The Winding Stair (27 page)

‘But you're much better, you know.' Teresa was sitting in the sun at the far end of the terrace. ‘You got through the “Too, too” bit with no trouble at all. And how about “Let's do some Portuguese”? We'll cure you yet, Juana, just see if we don't.'

‘Or she'll cure herself.' Elvira emerged from the shadowed entrance to the castle. ‘Your grandmother is asking for you, Juana.'

Mrs. Brett had not come downstairs since the Christmas party, but Juana thought that this was as much because she wished to avoid her unwelcome guests as on account of ill health. ‘There you are at last,' she said impatiently. ‘I suppose you were amusing yourself as usual with those baby-doll step-sisters of yours. I've been sending all over the castle for you.'

‘I'm sorry, ma'am. We were out on the terrace, working on my stammer.' It was always a relief to get back into Portuguese.

‘English!' it came out as a snort. ‘Why do you bother? Your duty lies here. You're the only one of the family I can trust.' She moved restlessly among her pillows. ‘Can I trust you?'

‘I hope so.' Not for the first time, Juana was tempted to tell her grandmother how she planned to share the estate, but restrained herself. The smallest check to her wishes these days
was apt to make the old lady ill with anger. The risk was too great.

‘So do I. But I wish I knew what Pedro and Roberto were up to. They were here yesterday?' It was not really a question. She was always well informed about what went on in the castle. Manuela and Estella saw to that.

‘Yes. Most of the day. To say goodbye for a while. Pedro is going to Madrid on an errand for the Princess, and Roberto to Mafra with the Prince Regent. We shall miss them.'

‘Dancing attendance. I never heard of anything so absurd in my life. On two pink and white English dolls with not a penny to bless themselves with.'

‘But they're not fools, grandmother, Daisy and Teresa. You know what the Portuguese girls are like. Can you wonder that Roberto and Pedro prefer my sisters?'

‘Step-sisters. They're no kin of mine, thank God. What I would like to know is just what those two boys are planning. It's not natural, I tell you: not for them to take being disinherited so calmly.' She kept coming back to this, and Juana, who was equally puzzled by her cousins' behaviour, could never think what to say. Sometimes she wondered whether Pedro and Roberto could possibly have divined her own intention to share with them. But it seemed extraordinarily unlikely. Besides, would they be content merely to share?

‘Stop dreaming, Juana, and pay attention! I sent for you because I've had bad news. I don't know what we are going to do.'

‘Why? What's the matter?'

‘The English mail's in. Senhor Macarao brought it out with him from Lisbon. I think the Whig Government's really going to fall at last. They've raised the Irish question again. No good ever came of that. God knows they have been shaky enough since Mr. Fox died, but I think this is the end.'

‘You meant the Tories—'

‘Are bound to get in. And then what will happen to Mr. Varlow?'

‘He'll lose his place?'

‘Probably. It's happened before, of course. One gets used to it. But I'm too old now for changes.'

Too old, too, Juana found herself thinking, to spare a thought for what this change must mean to her. She had taken on this dangerous assignment in the first place as much for Gair Varlow
as for her grandmother. And, these days, Mrs. Brett was more and more the invalid, less and less the ally. Without Gair Varlow … With a stranger … It did not bear thinking of.

‘You can't stop, you know.' The old woman could still read her thoughts. ‘They'd kill you.'

‘How many of them know who I am, do you think?'

‘Too many for safety.' She pulled her shawl around her with hands that got more like claws every day. ‘Oh, well, you never know your luck. Maybe the new man will be someone more eligible than Mr. Varlow. And that reminds me, what do you hear from your cousin?'

‘He's still searching among the wounded from Eylau.' Juana made herself speak quietly, but felt sick with suppressed anger. More and more, these days, her grandmother struck her as heartless, inhuman, hardly a person any more. ‘He refuses to give up hope, he says.' She made herself go on talking.

‘He's a man, that one. Worth ten of the Englishman. I wish he'd come back.' Dried-up hands plucked restlessly at the fringe of her shawl. ‘I'm worried for you, Juana. Suppose I die … Suppose Mr. Varlow goes … Write and tell your cousin I want him to come back, name or no name. No – if you don't want to do that—' (Had she seen Juana's instinctive recoil?) ‘Write for my signature.'

