Page 98 of The Seven Sisters

‘Then now I am home, I will nurse her.’

*

Ironically, the fact that Bel had her mother’s well-being to think of helped her greatly in the next few days. It gave her a focus, something to concentrate on other than her own misery. She oversaw the preparation of Carla’s food herself, making sure the kitchen staff prepared nourishing dishes that were easy for her mother to swallow and digest. She sat with her in the mornings, talking brightly about what she’d seen in the Old World, about Landowski and the Beaux-Arts school and Senhor da Silva Costa’s wonderfulCristoproject.

‘They have started digging the foundations up on the top of Corcovado Mountain,’ Carla had remarked one day. ‘I would love to go up and see it sometime.’

‘And I will take you there,’ Bel had replied, willing her mother to get well again so that it would be possible.

‘And we must, of course, talk about the plans for your wedding,’ said Carla, having pronounced herself well enough to sit in a chair on the terrace that led from her bedroom. ‘There is so much to discuss.’

‘All in good time, Mãe, when you are stronger,’ Bel had insisted adamantly.

Over supper together, three nights after Bel had arrived home, Antonio told her that he had just taken a call from Gustavo.

‘He wishes to know when he can come and see you.’

‘Perhaps when Mãe is a little better,’ she suggested.

‘Izabela, you have been out of his sight for nine months. So I have suggested he calls tomorrow afternoon. Gabriela can sit with your mother while you entertain Gustavo. I wouldn’t wish him to think you don’t want to see him.’

‘Yes, Pai,’ Bel agreed meekly.

‘And surely you must be eager to see him too?’

‘Of course.’

*

Gustavo duly arrived at three the following afternoon. Carla insisted Bel change into one of the new dresses she’d had fitted in Paris.

‘You must look even more beautiful than he remembers you,’ Carla emphasised. ‘After so long apart, we wouldn’t wish that he changes his mind. Especially as you are as scrawny as me these days,’ she teased her daughter.

Loen helped her into the dress and then styled her hair into an elegant chignon.

‘How do you feel about seeing Gustavo again?’ Loen asked her tentatively.

‘I don’t know,’ Bel replied honestly. ‘Nervous, I suppose.’

‘And the . . . other man you wrote to me of in Paris? You can forget him?’

Bel stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Never, Loen, never.’

Downstairs, ready and waiting for Gustavo in the drawing room, she heard the doorbell ring with trepidation and Gabriela walk down the hall to answer it. Hearing Gustavo’s voice, and enjoying the few seconds’ hiatus before he entered the room and she saw him, Bel asked for heavenly help, praying that Gustavo would never see the turmoil in her heart.

‘Izabela,’ he said as he walked in and moved towards her, his arms outstretched.

‘Gustavo.’ She lifted her hands to his and he clasped them, surveying her as he did so.

‘My goodness, I think Europe must have suited you, as you look even more radiant than I remember. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman,’ he said, as she felt him drink in every centimetre of her. ‘Was it wonderful?’

‘Truly,’ she replied, signalling to Gabriela to bring in a jug of fresh mango juice and gesturing to Gustavo to sit down. ‘Paris especially.’

‘Ah, yes, the city of love,’ he commented. ‘And I’m so sad I was not there to enjoy it with you. Perhaps someday, if God is kind, we will go together. So, tell me all about your travels.’

As Bel spoke to him of all that she had seen in the past few months, she decided that Gustavo seemed even more insubstantial than she remembered. But she forced herself to focus instead on his warm brown eyes, and the kindness within them.

‘Well,’ he said, as he sipped his juice, ‘it indeed sounds like you had a marvellous time. You gave so few details in your letters that I wasn’t sure if it had been a success or not. For example, you didn’t mention that a sculptor had asked you to sit for him while you were in Paris.’