House in the Hills Read online

  He sighed and rubbed at his face with both hands. ‘What am I doing here?’

  Yes, he would look in at their business interests, but he’d come here hoping to find something out; had Leonora truly forgotten him? He was desperate to see her again, desperate to stop her becoming a nun – just like before. It was totally, totally selfish but he couldn’t help himself. He was married to a woman who drank too much but looked a little like Leonora. Night and day he accused himself of making a mess of his life. Somehow, this coming back was about laying a ghost to rest, not necessarily Leonora’s ghost, but the ghost of his love for her.

  After visiting the bathroom and splashing water on to his face, he came back into the bedroom and looked at the painting. The sight of the galleys and the brightly coloured flags brought an old memory to mind. If he remembered rightly, there was a collection of soldiers and a fully laid-out battlefield in the nursery next to his old bedroom in the east wing. Suddenly feeling a great urge to revisit his past, he wondered if the rooms along there would be locked. For a moment he considered summoning Serge or another servant to fetch the keys. Some inner wisdom advised him to do otherwise.

  Refreshed from his journey, he left his room and walked swiftly and silently along an arched corridor of cedar floors and stone walls. Murals and silk tapestries decorated the walls. Suits of armour stood guard in recessed alcoves. Arched windows set into inner walls looked out over the central courtyard.

  He paused and looked down on the arcade of Moorish-style arches surrounding the central quadrangle, the pattern of fountains forming a double clover edged with rose, brown and yellow ochre tiles.

  At the end of the corridor, he passed beneath a wider arch. From here the corridor branched to the right and faced north. A balcony looked out to the hills above the Douro. At this time of day they were suffused with a mauvish mist that was steadily turning to purple.

  He turned into the north corridor, making his way to the next wide arch and another turning to the right. This was the east corridor, the one he remembered from his boyhood, the time before puberty, young manhood and Leonora.

  It was strange the way his spirits lifted as he neared the bedroom he’d once slept in. He stopped before it, feeling his palms grow clammy, his heart hammering with excitement. The handle turned and clicked. The door opened. It wasn’t locked.

  On opening it he’d expected to see the same pale-blue shutters, the whitewashed floor and blue and white rug at the side of the bed. The bed was still there but stripped of its bedding. The rug was gone and the shutters were painted white. There was a pretty chest of drawers in one corner, a white rocking chair – small enough for a child. Beside it was a second rocking chair, even smaller, too small even for a child. Perhaps for a doll? Of course, he thought. Silly me. Ellen has been redecorating. This room was destined for one of her brood.

  Feeling slightly alarmed that he hadn’t thought of this before, he progressed to the nursery door – or at least the room that had been a nursery when he was young. On opening it, he found it more or less the same as he remembered it. Obviously Ellen hasn’t got round to changing it, he thought. Yet the room had a certain pristine emptiness about it, as though someone had cleared out other things that had been in there, things that had not been here in his day.

  The sight of the old battle layout, the poster-painted hills and the faded blue bay stirred his interest. Suddenly he was a young boy again. Groping at the drawer immediately beneath the display, he found the same box of soldiers, the ships and the cannon he’d played with.

  He crept on tiptoe to the door, opened it and peered out in each direction. The corridor was empty. Silently he shut it again. A few at a time, he brought the lead figures and fleet out from the box, lining them up on the painted sea in a similar fashion to the painting in his room.

  Flushed with boyish excitement, he began hurrying, almost as though he were afraid of being discovered. In all honesty he did feel some trepidation; a grown man playing with toys. In his haste to get them out of the box, some slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor.

  The clatter of metal against bare boards echoed around the room. He paused before reaching for them, listening in case someone had heard and was coming to investigate. He heard nothing. There were no hurried footsteps.

  The toy soldiers and a fine-looking galley had fallen beneath the table, impossible to reach purely by bending down. In order to retrieve them he got down on all fours and went under the table.

