The Jade Dragon (25 page)

The bell. As a rule, the servants answered quickly, and they might just reach me in time. But by now the bed curtains had caught fire, barring my path to the bell rope. I realized to my dismay that nearly everything in the room was flammable and would ignite at the merest spark. Soon the paneling of the walls would be
ablaze,
the chairs and tables, the heavy wardrobe—even the coffered ceiling was constructed of timber.

Coughing and choking from the acrid smoke, I shouted and pounded the door with my two fists. But nobody heard, nobody came. Stricken with panic, my eyes flashed around the room for some tool with which to attack the door. I spotted a brass poker in the grate and ran to snatch it up before a great blast of heat drove me back. With the poker I tried to prize open the lock, but almost at once I realized it was useless. Again I started battering at the door, this time using the weighty knob of the poker. My eyes were streaming and my head was spinning. I was desperately afraid that I’d soon be overcome by the heat and fumes and slip to the floor unconscious. And all hope of escape would be gone....

Then suddenly, unbelievably, I heard Stafford’s voice. “Elinor? Are you in there?”

“Yes,” I cried weakly. “Please open the door, Stafford. Quickly.”

“It’s locked. Turn the key, Elinor.”

“I can’t. It’s not on this side.”

“What?” he exclaimed, unable to comprehend. Then, “Stand out of the way, Elinor. Stand back.”

There was a heavy thud as he flung his full weight against the door, but it withstood his onslaught without yielding. Again Stafford hurled himself, and now there was a tearing, splintering noise. A third time he charged, and with a sudden crack and splitting of timber the door gave way. Stafford stared for a bewildered instant at the roaring inferno of smoke and flame, then gathered me into his arms. He paused only long enough to pull the door shut, and in seconds he had skirted the gallery and was racing down the wide staircase with me, shouting for servants to come and deal with the fire.

It was wonderful to feel the coolness of the night air outside, and I gulped it down into my burning lungs. Clinging to Stafford, I knew with wild relief that there was no need to fight any longer. I let myself relax against him, and as my ravaged senses went spinning into unconsciousness, his words reached through to me as if I were in a dream. “Oh, my darling, my darling Elinor. Thank God you’re safe.”

* * * *

As I began to revive, I was at first aware only of pandemonium all around me, a confusion of shouting voices and a menacing sound like the roaring of a great wind. I heard a thunderous crash that seemed to make the ground beneath me judder and jar. My eyes flew open. The scene before me was from hell itself. Demonic figures ran about in wild commotion, silhouetted by the fierce red glow of the flames that had turned Castanheiros into a raging furnace.

I was lying on a rug of some kind spread on the grass near the cypress drive, well clear of danger, and Stafford was bending over me. All about us were objects that had been rescued from the house, piled higgledy-piggledy—paintings and tapestries and carpets, pieces of furniture, and gold and silver plate.

“Elinor, my darling,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”

I coughed harsh smoke from my lungs and moistened my lips. “Oh, Stafford, how terrible. Is everyone safe?” I pushed myself upright and looked wildly around me. “Grandmama ?”

“Everybody is safely accounted for,” he assured me. “Dona Amalia was brought out by Affonso. I must give him due credit. He acted swiftly and bravely.”

“And Vicencia?” I asked in a thin voice.

“She’s around somewhere, probably organizing things. As you can see, the servants have managed to salvage some of the treasures, but it’s too late now to get anything more out. What happened, Elinor? The fire seems to have started in your room.”

“It ... it was Vicencia. She smashed a lamp, and the oil spilled out and caught afire—”

“Vicencia?
But she wouldn’t have gone off and left you. And your door was locked, Elinor. Why was that?”

“Vicencia locked it,” I whispered. “She locked me in and took the key away. Oh, Stafford, she has been responsible for so many dreadful things. She murdered your wife—”

Stafford looked incredulous, and I knew what he was thinking—that those moments of terror, trapped in my room with a fire raging, had temporarily unhinged me. I had to convince him that I was sane and clearheaded, that what I said wasn’t just the babbling of a deranged mind.

