Gustavo crossed his arms and waited for her reply.
‘I . . .’
Then he noticed that one of her hands was held protectively over the pocket of her apron. From the shape of it, it looked like it contained an envelope.
‘Perhaps you are delivering something for your mistress?’
‘Senhor, I thought this was the entrance to the pharmacy. I . . . have got the wrong address. Forgive me . . .’
‘Really? You have a prescription to collect for my wife?’
‘Yes.’ There was a sudden look of relief in her eyes that he’d managed to find an explanation for her. ‘It must be further along the street.’
‘As a matter of fact, I know exactly where it is. So, why don’t you hand it over to me and I will deliver it to the pharmacist myself?’
‘Senhor, Senhora Bel made me swear I would deliver this . . . prescription to the pharmacy with my own hands.’
‘And as I’m her husband, I’m sure she would feel it was safe in mine, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ The maid lowered her eyes in resignation. ‘Of course.’
Gustavo put out his palm and Loen pulled the envelope out of her pocket, her eyes agonised and pleading as he took it from her.
‘Thank you,’
he said, tucking it into the top pocket of his jacket. ‘I promise you I will deliver it safely to the correct recipient. Now, run along back to your mistress, who is surely wondering where you have got to.’
‘Senhor, please . . .’
Gustavo’s palm halted any further remonstrations. ‘Senhorita, unless you want to be thrown out onto the street without a reference the moment I arrive home, I suggest you do not discuss this meeting with my wife. No matter how loyal you are to her, it is I who decides who we employ to serve our household. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, senhor, I do,’ the maid answered, her voice quavering and her eyes full of tears.
‘Now, I suggest you run along back to Madame Duchaine’s and collect the necessary medicine from the pharmacy, which I believe is only a few doors down from the salon, to sustain your alibi.’
‘Yes, senhor.’
Loen dropped a shaky curtsey, and turned away from him to walk back the way she had come.
Immediately, Gustavo hailed a passing cab. Knowing that whatever this envelope contained he would need a strong whisky to enable him to open it, he directed the driver towards his club.
Loen had hidden herself round the corner, due to the fact her legs would carry her no further as they were shaking like saplings in a hurricane. She was slumped in a doorway when she saw Gustavo pass right by her in the back of a cab.
Burying her head between her legs and taking some deep breaths, Loen tried to clear her mind of the shock at what had just taken place. Even though she couldn’t know for sure what the envelope contained, she could imagine only too well. She had no idea what she should do and only wished Bruno was with her to advise her now.
She too had her own problems presently – which she’d felt unable to speak of to her mistress, who had been so grief-stricken by her mother’s death, and then the realisation that she was with child.
The truth was that Senhora Bel was not the only female living at the Casa in a similar predicament. She herself had known that she was carrying a child for the past three weeks. She’d told Bruno just before she’d left the fazenda and he had made her promise that she would speak to Bel. She’d been intending to beg her mistress to let her work permanently at the farm so the two of them could marry and raise their child there.
Loen had no idea who owned the fazenda, but she had an inkling that normally a man inherited his wife’s assets on marriage. If this was the case, Gustavo had it in his power to ensure that neither she nor Bruno ever worked for the family again. Which meant any plans they had for the future would be turned to dust. They would be just another impoverished black couple, turned out on the streets, with her pregnant and penniless, headed for the favelas that were expanding daily with their starving inmates.
All this would happen . . . if she told her mistress what had just taken place.
As her breathing began to slow and Loen began to think more clearly, her fingers touched the unfamiliar outline of the life that was growing inside her. Just like Bel, she too had a decision to make. And quickly. The master had asked her to stay silent – in essence, to betray the trust her mistress had always placed in her. In any other circumstances, she would not have adhered to his wishes, whatever the cost. She would have run straight back to Madame Duchaine’s, then asked Senhora Bel to take a short walk as she informed her of what had happened so that her mistress could prepare for what she might face when she returned home.
After all, she had been with Senhora Bel since she was a child. And owed everything she had – as did her mother – to the Bonifacio family.
But now Loen knew she must think of herself. Her fingers moved from her belly and into the other pocket of her apron. They touched the smoothness of the tile that lay within it. Perhaps it would be easier for her to lie if she had at least completed half of her mission.
