Scandal at the Dower House Read online

  ‘My lord, how can I let her ladyship know? I don’t have her direction, I don’t know where her foreign relatives live.’

  ‘It’s near Oporto. I’ve no doubt her father’s partner will know. I’ll ride to Bristol and ask him. Jeremy, if I go immediately I may be able to return tonight. Can you deal with matters here?’

  ‘Of course. Staines, should we employ another cook for now?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, my lord. One of the girls can do all we need while the mistress is away. I wouldn’t like to take the responsibility of engaging someone else until she comes back.’

  ‘If you need help, ask at the Grange. I have more servants than I need,’ Jeremy offered.

  Nicholas reached Bristol several hours later. The roads had been dusty and busy, and he decided he would have to remain the night as his horse was too tired for the return journey. He stabled the beast and booked a room at one of the main inns, then set out on foot for the wine importer’s premises.

  To his frustration, Mr Sinclair was not there and was not expected back until the following day. Nor was he at his home. His wife could not help, as she did not know precisely where Catarina’s family lived.

  ‘I once heard her mention the Quinta das Fontes,’ he tried prompting her. ‘Could that be it?’

  ‘That sounds like it, but my husband will know.’

  The next morning Nicholas was able to obtain the full direction and, as there was a ship leaving for Oporto the following day, he left his letter to be taken by it. It would probably be faster than by the ordinary mails. Then he rode back to Marshington Grange to hear from Jeremy that the jealous wife, loudly protesting her innocence, had been placed in the village lock-up.

  ‘One of Catarina’s maids had hysterics, said she would not under any circumstances stay here, so she has gone home,’ Jeremy reported. ‘I sent one of the grooms down to the Dower House to provide protection for the rest of them. Even Staines is badly shaken.’

  ‘But if this woman Annie has been apprehended, they are in no danger.’

  Jeremy grinned. ‘Tell them that! They expect the husband to come wreaking vengeance on them. I must say village life is almost as exciting as Belgium!’

  *

  Catarina had spent a sleepless night concocting fiction in readiness for the dinner party, but she had little need for it. There were several other English people there. It was, she realized, a farewell party for Delphine and her husband, and most of the conversation was to do with the political situation in Portugal and speculation about whether the royal family would return soon from Brazil. The other guests were polite to Catarina, sympathized with her recent widowhood, and did not press her with questions.

  ‘You must write to me when you return to England and tell me how you get on at the Dower House,’ Delphine told her as she was leaving, but just then another guest captured Delphine’s attention and Catarina made her escape without having to give away her own address.

  On the way back to her apartment she wondered whether Lisbon was too full of English people, and whether they ought to move to some other town once the baby was born. Joanna was too far into her pregnancy for them to travel now, and all the arrangements had been made for her lying-in, but once she was able to go out Catarina knew her sister would be determined to make up for the months she had spent hidden away.

  She did not want to return to England in the depths of winter. The sea journey would be rough, and while she was here she would like to see more of her mother’s country. Perhaps they could go to the south, or even visit some of their cousins. Without the child they would be free. Joanna was adamant she did not under any circumstances wish to keep it, or even see it once it was born.

  Catarina felt as though she had never really known her sister. She’d always been aware Joanna was light-minded and reckless in her behaviour, caring little for the opinions of others, but she had not previously realized how callous she could be. She began to worry about what would happen once they returned to England. Joanna would not be able to go back to live with their uncle, nor would she want to. When Catarina had written to tell him she and Joanna were planning to go to Portugal, his response had been curt and uncompromising. He never wished to set eyes on the ungrateful wretch again. The sooner she was one and twenty and he could hand over her fortune and all responsibility for her the better. Meanwhile, he would arrange for Joanna’s allowance, which she did not deserve but which, as an honest guardian and trustee, he felt bound to continue giving her, to be sent each quarter into Catarina’s charge.

