‘And you, my poor child, will need help with your great-aunts,’ said Grandfather. ‘Not to mention the administration of your English estates – and this one; if those vultures do not snatch it away from you.’ He thought for a moment, and said, ‘The Mother Superior of that Convent – Mother Agnese – she is a real serpent, it seems. I had a letter from an old friend and correspondent in Madrid, Angel Saavedra, who informed me that Mother Agnese’s brother is the Franciscan prior, Father Torrijos, who, with several others, has been implicated in a Carlist conspiracy and imprisoned for his part in it. Doubtless his sister was his accomplice.’

  ‘Good heavens, Grandfather!’

  I thought of Juana, back in the convent, subject, again, to this evil woman. Who was also a friend of the old Escaroz. Would they create trouble for us? Demand the children? Whisk away Juana to some distant house of the Order in Cracow or Normandy before I was able to see her again?

  ‘I will return to Bilbao as soon as possible, Grandfather. As soon as you can spare me. But first I will write to that Superintendent in Madrid, saying that you took part in no plot, and are ill, and must not be bothered, and that all correspondence must be addressed to me at present, but that if there is a fine, it will be paid. That will show them they will gain nothing by threats.’

  ‘It will make them even more eager for your English gold,’ said Grandfather drily. But he did not forbid me, and I thought he looked relieved.

  ‘Then I will go to Bilbao and say – and say that I have your permission to pay my addresses to Senorita Esparza. Have I your permission?’ I asked, smiling.

  ‘With all my heart, dear boy.’

  Now Dr Valdes, my grandfather’s physician, came bustling in, to say I had tired the Conde for quite long enough. ‘Though indeed I can see you have done him good,’ he said kindly. ‘His colour is much better.’

  And I, stifling a great yawn, was glad enough to say good night, for every bone of me ached with fatigue.

  ‘Good night, Felix,’ said my grandfather. ‘You have done well. As I expected.’

  That gave me a glow in the heart.

  Outside his bedroom door I found several of the old ladies, anxious to waylay me: Josefina and Visitacion, Natividad and Adoracion were all hanging about. ‘Come,’ whispered Visitacion, ‘Josefina wishes to show you something. It will not take a moment.’

  Two of them led me, their little birdclaw fingers clutching my arms, to the oratory, with its red light, where Natividad snatched up something that lay on the stone step before the altar, and displayed it to me.

  ‘What in the world is it?’

  ‘Josefina made it. Is she not clever?’

  Josefina, who had not spoken for the past two years, nodded a great many times, her eyes bright with pride.

  ‘But what is it?’

  It looked like a wooden bird, about the size of a pigeon, very clumsily made. All over it, thin carpenters’ shavings had been glued, to represent feathers.

  ‘Now, we are going to show you!’ whispered Adoracion, and they led me, giggling, whispering, and mumbling as before, to the parlour where, during the day, the old ladies mostly sat doing their stitchery. Here a low fire smouldered, and Josefina, with many flourishes and much ceremony, took the crazy wooden bird and laid it on the embers.

  In a moment the shavings caught fire and the whole object was quickly consumed by flames.

  ‘Do you see?’ whispered Natividad in triumph. ‘That is all your trouble burned away. And especially Agnese Cantarillos. Josefina was at school with her; she remembers her well and says that she is spiteful and not to be trusted. But now she can surely do you no more harm!’

  They all smiled and looked at me expectantly, waiting for my praise and thanks.

  Poor crazy old creatures! What could I do? I patted them, told them I was sure their specific would work wonders, and praised Josefina’s industry. Then I reeled off towards my bedchamber, but turned aside for another visit to the chapel, to thank God for having permitted me to see Grandfather again, and to say a prayer for Pedro.

  In the oratory I found Prudencia, kneeling humbly at the back of the room, her head buried in her arms, and her shoulders heaving with sobs.

  Guilt smote me, for I had meant to take her the news of Pedro’s death myself; plainly Paco had told her. News always travelled about the corridors at Villaverde with lightning speed.

