by Lara Blunte
There were many letters in front of him: the thickest one, he saw, was from his brother. He held it in his hand, knowing it contained important information about the situation in Lisbon under the French and news of his family, but something made him put the letter down and choose another one.
He read his business correspondence, but he could not stop glancing at Manuel's letter. When he took it up again he felt that it contained something evil, but it was not like him to shy away from bad news. He tore it open, and something fell on the desk.
It was a gold bracelet, and he recognized it immediately: it was the bracelet that he had always loved to watch on Clara's arm, as it moved against her white skin. He had noticed its absence when he met her again in Rio, but he had imagined it had been lost, or left behind.
What was it doing with Manuel's letter?
He opened the sheets and scanned them, ascertaining that no one was ill and no calamity had befallen a member of his family. Then he went to the second page, where Manuel had written,
"I have only just received the news that you are to marry Clara Tavares Moreira. I am not surprised that you should have met her again, and neither am I surprised that you still care for her. You were ever slow to warm to anyone, but loyal and steadfast in your affections thereafter.
I have struggled with my conscience, thinking whether or not to send you such a poisonous account across the sea. I am only too aware of how you must have suffered these years, how lonely you must have been. Your economic situation is so brilliant that it can only have been the result of immense effort and sacrifice, and now you are finally about to marry the woman you love.
But you are my brother and I love you. I would not be writing gossip to you, as I know how much you detest it, but I feel that I must tell you what the whole of Lisbon seems to know.
The Baron of Ramos has long been saying that he had an intimate liaison with Clara. When he heard that you were going to marry her, for the news has reached Lisbon through letters from people who are now in Rio, he came to see me to assure me that what he claims isn't boasting or malicious gossip, it is a fact.
He told me that her mother, desperate at her dwindling prospects, had pushed Clara at him in every way, even going as far as taking her to his apartments. He said that the mother would absent herself a whole afternoon, leaving them alone.
In the end, he said, he could not resist making love to Clara, and she was, as he put it, 'a delicious virgin who smelled exquisitely sweet'. He told me these afternoons repeated themselves until the girl was quite knowledgeable, though at first she had prayed to all saints before being relieved of every article of clothing.
Finally, he said that he became bored, as a man is wont to do, and that then the mother attempted to blackmail him; apparently he told her that the only damaged party would be Clara, as every man would envy him, and the whole of society would despise and ostracize the girl.
Realizing her miscalculation, the mother withdrew her menace and tried sending the daughter again several times to seduce him into marriage, but he had no intention of marrying her now─ or ever.
To prove all this he gave me the gold bracelet I am including here, which he says he found in his bed, and which must have fallen off her arm in a moment of passion.
He asked me to send it to you and to tell you all this so as to keep you from marrying second-hand goods. He said this greedy mother must not be allowed to go through with her plan of fooling a nobleman into a marriage with a girl she had turned into a whore. They are desperate and would take advantage of you in Rio if he didn't speak up. He felt it was his duty..."
Gabriel's hand fell as if he had lost use of it, and the letter floated to the ground. He stood up; he needed air.
Opening the door of the library, he walked toward the trees and away from the house. The dogs came running after him, barking, as if understanding that something was amiss.
A delicious virgin who smelled exquisitely sweet
She had prayed to all saints before being relieved of every article of clothing
A mother who had turned her daughter into a whore
They are desperate and would take advantage of you...
He stopped and put his back against a tree. The image of the Baron and Clara in bed rose in his mind as clearly as if he had seen them, and he almost roared with fury. The dogs ran away from him and he realized that he was still clutching the bracelet. It was true, it was all true, or how would the Baron know so much?
There had been something almost theatrical about the way Clara had kept denying him, night after night, to then fall into such great abandon. Her virtue had been as false as her sensuality was practiced.
The mother had turned the daughter into a whore.
He found that he was walking to the house again, and there must be thunder on his face. The servants he met rushed out of the way to let him pass and then stood looking after him. He arrived at the house, ran up the stairs and to the end of the corridor to find Clara dressed in a riding habit. She was arranging blue hydrangeas in a vase.
"I went out and picked these," she said. "Aren't they glorious?"
Gabriel closed the door and she looked at him, smiling, "Are you finished with your work? Don't tell me you want to undress me again, I ended up dressing myself and it took a while to put this on."
He walked to the window, giving his back to her. A mist had fallen round the hills; the whole sky had turned white, and seemed to be lowering over them.
"What is it, what do you─?" she asked.
"Where is that gold bracelet you used to wear all the time?" he interrupted her.
"Bracelet? Why are you asking me about a bracelet?"
She sounded genuinely puzzled. He turned around and let it dangle from his fingers. Clara looked at it in great surprise.
"Why, it is my bracelet! How do you come to have it?"
He thought he might not be able to speak, such was his rage, but he did. "The Baron of Ramos has sent it."
She looked at him without being able to disguise the horror in her face. So she was guilty! She had lain with the Baron and left the bracelet in his bed!