  With a sigh she supposed Joanna would have to come and live with her at the Dower House. It was not that she didn’t love her sister, but rather dreaded the task of controlling her. What the girl needed was a stern husband, and perhaps in a year or so they could go to London for the Season where she might find one. Meanwhile they could spend some time in Bath so that Joanna might learn how to conduct herself properly in Society. Then she recalled Joanna’s disgrace at the seminary. Maybe they ought to go to some other spa town such as Cheltenham, or even Tunbridge Wells. It would be better to be where there was less chance of meeting people who might know of Joanna’s previous exploits.

  Joanna was uninterested in anything but the discomforts of the last months of pregnancy. Their best estimate for the birth was the middle of December. Catarina had engaged a midwife who promised she could find a suitable wet nurse for the baby when the time came. Joanna had reacted in horror at the mere thought she might have to suckle the child herself. She insisted to Catarina she would be happy not even to see the child. Then, in the middle of November, she went into labour late one evening.

  Luisa was sent for the midwife, while Catarina tried to recall all she knew about childbirth. She’d thought they would have more time for preparation, but at least she knew enough to set water to boil and collect as many clean rags and sheets as she could.

  For several hours Joanna wept and railed against fate, then swore she would soon die of agony. The midwife came and looked at her, told her she would be several hours yet, and she had to attend first to another lady who was much closer to giving birth. She would return in the morning.

  Joanna screamed abuse at her, demanded that Catarina find another midwife, or send for a doctor.

  ‘There are doctors who act as midwives,’ she wept.

  By morning Catarina was exhausted. Joanna had wept or screamed the whole night, had clung to her hand with such force when the spasms gripped her that she felt they would never again be capable of holding anything firmly.

  The midwife returned, examined Joanna, and told her, with considerable relish, that her previous patient had given birth to stillborn twins.

  ‘And she did not make nearly so much noise about it as you do, my girl!’

  ‘How dare you speak to me – ow, ow, ow! I’m splitting apart!’

  ‘Should have thought of that nine months ago. Here, bite on this leather strap, it’ll help.’

  Joanna glared at her, panting. ‘It’s filthy! How many other women have bitten on it? Ow, give it to me!’

  An hour later a tiny girl was born and Joanna subsided on to the pillows with a sigh of relief.

  ‘A good size, even though she came a few weeks early. She’ll do,’ the midwife said, wrapping the child in a sheet and placing her beside Joanna.

  ‘No! Take it away! I won’t have her!’

  ‘Let me hold her,’ Catarina said, and took the baby into her arms. She looked at the tiny face, red and puckered, the pale-blue eyes, the dark curly hair, the tiny fingers curling round her own and fell instantly in love. At that moment she determined that her niece would not be given away, to finish up heaven knew where, with some unknown family, or given, when she was old enough, into some kind of service. The baby was of her blood: Catarina had never expected to have a child, married to Walter. Joanna might reject her, but the child could depend on her aunt.

  Nicholas wrote to the Quinta das Fontes and received a reply saying Catarina and Joanna had l
eft months ago to visit friends in Lisbon. He was tempted to forget it, assuming they would be home soon, but Staines kept appearing whenever he rode past the Dower House, asking if he had any news.

  ‘Dan’s wife says she had nothing to do with the attack on Ellen,’ he reported one day. ‘She was at home and there are neighbours who support her story. But if Annie’s convicted she’ll be hanged, or sent to that Botany Bay the other side of the world, and she’ll not see her family again.’

  ‘Do you believe her?’

  Staines rubbed his forehead. ‘I believe the neighbours,’ he said at last. ‘And they can’t have got the day wrong, as he was helping us with that barn roof. I wish her ladyship was at home; she’d help.’

  So Nicholas thought of Thomas Winterton, the fellow officer who, wounded when Oporto had been recaptured six years earlier, and unfit for more fighting, had married the daughter of the family who had looked after him, and settled to grow olive trees in the Douro valley. Perhaps he could ask more questions and find a trace of Catarina and her sister.

