Lovers in Lisbon Read online

  Once again the Duchesse was planning what lay ahead and the pieces of the puzzle were falling nicely into place.

  She had gone to her suite in the hotel and had picked up a book bound in red leather and embossed with gold that had belonged to the Due.

  Because he was interested in genealogy, he had compiled over the years the history of the de Monreuil family. He had been extremely proud that he could trace his ancestry back to the Emperor Charlemagne.

  He had often shown Inès the book and because she was now included among the other Duchesses of Monreuil, she forced herself to be interested.

  While most of those listed were only names to her as she had found it difficult to follow how the family spread out not only all over the whole of France but to nearly every Kingdom and Principality of Europe.

  Now she was most intent on learning exactly who were most closely related to the Duc until she found what she sought.

  His youngest brother, who was now the Duc of Monreuil and had two sons, had settled in French West Africa. He enjoyed the sun and was also a virtual Ruler over a large territory.

  His second brother, she remembered the Duc saying, had been a great disappointment. He had refused to marry the aristocratic lady chosen for him and instead had lead a wild life of debauchery.

  He had scandalised libertine Paris and finally was sent to Brazil where he died in 1873.

  The Duchesse had not been particularly interested in him, especially when she learnt that he had taken drugs.

  Now she wondered if he had married and saw in her husband’s writing in the book,

  “After his death three women claimed that he had married them, one a Mexican, one a Chilean and one English. All paid off and the whole unpleasantness best forgotten.”

  This was what the Duchesse wanted.

  Writing also in pencil and copying his hand, she then added,

  “A daughter of the English marriage appeared later. Born in 1872 and then Christened ‘Felicity Beatrice Jeanne.”

  It was as if Fate was playing into her hands and directing for her the tragedy or comedy, whichever it might turn out to be.

  ‘Her blood is the equal of mine?’

  The Duchesse could hear Juan’s voice saying it.

  It was repeated in the wash of the waves on the shore, in the sound of the horses’ hoofs as they drove up the hill towards the house which had once been a haven of happiness to her.

  ‘Her blood is the equal of mine?’

  She wanted to laugh and she knew that it was what she would do one day when her plan came to fruition.

  *

  The Duchesse alighted and walked with dignity up the steps into the hall.

  The servant she had negotiated with and whose name was ‘Pedro’ was holding open the door.

  He was wearing livery with silver buttons emblazoned with the crest of the Comte Nuno da Silva.

  “Welcome, Donna, welcome,” he greeted her, bowing. There were two women dressed as housemaids who curtseyed.

  The Duchesse proceeded into the drawing room, which ran the whole length of the front of the house and opened onto a balcony.

  It was furnished in a very different way from when she last remembered it, but with good taste.

  She appreciated the pictures, which were not only valuable but also delightful to look at.

  Some flowers had been hastily arranged in vases and they scented the room.

  As she looked around, Pedro brought in a tray on which there were petits-fours and an apéritif.

  She realised as she sat down that Felicita was waiting for her permission to do so.

  “Sit, child,” she ordered, “and I am sure, although you have already eaten, that you will enjoy these delicious morsels which have been prepared for us.”

  She herself was not hungry, but she forced herself to eat one in order to keep Felicita company.

  When Pedro had withdrawn, Felicita asked in an awed voice,

  “Are you – staying here – madame?”

  “We are both staying,” the Duchesse replied.

  She saw the excitement in Felicita’s eyes and added,

  “While our luggage is being unpacked, I want to talk to you very seriously and I believe you will find it to your advantage.”

  Felicita looked surprised, but her eyes were obediently on the Duchesse as she began,

  “For reasons I do not wish to talk about, I want you to help me.”

  “You know – I will do – anything to help you, madame,” Felicita said, “but I – hope it will not be – too difficult.”

  There was a small touch of fear in her voice and it told the Duchesse that she was afraid of failing someone who had been kind to her and so she explained quietly,

  “It will not be difficult if you use your intelligence.”

  She paused.

  Once again she was thinking of Juan and how they had sat in this very room and talked on so many interesting subjects.

  Her father had developed her mind and so had her extensive education. But it was Juan who had made her think in a thousand ways that she had never thought of before.

  In the salons of Paris she had been described as witty, wise and stimulating by every man she spoke with, but she had always been completely aware that it was really Juan who was being complimented rather than herself.

  “Yes,” she said aloud, “you will have to be intelligent and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “Of course – I will – madame,” Felicita murmured.

  “Then what I want you to do,” the Duchesse said, “is to pretend that you are my late husband’s niece.”

  She heard Felicita draw in her breath in astonishment and she went on,

  “Her name, strangely though it may seem, was Felicity Beatrice Jeanne de Monreuil and she was half-English.”

  “What would she – say if she knew?” Felicita asked.

  “She is dead,” the Duchesse replied, “and that is why I cannot produce her to meet a certain person, as I wish to do. Instead he will meet you.”

