The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware (28 page)

In the north, no pitched battle had been fought, but a constant series of independent actions by brigades and regiments. Marshal Ney had commanded the French rearguard with such skill that only on one occasion had he been caught napping. This had been three days earlier at Sabugal. The British light division had surprised the French 2nd Corps in a fog and killed or wounded over a thousand men. News had come in that morning that Soult's army had been driven out of Portugal, and had retired on to the great stronghold of Ciudad Rodrigo, which was all the Marshal had left to show for an inglorious campaign.

Next morning a footman helped Roger to dress, then get downstairs to sit in the garden. In the afternoon he went for a drive with the girls. But the unaccustomed exertion tried him so much that, on their return, he asked to be helped up to bed. By the time his dinner was brought up to him his fatigue had passed off and, after the footman had taken away his tray, he lay back on his pillows thinking how lucky he was to have made such good friends
at the Legation and be able to convalesce in such comfort.

At about eight o'clock there came a gentle knock on his door, and when he called ‘Come in,' Mary entered the room, carrying half a dozen books. Smiling at him, she said:

‘As usual, there were quite a number of guests for dinner, so when we'd finished I managed to slip away. I thought you might be bored; so I've brought you something to read.'

When he had thanked her, she asked, ‘What were you thinking about when I came in?'

‘How lucky I am to be here, and how very kind to me you all are,' he replied truthfully.

She made a little moue. ‘I was hoping you would say you were thinking of me. I nearly fell through the floor with embarrassment when Sir Charles returned from the hospital that first day and said you had sent me your love. But when I got up to my room I hugged myself with delight. You do love me, don't you?'

Roger was in a quandary. He had no intention whatever of marrying Mary, and to seduce an unmarried girl whose upbringing gave him every reason to suppose that she was a virgin was against his code. The idea had never even crossed his mind. He was loath to encourage the tender feeling she obviously had for him, but at the same time, most reluctant to hurt her. She had laid the books on the bed and was standing beside him, her green eyes solemnly fixed on his.

Taking her hand, he said gently, ‘Mary, my dear, of course I love you; but I'm not going to allow my affection for you to get the better of my judgment. As I told you that day when we picnicked out at Cintra, I'm too restless a man to settle down to married life. Moreover, I'm much too old for you.'

She shook her head and her ringlets danced. ‘For such
an intelligent man, you are really very stupid. I'm sure I could make you happy.'

‘I'm sure you could,' he smiled, ‘but the trouble is that I could make you happy only for a while. I'd again get that itch to travel. Then you'd be miserable, and try to persuade me not to. The result would be tears and quarrels.'

For the best part of a minute she was silent, then she said, ‘Very well. I accept that. And I promise that I won't try to prevent your leaving Lisbon when you wish to go. But while you are here, I want you to treat me as though we were secretly engaged. You see, I haven't got a very bright future. I'm just averagely pretty, but not a beauty; and I haven't got a penny of my own. So when I do marry, it is almost certain to be someone that I don't really care about, and perhaps even older than you. I'd like to have just one romance in my life to look back on. Do you understand?'

Tears were brimming in Mary's eyes and Roger felt deeply sorry for her. Had he not been a nearly helpless invalid, he would have made some excuse to get a passage in the first ship leaving for England; as he felt that the sooner she saw no more of him, the better it would be for her. But as things were he knew that he would not be fit to travel for at least two weeks. In the circumstances, to refuse her request would have been brutal, and he swiftly made up his mind that, if he was going to pretend to be her fiancé, he must give her as much joy as possible by entering into the game wholeheartedly.

‘Of course I understand,' he said, ‘and I am truly delighted that you should offer me such happiness. But you must not take such a poor view of your attractions nor be so pessimistic about the future. You are not only a very lovely girl, but your gaiety and charm make you a wonderful companion. I'm certain that before long a man nearer your own age, and of ample fortune, will come into your
life and beseech you to marry him. Now, I only pray that he does not come on the scene while I am in Lisbon. Come now; give me a fiancée's kiss.'

