The Abyss (12 page)

Gabriel kept moving, a little ahead of Pedro, and he entered the room to find two innocent smiling faces turned toward him. "You are taking the most precious thing I have," Juliana said as she stood up and took Clara in her arms.

But you will be well paid
, Gabriel almost said. He could not find a smile for the woman. She was now embracing Clara and even had tears in her eyes.

"Ah, minha Clarinha,"
 she said, looking at her daughter. "Everything I have ever done has been for you! I hope you know this! I hope you understand when you are a mother!"

Clara too had sudden tears in her eyes, when she had told him that she wanted nothing but to be away from her mother. She shed some of the tears when her father embraced her.

"I am not on the other side of the world," she said then, trying to repress her emotion. "We shall see each other! You shall visit us when 
papá
's work permits, and I shall come to Rio with Gabriel!"

The older couple stood at the door of their house as the younger climbed on the cabriolet. Touching his hat briefly, Gabriel urged the horses on, as Clara looked behind her and waved.

He heard a sob and glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, ashamed to be seen crying. "What a foolish thing, no one has died! It's just that for the first time I saw my mother truly moved. It was almost as if she could love me once more, now that she had given me away. How strange, no?"

Gabriel concentrated on driving, on not getting the horses to run as fast as his thoughts were going.

Now there would be enough money for everything!

They could have his money; he had only ever wanted it for Clara. But he wondered why she had ever wanted him.

Sixteen. Caprichosa

They sailed to Paraty, the port that had been established south of Rio to serve the gold and diamond mines of the interior.

It was a beautiful ride along the coast, where islands dotted the sea, and green forests were fringed by golden beaches. There were flying fish that seemed to be following the ship, as well as manta rays and dolphins in the distance. There was so much to look at that Clara hardly knew which way to turn.

Paraty was like a little jewel borne upon the waves. The old Baroque church reminded Clara of Portugal, except that it was in the wildest and most beautiful natural setting imaginable.

 However, the whole way there Gabriel had been somewhat silent, in a very different mood than during the three weeks of their marriage. He showed her no affection while they were on the deck of the ship, though he explained things that she wanted to know; at times he looked closely at her face without saying anything, as if seeking something there.

Clara told herself that now that they were going back, he must be preoccupied with things to do with his estate.

She also realized once again how little they knew each other.  All the time they had been together before getting married would not amount to one week if she added up the hours, and they had always been under the supervision of one or both of her parents. Even when they had managed to go to a corner of the drawing room or the veranda, they had hardly ever touched or spoken of their feelings.

What did she know about Gabriel? That his mother had died when he was fifteen, that he disliked his father, that he loved his brother, though they were very different, that he had nephews of whom he was fond, though he thought they ought to have better manners. She knew some of the things he loved in art and literature, his opinion about politics in Europe, what he thought of Napoleon, and of Prince John and his Spanish wife.

That he was very proud, prone to anger and could be unforgiving she knew. She had also known him to be moody, and perhaps what was happening now was just a temporary gloom that would pass, only to return again some other day.

Clara's tendency was to be happy, or at least joyful, unless something angered her or made her sad. Her sadness never lasted. But she told herself that she would try, with her own evenness of spirit, to help Gabriel overcome the darkness that lowered over him now and again.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

They were married, for better or worse, and though it dashed her spirits a little to see him frowning and retreating into silence after three weeks of great happiness, she would wait patiently by his side until he emerged from his despondency.

The good things about him ─his intelligence, his profound honesty, his fairness, his generosity and his humor ─made it worth it for her to respect his dark moods. She would wait until he was laughing again, from his belly, as they teased each other; she would wait until he held her to him at night, and took her hand during the day.

In Paraty he decided that they would keep going, as they were four hours away from his estate and it would be best to push on and get home. Clara was not at all tired, and she agreed. They had a meal at an inn and set forth in a two-place carriage somewhat like a phaeton, but much sturdier.

