Page 40 of The Seven Sisters

The old woman continued to say nothing, not meeting Floriano’s gaze. Suddenly she winced in pain. ‘Please, leave me,’ she said, and I saw the agony in her eyes.

‘Enough,’ I whispered to Floriano desperately. ‘She’s sick, it’s not fair.’

Floriano acquiesced with a slight nod. ‘Adeus, Senhora Carvalho. I wish you a pleasant day.’

‘I’m so sorry, Senhora Carvalho,’ I said. ‘We won’t bother you again, I promise.’

Floriano turned tail and marched determinedly out of the room, with me following, embarrassed and near to tears, behind him.

We saw the maid was hovering in the hall and walked towards her.

‘Thank you for letting us in, senhora,’ said Floriano, as we followed her across the hall to the door.

‘Keep her talking,’ he whispered to me, ‘there’s something I want to see.’

As Floriano disappeared down the front steps, I turned to the maid, my face full of regret.

‘I’m so very sorry to have upset Senhora Carvalho. I promise that I won’t come back again without her permission.’

‘Senhora Carvalho is very ill, senhorita. She’s dying and has only a short time left, you see.’

As the maid hovered on the doorstep beside me, I sensed there was something else she wanted to say.

‘I just wanted to ask,’ I said as I pointed to the fountain that no longer played in the centre of the drive. ‘Were you ever here to see this house in its full glory?’

‘Yes, I was born here.’

I could see that she was reminiscing as she stared at the dilapidated structure with sadness in her eyes. Then she turned to me suddenly as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Floriano disappear along the side of the house.

‘Senhorita,’ she whispered, ‘I have something for you.’

‘Excuse me?’ My thoughts had been temporarily diverted by Floriano’s disappearance, and I hadn’t heard what the maid had said.

‘I have something to give you. But please, if I entrust these to you, you must swear you will never tell Senhora Carvalho. She would never forgive me for my betrayal.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I understand completely.’

The maid drew a slim brown-paper package out of her white apron pocket and handed it to me.

‘Please, I beg you, tell no one I’ve given you these,’ she said, with a rasp in her voice. ‘They were passed down to me from my mother. She said they were part of the history of the Aires Cabral family and gave them to me for safekeeping just before she died.’

I stared at her in wonder. ‘Thank you,’ I breathed, glad to note that Floriano had now reappeared and was standing by the car. ‘But why?’ I asked her.

With a long, bony finger, she indicated the moonstone hanging on its slim gold chain around my neck. ‘I know who you are.Adeus.’ She scurried back inside the house and closed the front door.

Dazed, I stuffed the package into my handbag and descended the steps towards the car.

Floriano was already inside it and had the engine running. I climbed in and we set off at his usual fast pace down the drive.

‘Did you see the sculpture?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said as we drove off down the road and away from the house. ‘I’m sorry she refuses to acknowledge you, Maia, but my devious brain is now putting together the odd piece of the jigsaw puzzle. And I think I might understand her reticence. When we get back to the city, I’m going to drop you straight off at the hotel then go back to the Museu da República and thebiblioteca.Shall I call you later with any news?’ he asked as we arrived at the hotel.

‘Yes please,’ I said, as I climbed out of the car.

With a wave, he drove off along the street and I took the lift upstairs to my suite. Closing my door and hanging thedo not disturbsign on it, I walked to the bed and took out the package. Inside was a bundle of letters held tightly together with string. I put it on the bed, untied the knot and picked up the first envelope, which I saw had been split open meticulously with a paper knife. Studying the writing on the front, I saw all the letters were addressed to a ‘Senhorita Loen Fagundes’.

Painstakingly pulling out the letter inside, I felt the fragility of the tissue-thin paper beneath my fingers. I unfolded it and saw the address at the top was Paris and the date 30th March 1928. Checking through the next few letters I realised that the pile in front of me had not been put in any form of chronological order, as there were some letters sent in 1927 to Loen Fagundes at another address in Brazil. As I opened more of the envelopes, I saw the signature at the bottom of each of them was ‘Izabela’, the woman who may have been my great-grandmother . . . The maid’s words came back to me.