  Although it was only a cursory examination, as he brought them out he saw that the soldiers were intact. Their paintwork was a bit scratched, but they were basically sound and still recognizable as one subaltern and one knight of the Order of St John. The galley, however, was another matter. Something was jammed into the gap formed by its rigging and mast.

  His index finger proved too large to prod or pull out the bright object. Instead he used his little finger, crooked it over the object and pulled it out, holding it up before his eyes to study it further.

  It was a doll; a tiny doll made of lead and painted, but definitely not one of his toy soldiers. None of his soldiers wore pink and this tiny doll appeared to be dancing. One arm was gracefully lifted, one leg bent, the foot resting against the other.

  He asked himself what he would have thought of such an object when he was a boy. The answer was speedy. A girl’s toy. The tiny doll was a girl’s toy.

  Unsure what to make of the find, though promising himself to find out who it belonged to, he tucked the doll into his trouser pocket. First things first. There was something far more important he wanted to do. Already suspicious that the servants had been told to keep their mouths shut, there was someone else he had to see. Someone who had known Leonora as well as, if not better than, he did.

  Ten

  William Shellard had prolonged his stay so he could take in a visit to the Convent of our Lady of Tears.

  The building was built in the Baroque style so prevalent in this part of Portugal. The front of the building was faceless; without windows or apertures to let in air. The world could not see in or the nuns see out.

  Their most regular trip to the outside world was to the little chapel across the way. For some reason, at one time someone had seen fit to place a road between the two buildings; perhaps before then they’d been encapsulated in the same compound. As it was, the locals as well as the nuns went to the chapel to pray.

  William stared at the steps leading up to the entrance. An old woman supported by a child of about ten was making her way slowly upwards. Placing one careful footstep in front of the other, she leaned on the child as she did so.

  The child gave no indication of struggling to take her weight, not that William was really seeing them. Memories of another time blurred his sight; a vision in a blue dress and a white mantilla. Once again he relived the moment when he’d seen her eyes flash as they alighted on him. He remembered that his legs had turned to water.

  Suddenly, a startled cry stirred him from his reverie. The child had cried out in Portuguese. William saw the old woman crumpled on the steps and ran to her.

  He brushed the dust from his knowledge of the Portuguese language as he assisted her to her feet. ‘Signora, are you all right?’

  The old woman nodded. ‘Thanks be to God, thanks be to the Blessed Virgin, I am not hurt. These steps,’ she said, indicating the steep rise with a wave of her hand.

  ‘I will help you,’ said William.

  The child, pink from exertion and panting, looked relieved.

  The old woman began talking, asking him questions as to why he was there. ‘Are you coming in to pray?’

  ‘No. I intend visiting an old friend – in fact an old friend’s aunt. She’s a nun at the convent here.’ He indicated the blank wall of sculpted images but no windows, just one stout door.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the old woman. ‘I know all the sisters there and the Mother Superior. They are very good to me. What is the sister’s name?’

  ‘Her
name is Sister Anna Marie.’

  The old woman stopped and looked up at him, folds of flesh falling on to her brow. He saw instantly that her sight was impaired with cataracts, her eyes milky, almost totally white.

  ‘Anna Marie? You won’t find her here any more. She left the order. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Where did she go?’ William asked, his head throbbing with possibilities.

  Please. Don’t let her be dead.

  The old woman frowned as she thought about it. ‘I think Pinhao or some village around there.’

  ‘And her niece? Do you recall her niece? She may have become a nun recently. Have you heard?’

  The old woman shook her head. ‘There are no new postulants that I know of.’ Again her brow wrinkled in concentration. ‘No. No new postulants at all – not at this convent.’

  He thanked the woman, who in turn thanked him. The child helped the grandmother through the church door and into the cool darkness.

