do not know why this is so, unless it is that so little of the fires are burned with coal. I do not recall having the same sense when we were in Rome, but there the city is so much smaller. Here, according to my cicerone, an excellent man, a teacher from the university, there are two hundred thousand souls! But the city has nothing of the feel of antiquity that Rome had, though there are many fine buildings, all of them of the Baroque. The earthquake which destroyed so much of the city’s finery was all of seventy years ago, but everywhere there is evidence still, sometimes in piles of rubble where a house had collapsed and never been revisited, elsewhere in the broken facades of the churches and public buildings. And yet there is fine building anew, not half a mile from me now a great basilica built to give thanks for the birth of a royal male heir, though he died of the smallpox before it was finished. There is, too, a feel of the Indies in many a street, just something in the shape of a window or a door, which reminds of where the wealth of this country is found. But oh! – the streets are as dirty and mean in places as visitors have complained, though I must say I have seen streets as bad in London, and for a reason I cannot suppose, the stench is not nearly so bad as before. I did not say that, unlike Rome, the houses are mainly white, except for the grandest which are painted very decorative, and some that are faced with tiles of different colours. There is a cold wind, but the sun is very hot when it shines, which it has today for a full eight hours.In the afternoon I went to the Poor Syon House, which is a nunnery of the order of Bridgettines, which was begun in England and then left three centuries ago and came to rest here in the quiet part. Major Strickland’s sister is there, Kitty, and I had promised Strickland I would take with me letters, money &tc, and give my news of her brother. I was very well received, with tea and cakes, but all conversation had to be transacted through a grille, which I confess I found tedious, and quite unlike the practice of my earlier years in the country and Spain, where most of the nuns were quite free in their association. But the Bridgettines are, I believe, a most austere order. It was difficult for me to see plainly through the grille, but Sister Kitty wore a veil with a white woollen cross quartered like a piece of medieval armour. I told her of our time in India, and what the regiment did now, and explained as best I could what I did now in Portugal, but throughout she said nothing, nor did she ask any question. I have a thought that the prospect of war again makes them fearful. But they stayed throughout the French wars, although Sister Kitty herself did not take her vows until two years after Waterloo. Their convent is very pleasant, quite green and leafy, almost like an English house. It was destroyed, they say, in the great earthquake, but quickly built again, but I cannot know how agreeable it is for them to be in Lisbon, save for the climate. I wanted to ask her if they would go back to England if the laws forbidding them to do so change, as many say they will, but I had not the chance. For my part I hope the laws will change, for it must go hard with their families not to see them. Strickland, I know, has not seen his sister in so many years that he could not recall it last. What harm could these women do, sequestered like this?
But Hervey knew such a consideration would never of itself serve. The papers were full of it – the Tory papers at least. Repealing the Test Act would only invite trouble in Ireland, and there was not an army to safeguard both Ireland and the colonies. That, at least, is what the King thought (so it was said), and all his ministers, even the Duke of Wellington. And Hervey fancied that the trouble lay in too great a fear of the past, and too great a remove from the effects of the penal laws on humble folk trying to better their lives but in conscience. Sometimes Hervey found it hard to warm to the duke’s politics. The sooner the great man went to the Horse Guards, to the position for which the last thirty years had been perfect prelude, the better. There he could bring the army back to its former efficiency and avoid the rank world of placemen, rotten boroughs and political deals. That had been Hervey’s settled opinion for some time now, and the sight of his friend’s sister in exile for her faith only settled it deeper. But he was able to close the letter on a happier note at least:As to my military duties, I cannot tell, for we are idlers at present awaiting orders from the colonel (a tiresome man, but I will not belabour you with more of that). So for the moment I am pleased to receive an invitation for tomorrow to the house of the Baron of Santarem, whom we all knew so well for his hospitality and sensibility when first the regiment came to Lisbon . . .
Next day, early, Hervey once more engaged a calash and made his way to Belem in the western outskirts of the city, where the Delgados had their town house.
Belem, he recalled, was the place of the navigators, whence the caravels had set off on the great voyages of discovery, returning, if they did at all, treasure-laden; a place where the kings of Portugal had built extravagant churches and monuments to those days, which three hundred years later, even after the ruination of earthquake and war, still spoke something of the riches and confidence of that age. Here, unlike Lapa’s teeming elegance, was an expansive grandeur, the colours regal, the pace sedate. Hervey found he needed no guide once they came on the royal palace, its pink stone warmly familiar in the soft sunlight of a late-autumn morning, and he felt the keenest sense of a happy return as he hailed his driver to turn up to the porticoed doors of the white house in the Rua Vieira Portuense, where once he and his fellow cornets had been so kindly and divertingly received. Almost twenty years ago; it seemed impossible.
Yet in the barao’s greeting the years fell away at once. ‘It is very pleasing to see you again, Mr Hervey,’ he began, in French as they had always spoken. ‘Or, as my daughter informs me, it is Major Hervey?’ He held out his hand with easy informality.
Hervey bowed nevertheless as he took the hand, and then again to Isabella, who did not curtsy but held out hers instead.
Two brindle pointers stood close by, tails wagging. There had always been dogs at Rua Vieira Portuense, and many had been the days when Hervey and his fellows had walked game with the barao’s spaniels and perdeguerras. The latter breed, he seemed to recall, had once been so good at pointing their birds that the King had banned their use. Happy memories of a simpler time, mused Hervey; a cornet’s time.
‘Yes, they are pleased to see a face that might give them a little sport,’ said the barao, smiling and patting their heads. ‘I fear I am able to give them little enough myself these days.’
‘Your daughter was not without skill, if I remember rightly, sir.’
Isabella smiled. ‘I should not prize my skill too greatly, Major Hervey; I have not held a gun in many years.’
‘She prefers, I think, the arme blanche,’ said her father, transferring his affectionate smile to Isabella.
Hervey looked at her quizzically.
‘I take my exercise with a fencing master, Major Hervey.’
‘I am all admiration, madam.’
He was indeed. He had not known a woman who practised the fence. At Shrewsbury the master-at-arms had long extolled the benefits. He remembered still: ‘it equalizes the circulation by forcing the whole body to be in motion, it quickens the mind, trains the eye to be alert, and – above all, gentlemen – it trains the temper to be under a right control’. Hervey had not fenced since then (the cavalry sabre was not for the sport), and he could only envy Isabella’s possessing the qualities that he himself would frequently have been the better for.
‘Let us take some wine, then,’ said the barao, grasping his guest firmly by the arm. ‘We have had a fine year.’
The Delgados’ quinta on the Ribatejo produced a dry white wine which, Hervey fancied he could recall, was better than most of the sherry they had grown accustomed to in the Peninsula. He took his glass and tested his memory. The wine was cool, and dry, and very fresh, a vinho verde. ‘It does so very much remind me of those days here before, Baron. Thank you.’
The barao nodded appreciatively. ‘But it is a sad day for my country that you should have to come here once more in uniform, Major Hervey. Or that I should have need to search out mine.’
There was no longer the full head of hair, nor the queue, old-fashioned though that had been even a decade and a half ago, nor the active eyes, like the hawk’s. If the barao were indeed a colonel of ordenanca, then he must have a fine executive officer, thought Hervey, taking another sip of his wine while wondering how to reply.
‘It is a pleasure nevertheless, sir.’
There was a brief silence. The barao appeared to be measuring his conversation. ‘I am sorry you never visited us again after you had left, though I understand your duties hardly permitted it.’
Hervey felt the barao’s warmth, but the sentiment required a response nevertheless.