I took a deep breath to try and steady my voice. “Please listen, Stafford—you
must
listen. It is
true
that Vicencia killed Luzia. She admitted it to me herself. And she has tried to murder me, too—this evening was her third attempt. First at Miramar, it was she who threw a firework and caused the horses to bolt. And then that very same night she came to my room to try to kill me, pretending to be my grandmother walking in her sleep. And it was all part of Vicencia’s plan to kill Pedro, as well. You see, he had recognized her in Cascais the day Luzia died, and he was blackmailing her to keep silent about it, because, when you started asking him questions, he realized the value of what he knew. So when it was arranged for Pedro to drive me to Miramar to meet you, Vicencia seized it as a golden opportunity to rid herself of both of us at once.”

I could sense Stafford fighting down his disbelief of the fantastic, incredible story I was telling him. “But what possible motive could Vicencia have had for killing Luzia?” he asked.

“Because she wanted your wife out of her way. She loves you, Stafford. She has loved you for a very long time.”

He shook his head, bewildered. “Vicencia is my sister-in-law, Elinor. We have been very close, but as for love—”

“She loves you obsessively, insanely. She will allow nothing to stand in her way.”

“And is that why she tried to kill
you,
Elinor—because you stood in her way?” How could I answer such a question? Stafford breathed softly, “So Vicencia realized that I’m in love with you, Elinor, is that it?”

I nodded my head and looked away toward the holocaust that had once been Castanheiros. Great roaring tongues of flame—orange, crimson, yellow—licked from every window, every doorway. The smoke billowed out through the roof, forming a dense cloud that hung above us in the still air, drifting slowly upward into the dark night sky and blotting out the stars. Every few seconds came the crash of falling timbers or masonry, flinging up great showers of white-hot sparks. When Stafford spoke again, the gentleness had gone from his voice. His face, caught by the glare of the flames, was set in harsh lines of anger. “Vicencia must be a monster—locking you in your room to burn to death. We must find her before she attempts God knows what other inhuman outrage. Elinor, I’m going to take you over by Dona Amalia and Carlota. Stay there with them, and I’ll get Affonso to help me search for Vicencia.”

He helped me to my feet, and I found that I was able to walk fairly steadily to where my grandmother was sitting with Carlota on a sofa from the gold drawing room. Dona Amalia’s face was expressionless, betraying no emotion as she watched the flames consume the great house that had been her home for nearly fifty years.

“Poor Grandmama.” I said, bending to kiss her forehead. “It must be dreadful for you to see the
quinta
destroyed like this.”

She reached for my hand and pressed it. “At least we must be thankful that everyone is safe, child. And all the animals, too. The horses have been led from the stables, and my dear cats are all here.”

I noticed the cats then, cringing in the shelter of her skirts, their eyes glowing palely in the light of the blaze. Far from being the sinister creatures they had seemed to me when I first arrived, they were pathetic in their fear as they sought their beloved mistress’s protection.

“Perhaps it is fitting that there will no longer be a Castanheiros,” she said in a dull, flat voice. “We had come to the end. There is no future for the Milaveira family.”

There came a curious exclamation from Carlota, a kind of rasping in the throat. I glanced at her and saw that she was shaking violently, as though in the grip of a fever.

“What is it, Carlota?” I asked. “Are you ill?”

“I believed that I was doing the right thing,” she said in a strained, husky whisper. “I only wanted to protect the family from danger, but instead I have brought disaster upon us.”

“What is she saying?” my grandmother demanded of me. “She mumbles and I cannot hear her.”

Carlota spun around to face the old lady, her eyes wild and glaring. “I took the Jade Dragon,” she sobbed. “I took it away, that is what I am saying.”

It was as if everything around us had suddenly become hushed and still. The roaring of the flames seemed a distant sound as I watched the two women.
“You
, Carlota?”
gasped my grandmother.
“But why? In the name of heaven, why?”

“I ... I overheard Stafford talking with Elinor and Vicencia in the Chinese salon. He spoke with such intense hatred about the Jade Dragon, saying that he wished it could vanish into thin air and never reappear. I was terrified that Stafford might try to destroy the Jade Dragon, and then what would have become of the Milaveiras? So I took it and hid it for safety. But I should never have taken the Jade Dragon out of the house. I have angered it, and this is its revenge.”

“Where is it now?” my grandmother demanded furiously.