  He admitted to himself he was concerned, and would have gone to Portugal in search of the girls if he had spoken the language, but he accepted he would be of little use without it.

  All he had from the quinta was the family name of the friends they had been meeting in Lisbon and the hotel where they had stayed when their cousin Antonio escorted them there. They had said something about travelling further south, but Antonio had no notion where. Nicholas wrote to Thomas begging for his help, either in searching himself, or employing someone to do so. Thomas promised to do his best, but said he held out little hope without more clues.

  Nicholas told himself that Catarina’s return could make little difference to the accused woman. She had not been there; she could only give her a character testimonial, and there were others who could do that. But he was by now seriously worried for Catarina. She had, as far as he could discover, corresponded with no one in England since she had left. What had happened to her? He was missing her, thinking of her every day. He knew he loved her, wanted to see her, to hold her safe in his arms, to care for her for the rest of her life.

  Jeremy, he knew, guessed something of this, but with rare tact his brother made no reference to it, pretending that the real reason for contacting Catarina was to help the suspected murderer.

  ‘If she did not do it, who did?’ Jeremy would ask, but no one in the village could supply a name. Ellen had, they discovered, been walking out with a young man from her own village before she came to work at the Dower House, but his friends vouched for him, saying he had been with them on the fateful night. They could discover no other liaisons, no one else with a motive.

  Christmas came. Jeremy was by now able to ride around the estate, and Nicholas frequently rode over from Brooke Court. He visited London and his other houses occasionally, but remained away for no more than a few nights. Rationally he knew he would hear any news just as quickly in Gloucestershire, but in Somerset he felt closer to Catarina. He would wait there until they had news.

  When Catarina told Joanna she intended to keep the baby herself, Joanna merely shrugged.

  ‘As long as I don’t have to have anything to do with her,’ she said.

  She even refused to select a name, so Catarina called her Maria, after their mother. She wanted to name her Brooke, but reluctantly accepted that if she did people would assume the child was her own, so she called her de Freitas, for her family.

  ‘We will tell people she is a cousin’s child who has been orphaned, and I have adopted her.’

  ‘I really don’t care what name you give the brat.’

  Joanna had swiftly recovered her health, though she was plumper than before, with a voluptuous bosom. By the new year she was fretting to become involved in Lisbon society.

  ‘It’s a great shame your friend Delphine had to go home,’ she said, more than once.

  Catarina silently disagreed. She had been involved in so many uncomfortable lies since Joanna had been pregnant that she dreaded to have more to contend with. How could she account to Delphine for Joanna’s presence in Lisbon when she had not been visible before? If people came to know about the baby they would soon realize the truth.

  Joanna wanted to explore Lisbon, so Catarina sent her out with Luisa. She remained in the apartment, partly because the baby was ailing and she was concerned, partly because she did not wish to be seen with Joanna by any of Delphine’s acquaintances.

  Her precautions were, however, of no avail. The doctor had prescribed medicine for the baby and, when Catarina went out to fetch it from his dispensary, she met Joanna at the end of the street talking to an elderly Portuguese lady. The woman turned to Catarina and smiled.

  ‘Oh, you too! You are both so like your mother,’ she exclaimed. ‘She was one of my best friends when we were children. That’s why I spoke to your sister, to ask if you were related. I am giving a reception next week for some Brazilians who are about to go back home. I have also invited some of the English officers who have been administering the country. There will be some Portuguese friends there too, quite an international gathering. You must both come.’

  There was no way to refuse without giving offence.

  ‘But if we meet any English we know, how do we explain your presence?’ Catarina demanded, when they were back in the apartment.

  Joanna was unconcerned. ‘We’ll tell them I have just arrived in Lisbon after visiting friends.’

  Catarina, who had considered herself honest before this imbroglio, thought she was turning into the most mendacious creature imaginable, she had told so many untruths in the past few months. The sooner they could leave Lisbon the better, but baby Maria was still frail, and they had been advised not to travel until the weather improved.