Four hours of terrible roads later they were in his lands. They crossed the gates, where a sign said 
Quinta da Caprichosa,
 and drove through an avenue shaded by strong old trees that twisted their way up to huge leafy canopies. Clara was drinking everything in with a gleam of curiosity and delight in her eyes. She held on to her bonnet to turn and look at a creek with a small waterfall, white birds walking on the lawn and dogs that began to follow them, barking eagerly.

In the distance, on the slopes of hills, she could see plantations and people working in them. There was the far off sound of singing, and children's laughter.

The house finally appeared beyond the avenue. It was a large two-story white mansion with blue windows and doors, and a red shingled roof. It was surrounded by a garden that looked wild and contained at the same time, and behind it there were palm trees, three on one side and two on the other. Clara thought that this lack of symmetry gave the house even more charm.

A very big and old tree, providing a lot of shade, stood in front of the house. Behind it and to the right, there were hills covered by lush green. Gabriel explained that all this land had once been tropical forest, and the old tree was what remained of it.

As they drove over the gravel to the door, several people started running out of the house. She heard one woman clapping and shouting,

"Eles chegaram! Sinhô e sinhá chegaram!" They are here, the master and mistress have arrived.

By the time Gabriel had alighted and walked to her side to help her down there was a line of smiling faces of all tones of skin, as was usual in Brazil. The woman who had clapped her hands and called the others seemed to be foremost in importance, and Gabriel went towards her first.

"Anything I need to know?"

"Everything has been just fine!" she said confidently.

She was a black woman of about forty, with very intelligent eyes and what seemed like a muscular body under her clothes. By her accent she had been born in Brazil.  She wore a cap on her head and an immaculate white apron over a blue dress.

"This is my wife, Dona Clara. This is Lucia, Clara. She is the housekeeper, and anything you need to know, you need only ask her.”

"Sinhá,"
 the woman curtsied, her gaze warm but steady.

Gabriel went on to introduce her to the rest of the line. There was Tarcisio the 
feitor
, or foreman, who oversaw all the plantations: he was a handsome white Brazilian, a little over thirty years of age, with a look of competence about him; there was the cook, Maninha, fat, smiling, and with light brown skin; there was the coachman and two footmen, standing to attention as if they were in the army.

Pointing at their hands, a twinkle in his eyes, Gabriel said, "They're wearing gloves for you!"

It was true that they were in some sort of uniform, both dressed in black with white shirts. One of them began to laugh with big white teeth at his gloves, while the other only cracked a small smile as he looked at the ground.

Finally, there was a girl, about seventeen, with creamy light brown skin and big black eyes surrounded by thick lashes. She looked down in shyness as they approached her.

"And this is Teté. She will be your maid," Gabriel said. "She is pretending to be shy."

Teté's hand flew to her mouth as she, too, began to laugh. Clara had been sad to leave Teresa behind, as she had family in Rio, but she immediately felt that she would like this new girl.

Gabriel motioned so that she would walk inside the house, ahead of him, but after climbing the few steps in front she stopped at the threshold and turned to take his hand. She wanted them to enter their new life together.

"Oh, it's wonderful!" she exclaimed as they went in.

The large foyer with a stone floor extended until it met the door on the other side, which was open, revealing a view of the valley beyond. A stone staircase rose to the second floor, but Clara could not help going toward the open door first.

The valley was lush, with blue hills in the distance and a river sparkling below.

She could smell the wonderful aroma of cooking, and as she walked outside she saw there was a very large kitchen, separate from the house, where women bustled, preparing their meal.

Gabriel pulled on her hand. "Since we are here, let me show you something!"

He took her on a path shaded by trees and they arrived at a small stone chapel whose walls were covered with climbing vine and flowers. He opened the gate, then the wooden door.

"Oh, Gabriel!" she cried. "It's so beautiful! Is it ours?"

"Yours," he said.

The chapel had probably been built during the height of the gold trade, fifty years before, and it showed: the altar piece was made of gold leaf, depicting Jesus with his right hand held high as in a blessing. The altar itself was made of stone and so was the heavy Baroque cross on it, which had a silver vase of calla lilies on each side. Clara caressed one of the pews, made of smooth jacaranda wood.

