By the time we arrived back in Lisbon it had been dark for some while, but the evening was soft and balmy, and the gaslit street were thronged. People were gathered around the braziers of the chestnut sellers, and I caught the warm, appetizing aroma as we went past, reminding me that I was hungry. We reached the gloomy Milaveira town house, to which the family had retreated after the destruction of Castanheiros, and Maria and I were set down from the carriage before Stafford continued on his way to his apartment near the Estrela gardens.
The butler opened the door to me. “Senhora Dona Elinor, the senhora condessa asked if you would be good enough to go up to see her immediately when you returned.” Dusty as I was, straight from the road! I smiled fondly. My grandmother had the right to be impatient in the little time she had left.
She was much frailer now and only left her bed for a few hours each day. I found her sitting in a cushioned brocade chair by the window, where she could look out at the lights on the river. Hearing me enter, she turned her head eagerly. “Well, Elinor? How are things progressing at Miramar?”
“Splendidly, Grandmama,” I said, going forward to embrace her. ‘It will be a truly lovely house when it’s finished.”
“I’m so happy for you both.”
Tears glittered in her black eyes, but she brushed them away impatiently, as if she would have no truck with such sentimental weakness. ‘Is Stafford dining here this evening?” she demanded.
“Yes, he has gone home to change, but he will return directly. Would you like us to have dinner up here with you, Grandmamma? It can easily be arranged. Affonso and Carlota are dining out.”
Dona Amalia nodded her head, pleased. “And afterward, Stafford shall play chess with me.”
* * * *
They began their game immediately after the meal had been cleared away. I sat and watched them, the silver tabby purring on my lap. I had promised my grandmother that all her beloved cats would be given a home at Miramar. To my surprise, I had become genuinely fond of them, as they seemed to have become of me.
Presently, feeling a little restless, I rose to my feet and began to wander about the room, still nursing the cat. In one corner stood the two embroidery frames my grandmother and I were working on. The chair seats we had been repairing together at Castanheiros having been destroyed in the fire. Dona Amalia had looked upon it as a challenge to start some new work.
“It will be something to have in your home to remember me by,” she’d said.
“That is very sweet of you, and I shall treasure them always. But I won’t need anything to remind me of my grandmother. You will never be far from my thoughts.”
The designs she had chosen to copy were of sylvan scenes, almost matching the original chairs, except that neither of them depicted a dragon. I had noticed this omission at once, but made no comment.
The era of the Jade Dragon was over for the Milaveiras. The family had been unanimous in wanting to be rid once and for all of their monstrous idol, and it had been interred with Vicencia’s body. Somehow, it seemed fitting that its long reign of power should thus be brought to an end.
Behind me, the two chess players stirred, and I glanced over my shoulder. “Checkmate, I believe, Senhor Dom Stafford Darville.” cried my grandmother triumphantly. “Have I grown too clever for you my friend? Or is it perhaps that your mind is not fully concentrated upon the game?”
Stafford bowed his head gravely. “You are too clever for me, of course, senhora condessa.”
But his dark eyes, meeting mine across the softly lamplit room, gave a different answer.
Copyright © 1974 by Nancy Buckingham
Originally published by Robert Hale
Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House/Regency
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
The Jade Dragon Page 21