The Jade Dragon (26 page)

Today I went to Miramar with Stafford. We stood together on the belvedere as we always do when we visit the quinta, remembering that first time. From behind us came the sound of builders at work, sawing wood and hammering. The sun, still warm on this tranquil October afternoon, was turning the woodland glen below us into a blaze of autumnal color, and in the distance the sea was veiled in a delicate lilac haze.

“Grandmama will demand a full report on how the work is progressing here,” I said. “She is so very pleased about our plans, Stafford.”

“I think she feels that to give our betrothal her blessing helps to make up for the past.”

I hesitated a moment, then said, “Stafford, when I was talking to Grandmama yesterday, she told me something about you that I didn’t know before.”

He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling, and I was amazed that I had once thought them chilling and severe. “I hope it wasn’t anything too damaging, Elinor.”

“Far from it. According to her, the Milaveiras’ creditors would have closed in immediately when my grandfather died had you not come forward as a personal guarantor. It was you and you alone, the lawyer told her, who kept them at bay.” I looked at him reflectively. “I asked Grandmama why you should have gone to such lengths, and she was strangely reticent. In the end, she told me it was a question you would have to answer for yourself.”

He lifted his shoulders. “It seemed too cruel a blow for poor Dona Amalia to be turned out of her home in the last months of her life. I hoped to spare her that, but unhappily it didn’t work out anyway.”

I sighed, thinking of all the lovely things that had been destroyed in that tragic, unnecessary fire. “All the same,” I said, “it seems a bitter irony that Grandmama once accused you of making far too much money out of Milaveira wines.”

“I don’t think you should blame her too much,” he protested quickly. “I was meddling a great deal in the business affairs of the estate. With Affonso refusing to concern himself, it was vital for
someone
to step in. But Dona Amalia could not be expected to understand the full circumstances.”

“How you rush to her defense,” I said with a smile. “But it’s always the same. Stafford, what is this strange affinity that binds you to my grandmother, and her to you? I have always felt it so strongly.”

“I had every intention of telling you the whole story sometime, but perhaps I should do so now.” His eyes went past me, and he looked up at the house. “When my father bought this derelict property as a young man, Elinor, he must have imagined that one day he would bring a bride to live here. But fate decided otherwise. The woman he fell in love with, the woman who loved him in return, was not free. She was already married, a marriage of convenience that had been arranged for her by her parents.”

I looked at Stafford in amazement. “You mean, your father and Grandmama—they loved one another?”

He nodded. “But Dona Amalia’s sense of duty was far too strong to allow her to put love first. In the end, after much heart-searching, they decided that the only thing was for my father to go away. So he left the running of the Lisbon side of the business to his brother and concentrated on the London end.”

“And your mother? Did he not love
her?”

“Yes, in another way, a deeply affectionate way, but theirs was an altogether different relationship. He remained unmarried until he was nearly fifty, and my mother was many years younger than he. Alas, it wasn’t to last for very long. My mother died in giving birth to me. In due course, when I grew up, I was sent out here to learn the family business. And now, with my father and my uncle both dead, I’m running it completely.”

A few feet away a small blue tit was performing acrobatics in a tamarisk tree, seeming quite unafraid of our presence. “So I suppose,” I said thoughtfully, “that Grandmama sees in us, in our love, a kind of rebirth of that ill-fated love of long ago. Poor Grandmama. But knowing all this, Stafford, I can’t understand why she so condemned her daughter for wanting the kind of happiness she herself had missed.”

“I don’t think she ever did, deep down in her heart. But Dona Amalia had been brought up in a very hard school that put duty above everything. So, dutifully, she accepted her husband’s judgment that their daughter, Joanneira, was a wicked, disobedient girl for refusing the ‘highly suitable’ marriage arranged for her, and running off instead with a penniless English doctor. The old
conde
was a hard, unyielding man, Elinor. But perhaps if that letter of your mother’s, written when you were born, had ever reached its proper destination, Dona Amalia might have stood up to her husband and demanded a reconciliation. I think she would have. But in the absence of any news, she came to believe, she preferred to believe, that her daughter was dead.” He paused, his forefinger idly tracing the pattern of the
azulejos
that tiled the belvedere. “I suppose that when one is old and close to death, it must be hard to admit that for half a lifetime one has been sadly in the wrong.”

“It amazes me that Grandmama doesn’t blame Affonso more bitterly. To discover that it was
he
who suppressed that letter from Mama, and not my grandfather after all—how can she take it so calmly, Stafford?”