  Joanna was thinking more of her first party. ‘How do you like this blue silk? I am going to have a gown made of it.’

  ‘I don’t think you should wear colours yet. It isn’t a year since Walter died.’

  ‘Don’t be so odiously correct, Cat! It’s been almost a year; it’s February now. I’m no longer pretending to be a widow. As it happens we didn’t have to tell people that, so if I want to wear colours, I will! I simply refuse to wear this unflattering black any more!’

  Catarina gave way and was herself tempted into half mourning, a silver-grey shimmering silk, and privately admitted she was glad to be wearing something which suited her after so long. Little Maria could be safely left with Clarice, her wet nurse, who adored her and regarded her as her own. She had lost her own baby, and her husband, a sailor, had been lost at sea some months before. She said she wanted to go to England with them when they ventured to make the sea journey. That solved a big problem, and Catarina longed for the day when she would once more be in her own home.

  The reception was a large one, with many Brazilian and Portuguese guests as well as English. Joanna, enjoying her first party for months, sparkled, and whenever Catarina saw her seemed to be surrounded by admiring men. Surely, thought Catarina with an inward shudder, she had learned her lesson and would be careful not to make the same mistake again.

  ‘It’s quite a large delegation going to Brazil,’ one of the men Catarina talked to informed her. ‘There are many celebrations now the Prince Regent has given it the status of a Kingdom. It is only just, since so much of our wealth derives from there. Brazil, Portugal and the two Algarves will from now on be a United Kingdom of Portugal.’

  It seemed rather remote to Catarina. She was on edge wondering what Joanna was doing. Joanna was fizzing with excitement as they drove back to their apartment afterwards.

  ‘Eduardo Gonçalves has invited me to drive with him tomorrow. He’s a Brazilian, incredibly handsome, and has a huge estate there. They found gold on it, and he is fabulously wealthy.’

  ‘Is that all you care about?’

  ‘Of course not; though he is so handsome and charming, having a great deal of wealth does add to a man’s attractiveness. But he is sailing for
Brazil in a week’s time. There will be few opportunities for us to meet.’

  Catarina was thankful. She wanted no further complications in their lives. Eduardo, when she met him, was suave but charming, and she looked forward to the day when he would be gone from Lisbon.

  Nicholas went regularly to Marshington Grange, even though Jeremy was now fit enough to ride about the estate. His friend in Oporto could discover nothing of Catarina, and the anxiety made him short-tempered. What had become of her? Staines had no news of her return.

  ‘Annie has been convicted,’ the butler said, when Nicholas stopped to ask how they went on.

  ‘I thought she had an alibi.’

  ‘That was only for the first part of the evening. Apparently they went to bed early, tired like I was, and Dan slipped out, thinking Annie asleep. But she followed him. She was seen by old Simeon, who was out poaching. He let it out when he was drunk.’

  ‘So she’ll be executed?’

  Staines shook his head. ‘No. The sentence has been commuted to transportation. Dan’s beside himself. Mr Lewis has threatened to turn him out of his cottage, since he does little work. He’s incapable most of the time. I don’t know where he finds the money for so much ale.’

  Nicholas rode on, having asked Staines to inform him the moment he heard when his mistress was coming home. He had other problems more urgent to think about.

  Jeremy was encountering considerable opposition to his proposals. The villagers welcomed the drainage scheme, for it would give them work, and some of them expected to benefit when he had more sheep. But life was harder for them than it had been for several years, and some of them blamed him.

  ‘As if I could do anything about the high duties on malt and barley which leads to more smuggling of brandy and other spirits!’ he complained to Nicholas, as they sat over dinner. ‘Or the size of the tithe and the poor rate!’

  ‘There will be proposals before Parliament soon,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hear some of them relate to imposing more duties to protect our own agriculture, and alleviating the poor rate.’