‘But I don't know where he is, ma'am. He gives no address.' As so often, when it was a question of Vasco, she did not know whether she was glad or sorry. But her grandmother's reaction surprised her. ‘It's all too difficult—' Tears spilled out of the dark-circled eyes. ‘It's gone on too long. I don't know what to do. I can't even remember any more. How long is it till the meeting, Juana?'

‘Only six days.'

‘That's good. No need to send for Mr. Varlow. We can count on his coming out afterwards to hear your report. You must ask him then what chance he thinks there is of his being replaced.'

‘Yes.' Juana's nails bit into the palms of her hands. It was all very well for her grandmother to be glad the meeting was so soon. She did not have to go down the winding stair.

The meeting on March 23rd began like all the others. When Juana opened the secret window of her cell, the hooded figures were in their places round the table, under the huge star whose light cast long shadows behind them on the rocky floor. As usual,
the leader was speaking: … ‘A new member. Is it the will of you all that he be introduced now?'

‘It is.' The words buzzed round the table.

‘Then let him be admitted.' The acolytes went back to reopen the big doors, but Juana was staring at the leader. Surely, tonight, for the first time, he was someone new? She thought he was both shorter and more squarely built than the man who had occupied the chair of the Star at the previous meeting.

It was only as the acolytes returned, leading a third gowned figure between them that she remembered she should have shut the secret panel the minute they moved away from the table. Lucky for her that they had gone straight to the big door and back again. Otherwise … It did not bear thinking of. She was so shaken by her own carelessness that she missed the beginning of the ritual by which the new member was initiated as one of the Sons of the Star. When she began to notice again, he was kneeling on the bare rock across the council table from the leader, with the seat between them vacant. The two acolytes stood on either side of him, holding a rope that tied his hands and seemed also to go round his neck. His head was entirely covered by a black cloth which reminded her suddenly of the blanket the brigands had thrown over her head. She found that even in the cold cell her hands were sweating in sympathy as he repeated the horrible oaths by which he was sworn in as a Son of the Star.

At last it was over. The two acolytes removed the covering from his head, revealing him as already wearing a hood like the others. The two members who sat on either side of the vacant chair came forward as his sponsors. One of them attached his emblem, a silver serpent, to his hood, the other took the ends of the rope from the acolytes.

‘Unbind his hands,' said the leader, ‘but leave the noose about his neck to remind him of the death in life that will be his if he should betray the oaths he has taken.' And then, as the new member took his seat directly opposite him. ‘You, Brother of the Silver Serpent, will be silent tonight, in token of your submission to the rules of the Brotherhood. Next month, you will be one of us and free to speak as the equal of anyone here. And now, Brothers, to business. I am come from Poland to bring you hope, and a message from Napoleon himself. As soon as he has disposed of the Russian threat, he means to turn his attention once more to the west. Then, Brothers, our hour will come.'

‘How soon?' asked the Brother of the Silver Hand.

‘Who can tell, Brother? But it should not be long now, since the Russians are embroiled with the Turks as well as the French.'

A vigorous discussion followed. The Brother of the Lion reported the fall of the Ministry of all the Talents in England and the Brother of the Silver Hand argued that they should strike at once, without waiting for French support. As usual the question of Spain was raised at this point and the upshot of it all was that the new leader agreed, rather reluctantly, to return to Poland and press their cause with Napoleon.

‘He didn't much like it,' Juana told her grandmother next day. ‘Do they often change leaders, ma'am?'

‘Oh, yes.' Mrs. Brett seemed to be thinking about something else. ‘They do change from time to time. It makes no difference. Have you thought how you are going to contrive to see Mr. Varlow alone, child?'

‘I expect I'll manage somehow. Daisy and Teresa are only too helpful.' She disliked the coy way they made excuses to leave her alone with Gair, but had to admit its usefulness.

But this time, Gair did not come. Seven slow days dragged by with not a sign of him. ‘This is intolerable,' Mrs. Brett said at last. ‘There's been no message even? You're sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure.' Anxious and restless herself, it was hard to endure her grandmother's nervously repeated questions. ‘Shall I send for him?'

