He was being weakened anyway. The war had seen to that. Many of his victims had fled Coimbra and its surrounding farmlands, gone to take shelter in Lisbon. That temporary setback would pass, and, anyway, Ferragus hardly needed to go on extorting money. He was rich, but he liked to keep cash flowing for he did not trust the banks. He liked land, and the vast profits of his slaving years had been invested in vineyards, farms, houses and shops. He owned every brothel in Coimbra and scarcely a student at the university did not live in a house owned by Ferragus. He was rich, rich beyond his childhood dreams, but he could never be rich enough. He loved money. He yearned for it, loved it, caressed it, dreamed of it.
He rinsed his jaw again and saw how the water dripped pink from the cloth. Capitâo Sharpe. He said the name aloud, feeling the pain in his mouth. He looked at his hand that was hurting. He reckoned he had cracked some knuckle bones, but he could still move his fingers so the damage could not be that bad. He dipped the knuckles in the water, then turned suddenly as the kitchen door opened and his brother’s governess, Miss Fry, dressed in a nightdress and a heavy woollen gown, came into the kitchen. She was carrying a candle and gave a small start of surprise when she saw her employer’s brother. ‘I am sorry, senhor,’ she said, and made to leave.
‘Come in,’ Ferragus growled.
Sarah would rather have gone back to her room, but she had heard the horses clattering in the stable yard and, hoping it might be Major Ferreira with news of the French advance, she had come to the kitchen. ‘You’re hurt,’ she said.
‘I fell from my horse,’ Ferragus said. ‘Why are you up?’
‘To make tea,’ Sarah said. ‘I make it every morning. And I wondered, senhor,’ she took a kettle off the shelf, ‘whether you have news of the French.’
‘The French are pigs,’ Ferragus said, ‘which is all you need to know, so make your tea and make some for me too.’
Sarah put down the candle, opened the stove and fed kindling onto the embers. When the kindling was blazing she put more wood onto the fire. By the time the fire was properly burning there were other servants busy around the house, opening shutters and sweeping the corridors, but none came into the kitchen where Sarah hesitated before filling the kettle. The water in the big vat was bloodstained. ‘I’ll draw some from the well,’ she said.
Ferragus watched her through the open door. Miss Sarah Fry was a symbol of his brother’s aspirations. To Major Ferreira and his wife an English governess was as prized a possession as fine porcelain or crystal chandeliers or gilt furniture. Sarah proclaimed their good taste, but Ferragus regarded her as a priggish waste of his brother’s money. A typical, snobbish Englishwoman, he reckoned, and what would she turn Tomas and Maria into? Little stuck-up copies of herself? Tomas did not need manners or to know English; he needed to know how to defend himself. And Maria? Her mother could teach her manners, and so long as she was pretty, what else mattered? That was Ferragus’s view, anyway, but he had also noticed, ever since Miss Fry had come to his brother’s house, that she was pretty, more than just pretty, beautiful. Fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed, tall, elegant. ‘How old are you?’ he asked as she came back to the kitchen.
‘Is it any business of yours, senhor?’ Sarah asked briskly.
Ferragus smiled. ‘My brother sent me here to protect you all. I like to know what I’m protecting.’
‘I’m twenty-two, senhor.’ Sarah set the kettle on the stove, then stood the big brown English teapot close by so that the china would warm. She took down the tin caddy, then had nothing to do because the pot was still cold and the kettle would take long minutes to boil on the newly awakened fire so, abhorring idleness, she began polishing some spoons.
‘Are Tomas and Maria learning properly?’ Ferragus addressed her back.
‘When they apply themselves,’ Sarah said briskly.
‘Tomas tells me you hit him.’
‘Of course I hit him,’ Sarah said, ‘I am his governess.’
‘But you don’t hit Maria?’
‘Maria does not use bad language,’ Sarah said, ‘and I detest bad language.’
‘Tomas will be a man,’ Ferragus said, ‘so he will need bad language.’
‘Then he may learn it from you, senhor,’ Sarah retorted, looking Ferragus in the eye, ‘but I shall teach him not to use it in front of ladies. If he learns that alone then I shall have been useful.’
Ferragus gave a grunt that might have been amusement. He was challenged by her gaze, which showed no fear of him. He was accustomed to his brother’s other servants shrinking when he passed; they dropped their eyes and tried to become invisible, but this English girl was brazen. But also beautiful, and he marvelled at the line of her neck which was shadowed by unruly fair hair. Such white skin, he thought, so delicate. ‘You teach them French. Why?’ he asked.
‘Because the Major’s wife expects it,’ Sarah said, ‘because it is the language of diplomacy. Because possession of French is a requisite of gentility.’
Ferragus made a growling noise in his throat that was evidently a verdict on gentility, then shrugged. ‘The language will at least be useful if the French come here,’ he said.
‘If the French come here,’ Sarah said, ‘then we should be long gone. Is that not what the government has ordered?’
Ferragus flinched as he moved his right hand. ‘But perhaps they won’t come now. Not if they lose the battle.’
‘The battle?’
‘Your Lord Wellington is at Bussaco. He hopes the French will attack him.’
‘I pray they do,’ Sarah said confidently, ‘because then he will beat them.’
‘Perhaps,’ Ferragus said, ‘or perhaps your Lord Wellington will do what Sir John Moore did at La Coruña. Fight, win and run away.’
Sarah sniffed to show her opinion of that statement.
‘Os ingleses,’ Ferragus said savagely, ‘por mar.’
The English, he had said, are for the sea. It was a general belief in Portugal. The British were opportunists, looking for victory, but running from any possible defeat. They had come, they had fought, but they would not stay to the end. Os ingleses por mar.
Sarah half feared Ferragus was right, but would not admit it. ‘You say your brother sent you to protect us?’ she asked instead.
‘He did. He can’t be here. He has to stay with the army.’
‘Then I shall rely on you, senhor, to make certain I am long gone to safety if, as you say, the English take to the sea. I cannot stay here if the French come.’
‘You cannot stay here?’
‘Indeed not. I am English.’
‘I shall protect you, Miss Fry,’ Ferragus said.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ she said briskly and turned back to the kettle.
Bitch, Ferragus thought, stuck-up English bitch. ‘Forget my tea,’ he said and stalked from the kitchen.
And then, from far off, half heard, there was a noise like thunder. It rose and fell, faded to nothing, came again, and at its loudest the windows shook softly in their frames. Sarah stared into the yard and saw the cold grey mist and she knew it was not thunder she heard from so far away.
It was the French.
Because it was dawn and, at Bussaco, the guns were at work.