Page 49 of The Seven Sisters

Finally, after ten minutes of stilted conversation, Senhora and Senhor Aires Cabral entered the room.

‘My apologies, some family business held our attention, but we are here now,’ said Senhor Aires Cabral. ‘Shall we go through for luncheon?’

The dining room was impossibly grand, with a table that Bel thought could perhaps hold forty guests at its elegantly turned mahogany sides. But as she looked up above her to the ceiling, she saw large cracks in the once exquisite ornate cornicing.

‘You find yourself well, Senhorita Izabela?’ asked Gustavo, who was seated next to her.

‘Yes, I am well.’

‘Good, good.’

Bel racked her brain for a subject to discuss, having exhausted the obvious avenues of small talk with him on the previous occasions she had found herself next to him at dinner.

‘How long has your family lived in this house?’ she managed.

‘For two hundred years,’ Gustavo explained. ‘And I think nothing much has changed in that time,’ he noted with a smile. ‘Sometimes, I feel it’s like living in a museum, although a very beautiful one.’

‘It is indeed beautiful,’ Bel agreed.

‘As you are,’ Gustavo added graciously.

During the lunch, Bel caught Gustavo staring at her every time she turned her head towards him. His eyes were filled only with admiration, in contrast to his parents, who were not simply making polite conversation with the Bonifacios, but rather interviewing them. Bel saw her mother’s face across the table, strained and pale, as Carla struggled to talk to Senhora Aires Cabral, and shot her a sympathetic glance.

However, as the wine eased the tension of the diners, Gustavo in particular began to talk more freely to her than he had previously. During that lunch, Bel learnt about his passion for literature, his love of classical music and his studies of Greek philosophy and Portuguese history. Having never worked a day in his life, Gustavo had filled his time with cultural learning and it was while discussing these subjects that he began to come alive. As he shared her own love of art, Bel warmed to him, and the rest of the luncheon passed pleasantly.

‘I think you are a natural scholar,’ she said to him with a smile, as the party stood up from the table to take coffee in the drawing room.

‘It is most kind of you to say so, Izabela. Any compliment from you is worth a thousand from others. And you, too, are most knowledgeable on the subject of art.’

‘I’ve always longed to travel to Europe, to see some of the works of the great masters,’ she admitted to him with a sigh.

Half an hour later, the Bonifacios said their farewells.

As their car drew away from the house, Antonio turned and beamed at his wife and daughter sitting in the back seat. ‘Well, I doubt that could have gone better.’

‘Yes, my dear.’ Carla, as usual, acquiescing to her husband’s thoughts. ‘The luncheon went well.’

‘But the house . . . goodness! It needs razing to the ground and starting again. Or at least, a coffee fortune to restore it.’ Antonio grinned smugly. ‘And the food they served . . . I have eaten better at a beach-side shack. So, you will invite them to dinner next week, Carla, and we will show them how it should be done. Tell our cook to source the finest fish and beef and to spare no expense.’

‘Yes, Antonio.’

When they arrived home, Antonio left immediately, saying he must spend a few hours at his office. Carla and Bel walked through the gardens towards the house.

‘Gustavo seems sweet enough,’ her mother ventured.

‘Yes, he is,’ Bel agreed.

‘You know, Bel, don’t you, that he is very taken with you?’

‘No, Mãe, how can he be? Today is the first time we have ever properly spoken together.’

‘I saw him watching you over luncheon, and I tell you now that he is already very fond of you.’ Then Carla gave a long sigh. ‘And that at least makes me happy.’

15

‘Have you asked your father to speak to mine about Europe yet?’ Bel said, when Maria Elisa came to see her a few days later. She could hear the desperation in her own voice.

‘Yes, I have,’ said Maria Elisa as they sat in their usual spot in the garden. ‘He’s happy for you to come with us if your father agrees. He’s promised to speak to him when he arrives to collect me later.’