  William stood for a moment pondering whether to make further enquiries at the convent. He eyed the blank walls speculatively as though finding a window would be tantamount to finding Sister Anna Marie. No, he decided. Their response would be as blank as the building they lived in. Once a nun left the order she might as well be dead. But Leonora? Had she joined the order as she’d once planned to do; before he’d come along, before his brother had snatched her away?

  It wasn’t going to be easy to find Sister Anna Marie. Pinhao was not as large a city as Porto, but it was large enough. There again, the old woman had said she’d moved to that area. He knew it well enough as a place of rich vineyards and quintas that varied from the quaint to the opulent. But at least I have something to go on, he told himself. And then I can…

  He couldn’t finish the sentence because he still didn’t know what he expected from pursuing this course of action. They’d had such a brief time together, though so sweet, so passionate, yet there was something deeper spurring him on. In time he might find out what it was. In the meantime he sat among the old men beneath a shady tree. Curious eyes squinted at him. He did not acknowledge their interest, too busy assessing and reassessing his reasons for this madness. Perhaps the heat of the sun had gone to his head, for beneath the tree he began to take stock of himself and whatever it was he was trying to find out.

  Shrouded in shade, this fever that had persisted since he’d first heard that Leonora had left Castile Villanova subsided. He only had a few more days in Portugal before sailing home.

  If she cares for me at all then she will look for me, he thought, and if she has become a nun… He gazed again at the convent so still, so sacrosanct and cloaked in shade; a place of safety and tranquillity.

  He sighed, ashamed of his selfishness. I stopped her from taking her novice vows once before, he thought. If that is the life she wants now, then I have no right to stand in her way. He decided he would not contact Leonora’s aunt. Satisfied he had made the right decision, he got up and headed for home.

  * * *

  ‘School? But I’ve never been to school.’

  Catherine felt the colour draining from her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and focused on her mother’s aunt.

  ‘Then it will be a big adventure. It’s a convent school.’

  Despite her large frame, Aunt Lopa was as quick on her feet as she was with the hands that made the lace and jerked the crochet hook. She was surrounded by the fruits of her labour; creamy-coloured lace and items of crochet made from multicoloured silks. She was folding each item before setting it on one of many piles. Once satisfied that each pile met some mental calculation, it was placed into the open neck of a large sack.

  She spoke quickly. ‘Your things are packed. One suitcase will be enough. It has to be. I only own one. I will give you some money for immediate needs now. The Mother Superior will hold more in case you need it.’

  Catherine felt a terrible chill wash over her. ‘I am to leave you? I am to go from here?’

  Aunt Lopa carried on with what she was doing. ‘For now. Until Christmas. I will be back then.’

  Her explanation went some way to calming Catherine’s fears. At least she’d be coming back. But still, she didn’t want to go. ‘Can’t I stay here? Who will look after the goats?’ Detecting the tremor in Catherine’s voice, Aunt Lopa stopped what she was doing. Her gaze was gentle as she took hold of Catherine’s trembling shoulders and sat her down.

  ‘I’ve to make a living, Catherine. And before you say it, goats and olives won’t keep the wolf from the door. So while you’re away at school, I shall be out on the road selling my wares.’

  Mention of the wolf brought another useful excuse to mind. ‘What about the wolves? Who will look after them?’

  Aunt Lopa blinked. During the months since Catherine’s arrival neither had made mention of the wolves.

  Fearing rejection, Catherine had been careful not to ask too many questions. She was happy here.

  A broad smile split the kindly face, but there was sadness in her eyes. ‘Time they fended for themselves.’

  ‘Why? Why are they here?’

  Aunt Lopa began nodding. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ It was as though she had agreed something with herself. ‘I will tell you their story. A goat was found with its throat torn out. The wolf was hunted and was killed close to its lair. It was a she wolf. That is how I know it was close to its lair. I took my own goats close by to graze. I saw the cubs – and they saw me. Weak from hunger they followed me. I fed them.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I should not have done, I know. I should have told the hunters. They would have killed them. I couldn’t. So I took care of them. At least if they grew up they would have a chance. So I feed them. And I trained them not to kill goats. They only kill rabbits and birds. Now they are grown and must learn to live without me.’

