Free The Jade Dragon by Nancy Buckingham Page B

whose delicate fingering flavored the day with an elusive melancholy. I rose to my feet and went to seek the answer.
    Guided by ear, I descended a flight of weathered steps and made my way along a path bordered by a high stone wall that was a mass of purple bougainvillea, a plant I had previously seen only in pictures. A gap in the balustrade on the opposite side led me through a grove of trees with glossy dark green leaves and delicate white blossoms. I broke off a leaf to rub between my fingers and inhaled the tangy fragrance of oranges. I thought of my mother, remembering how she had told me as a little girl about the orange and lemon trees that grew in her native land. Later on, if I remained here that long, I would be able to pick the ripe fruit fresh from the tree.
    The clear piping of the flute drew me onward, down another flight of steps and past an ornamental lake of deep, still water where two black swans glided silently under the weeping branches of the willows. Then, turning with the path, I saw Vicencia. She was sitting on a sculpted stone seat beneath a magnolia tree, the ground around her strewn with the snow of fallen petals. When she saw me, she broke off from her playing and smilingly gestured for me to sit beside her.
    “I think this is my favorite spot in the gardens, Elinor. I come here often.”
    “How well you play,” I told her admiringly. “When I heard the music, I half-wondered what I should find. There seemed something almost ethereal about it—the pure notes falling upon the still air.”
    “So you expected to discover some Pan-like creature,” she teased. “And all you found was me. I hope it was not too great a disappointment, Elinor.”
    I laughed and said, “Actually, Vicencia, I’m glad to have this chance of a quiet chat. There is something I should like to tell you. Last night, my grandmother came to my bedroom. She was walking in her sleep, and she didn’t wake up. She just stood there looking down at me for a few minutes, and then she went out again.”
    “Poor Elinor, it must have been rather an alarming experience for you.”
    “It was,” I admitted, smiling, because now it was daylight and I could afford to smile at my fears. “For a moment I was afraid she was about to strike me with the heavy candlestick she was carrying. Vicencia, does Grandmama often walk in her sleep?”
    “Not often, as far as I am aware. But it has been known to happen once or twice before.” She hesitated. “Have you seen Dona Amalia today? Did you ask her about it?”
    “I’ve just come from her room, but I said nothing, because I was anxious not to upset her again.” I sighed. “I’m afraid that, once more, it wasn’t a very satisfactory talk I had with Grandmama. She seems hopelessly prejudiced against my parents. Some of her remarks were very unkind. Yet when I look around at this beautiful mansion and its lovely grounds, and realize that this was the home where my mother was brought up, I just cannot understand how anyone could think she would lightly abandon it—except for true love. Why is it that Grandmama is still so bitter? Why can’t she find it in her heart to forgive?”
    A magnolia petal came drifting down and settled on Vicencia’s lap. She brushed it off absently. ‘It is possible, I suppose, that her attitude has something to do with that letter of your mother’s. If Dona Amalia knew what had happened, perhaps she feels on the defensive.”
    “But you don’t really believe that, Vicencia?”
    She shook her head. “No, I do not. I believe that the explanation is something else—above all, a question of money. You see, Elinor, these debts you mentioned yesterday are nothing new, though, now, with the old conde having recently died, they may be more pressing than ever before. But the Milaveiras, like some of the other great families, have clung to a mode of life that belonged to a previous age, when Portugal was a rich and powerful kingdom. They have lived far