The Spanish Bride (41 page)

7

With the recovery of her pet, Juana’s spirit’s rose mercurially. The discomforts of bivouacking for several days without the least vestige of baggage became at once very good fun, and when the French were finally driven back, and the brigade returned to Casteilleur, not even the discovery that some of her belongings had been stolen had the power to depress her. Tom Fane was loudly and indignantly condemning the French thieves who had rifled the contents of his portmanteau, and Billy Mein was bewailing the loss of the goose, ‘just as he was fattening up!’ but Juana said that although it was a great pity Ugly Tom had been robbed, she was not at all sorry the goose had gone. ‘For I don’t think we could have eaten him, do you?’ she said seriously.

‘Oh, couldn’t we just!’ said Mein.

‘No, Billy, because we had become too fond of him, and besides, the Coronel gave him bad things to eat.’

‘Shame!’ said Colborne, looking up with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Good-bye to our grand dinner!’ said Mein.

‘Not a bit of it!’ said Harry briskly. ‘I know how we can contrive to make up for losing the goose.’

‘You would, of course,’ said Fane. ‘Found some more smugglers?’ ‘Devil a one! But we’ll invite the Commissary to the party!’

‘Harry,’ said Colborne, ‘if you’re not cashiered for impudence, you ought to go far. I foresee a brilliant career.’

‘Well, I hope we may still be here at Christmas,’ said Fane, somewhat pessimistically. There did indeed seem to be some doubt about the matter, for the French in their front showed enough liveliness to keep them continually on the alert. Officers responsible for posting pickets found the frequent alarms wearing, and Harry, never one to take his duties lightly, began to look red-eyed again from lack of sleep.

On one occasion, when he was posting the night’s sentries after a day of skirmishing, he encountered a French officer performing the same duty. Harry thought he was placing his vedettes too close to the British advance-posts, and as he had no notion of withdrawing his own pickets, he walked over to remonstrate with the Frenchman.

‘Hallo there, I want to speak to you!’ he called out.

The officer seemed to be a little amused, but came to meet Harry without the smallest hesitation. ‘But certainly, monsieur! What is it, then?’

‘Your vedette,’ said Harry. ‘There’s mine, over there, and if you post yours so far in advance, it will lead to nothing but alarms being given when they’re relieved. I wish you will retire a little way!’

The Frenchman raised his brows. ‘I do not see that, monsieur, but if you will point out to me where you wish my vedette to be, I shall be enchanted to oblige you by moving him.’ ‘Very good of you,’ said Harry. ‘Let us take a look at the ground!’

This they did. The Frenchman moved his vedette to a place of Harry’s choosing, and before they parted company, offered Harry a drink of his excellent brandy. Harry accepted it gratefully, for it was a cold night, bade his new acquaintance good-bye, and rode back to Chateau Castilleur.

It was late when he arrived, and he found Colborne asleep on a mattress before the fire. He was fully clothed, even to his boots, for there had been so many alarms since the brigade’s arrival at Castilleur that neither he nor Harry ever thought of undressing at night. Harry, himself dog-weary, did not wake him; but after wondering whether it was worth while to go to forage for some supper, decided that it was not, and lay down as he was on the mattress which he kept in Colborne’s room. He dropped asleep almost immediately but whether from fatigue, or from lack of food, the rest which he so badly needed was disturbed by a dream vivid enough to wake him with a terrific start, and a shout of: ‘Stand to your arms!’ Colborne woke, and was on his feet in an instant. The flickering firelight showed Harry standing in the middle of the room, blinking as though still half-asleep. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir! I’ve been dreaming,’ he said in an uncertain voice. ‘Never mind,’ said Colborne. ‘It’s near daylight, and it shows anyway that asleep or awake you’re intent on your duty. Did you dream that we were being attacked?’ ‘No,’ Harry said. ‘Not us. I—Damn it, it has taken such possession of my senses I can’t throw it off! I thought the enemy were attacking my father’s house. There’s a door at the back which leads into the garden. My father had my mother in his arms; I saw them as plainly as ever I did in my life: he was carrying her through the Black Door, as we always called it when we were children, and calling out: “Now, someone shut the door! She is safe and rescued.” Then I woke. Such nonsense! And to have roused you, too, sir!’