She knelt on a crimson velvet cushion to give thanks for their safe passage to their home,  and for the people that she was finding there.

"No wonder you wanted to live here! It's so beautiful!" she said as they walked back to the house. She looked at him and asked, after a moment, "Was the name of the estate Caprichosa before?"

Gabriel gave a small smile at this. Clara stopped walking.

"You named it after me? Because I said no to you?"

She looked hurt, though she tried to hide it. His eyes softened, "Well, remember that there is also a different meaning to 
capricious
 in Portuguese. It could also mean that you do everything with care."

His smile, the first affectionate one he has given her in two days, dispelled her sadness, yet she still said, "I suppose at least it means you were thinking of me."

He didn't look at her, but at the path before them as he said in a low voice, "I am always thinking of you."

Clara suddenly found herself hoping that he would always think well of her. They went back into the house and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Gabriel suddenly lifted her up as if she weighed nothing, and carried her to the end of the hall. Pushing the door open with his booted foot, he took her into a  bedroom with large windows whose blue shutters were open. The river gleamed  as it meandered through the valley.

"How beautiful! I shall not even miss the sea!" Clara said.  “It's strange that I should feel this way, when we also have valleys and rivers in our tiny country. Perhaps it's just because I know that here it goes on and on..."

She put her head on his shoulder and he turned towards the large bed, pushing the mosquito net aside and depositing her on fresh linen that smelled of lavender. The bed felt massive with its heavy wood posters, but also soft as her head found the pillow. He sat down next to her and seemed to scan her features once more, as if trying to read some sort of answer there.

An answer to what question?

It didn't seem to matter when he bent to kiss her. She put her arms around his neck, and they made love in their own bed, in the bed of their marriage.

Seventeen. A Bracelet

As Gabriel woke up the next morning he looked at his wife, sleeping peacefully with her hair spread around her.

She was a delightful companion, as he had thought she would be: always happy, always interested in the smallest things. Perhaps years before she had been taught to crave riches and position, or fear poverty, but she didn't seem to crave them now. His house was spacious and comfortable, but it would hardly have pleased a greedy woman. For one, it was not in a city where she might have shown off their wealth or status. They were miles from any neighbor, any amusement, any society, and yet she had seemed overjoyed to arrive at their home.

She could not be pretending; she could not have married him for his money only.

He asked that breakfast should be served under a tree outside. He peeled her fruit and buttered her bread, because he liked to spoil her, and as he poured her coffee, he saw nothing but a beautiful girl full of love for him, full of gratitude toward the servants who brought them things, full of devotion when she ran in her morning dress to the chapel because she had thought it so pretty, and wanted to add more flowers to the altar.

She was no gold digger, he thought as she walked back towards him. There must be some explanation for what he had heard: 
There will be enough money for everything now.
 It was that mother who had written the letter, and used her name.

He embraced her when she was near, his cheek against her head, and felt miserable at the thought that he might have misjudged her. They went upstairs and bathed together, and made love again on their large soft bed. Then he knew that he needed to go to his library to work a little, though it was difficult to leave her.

"Will you be all right?" he asked.

"If you keep me prisoner in this bed, I think nothing bad can happen, except my getting terribly fat!"

"Get up, then!" he said, pulling on the covers. "Get ready and I will come in a while to take you riding. I want you to see your lands. I will send Teté to you, but watch out for her!”

“Why?”

“She can be enormously charming, and she might end up sitting in bed with you serving her, if you aren’t careful.”

“Is she so cheeky?” Clara asked with a smile.

“She does it very artlessly, because she hasn’t a bad bone in her, and that is why it works!”

He dressed in breeches, a cotton shirt, a vest and boots and went to his library, which was across the lawn in a house by itself. He thought that he must take Clara there, she would be happy to see the many books he had brought with him from Europe, after he had sold the diamonds in Amsterdam.

The library opened onto the small waterfall they had seen on their way, and it was a good place to read and think. He was happy that he could share it with his wife, as she often liked to be lost in her own thoughts; he might be with her a whole day, and wish for another day like it.