  It was on the tip of Catherine’s tongue to ask if she could feed the wolves too. Aunt Lopa seemed to read her mind.

  ‘No. Leave them be. I should have left them too. They are wild things.’

  Sensing the conversation about wolves was over Catherine’s attention turned to the piles of lace and crocheted things. ‘They’re very pretty.’

  Aunt Lopa’s face glowed with pride. Slapping her meaty thighs, she sat back on her heels and reached for a tablecloth. ‘I’ve regular customers. I make them laugh. I give them good advice when they ask for it. And they pay me!’ She winked mischievously. ‘Some say I’m better than a visit from the parish priest or a pill from the doctor. But it pays, my sweet Catherine, it pays. I have a bank account. A big box I keep in the big chest in my bedroom. There’s not much real money, but a lot of pretty papers. And one day it will all be yours. I’ve no one else to leave it to.’

  * * *

  Francisco came with the pony and trap to take her to the convent school. Aunt Lopa stood by the door waving her off. ‘I will see you at Christmas.’

  Feeling less than happy to be leaving, Catherine waved back, her face pale above the tight velvet collar of her coat. ‘She’ll be off on her trading soon,’ said Francisco.

  ‘Where will you be?’ Catherine asked him.

  His grin was lopsided. She stared at it, committing it to memory.

  ‘I’ll be at the school in Pinhao some days; helping with the vines on others.’

  Francisco’s family owned their own vineyard. They were wealthy compared to some of their neighbours.

  Catherine sighed. ‘I wish I could go to your school in Pinhao.’

  Francisco burst out laughing. ‘That would not be allowed!’

  She frowned and remembered his comment about her mother that night she’d pointed at a star. ‘Am I not in a state of grace?’

  Hearing the loud laughter, the horse whinnied as though it too was amused.

  ‘No!’ Francisco laughed, one hand rubbing his aching side. ‘You’re a girl. The school in Pinhao is run by monks. Boys only. Your school will be girls only and nuns will be teaching you.’

  * * *

  School was bearable,
though the nuns did their best to disguise her beauty. Their main weapon in this was to tie her hair back in plaits. The plaits were meant to be strained back from her forehead, but even this severe style failed to diminish her impact. Without the curtain of hair, her facial features were more noticeable, especially her flashing eyes.

  She entered the convent school as a twelve-year-old child. Each year succeeding that first one, her beauty grew. Even the nuns found themselves staring, wondering what the future held for her.

  Catherine saw the admiring looks in the eyes of young men and boys. In turn she too was maturing, drawn to masculine beauty that was a mirror of her own. In this respect Umberto, at sixteen years old, was unsurpassable.

  The first time she saw the altar boy he was swinging an incense burner, the sweet smoke twisting and turning its way upwards. Unfortunately, just as he got to her the intricately carved ball came away from its supporting chain. Absorbed in ritual, the priest didn’t hear or notice it hit the floor and roll into the gap between Catherine’s knees.

  Stifling her giggles, her hands clasped in prayer, Catherine did not attempt to return the ball to the red-faced boy. Her eyes met his in mute understanding of what had to be done – or rather what he would have to do. She smiled daringly. He blushed profusely, glanced at the retreating priest, then pounced, his hands between her knees retrieving the incense burner. Somehow he managed to click the chain back into place.

  He looked at her after he’d done so. She looked back, then smiled.

  She’d presumed the poor boy would blush even more, but he surprised her when he smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

  Daring, she thought, her face a picture of surprise. He is so daring! And she loved him for it. Of course, being a pupil at a convent school, she didn’t get to see him very often; in fact only on those days they went to mass. More often than not the boy, who she found out was called Umberto, was there.