"How did he come to have it?" Gabriel asked.
He was afraid of himself; he thought he might have to leave the room, the house, the estate so as not to do something mad.
A virgin exquisitely sweet...
Clara was shaking her head. "I don't know—perhaps in the park... That was the last time I saw him!"
"Were you in the habit of seeing him?"
"No!" she cried. "Only socially. Not any more than other people."
"How could he have your bracelet then? I don't imagine he likes to steal women's jewelry?"
"Gabriel, I don't know, but you cannot think..."
"What is it that I am thinking?"
"Something foul, judging by your anger!" she cried. "And nothing foul has taken place between the Baron and me. Or between any man and me! Who is carrying such terrible tales?"
"Are they tales?" He took two steps toward her and she could not help walking backward. "I want you to tell me, Clara, how the Baron might be in possession of your bracelet."
"I have told you, the last time I remember seeing him was in the park. He...he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away, I hit his horse with my stick and it went galloping off. In the struggle he might have accidentally taken the bracelet, or it might have fallen on his clothes. Does he say that I have been dishonest?"
"Have you?" Gabriel's face was like stone. Hers became pale at the possibility that he might already have formed his verdict.
"No! Never! How can you ask me that?"
"What were you doing in the park, alone with him? Were you his mistress?" he insisted in a low voice.
Her eyes opened wide, "How dare you? I am your wife!"
"Are you dishonest?" he shouted.
"I shall not answer you!" she shouted back indignantly. "I cannot let you say these things to me. I was a virgin on our wedding night, and you know it.
"
"I don't know it!"
"Gabriel!" she cried, and her eyes swiftly filled with tears.
"Don't give me any tears," he said between gritted teeth. "Give me the truth. Are you dishonest? Have you been his mistress? Have you married me to cover your sins? Have you married me for my money?"
"I have not!"
"Swear it!"
She still looked indignant. "I shall not swear it. I should not have to do that, not if you know me."
"Who knows another person?" he asked, shaking his head. "Who is immune to being fooled and lied to, of being robbed and cheated? No man!"
Her face changed into a softer expression and she began to plead, "Gabriel, my darling, I beg of you, don't believe what a terrible man may have written to you! I despised him, I humiliated him and he is having his revenge. If I never married it is because I never loved anyone but you! Believe me!"
"I will believe it," he said, his face very still. "If you swear it."
"No, I shall not!" She almost stamped her foot in anger and frustration.
"You see," he went on. "There is one thing I know is real: your religious superstitions. We can have a happy life together and I will be at your feet begging your pardon if you swear by God that you have not been false, that you have not married me for money and to cover a scandal. Swear it."
"Gabriel, you know I cannot swear by God, I cannot swear by anything that is holy, it would be a deadly sin!"
He took her wrist and put her hand on his heart, "Then swear by me, swear by my life. I don't care. I am not afraid. Swear by me and this will all be over. Whatever I may think, I don't believe you would condemn me by lying."
She pulled her hand away, "Why are you doing this, why won't you believe me? I can't swear by you, I love you!"
He now grabbed her by the shoulders, so that she would look at his face. "You are so lovely, Clara. You smell so sweet. The Baron knows it..."
"No!"
"I wish I had never seen you. I wish to God you had never come here."
"No, no, don't say such things!” she said, horrified. “We swore to love each other, we swore to be true..."
Gabriel let go of her so suddenly she stumbled. "Then you did swear in vain. Did you not?"
He turned away from her again, as if he were done with her. Clara found that she could not even weep, she only waited for the words that started to be thrown like stones at her.
"I know what I swore to," he said. "I swore that it wasn't a beautiful face and body that I loved, but a person. I swore that I would see you slowly lose your figure, and the radiance that you have now, that I would be by your bedside even if you became hideous with disease. I swore that I would cherish all the marks on your body, made by each of our children. I thought that in you I would always see the woman I loved, and that with time you might still see the young man that I had been. I think that's the love which lasts forever."
"It is, and why would we not have it, if only..."
"If only you'd swear, to ease my mind," he said again, without turning.
"I will not swear, when I have done nothing wrong, when you are bringing a horrible calumny into our bedroom!” she said adamantly.
"You can't swear because you have been false!" he said. He again tried to control his rage and finally managed to say. "I have sworn to love you, and I will, I will love you even if such things have happened, but you need to confess to them now."
It was her turn to sound calm. ''I shall not confess to an untruth."
He now faced her, and his eyes were dead. "Well, then we are in a predicament, aren't we?"
She was looking at him brazenly, in the face. "Why will you believe anyone but me?”
He could see pride leaping to her eyes, and he understood that she had always meant to reign over him. "We are married,” he said coldly, “And we will stay married. You wanted money, and you shall have plenty of it."
"I don't want your money!" she said, flushing a deep red.
"Don’t you? Why not ─ there is money enough for everything now."