  Wordlessly, I hugged Prudencia and rubbed my cheek against her plump, downy one. She hugged me back strongly, and I thought: how in the world could a great, complicated establishment such as this household ever be wound up and shut down? If it had to be done? All the folk that it contains and supports – Rodrigo, Paco, Gaspar, Prudencia, the old ladies – God give me help to take up such a burden!

  Then, feeling that was as much of a prayer as I could achieve just then, I limped to my room. And, just before I slept, had a sparkle of message from God: remember, Felix, life is not only burdens. After all, your grandfather, in his day, in his youth, led his men to battle, rode wild horses, went hunting on the mountains . . .

  That is true, I thought drowsily, and I imagined God and Grandfather chatting together somewhere, comfortably, leaning elbows on a wall and looking out over the snowy peaks of the Ancares.

  Then I slept.

  In the morning, there was a great deal of business to be done. The letter to Madrid, and various ones to England – for I found a whole pile of correspondence relating to my inheritance there – besides no small quantity of matters brought me by Rodrigo concerning Villaverde and its affairs.

  As I walked with him about the courts and storehouses and stables, all so brimming with memories, of Bob my father, of Pedro, of my old Gato, I thought, you do not have to be happy in a place to love it. For my childhood had not been a happy one. I had wished to run away from home and had done so. Yet suffering in it knits you to a place with tighter bonds.

  When the most urgent affairs were dealt with, I went to say goodbye to Grandfather yet again. For I had his authority to return to Bilbao without delay, to hear Juana’s decision, and to discover how Nico went on.

  This second leavetaking was not an easy one. Grandfather was weaker today, I could see; our talk last night had tired him more than his body could afford. He lay, wax-white, on his pile of pillows, and could hardly spare the strength to speak, or to lay his hand in mine.

  But – ‘Embrace Dona Juana for me!’ he said with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I will do so.’

  He beckoned my head lower, near his, and I saw that, as yesterday, his old eyes were full of tears. Body and spirit were very nearly parted now; his body was hardly more than a carcass, limp and feeble; yet still his spirit breathed strongly in the words he whispered, which I had never heard from him before: ‘My boy, I love you very dearly,’ uttered so faintly that even a mosquito on the wall would hardly have heard.

  My throat was tight; I could do nothing but press his hands, then turn to go. ‘Hasta luego!’ I croaked from the doorway.

  And he: ‘Vaya con Dios.’

  13

  Sister Milagros gives me her message at last; a surprise in the infirmary; a surprise from the Reverend Mother; our affairs are brought to a conclusion

  When I knocked at the convent gate in Bilbao, and was greeted familiarly by the portress – as well she might, by now – she said, at once, ‘Now this time, Sister Milagros declares that she is not going to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you. Twice, three times, she has missed the chance. I shall send for her at once.’

  And so, though I was itching to ask for news of the children, and dying to obtain permission to see Juana, politeness constrained me to wait while the portress hurried off through the cloister.

  Presently she came back, panting out, ‘It is all right, it is all right. Be patient! I have sent word, also, to the Mother Superior that you are here, for I know she wishes to see you. Now, here is Sister Milagros, who has, for so long, had a thing to give you.’

  The face
of the sister who accompanied her – wrinkled, square, kindly, not young – was someway familiar.

  ‘It was you who kindly took care of my parrot in Santander,’ I said, bowing low. ‘When I was on my way to England. But I think, when I returned to collect Assistenta, that you were not there?’

  ‘You are right, young man.’ Her berry-brown face creased in a smile. ‘I had been sent here, to Bilbao, by that time, to look after the herbs, as their still-room sister had died. And then, some time after that a letter was sent for you, to Santander, enclosed in one to a Sister Annunciata.’

  ‘Sister Annunciata,’ I said slowly, remembering. ‘I never met her. Was not she the niece of the Englishman, Smith?’

  ‘Not his niece, his stepdaughter. And he wrote to her, when he was at the point of death, enclosing another letter directed to you. He hoped she would know where to find you. But by the time her letter arrived, she too, poor girl, was already dead of the cholera in Madrid.’