Making her decision and knowing that Senhor Gustavo would not be back from wherever he had gone in the cab for the next few minutes, Loen stood up and ran blindly in the direction of Laurent Brouilly’s apartment.
A few minutes later, she arrived breathless outside his front door and knocked loudly.
The door opened immediately and a pair of arms reached out to her.
‘Chérie, I was beginning to worry, but—’
As Laurent Brouilly realised that it was not his love, Loen saw his joyful expression contract into a mask of immediate and horrified understanding.
‘She has sent you? On her behalf?’ he said, staggering a little and holding on to the door for support.
‘Yes.’
‘Then she is not coming?’
‘No, senhor, I am sorry. She asked that I bring something to you.’
Loen held out the soapstone tile to him and watched as he took it from her. ‘I believe there is a message on the back,’ she whispered.
Laurent turned it over slowly in his hands and read the inscription. He looked up at her and she saw the tears appearing in his eyes.
‘Merci . . . I mean, obrigado.’
And then the door was slammed in her face.
Gustavo sat down in a quiet part of the library, thankful that the room was virtually empty, as it had been since the Wall Street crisis had struck. He ordered himself the whisky he so badly needed as he studied the envelope that sat on the table next to him. He downed the drink in one gulp and immediately asked for a replacement. Once that was by his side, he took a deep breath and opened the letter.
A few minutes later, he asked the waiter for a third whisky and sat, catatonic, staring into space.
Whatever the letter did or didn’t prove with regard to what his mother had insinuated, it did tell him without a doubt that his wife had been passionately in love with another man. So passionately in love that she had even been contemplating running away to Paris with him.
This in itself was damning enough, but reading between the lines, it also told Gustavo something more: if Izabela had been serious in her intentions of leaving with Brouilly, surely it meant that her lover must have known of her current physical state? Which in turn meant that the child his wife carried was almost certainly her lover’s . . .
Gustavo reread the letter, grasping at the thought that it could perhaps also be interpreted as a means to get rid of Brouilly once and for all, without the need for public revelation on his part. Faced with the knowledge that Izabela would love him forever, but that their situation was impossible, an ardent and desperate suitor might be pacified enough to leave quietly of his own accord, realising it simply couldn’t be.
Gustavo sighed and realised he was clutching at straws. He pictured Brouilly in his mind’s eye and saw his fine physique and handsome Gallic features. He was without doubt a man whom any woman could easily find attractive, and to many his talent would be a further aphrodisiac. Bel had sat for hours in his studio in Paris . . . God only knew what had passed between them while she’d been there.
And he had let her go, like a lamb to the slaughter, just as his mother had always suspected would be the case.
During the following half hour, as he downed one whisky after the other, Gustavo ran through a gamut of emotions: from sorrow and despair to dreadful anger at the thought of how his wife had made a cuckold of him. He knew he was absolutely within his rights to go home, show Izabela the letter and throw her out on the streets then and there. He had even offered her father a decent sum of money to put him back on his feet and clear some of his debts, so that Antonio could at least have a fighting chance of a future. With the letter as his evidence, he could destroy his wife’s and his father-in-law’s reputation for good and divorce her on the grounds of adultery.
Yes, yes, he could do all these things, Gustavo thought, rallying. He wasn’t the meek, frightened little boy his mother made him out to be.
But then the smug look of satisfaction on Luiza’s face if he told her that she’d been right about Izabela all along was simply too much to bear . . .
He could also go and confront Brouilly – after all, he now k
new exactly where he lived. Few would blame him if he shot the man where he stood. At the very least, he could ask for the truth. And he knew he’d get it, since Brouilly had nothing more to lose by confessing. Because Izabela was staying with her husband.
She is staying with me . . .
This thought calmed Gustavo. Despite professing her enormous love for Brouilly, his wife had not surrendered to it and was not leaving him to run off to Paris. Perhaps Brouilly did not know that Izabela was pregnant. After all, if she truly believed that Brouilly was the father of her child, surely she would have gone with him, whatever the ramifications.
By the time Gustavo left the club an hour later, he had managed to convince himself that whatever had occurred between his wife and the sculptor, it was he, her husband, she had chosen out of the two of them. Brouilly was on his way back to Paris tomorrow and was disappearing from both of their lives for good.
As he staggered down the steps of the club and walked through the streets towards the beach to try and sober up, Gustavo knew he had come to a decision.
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