He lay down again, but could not sleep, the dream oppressing him to such an extent that every time he closed his eyes the picture of it returned to him. When morning came, he looked rather haggard, and was quieter than usual, and very brittle-tempered. It was a tiresome day, with incessant skirmishes of outposts. The Caçadores had the advance, and were attacked early in the morning. Harry said he had not seen the French as daring since the retreat to Corunna. ‘I don’t know what the devil we’ve got in our front today!’ he said, when Colborne came riding up to the advanced posts. He added irritably: ‘Don’t stand there! You will be shot in a moment!’

Colborne laughed, but, sure enough, a minute later a ball went through his hat. He did not seem much disturbed, but he moved to a safer place, remarking: ‘Look at the fellows! It’s evident it’s no general attack, for the troops in the bivouac are not under arms. They want this post.’

‘Which they will have in ten minutes,’ said Harry, ‘unless I bring up the and Rifle battalion. The Caçadores aren’t equal to the task.’

‘Fetch them!’ said Colborne, inspecting the hole through his hat. ‘What a narrow escape, to be sure!’

Harry only said, as he prepared to ride off: ‘You should not expose yourself so, sir!’ ‘What is the matter with Harry?’ demanded Mein, after three days of the Brigade-Major’s moodiness. ‘There’s not a laugh to be got out of him! What’s worrying him?’ Nobody knew; but not many days later the English mail arrived, bringing a letter for Harry, from his father. When he saw the writing, Harry turned pale. ‘I know what it is,’ he said, breaking the. seal with trembling fingers. ‘I have known ever since that dream!’ Juana watched him timidly as he read his father’s letter. A groan broke from him; she said. ‘Is it—is it your mother, Enrique?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. He stood still for a moment, then quite suddenly flung himself on his knees beside Juana, and wept and wept, with his face buried in her hands. She did not know how to comfort him. His grief frightened her, because he had always seemed to her so strong that she had not known that he could be broken to pieces like this for any care in the world. She cried a little, too, because she was so sorry for him. Later, when the cloud did not lift from Harry’s brow, she cried for herself, because the repressed, silent man who shared her bed was not Harry, who loved and bullied her, but a stranger too sad to quarrel with her, too listless to ask even how she had spent her day. Harry found her crying once, and stopped dead upon the threshold. ‘Hija!’ She started up, trying to hide her face, stammering: ‘The toothache! It is nothing!’ He came across the room, not slowly as though he were worn out, but with his own quick tread. ‘My darling! What is it?’

She said: ‘Enrique, I have lost father and mother, and my brother died of his wounds in my arms. You still have your home and your father left. I—I live alone for you, my all!’ He held her tightly against his breast ‘And I for you! There is no one else.’ ‘I cannot comfort you, Enrique,’ she said sadly. ‘It is not enough, that you have me.’ ‘Yes, it w enough,’ he replied. ‘This is nonsense! Why, you bad little varmint, are you telling me I don’t love you? What do you think you deserve for that?’

She flung her arms round his neck, overjoyed at hearing the teasing note in his voice. Later, pondering the matter, she saw that her efforts to be good, and patient, and sympathetic, had not helped Harry to recover from his grief nearly as much as the weakness she had tried to hide from him. So when next he sat staring into the fire, with his head propped on his hand, she picked a quarrel with him over a trifle; and when he was abstracted, sighing heavily at his own thoughts, she treated him to such an exhibition of sheer naughtiness, that after a week of wondering from hour to hour what dangerous prank she would play next, Harry was in a fair way to forgetting his unhappiness in worrying over his wife’s abominable behaviour. By the time he had descended to the most ferocious threats of what he would do if Juana risked her neck and his horses by trying to ride up a flight of stairs, Brigade-Major Smith was himself again, and Mrs Harry Smith judged it to be time to hang a meek head, and promise to be good.

Chapter Nine. Barnard

The end of January found the Light division at Ustaritz, where, being ten miles to the rear of their posts at Arcangues and Castilleur, they for a time lost sight of the enemy. This, said Harry, was just as well, since the pickets of both armies were getting much too friendly. An officer, visiting outposts one night, had actually found his picket, with the exception of one sentry left on guard, fraternizing with the French picket in a ruined house whose cellars were full of winecasks. Upon his arrival, all the men had jumped up, the French saluting him with particular flourish, and had gone back to their posts. It was one thing, Harry said, to signal to the enemy that one was in earnest, by tapping the butts of the rifles in a peculiar fashion, when one sallied forth in force to seize a lightly-held advance-post: it saved unnecessary bloodshed, and gave the enemy a chance to retire in good order; but it was quite another to send a messenger across to the French lines on Christmas Eve to buy brandy from the enemy. That, he said, was the outside of enough.