"How dare you say this?" Her voice was now trembling with anger. "When you realize what you have done, you'll beg me to forgive you, and I never shall!"
"I shall not beg you for anything," he went on, "And I shall not touch you again. I shall watch you grow old, I shall tend to you, provide for you and honor you. What I deny you, I shall also deny myself."
"Are you mad?”
"You don't need to love me," he said. "I absolve you from that. And I absolve myself from loving you."
He started walking to the door and she held him back by the arm, "For heaven's sake, Gabriel, don't cross that door, don't! I am also proud and I am begging you now because I won't be able to beg you if you walk out: believe me! Don't believe a man you don't even know, look into my eyes, believe me!"
He turned his head towards her, "I have looked."
Pulling his arm out of her grip he kept walking to the door and through it, leaving his wife all alone.
Eighteen. Affection
It won't be as he says. He is angry now, and he has made me angry, but he will see the truth.
Clara repeated these words to herself as she sat in the bedroom in her riding dress. She felt as if a storm had blown through her, leaving her completely exhausted. She did not know what her next action should be, whether she ought to get up and change, as it was absurd to be in a riding dress if she was not going riding; or whether she should go looking for Gabriel to insist that she was the victim of calumny; or whether she should wait until someone came to her.
She was in a strange house, though it was her house by marriage. Yet her husband had just repudiated her because a malicious lie had been sent to him from abroad.
Was it still her house? Could she walk around freely?
She knew that there had never been another word between Gabriel and his father since the night he had left home with nothing but his mother's inheritance.
Would he do the same to her?
She shook her head, looked at the door and waited to hear his steps returning. Surely he would stop and think that this could not be true, that she could not be the liar that he thought she was, that she could not have hatched a plot to ensnare him. Surely he would come and beg her pardon.
Could he not see how much she loved him?
And then the sudden doubt assaulted her: did she love him? Would she keep loving him if he treated her like a whore? What did she love, if not the happiness that was possible between them, a happiness he had just forsworn?
The bracelet was lying on the ground, and she stooped to pick it up. Such a little thing, so easily lost, and all her qualities had disappeared because of it!
Her feet moved, as if they wanted to go somewhere, but she didn't know where. She could not again risk being told terrible things, it would only make her hate her own husband. Where was she going?
Do something simple, she told herself.
She stood up and moved to her dressing room, thinking that she would change into something else. She removed her hat and set it down, then the riding jacket, then she tried to remove her skirt and found that her fingers were trembling.
There was a knock at the door and she almost jumped out of her skin. "Who is it?" she asked.
"It's Teté, sinhá!"
It was strange, but she was relieved that it wasn't Gabriel. She felt very tired, as if she were at the bottom of a well, when she had been full of energy even an hour before.
"Come in!"
The girl walked in with a smile, "Sinhá, do you need help? It was Mãe Lucia who told me not to come up before and help you, she said you might be sleeping..."
The girl was already walking around the room and picking up the discarded clothes to fold them.
"Yes!" Clara said. "Yes, can you help me undress?"
Teté walked toward her with a smile and started unbuttoning the skirt. Her shyness the day before must have been exaggerated, as now she seemed quite at ease. She was removing C
lara's clothing and chatting all the while, and Clara found that if she concentrated on the chatter, she felt calmer.
"...Sinhá, you know that thing, what is that thing called, when something is the same as something else, but somewhere else, or someone else?"
Clara smiled in spite of herself, "Am I meant to guess?"
"Yes!" Teté said as she pulled Clara's skirt down. "At least, you know what I mean!"
"Give me an example!"
The girl straightened her back and with one hand flapping, she explained, "For example, that your maid in Rio and I have the same name!"
"A coincidence!"
"A concidiscence!" Teté cried happily. "I thought about this yesterday, what a considence that your maid was Teresa and I am Teresa, except no one ever calls me that, not even my mother, who gave me the name, did. Everyone has always called me Teté!"
"And where is your mother?" Clara asked as the girl put her things away.
"My mother died," Teté said sadly. "She got a bad fever, they don't know if it was malaria or the ague."
"I am sorry."
"That's all right, she is with God and Jesus in heaven... What would you like to wear?"
Teté opened a large mahogany wardrobe, revealing her clothes. Doubt assaulted Clara once more. What should I wear, when my husband hates me, when he thinks I am a whore?
She felt the tears rising, but she would not cry. She must keep going.
"The black and white dress, please."
Teté's fingers wriggled in front of the dresses as she searched for the one that Clara meant. She pulled it out. "This one?"
Clara nodded. Teté took the dress and for a moment put it in front of herself, "Oh, it's so beautiful, oh, you'll look very nice!"
The girl was very artless, as Gabriel had said, and she made Clara smile. Teté helped into the gown and then sat her down to do her hair, which had been hastily tucked under the hat before, and now needed some dressing.
As the girl touched her head, Clara found that her eyes were closing. Teté kept chatting until she suddenly said, "Ai, sinhá, you are very tired! You must lie down a little!"