Smiling, she quickly pulled her hand from his, perched herself on the edge of the bed and flung her arms round his neck. He held her tightly to him and her soft lips has melted under his.

After they had spent a very happy half-hour, she said reluctantly, ‘Roger, my love, I really must leave you now. Lady Stuart might come up to see if you wish anything, and if she found me here that would be terrible. We still have to be awfully careful, too, as if the family find out that you are making love to me, Sir Charles might ask your intentions, and that would be most awkward.'

‘You're right, sweet Mary. But, as things are, it's going to be plaguey difficult for us to see each other alone with any frequency.'

For a moment she remained thoughtful, then she said, ‘I think I will take Deborah into my confidence; though I'll not tell her that our engagement is only make-believe. Then, when you decide to leave, I'll say that, having got to know you better, it was I who decided against your formally asking for my hand. Deborah is entirely to be trusted and, with her connivance, we'll be able to snatch meetings now and again in the summer house at the bottom of the garden.'

They embraced again and, after several long kisses, she left him to rejoin the party downstairs in the salon.

The ten days that followed were some of the most pleasant that, apart from those with Georgina, Roger had ever spent. His wounds had healed well. By the end of a week he was able to dress himself, and could get about with only a stick for support. Spring was in the air, but it was much warmer than it would have been in England, and nearly every day, with Deborah's assistance, he managed to get the best part of an hour alone with Mary.

Their meetings were usually in the summer house; but, on days when that could not be managed, she insisted on coming to his room, although he endeavoured to persuade her not to. After his fourth day at the Legation, his injuries no longer prevented him from dining downstairs and afterwards joining in conversaziones, or listening to music with the other guests; so, if Mary came to his room it had to be late at night, after everyone had gone to bed and could be presumed to be asleep.

Greatly as he enjoyed these midnight visits, his reluctance to let her make them was not alone on account of the risk she ran of being found out. That was inconsiderable, as her room was only two doors away from his in the same corridor. His main objection was that she came to him with only a dressing gown over her night robe, and from the beginning of their affair he had been highly conscious that she was a very passionate little person. When they embraced, she always pressed her body hard against his, her eyes grew moist, her breathing rapid, and she deliberately tempted him to take the sort of liberties with her that were not unusual between respectable engaged couples. Being himself passionate, he took great joy in kissing her breasts and fondling her, but he was determined to go no further and the restraint he forced himself to exercise placed a great strain upon him.

It was on April 16th that she asked him to accompany her and Deborah to the hospital, as a cousin of hers, a Brigadier, had been wounded and arrived there the previous day. They drove there with flowers, fruit and wine and were shown up to a private room on the third floor. The man in the bed was fair-haired, florid-faced and a year or two older than Roger. Having happily greeted Mary and Deborah, he looked at Roger, who was standing behind the girls, and exclaimed:

‘God's boots! If it's not old Bookworm Brook! Fancy seeing you here.'

Roger had already recognised him and had gone quite white. It was George Gunston, a man whom he had heartily disliked all his life. Bowing, he said coldly, ‘The surprise is mutual.'

Mary glanced curiously from one to the other and said, ‘So you two are already acquainted?'

Gunston laughed. ‘Indeed we are. We were at school together. Most of us were keen on sports, but Brook always had his head buried in a book. That's why we gave him his nickname.'

Roger's smile was icy. ‘You may recall that I spent a good part of my time learning to fence and shoot with a pistol, and in those accomplishments I became somewhat better than yourself.'

‘That I'll not deny. So I find it all the more surprising that you have not volunteered for the Army.'

‘Really, George!' Mary stamped her little foot. ‘It's plain to see that you dislike each other. But I'll not have you quarrel in my presence.'

Both men then refrained from making any further antagonistic remarks; but the atmosphere remained uncomfortable. So, after having enquired about George's wound, and learned that he was disabled only by water on the knee, owing to a spent shell-splinter having hit it, his visitors took their departure.