  ‘So many deaths – ’ I said, saddened and confused by her story.

  ‘Never mind, child. They are all with the angels now.’

  I rather doubted if the Englishman, Smith, was so, as by his own confession he had killed half a dozen people at least, and had dealings with the Mala Gente, but I did not contradict.

  ‘So – as she was dead when it arrived – Sister Annunciata’s letter lay on a shelf in the convent in Madrid for several years, gathering dust, until somebody chanced to open it and found there was an enclosure addressed to you. This was then sent back to Santander. But, I fear the sisters in the Convent of the Esclavitud there are all very old by now –’

  They were very old when I visited the place, I remembered, five years ago. By now they must be really old.

  ‘None of them could remember where you had come from. But, on the chance that I might remember, the letter was, after some time, sent here to me. And, just around that time, our Reverend Mother happened to mention that your help had been requested by the Dona de la Trava, to save her children, and that you would be coming, perhaps, to Bilbao. So – to cut a long story short – here is the letter!’

  And she ceremonially handed me a faded, tattered, stained, weatherbeaten packet which certainly looked as if it had been gathering dust, in one religious house or another, for the last five years. The wafer that sealed it was cracked, the thin cord that bound it had rotted through; anybody could have read it. Anybody probably had.

  To Felix Brooke: from Oviedo

  They have found me guilty; which was no more than I expected. I go to the galleys tomorrow, if I have not died in the night, which is more probable. Listen: I am going to give you directions where to find the money. Caramba! Somebody might as well have the use of it, and I’d sooner you, a decent-spoken English boy, than some doltish peasant who chances on it while ploughing. Here’s how to find it. I have amused myself by putting the directions in cypher, so no thieving nun who opens this letter can avail herself of the knowledge.

  Then followed several lines of letters all run together into gibberish words, neither English nor Spanish, making no sense whatsoever. After that, there were a few more lines of English.

  Do you recall, when we parted, you asked me if I knew the whereabouts of an English hostelry, and I said I did? And told you in which town it was? That name has two letters repeated in it at the beginning of words. Take that letter as the start of your alphabet. And enjoy the treasure in better peace or health than was ever granted to

  Your friend, George Smith

  Almost stunned, I read the few lines over and over. Of course I remembered the name of the hostelry. It was The Rose and Ring Dove, in Bath, where I had at last been able to meet a messenger from my English family. Two letters repeated at the beginning of words – So: take R as the first letter of the alphabet –

  Good heavens, I thought. No wonder the Mother Superior had been so willing to send for me. She could study those jumbled letters until the Last Trump, and she would be no wiser, lacking the key phrase. And no wonder she had been reluctant for me to see Sister Milagros, or to receive the letter, until the errand with Don Manuel was accomplished – he, preferably, dead, and myself, she perhaps hoped, beguiled by Conchita’s blandishments. Married to Conchita, with all that money in my pocket, how useful I might have been.

  Call me not an olive till you see me gathered, Mother Agnese, I thought, looking forward with some relish to our interview.

  Now, a shy, pink, white-robed novice came to ask me if I would please visit the infirmary, so I tucked the letter with great care into my innermost jacket pocket and gave Sister Milagros very hearty thanks for keeping it so carefully.

  ‘I regret it took so long to reach you,’ said she.

  ‘It makes not the least difference in the world. The news it contains is eighteen years old already,’ I told her, and followed the novice.

  We went through a couple of cloisters and into a big, airy room where, at a distance, I saw a number of children playing. Among them I was happy to observe Nico and Pilar, he looking decidedly more like a human boy than when I had last seen him.

  But what took all my attention from the children was much closer to the door, sitting in a basket-chair with his leg stretched out in splints before him –

  ‘PEDRO!’

  ‘My very self! Carracho! Am I glad to see you!’ said he, grinning away like a pumpkin lantern.

  ‘Your servant, Senor Felix!’ And he would have stood up, but I prevented him.

  ‘I don’t understand! How in the wide world did you get here? You were shot – I saw you drop like a stone – into that frightful gorge. How were you saved? Who saved you? Tell me the whole story?’