  “You don’t – think he will he – suspicious?”

  “There is no reason why he should be unless you do something very foolish.”

  She saw the anxiety again in Felicita’s eyes and went on,

  “As the Duchesse de Monreuil, I am well known in most European countries and it will be a very brave person who told me that I lied or even was suspicious that I might be doing so.”

  There was silence between them for a few poignant moments.

  Then Felicita asked,

  “I shall be – nervous of making, mistakes – but, of course, madame, it would be a very great – honour to pretend to be a relation of anyone as – distinguished as yourself.”

  The Duchesse smiled and she liked the grace that Felicita accepted her suggestion with.

  Then she said,

  “I am so glad that you agree and now all we have to do is to see that you are dressed as befits my niece.”

  She smiled as she went on,

  “We must work very hard to see that, as a young Lady of Quality, you behave as would be expected of an aristocrat.”

  Felicita clasped her hands together.

  “Please, madame, help me not to make any – mistakes. It would be very – humiliating.”

  “I suggest you start by copying me,” she replied.

  As she spoke, she recalled how first Juan, then the Duc, had corrected any little mistakes she made involuntarily when she was with them.

  It was because, she knew, they wished her to be perfect, as perfect in what she said and what she did as she was perfect in her appearance.

  To the Duc she had been the living embodiment of the Greek Goddesses.

  Because it made him happy, she had often posed for him naked and he had never wanted to touch her, he had only wanted to look at her.

  So being naked had not made her shy and she knew that, while she thrilled him, it was the same feeling he had for the many statues set on plinths in his
Château in France and in his house in Paris.

  He had found her likeness too amongst his paintings.

  “I have bought another portrait of you, my beautiful one,” he would say when he came back from an auction and then the servants would carry in a fine picture of Venus portrayed by one of the great Masters.

  It was the Duc who had taught her even more about clothes and the Marques had been delighted in seeing her so exquisitely gowned and commanding the admiration of every other man in the room.

  But to the Duc clothes were an art. Like all Frenchmen, he was content to sit for hours discussing with Frederick Worth or some other great couturier, what suited her best.

  She learned how to make her clothes a frame for herself and, as they were very striking, she was never overwhelmed by them.

  Even now she chose everything that she wore so that it softened the ravages of time, concealed the alteration in her figure and enveloped her with an aura of beauty.

  “Tomorrow,” the Duchesse related to Felicita, “the best dressmakers in Lisbon will be coming so that we can choose clothes that will make you look very different from the way you do now.”

  “Clothes!” Felicita now exclaimed. “Oh, madame, I have not had a new gown for years! Although I made myself what I am wearing, I could not afford the best material or, for the last year, any materials at all.”

  “Forget it, my dear, forget all that you have suffered, what you have been or what has happened in your life.”

  She spoke firmly as she continued,

  “Your real parents are dead and your father, don’t you forget, was a Monreuil and your mother was the daughter of an English Duke, but you never met him.”

  She felt as she spoke that the Duc would be angry with her for embellishing the family history.

  She was, however, determined that from the very beginning Felicita would be proud of her ‘forebears’.

  “You will be an aristocrat, an aristocrat to your fingertips,” she continued, “for the blood that flows in your veins is the equal of that of any family in the world!”

  There was a sudden bitterness in her tone as she finished,

  “In point of fact you have no superior in France, although perhaps the Marques Alvaro de Oliveira Vasconles would not consider himself your inferior.”

  Unexpectedly Felicita laughed.

  “The Marques – ?” she asked. “But he thinks himself better than anybody in the whole of Portugal. I suspect that he also includes France.”

  “Then that is why we must disillusion him!”

  Felicita looked at the Duchesse in surprise.

  “The Marques?”

  “I want you to meet him, my child, and it will be very disappointing if he considers you are nothing but dirt beneath his feet.”

  Felicita laughed again.

  “That is exactly what he will think.”

  “Not if he believes you to be a de Monreuil!”

  Felicita drew in her breath.

  “Are you telling me, madame, that I am to pretend to the Marques?”

  “Of course!” she replied. “You are the Comtesse Felicity de Monreuil, my niece.”

  “But – why?”

  The Duchesse answered her in a very different tone.

  “You have already promised to do as I ask,” she said sharply, “and to obey me. You will therefore ask no questions, but think yourself into the part you are to play and let me make this very clear – ”

  She now spoke more slowly and her voice was very impressive as she went on,

  “Felicita Galvão is dead – do you understand? She no longer exists and so from this very moment I am speaking only to my niece.”

  Felicita realised that she had made a silly mistake and she hung her head and murmured,

  “Yes – madame – I understand.”

  “Very well,” the Duchesse said. “You will call me Tante Inès and, as I am your aunt and you are one of the family, there is no need for us to be anything but at ease with each other.”

  “Yes – madame.”