Now he looked at the accounts with Tarcisio and with Silva, a young 
cabloco
 who kept the books for the farm and all his businesses. Everything seemed to be in order, and he was set to make more money this quarter than the previous one.

"And the new freed men and women, have you found work for them?"

Tarcisio nodded, "Three of the men opted for cotton picking, the other knows about animals ─ apparently he came from some tribe of shepherds; that's what the other Africans told me, anyway, since the new ones don't speak Portuguese. One of the women is going to be in the coffee plantation, and the one with the baby has been taken under Lucia's wing: she will cook for the workers."

"Are they adapting?"

"I am content so far. They seem to like it here for the time being. I suppose they need to regain their strength and fatten up."

Gabriel scoffed, "So someone can eat them? There are still pirates in these waters, a lot of these freed men get on board a ship back to Africa only to end up in Valongo again."

The foreman shrugged, making a helpless gesture with his hands. "You can't do more than you already do."

"But I don't want any idleness, be sure and see to that, as usual."

Nodding, Tarcisio stood up and motioned to Silva, who left with him.

As Gabriel sifted through his correspondence, he thought of Tarcisio: he was a good foreman. Freed slaves or people of mixed blood were notoriously harsh on slaves or farm workers because they had suffered themselves, and were not about to let the misery of others stand in the way of their ascent. Europeans, on the other hand, were soon corrupted by their power and became the nastiest of taskmasters. A white Brazilian, all things being equal, was the best choice when it came to a land agent, and Gabriel was happy with his choice.

There were many letters in front of him: the thickest one, he saw, was from his brother. He held it in his hand, knowing it contained important information about the situation in Lisbon under the French and news of his family, but something made him put the letter down and choose another one.

He read his business correspondence, but he could not stop glancing at Manuel's letter. When he took it up again he felt that it contained something evil, but it was not like him to shy away from bad news. He tore it open, and  something fell on the desk.

It was a gold bracelet, and he recognized it immediately:  it was the bracelet that he had always loved to watch on Clara's arm, as it moved against her white skin. He had noticed its absence when he met her again in Rio, but he had imagined it had been lost, or left behind.

What was it doing with Manuel's letter?

He opened the sheets and scanned them, ascertaining that no one was ill and no calamity had befallen a member of his family. Then he went to the second page, where Manuel had written,

"
I have only just received the news that you are to marry Clara Tavares Moreira. I am not surprised that you should have met her again, and neither am I surprised that you still care for her. You were ever slow to warm to anyone, but loyal and steadfast in your affections thereafter.

I have struggled with my conscience, thinking whether or not to send you such a poisonous account across the sea. I am only too aware of how you must have suffered these years, how lonely you must have been. Your economic situation is so brilliant that it can only have been the result of immense effort and sacrifice, and now you are finally about to marry the woman you love.

But you are my brother and I love you. I would not be writing gossip to you, as I know how much you detest it, but I feel that I must tell you what the whole of Lisbon seems to know.

The Baron of Ramos has long been saying that he had an intimate liaison with Clara. When he heard that you were going to marry her, for the news has reached Lisbon through letters from people who are now in Rio, he came to see me to assure me that what he claims isn't boasting or malicious gossip, it is a fact.

He told me that her mother, desperate at her dwindling prospects, had pushed Clara at him in every way, even going as far as taking her to his apartments. He said that the mother would absent herself a whole afternoon, leaving them alone.

In the end, he said, he could not resist making love to Clara, and she was, as he put it, 'a delicious virgin who smelled exquisitely sweet'. He told me these afternoons repeated themselves until the girl was quite knowledgeable, though at first she had prayed to all saints before being relieved of every article of clothing.

Finally, he said that he became bored, as a man is wont to do, and that then the mother attempted to blackmail him; apparently he told her that the only damaged party would be Clara, as every man would envy him, and the whole of society would despise and ostracize the girl.

Realizing her miscalculation, the mother withdrew her menace and tried sending the daughter again several times to seduce him into marriage, but he had no intention of marrying her now─ or ever.