The Riflemen who had subscribed for the brandy were in agreement with him. Each man had contributed half a dollar, and the French had produced the brandy readily enough. Unfortunately, the messenger sent to bring away the brandy had thought it proper to sample it before returning to his comrades, with the result that the French sentry had had to shout to the Riflemen to come and rescue their friend from the ditch into which he had fallen. It had taken three of them to carry him back to his own lines, and both bottles of brandy had been found to be empty.

Life at Ustaritz was comparatively dull, although there was plenty of hunting and shooting for those officers who could afford to indulge in these pastimes. Lord Wellington, whose headquarters at St Jean de Luz were only about fifteen miles away, had sent for his hounds out of Spain, and was often to be seen, riding in his bruising style across country, and generally dressed in the sky-blue coat of the Salisbury Hunt, with a little black cape over it. His lordship left his cares behind him when he rode to hounds. He became as accessible as you please, laughing at his own and other men’s tumbles, and conversing with everyone with the greatest good-humour.

He still had his cares, of course, though not as many as poor Marshal Soult complained of to his Emperor. Soult said indignantly that all the inhabitants of the south were welcoming the British with open arms. It was quite true. As soon as the marauding Spaniards had been sent back to their own country, people who had fled from their villages in terror of these invaders, came nervously back again. They found the British, and even the Portuguese, not only well-behaved, but unmistakably friendly. But the popularity of the Allied army was not due so much to these causes as to the incredible discovery that what the Commissaries took, they paid for. To a people accustomed to being preyed upon by their own armies, this honesty on the part of the British seemed too astonishing to be at first believed in. But the word spread that officers billeted in cottages and inns called for the reckoning before they left; and mat Commissaries, haggling over loads of hay, gave promissory notes in exchange for everything they commandeered. ‘Vivent les Anglais.’ shouted the peasants gratefully, whenever they saw a company of redcoats on the road.

That was all very well, and certainly relieved his lordship’s mind of one of its cares. But the war-chest was still in a bad way, and promissory notes were hard to meet, while the long-suffering infantry was six months in arrears of pay. ‘I can scarcely stir out of my house on account of the public creditors waiting to demand what is due to them,’ wrote his lordship, never one to understate a grievance.

It was annoying, but neither the Basques nor the French could be induced to accept Spanish or Portuguese silver, which was all the loose cash the war-chest held. His lordship published notices informing the mistrustful people how much the dollar and the real were worth, but they continued obstinately to refuse dollars. So his lordship wrote a private letter to Colonels commanding battalions in the army, promising, in the coolest way, indemnity and good pay to all professional coiners in the ranks who would step forward. He got about fifty of these gentlemen, spirited them away to St Jean de Luz, set up a secret mint there, and put them to work on the Spanish silver in the war-chest. The dollars disappeared, and excellent Napoleonic five-franc pieces began, mysteriously, to circulate in their place. The weather, throughout December and January, continued to be shocking, and made troop movements impossible. The army remained in cantonments, fretting a little at inaction. But his lordship, for once in his life, was not altogether displeased at the inclemency of the season. He did not wish to advance much farther into France until he should be informed of the Allies’ intentions. Did they contemplate making peace with Napoleon? Did they mean to support the Royalist claims? Or were they considering the possibility of setting up a new republic? His lordship could not discover that there was much enthusiasm for the Royalist cause, but was inclined to think that if he were a Bourbon prince he would come to France, and take his chance. He said that the people of southern France, though heartily sick of the Bonapartist regime, did not seem to care much what form of government was to succeed it. So the Duc d’Angouleme came incognito on a visit to headquarters. He was rather an odd person, and his lordship’s personal Staff, who dubbed all distinguished visitors to headquarters Tigers, promptly christened him the Royal Tiger. He found the Field-Marshal’s headquarters quite devoid of any pomp or ceremony, no one, from the youngest ADC to the Field-Marshal himself, putting on any of the airs of a great man. It was rather disconcerting at first to find Lord Wellington’s family composed of very young gentlemen with a flow of inexhaustible high spirits, and a nice taste in fancy-waistcoats; and most bewildering to hear his lordship and all the big-wigs in the army joking and laughing with these sprigs from the Universities, just as though they were all members of one big, jolly, family, but the Duc soon grew accustomed to it, and settled down quite happily.