“I acted for the best,
madrasta,
I swear that I acted for the best. I did not realize—”

“Where is the Jade Dragon?” Dona Amalia repeated. ‘Tell me at once where you put it, Carlota. Tell me.”

I listened with a feeling of dread in my heart. How I wished that the wretched jade figure might really have vanished forever. My grandmother was once again in the grip of all the irrational superstition and idolatry surrounding it.

Carlota insisted miserably, “It is safe,
madrasta—
in the old grotto. At the top of the steps that are cut into the rock, there is a ledge high up near the roof. That’s where I hid the Jade Dragon, well out of sight.”

“Then go now and fetch it,” my grandmother ordered. “Take one of the servants, with a lantern. Bring the Jade Dragon to me at once.”

Carlota was too afraid to disobey the command, but as she rose to her feet, she was shaking so much that she almost fell. I was wondering whether I should offer to help her, when there was a sudden exclamation from behind us, a ringing shout of
triumph. I swung around to see Vicencia standing half-concealed in the shadow of some laurel bushes. “Dona Amalia is right,” she cried. ‘The Milaveiras are finished. Your precious Jade Dragon shall go into the midst of the fire. It will be an end to all your arrogant pretensions.” With a laugh that held such madness it made me shudder, Vicencia turned from us and darted back into the bushes.

“Elinor, go after her,” my grandmother urged me. “Stop her.” I hesitated uncertainly. I think that perhaps I half-wanted Vicencia to succeed in her destructive aim. “Please go, Elinor,” my grandmother begged, struggling to her feet. “Stop that madwoman.”

I obeyed then, plunging through the bushes in Vicencia’s wake. I could hear two or three of the servants coming behind me, following my lead. I had often enough strolled in the gardens to be able now to know the way, but as the darkness of the trees closed in around me, I was forced to slow my steps. Twigs caught at my skirts, and trailing fronds of ivy brushed my face. Once or twice I stumbled, almost tripping over the exposed root of some tree. I still felt weak and shaky from the ordeal in my bedroom, but somehow I managed to keep going, and it wasn’t long before I reached the rocky entrance to the grotto. I halted there a moment to recover my breath. A groom from the stables had brought a
candle lantern, and I took it from him. Then, fearfully, the glimmering light held out before me, I entered the dark cavern.

“So it is you, Elinor,” came Vicencia’s voice, echoing from out of the blackness above me. “And none the worse, I see. What ill luck for me that Stafford arrived home so early. It seems he saw flames at your window as he was driving the
trap round to the coach house. Ah well ---”

Although I could not see her, I heard scuffling sounds and labored breathing as she clambered up toward the grotto roof. I held the lantern higher, peering into the shadowy gloom, and seemed to discern a movement.

Vicencia called ironically, “It is thoughtful of you to provide a light, Elinor. It will help me find the Jade Dragon—and help me deliver it, too.”

“Come down, Vicencia,” I pleaded. “Don’t you see, you’re only making things worse for yourself.” But her reply was just a mocking laugh.

Standing there with the lantern in my hand, it came to me suddenly what Vicencia had meant by her strange words—
and help me deliver it, too.
The instant her searching fingers closed upon the Jade Dragon in its hiding place, she would fling it down on me.

I dropped the lamp and backed quickly out of range. As I did so, I heard Vicencia exclaim in triumph, and I knew she had found what she sought. Then immediately her cry changed to one of terror. There was a slithering noise, a rattle of loose pebbles, and with another terrified scream, Vicencia fell. Her body thudded to the ground.

Horror-stricken, I grasped up the lantern and moved forward, the servants crowding in behind me. The candle shed a pool of pale light where Vicencia lay upon the damp earth floor. Her body was crumpled and twisted in the stillness of death, her head flung back at a grotesque angle. Something dark showed against the white of her neck, and, bending closer, I saw that it was the Jade Dragon. She had clutched it as she fell, and the long-clawed foreleg had pierced her throat and was buried deep. Blood oozed thickly from the gaping wound.

“Vicencia,” I whispered, knowing that it was useless, knowing she would never hear anything again.

A pair of strong arms lifted me up and drew me away. “She is dead, Elinor,” said Stafford somberly. “It seems that the Jade Dragon has avenged us all.”