To prove all this he gave me the gold bracelet I am including here, which he says he found in his bed, and which must have fallen off her arm in a moment of passion.

He asked me to send it to you and to tell you all this so as to keep you from marrying second-hand goods. He said this greedy mother must not be allowed to go through with her plan of fooling a nobleman into a marriage with a girl she had turned into a whore. They are desperate and would take advantage of you in Rio if he didn't speak up. He felt it was his duty..."

Gabriel's hand fell as if he had lost use of it, and the letter floated to the ground. He stood up; he needed air.

Opening the door of the library, he walked toward the trees and away from the house. The dogs came running after him, barking, as if understanding that something was amiss.

A delicious virgin who smelled exquisitely sweet

She had prayed to all saints before being relieved of every article of clothing

A mother who had turned her daughter into a whore

They are desperate and would take advantage of you...

He stopped and put his back against a tree. The image of the Baron and Clara in bed rose in his mind as clearly as if he had seen them, and he almost roared with fury. The dogs ran away from him and he realized that he was still clutching the bracelet. It was true, it was all true, or how would the Baron know so much?

There had been something almost theatrical about the way Clara had kept denying him, night after night, to then fall into such great abandon. Her virtue had been as false as her sensuality was practiced.

The mother had turned the daughter into a whore.

He found that he was walking to the house again, and there must be thunder on his face. The servants he met rushed out of the way to let him pass and then stood looking after him. He arrived at the house, ran up the stairs and to the end of the corridor to find Clara dressed in a riding habit. She was arranging blue hydrangeas in a vase.

"I went out and picked these," she said. "Aren't they glorious?"

Gabriel closed the door and she looked at him, smiling, "Are you finished with your work? Don't tell me you want to undress me again, I ended up dressing myself and it took a while to put this on."

He walked to the window, giving his back to her. A mist had fallen round the hills; the whole sky had turned white, and seemed to be lowering over them.

"What is it, what do you─?" she asked.

"Where is that gold bracelet you used to wear all the time?" he interrupted her.

"Bracelet? Why are you asking me about a bracelet?"

She sounded genuinely puzzled. He turned around and let it dangle from his fingers. Clara looked at it in great surprise.

"Why, it 
is 
my bracelet! How do you come to have it?"

He thought he might not be able to speak, such was his rage, but he did. "The Baron of Ramos has sent it."

She looked at him without being able to disguise the horror in her face. So she was guilty! She had lain with the Baron and left the bracelet in his bed!

"How did
he
come to have it?" Gabriel asked.

He was afraid of himself; he thought he might have to leave the room, the house, the estate so as not to do something mad.

A virgin exquisitely sweet...

Clara was shaking her head. "I don't know—perhaps in the park... That was the last time I saw him!"

"Were you in the habit of seeing him?"

"No!" she cried. "Only socially. Not any more than other people."

"How could he have your bracelet then? I don't imagine he likes to steal women's jewelry?"

"Gabriel, I don't know, but you cannot think..."

"What is it that I am thinking?"

"Something foul, judging by your anger!" she cried. "And nothing foul has taken place between the Baron and me. Or between any man and me! Who is carrying such terrible tales?"

"Are they tales?" He took two steps toward her and she could not help walking backward. "I want you to tell me, Clara, how the Baron might be in possession of your bracelet."

"I have told you, the last time I remember seeing him was in the park. He...he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away, I hit his horse with my stick and it went galloping off. In the struggle he might have accidentally taken the bracelet, or it might have fallen on his clothes. Does he say that I have been dishonest?"

"Have you?" Gabriel's face was like stone. Hers became pale at the possibility that he might already have formed his verdict.

"No! Never! How can you ask me that?"

"What were you doing in the park, alone with him? Were you his mistress?" he insisted in a low voice.

Her eyes opened wide, "How dare you? I am your wife!"

"Are you dishonest?" he shouted.

"I shall not answer you!" she shouted back indignantly. "I cannot let you say these things to me. I was a virgin on our wedding night, and you know it."

"I 
don't 
know it!"

"Gabriel!" she cried, and her eyes swiftly filled with tears.