‘I don't know. What do you think? I'm tired, Juana. You must decide. Send me Manuela; tell her I must rest …' Her voice trailed off. She was almost asleep already.

Juana had never felt so lonely. Up to now, her grandmother had been the leader in their strange partnership. She had taken the decisions; Juana's part had been to obey. Today, unmistakably, she had abdicated: ‘You must decide.'

Daisy and Teresa were laughing together in the cloisters at the foot of Mrs. Brett's staircase. ‘There you are, Juana. We've been looking everywhere for you. Luis is back from Lisbon with the mail. There's a letter for you. Nobody writes to us.' But Teresa's bright glance as she said this suggested that she was sufficiently contented with her lot.

A letter from Gair? ‘Where is it?'

‘And who's it from?' Daisy was in one of her teasing moods. ‘Tell true, Juana, who would you have it from? Mr. Varlow
who neglects us so, or that mysterious cousin of yours? We long to meet him, Teresa and I. Is he really as handsome as Maria says? To listen to her, he's Adonis himself. He's a worker of miracles, too; that we do know. How else did he persuade the old lady to let you keep the mare? And receive his letters! Mamma says she was never so shocked in her life.' Her voice was tolerant. With the advent of Pedro and Roberto, Cynthia Brett had been quietly relegated to the background of her daughters' lives.

Juana often felt sorry for her, but just now she had other things to think of. ‘But my letter?' She made it casual. To show eagerness would merely encourage Daisy to prolong the torment.

‘First guess who it's from!' Daisy produced the letter from her pocket and held it up tantalisingly out of reach. Then she had a better idea and darted out into the centre of the courtyard to hold the letter over the pool where the goldfish swam. ‘Guess quick, Juana, or I'll drop it in.'

‘That's enough!' Juana was surprised at her own anger. ‘Stop playing the fool, Daisy, and give me my letter.'

‘Temper!' But Daisy sounded subdued as she handed over the letter. ‘I'm sorry, Juana, I didn't mean—'

‘Of course not.' The letter was from Vasco. She knew his hand-writing by now. It was dated, as the last one had been, from Eylau. He had still not found his vital witness. ‘These delays are breaking my heart,' he wrote. ‘But not my spirit, cousin. Think of me sometimes, here in the frozen north. I think of you constantly.' It was phrases like this that made it a relief to be unable to answer him. Or was it? Did not her helpless silence seem, somehow to be suggesting acquiescence? In each of his letters he wrote more like a lover, less like a cousin. She was not sure how she felt about this, was sure only that he was going altogether too fast for her. Sometimes she even found herself wishing her grandmother had not let her accept Sheba or receive his letters.

‘How is the gallant cousin?' Daisy's voice was a reminder of everything she disliked about the business.

‘Cold,' said Juana. ‘It's still freezing up there, he says, and the snow deep on the ground. Those poor soldiers.'

‘Yes, poor things.' Daisy's sympathy was perfunctory. Her imagination did not extend itself much beyond her own affairs. ‘But when is he coming back, Juana; does he say?'

‘No.' If the monosyllable was intended as a rebuke, Daisy did not notice.

‘Still pursuing his quest?' she asked. ‘I do think it's the most romantic thing. Like Tristram, or something out of Mrs. Radcliffe.'

Juana could not help laughing. ‘I'm afraid he doesn't find it very romantic,' she said. ‘He is going from one stinking sickbed to another, he says.'

‘Oh.' Daisy wrinkled her pretty nose in distaste. ‘How horrid.'

When Gair Varlow finally arrived next day, Juana did not try to conceal her relief. ‘I began to think you were never coming.'

‘I'm sorry.' He answered the reproach in her voice. ‘I've been hoping for news from England.'

‘There's none yet?'

‘Nothing certain. Except that the Ministry of All the Talents has fallen. That's sure enough, I'm afraid.'

‘They seemed to think the Tories were bound to get in.' When they were alone, ‘they' invariably meant the Sons of the Star.

‘I'm afraid they are almost certainly right.'

‘What will happen to you?'