  The Duchesse rose to her feet.,

  “Because it has been a long day and I am tired, I intend to have dinner in bed. You will eat alone in the dining room, waited on by the servants, but, of course, without chattering to them. After that you too will go to bed.”

  “Yes – madame. ”

  The Duchesse walked across the room and, as Felicita hurried to open the door for her, she put her hand on the girl’s arm.

  “We will enjoy ourselves, you and I,” she said softly.

  Then she saw the quick tears come into Felicita’s blue eyes.

  When the Duchesse had gone to her bedroom, she stood for a moment as if indecisive, before she went to the French window, which opened out onto the verandah.

  She stared out at the sea that had become more tempestuous as the afternoon drew to its close.

  Now there was a wind driving the waves to beat savagely against the rocks and she could see the spray shining iridescently in the last rays of the setting sun.

  It was, however, at the same time rather frightening and she felt as if it echoed what was in her own heart.

  How could all this have happened so unexpectedly?

  How could she have known or even guessed it when she had woken up this morning?

  She had thought that unless she could sell her last three pieces of needlework she might have to drown herself rather than suffer a slow death by starvation.

  That she was already having so little food had made her feel weak and it had affected her eyes so that it was hard to sew as easily as she had been able to do before.

  She asked herself again and again how things had come to such a pass.

  It was all quite easily explainable.

  Her father’s books of poems, beautiful though they were, did riot sell.

  Her father, as her mother had so often said, had his way of giving expression to beauty as other men painted it on canvas or composed it into enchanting music.

  Felicita knew that what he wrote was even lovelier than the poetry of the most acclaimed poets of Portugal. Or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

  There were quite a number of them and because her father, ever since she was small, had made her read their poems aloud to him.

  “You have to learn to listen to the melody encompassed in their words,” he had said, “then instinctively you as well will speak with beauty.”

  Felicita thought that her father had given her beauty in a thousand different ways.

  He had made her understand why her mother had loved him so much and why the fact that they were very poor was unimportant.

  What had really mattered was that there were too many poets in Portugal and, while the Portuguese admired their talent, they did not buy their books.

  Although they had little money, this had never troubled Felicita despite the fact that she had to economise in everything she did.

  But her mother had often sighed because she could not afford the delicious food that her father enjoyed.

  Then when first her father died, the very little money that he had made from his books died with him.

  They existed, Felicita found, on the small allowance that her mother received monthly.

  Then her mother died too and she found herself completely penniless except for what she could earn by her needlework.

  At first she managed to sell the beautiful lingerie she made to visitors who came to the smart luxurious hotels in Lisbon.

  Then the shopkeepers started to complain.

  ‘Pedlars’, as they called them, were taking away their customers and this meant that one after the other the hotels refused Felicita admittance to their guests.

  Only the Manager of The Grand Hotel would sometimes listen to her pleas, because he was a kindly man. He had lost his own daughter in a typhoid epidemic several years earlier.

  Even so, the guests at The Grand Hotel were usually too old to be interested in attractive lingerie.

&nb
sp; When Felicita had gone to the hotel this morning, she had been completely desperate.

  It was her last chance.

  ‘It would be better for me to die,’ she thought, ‘than to live as I am now, afraid and with this continually gnawing pain within me because I am so hungry.’

  Then, like a miracle, everything had changed.

  She knew that it must have been her mother who had saved her at what seemed to be almost the last moment.

  “Thank you – Mama, thank – you!” she whispered now as she looked out to sea.

  She felt almost as if her mother was beside her as she went on to herself,

  ‘The Duchesse is so kind. At the same time I am a little afraid in case I fail her in what I have to do. Is it wrong, Mama, to pretend to be another person?

  There was no answer to this question.

  Except that Felicita saw the sun as it set send a crimson light over the waves.

  The brilliance of it was there for only a fleeting moment.

  Yet she felt that it was a message for her that everything would be all right.

  She turned to go back into the drawing room with a little smile on her lips.

  *

  Upstairs in her room it seemed unbelievable to the Duchesse.

  She had bathed and now she was lying against silk pillows in the big bed with its velvet curtains falling from the ceiling.

  It was exactly as if she had stepped back into the past.

  It was in this very room that Juan had carried her into a Paradise where there was only themselves and an ecstasy beyond words.

  As they had lain together in the bed, she could hear the waves in the distance and often they would draw back the curtains so that they could gaze up at the stars.

  “You are the only star in my life,” Juan had sighed, “and now you will shine only for me for I hold you in my heart.”

  It was the sort of scenario that made her want to cry with happiness.

  She thought of herself as a star leading him, guiding him and perhaps inspiring him and his whole life would be richer because she was with him.

  And yet it had been only a dream.

  When she awoke to reality, she was alone and Juan had no further use for her.

  Even now, after all these years, the agony was still with her.

  Savagely she asked herself how she could have been so foolish as to come back. Not only to the country that Juan had belonged to but as well to the actual house where they had lived together so happily.