Immediately they were back in their carriage, Mary demanded to know why Roger so disliked her cousin. After a moment he replied, ‘It's not only because Gunston bullied me unmercifully at school. I'd not harbour a grudge against him for all these years on that account. But we have come into collision on numerous occasions. In our early twenties, we fought a duel; later, when I was for a while Governor of Martinique, he endeavoured to seduce my wife's young cousin. Later still, in India, he was largely responsible for her death. That he happens to be
a cousin of yours is regrettable, but the fact remains that he is a cad.'

‘No, you are wrong about that,' Mary protested. ‘It's obvious that you have had a prejudice against him from your schooldays, and happened to come up against him later in unpropitious circumstances; so you have seen only the worst side of him. But he's not a cad. He is a gay, amusing fellow, good-natured and generous. Of course, he is a very full-blooded man, and something of a woman-chaser. I'd wager, though, that your wife's niece led him on. And that's not to be wondered at, for he's a fine, handsome man. You can't blame him if many women find him attractive.'

No more was said at the time; but, that afternoon in the summer house, Mary reopened the question by saying, ‘It pains me greatly that two people whom I like should be enemies, and I want you to make it up with George. He is much too easy-going a man to bear malice against anyone, so it must be you who are keeping this old feud alive. Please, for my sake, make it up with him and agree to let bygones be bygones.'

As water on the knee was unlikely to prevent Gunston from riding a horse for much more than ten days, he would then be leaving Lisbon again for the front. It being unlikely that Roger would be called on to see much of him, albeit with some reluctance, but to please Mary, he agreed to her request. The following morning they paid another visit to the hospital. There, with commendable impartiality, Mary read both men a lecture and made them, looking a little sheepish, shake hands.

Two mornings later, Mary, who made most of her own clothes, said to Roger, ‘I have a bolero that I want to finish and Deborah is helping me. But today we ought to send George some more fruit and wine. I'd like you to take it to him, if you will. It will show better than anything that you really are willing to be friends and, if you
are alone together, that will give you a chance to explain how lack of understanding each other's point of view led to your past differences.'

Roger could hardly refuse, so he took the things to the hospital and was shown into Gunston's room. The florid Brigadier's fair eyebrows went up and he said with a laugh, ‘Well, this is an honour! Damned good of you, Brook, to bring me more wine. I can do with it; and I'm greatly obliged to you.'

‘It's a pleasure,' Roger responded to this friendly greeting. ‘I trust your knee is better.'

‘Thanks, it's getting on pretty well. I was mightily disappointed at having to leave my Dragoons just after we'd pushed old Masséna out of Portugal. But what's the good of a cavalryman if he can't ride a horse? And the field hospitals are so riddled with lice that I thought it better to be carted down here in an ambulance than stay up there behind the line. I should be able to get back, though, in a week or so. Take a chair, and join me in a glass of wine.'

Feeling that it would be churlish to refuse, Roger uncorked one of the bottles he had brought, and poured out two glasses, Then the two old enemies drank each other's health. For a while they talked about the campaign and various mutual acquaintances, until they got on to Mary and her dead parents, and Gunston remarked:

‘You're a damned lucky fellow, Brook. You have always had a way with the women, and it needed only half an eye to see that little Mary is quite besotted about you. What luck for you, too, that you should both be sleeping under the same roof. She's a game little filly, and as hot as mustard. I'll wager you have your work cut out to satisfy her. Don't you dare get her with child, though, or you and I will quarrel again.'

Roger's face had become dead white. His blue eyes
blazing, he came to his feet and cried, ‘You filthy-minded brute! How dare you slander a virtuous girl like Mary! I'll call you out for that, and this time I'll kill you.'

Gunston's fair eyebrows shot up again. ‘Hold hard!' he exclaimed, raising himself on his pillows. ‘It's no slander to speak the truth, and I know of what I'm talking. Mary's no virgin. To call me out on her account would be behaving like a quixotic ass. She's been had by half a dozen fellows; and if you haven't had her, more fool you. That demure look of hers is naught but a fire-screen in front of a fire. Damn it, man! I've had her myself. It was one afternoon in a punt, up a backwater on the Thames. She made the usual maidenly protests, but once I got between her legs I only had to push a bit and, in no time, she was begging me to give it to her hard.'