The Jade Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

at the carriage on the quayside. Stafford Darville had climbed in and was seated beside the woman. I watched as they drove off at a brisk pace and rounded a corner out of sight. I felt sick at heart, all the sympathy he had won from me instantly swept away.
    “Has this liaison existed for long?” I asked in a low voice. “I mean, even before his baby son died?”
    “Indeed yes, well before that. From all I’ve heard it began shortly after the child was born—” Again Beatrice Forrester checked herself, then added in a sort of half-apology, “Lisbon is always seething with scandal and rumor, my dear. You mustn’t take too much notice of it. People who have too little to occupy their lives exist on gossip, you know.”
    “But you believe it to be true, don’t you, Mrs. Forrester?” Then I asked again, “Who is she? To look at, she seems to be a person of ... some consequence.”
    “Perhaps notoriety would be a more apt word. Inesca enjoys fame as a fadista —a singer of a certain type of popular love song. She has a wide circle of male admirers, I believe, as women of the demimonde so often do. The fado, as it is called, is sung in places of doubtful repute—places that no respectable lady would visit. Unless, of course, simply out of curiosity.”
    “Have you ever heard Inesca sing?” I inquired.
    “Well, yes. Once or twice my husband has taken me with a party of friends.” Suddenly, she started waving frantically at someone on the shore. “Look, there is the dear major now, come to meet me just as I said he would.”
    Major Forrester, not surprisingly, was a man of upstanding military bearing. He had graying hair and a small waxed moustache. He clasped his wife in his arms, and their delight at being reunited was touching to see. After a breathless exchange of inquires about each other’s health and well-being, Mrs. Forrester broke free to introduce me.
    “Delighted, Miss Rosslyn, delighted.” Her husband clicked his heels and raised my hand to his lips. “Welcome to Portugal.”
    “Thank you, Major Forrester. I am very pleased to meet you.”
    “Arthur, dear, I have a splendid idea,” Mrs. Forrester went on eagerly. “Elinor is traveling to Cintra, so what do you say to her coming with us in the carriage? Then, when we are delivered at home, Sancho can drive her on. I should feel happier knowing she is in good hands.”
    My protest that I couldn’t possibly inconvenience them so much was swept aside as irrelevant. As soon as the official formalities were completed, I was squeezed in between the Forresters in their victoria, the calash top let down so that the morning sun shone upon us. Driving along the waterfront, leaving behind Black Horse Square with its gracious public buildings and the large equestrian statue (which was not black at all, but the green of weathered bronze), we soon turned into the Rua do Alecrim, translated for me as Rosemary Street. Up the long hill we climbed, the pair of lively mares undeterred by the steepness of the gradient. I enjoyed the strangeness of it all—dark-haired townsfolk swarmed everywhere, street vendors shouted their wares, and mule carts rattled impatiently past the slower wagons drawn by plodding oxen. The narrow cobbled streets were overhung with tall houses faced with colorful, patterned tiles, and from their balconies trailed lines of freshly laundered washing, and luxuriant ferns and geraniums in every possible shade of pink and red and purple.
    At length we drew up before an elegant house with intricate wrought iron window grilles, which faced a small public garden massed with flowering trees and shrubs. The tall, studded, green doors were flung open, and outran smiling servants to greet their homecoming mistress and carry in the luggage.
    “Good-bye, Elinor, good-bye,” called Mrs. Forrester, standing with her husband on the pavement as the coachman jerked the reins and we drove off. “God go with you, my dear. And come and visit us