Page 56 of The Seven Sisters

‘Good,’ Maria Elisa said staunchly, ‘because I don’t want to be the one to come back here and tell him his bride has run off with an Italian painter.’

‘Oh please, as if that would ever happen!’ Bel rolled her eyes.

*

The day before Bel was due to leave on the steamer with the da Silva Costas and travel across the Atlantic to France, Gustavo came to Mansão da Princesa to say goodbye to her. For once, her parents discreetly left them alone in the drawing room.

‘So, this is the last time we meet for many months.’ He smiled at her sadly. ‘I will miss you, Izabela.’

‘And I you, Gustavo,’ she replied. ‘I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to go.’

‘I simply want to make you happy. Now, I have something for you.’ Gustavo dipped into his pocket and drew out a leather pouch. As he opened it, Bel saw it contained a necklace. ‘This is for you,’ he said, as he handed it to her. ‘It’s a moonstone, and it is meant to offer protection to the wearer, especially if they are travelling across the sea and away from loved ones.’

Bel looked at the delicate blueish-white stone, set in a circle of tiny diamonds. ‘I love it,’ she said with genuine enthusiasm. ‘Thank you, Gustavo.’

‘I chose it especially for you,’ he said, looking pleased at her reaction. ‘It’s not of much value, but I’m glad you like it.’

‘I do,’ she said, touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘Can you fasten it for me?’

Gustavo did so, then reached his lips to her neck and kissed it. ‘Minha lindaIzabela,’ he said admiringly. ‘It suits you well.’

‘I promise I’ll wear it every day.’

‘And write often?’

‘Yes.’

‘Izabela, I . . .’ Suddenly his fingers tipped her chin to his and he kissed her on the lips for the very first time. Having never been kissed by any man before, Bel had long been curious as to what it would feel like. In the books she’d read, women normally went weak at the knees during the experience. Well, she thought as Gustavo’s tongue made its way inside her mouth and she struggled to fathom what to do with her own, her knees certainly didn’t feel weak. In fact, when he drew away from her, she decided it had not been unpleasant. It had simply been . . . nothing. Nothing at all.

*

‘Goodbye, darling Loen. Keep safe, won’t you?’ said Bel as she prepared to leave her bedroom and join her parents on the journey to the port.

‘And you, Senhorita Bel. I worry about you going across the sea without me. Please write to me often, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Bel agreed. ‘I’ll tell you all the things I can’t speak of to my parents,’ she added with a conspiratorial smile. ‘So make sure you keep my letters hidden. I must leave now, but please write to me and tell me everything that happens here. Take care, Loen.’ She kissed her and left the room.

As Bel climbed into the car, she pondered on how even her maid seemed to be experiencing the one feeling she now knew for certain she’d be deprived of for the rest of her life: passion.

*

Both her parents accompanied her on board the ship in Rio’s main port, Pier Mauá. Carla glanced round the comfortable suite in awe.

‘Why, it’s just like a room on land,’ she said, walking to the bed and sitting down on it to test the mattress. ‘There are electric lights and even pretty curtains,’ she enthused.

‘Don’t tell me you expected Bel to travel by candlelight lying in a hammock on the deck?’ joked Antonio. ‘I can tell you that what this passage has cost warrants every modern convenience imaginable.’

For the thousandth time, Bel wished her father would desist from weighing everything by the amount of cash it had cost him. The ship’s bell rang out to alert all remaining non-passengers to its imminent departure and Bel hugged her mother to her. ‘Please take care, Mãe, until I’m back. You haven’t seemed yourself lately.’

‘Stop fussing, Bel. I’m just getting old, that is all,’ Carla insisted. ‘Now, look after yourself until you’re home safe with us again.’

As Carla released her daughter, Bel could see the tears brimming in her mother’s eyes.

Antonio then took her in his arms.

‘Goodbye, myprincesa, and I hope that once you have seen the beauty of the Old World, you will still wish to come back home to your loving mother and father and your fiancé.’

Bel went upstairs with them to the deck and waved them goodbye as they set off down the gangplank. As they shrank to specks from her high vantage point, for the first time Bel experienced a rush of anxiety. She was travelling across the world with a family she hardly knew. And as the ship’s horn blasted the nerve endings in her ears, and the gap between vessel and shore began to widen, she waved frantically at them.