  ‘It is very simple. Do you remember the mother bear – who was about to devour Dona Juana when I popped a spoonful of lead down her gullet?’

  ‘I suppose you are going to say that she saved you?’

  ‘So she did. She had fallen in about the same spot, and stuck fast in a tree growing out of the cliff down below; there she lodged, poor thing, like a great furry bird’s nest. So when that fellow’s shot winged me – ’ he rubbed his shoulder, which was also bandaged – ‘I hear by the way that you tipped him down the rubbish chute in Berdun; that was very well done, Senor Felix. My congratulations! – ’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So – when he winged me, that made me lose my hold, and down I fell, right on to Mama Bear, who broke my fall. I lay on her, getting my wits about me, with nothing worse than a broken leg, while up above, had I only know it, those two gente were clubbing you insensible and wheeling you off in the tartana.’

  ‘What happened to you then?’

  ‘Well, I won’t deny that I was in poor case. There I lay, wondering every minute if I was going to roll into the gorge, and becoming a trifle light-headed with pain, but calling for help as lustily as I could, in-between times; when, lo and behold, who should come along but a group of those scissor-merchants.’

  ‘The esquiladores!’

  ‘The very same. And they, with their ropes and tackle, had me out of there in the hiss of an adder. Not only that, but one of them, knowing where I had come from, went off like an arrow to fetch Sister Belen, who had been making her name known as a healer of hurts all over the countryside. And – and so she came – and strapped my leg up in a twinkling, and that’s the end of the matter!’

  ‘Oh, Prudencia will be so happy! Poor soul – she thinks you are in purgatory this very minute.’

  ‘Aie, aie, that’s bad,’ said he. ‘But she’ll soon know better. Thank heaven. I’ve plenty of ill deeds to repent before I take myself off there. Or so Sister Belen assures me!’

  He looked so well, so happy, so radiant indeed, that I could not help giving him a hug. By this time the children were with us, Pilar hopping about like a grasshopper; Nico, I could see, still thin and pale, but, thank God, perfectly sensible and in control of his faculties. He thanked me, shyly and formally, for having saved him from the effects of the poison, a
nd for saving his father.

  ‘That, I fear, we don’t know yet, my boy.’

  ‘But we do. We do! One of the gipsies who brought Senor Pedro here said that Papa was safe in France. And he sent a message that we would hear from him by and by.’

  ‘Oh, thank God for that,’ said I from the bottom of my heart.

  Now I was summoned to the presence of the Reverend Mother and led off, not to that dismal little reception room where I had been on previous occasions, but to a cheerful parlour with a statue of St Philomena, looking out on to an orchard. There, to my very great surprise was, not the sour-faced Gorgon who had interviewed me twice before, but a total stranger, a lady with a smiling but acute face and two extremely shrewd eyes, who surveyed me from head to foot, and then said in French, ‘Bien! After so long I meet you. And very happy to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Brooke y Cabezada.’

  Seeing my surprise, she added kindly, ‘Ah, you wonder not to see Mother Agnese. She has – ahem – been summoned to Madrid to give – to attend an inquiry. And it is not certain when she will return. So I am transferred from our house in Bayonne to take her place.’

  She rang a little bell, and when a lay-sister appeared, asked that Sister Felicita be sent for.

  When Juana arrived and saw me, she turned brilliant pink, then bit her lip and scowled at the floor.

  ‘Thank you for coming so fast, Soeur Felicitee,’ said the French nun blandly. ‘Now: I am about to address you young people, so listen with care. It is for the old to speak first and be heeded by the young, n’est-ce pas? For our time is shorter, whereas you have all the time in the world, with your lives before you. So pay attention.’

  She gave each of us a sharp look.

  We were all three standing, the Deputy Reverend Mother because it was the custom of her Order not to be seated in the presence of guests; I, because I could not sit while a woman stood; and Juana because she could not sit in the presence of her superior. So we stood in a triangle, rather as if, I thought, we were about to begin dancing in a ring.