“Remember that it was Affonso who rescued her from the fire. And then again, his confession must have come almost as a relief to Dona Amalia. It saved her from the utterly intolerable idea that it had been her husband who’d acted so despicably.”

“Was Carlota involved too, do you think? My uncle insists not, but I can’t help wondering.”

“It would certainly make more sense if she had been. From the very beginning of her marriage, I imagine, Carlota dreamed of the time when the glory and prestige of being mistress of the Quinta dos Castanheiros would be hers. She would see your mother, who had certain legal rights as the
conde’s
daughter, as a competitor. So that suppressing Joanneira’s letter and preventing a reconciliation would have been a great temptation to Carlota.”

“I don’t suppose we shall ever know the truth of it for sure.”

“Does it matter?” he said with a little shrug. “Carlota and Affonso are a very subdued and chastened pair these days. They realize that at last their life of grandeur is over for good and that from now on they’ll have to manage on a very reduced income, barely enough to keep the Lisbon house going. To Carlota it must seem like near poverty, and she won’t be valuing her title of
Condessa
very highly now that she’s no more than the wife of a minor politician—which is all that Affonso will ever be.”

I looked out across the fertile land in the valley below us, the land that had once comprised most of the proud Milaveira demesne. Matters had been so arranged that Affonso should retain a few of the vineyards. As for the remaining thousands of hectares, it was a time of flux and change. New landowners and new ways would emerge. But the grapes would still ripen under the hot southern sun, and there would still be wine produced for shippers like Stafford to buy and sell. The sun was sinking now, dazzling us with its golden brilliance. I knew that it was time for us to leave, for we had a lengthy journey home, but I wanted to prolong the moment.

Stafford said: “You asked me a question once, my darling, on this very spot, a question I have never answered.”

“I need no answer now.” I protested.

“But you shall have one just the same, so that there are no doubts in your mind. About Inesca—she has been a good friend to me, Elinor.”

“Please.” I said uncomfortably. “Do not try to deny—”

“I’m denying nothing. My marriage was never a success, as you know. But I remained faithful to Luzia, because I happen to believe in marriage vows and intended to keep them. Until, that is, after the birth of our child, when my wife turned away from me completely.” Stafford’s face was clouded with remembered pain. “There’s a side to a man’s nature that cries out for fulfillment, Elinor. I don’t refer only to his physical needs, but other things too—tenderness and the sympathetic companionship a woman can give. The woman I had married offered me none of these, but in Inesca I found them all.”

“You loved her?”

He shook his head. “No more than Inesca loved me, but there was an affectionate rapport between us. She gave herself to me with generosity, just as, more recently, after the tragedy of little Edward’s death, her friendship brought me compassion and hope.”

“You mean that since your son died, you and Inesca have not—” But I didn’t really need Stafford to answer that, and I went on falteringly, “Do you ... do you still see her now?”

He smiled at me, both understanding and forgiving my jealousy. “You must start reading the newspapers, Elinor. Had you done so, you would know that Inesca was married six weeks ago, to a Spaniard who’s a well-known flamenco dancer. They plan to open a restaurant in Madrid, and I certainly wish them every good fortune.”

Reluctantly, we turned away from the view and, hand in hand, began to stroll back along the verandah. “I noticed something else in the paper the other day that I meant to show you,” he said. “About Julio Gomez—it seems he has resigned from the government service and intends to teach music in Oporto.”

“Oh. I’m glad.”

“Glad for him, or glad that he is leaving Lisbon?”

“To be honest, both. Julio was rather weak and foolish to connive at his sister’s scheming, but I was really quite fond of him. All the same, I’d prefer not to run the risk of encountering him in Lisbon. I don’t want to be reminded of that dreadful time—of the time when I suspected such unspeakable things about you and believed all those lies Vicencia told me—”

I could not finish, because Stafford had cupped my face in his two hands and stopped me with a kiss. I clung to him with sudden urgency. After some moments, I said shakily, “We must go, Stafford, or Maria will be wondering what’s happened to us. I told her when we dropped her at the bakery that we’d be calling back to collect her in about two hours.”

The shadows were lengthening as we drove through the scented lanes of Cintra. In my head the thought was singing that long before autumn came again, I would be Stafford’s wife. Ours would be a quiet wedding—on my side, Affonso and Carlota and Major and Mrs. Forrester, while Stafford would be inviting just a few close friends. We planned to spend our honeymoon in England, visiting the Carlisles, and including a trip to the Somerset village where I’d passed my childhood.

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.