The Spanish Bride (46 page)

There were so few duties to be performed that all the unattached officers busied themselves with falling in love with the girls of Toulouse.

‘But I,’ said Harry, guilty of sliding his arm round a seductive waist, ‘have a safeguard in my lovely young wife!’

‘You are shameless, and faithless, and altogether good-for-nothing, besides being a great liar!’ said his lovely young wife body. ‘It is quite plain to me that you like Frenchwomen better than Spaniards, and I am not at all angry, or hurt, only extremely sorry that you have such abominable taste!’

‘Not at all!’ said Harry. ‘I adore Spanish women: I always did!’

An indignant face was turned towards him. ‘Yes! You have loved hundreds besides me, I daresay!’

‘Oh, thousands!’ agreed Harry. ‘I nearly married one once. Ay de mi! She was a dear little creature, pretty as paint too, and with the gentlest ways!’

‘Enrique! It is not true!’ gasped Juana.

‘True as I stand here!’

‘When?’ she stammered. ‘Where?’

‘Oh, when I was at Monte Video, with Whitelocke! I was billeted in her house, and was devilish ill there, with fever.’

She drew a breath of relief. ‘All that time ago! You were nothing but a schoolboy! I don’t believe she was pretty at all, or had gentle ways!’

‘Oh, but she had! Eyes like a doe’s, too.’

‘If she had eyes like a doe’s she was probably foolish. She does not sound to me the sort of wife one would choose for a hard campaign.’

Harry made a kissing-face at her. ‘Not a bit, General Juana!’ 8

At the end of the month, the division was moved away from Toulouse, to Castel Sarrasin, a circumstance which was fortunate for the gay Light Bobs, however loudly they might regret it, since the social life at Toulouse was fast ruining them. The Smiths were billeted in the house of a middle-aged widow of good family, who had lost all but one of her sons in Napoleon’s wars. She was very kind to the Smiths, happy, she said, to have young people under her roof again.

They were not destined to remain there for long. Hardly had they had time to settle down, when Harry was sent for one morning by Colonel Colborne, who took his breath away by saying abruptly: ‘Smith, you’ve been so unlucky, after all your service, in not getting your Majority, that you mustn’t be idle. There’s a force—a considerable one—going to America. You must go with it.’

‘Go with it?’ Harry repeated, in rather an odd voice.

‘Yes,’ said Colborne. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but you have your whole future to consider, remember! You and I will ride to Toulouse tomorrow: you had better send a horse on tonight; it’s only thirty-four miles. We’ll go there to breakfast, and ride back to dinner.’ Harry did not answer for a moment. He had whitened under his tan, for he knew very well that such a change in his fortunes would mean separation from Juana. As soon as he could trust his voice, he said: ‘Thank you, sir: I’ll be ready. This is—this is very kind of you!’ ‘You’ll think so one day, I promise you, even though you don’t now,’ said Colborne, smiling faintly.

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Of course!’

He went slowly back to his own quarters. Juana was playing with Vitty in the garden; she looked up as Harry came towards her, and the laughter vanished from her face. She jumped up from the grass, saying anxiously: ‘You have had bad news! What did Colborne want you for?’

‘No, no, not bad news! At least—oh, by Jupiter, I don’t know whether it’s good or bad!’ Juana stood quite still. ‘You are going to leave me,’ she said, in a frightened voice. ‘Yes—no! Nothing is certain yet! I daresay nothing will come of it! I hope to God it won’t, though I suppose I ought not to wish that!’

‘Enrique, en nombre de Dios, tell me!’

‘Colborne wants me to put my name down for the expedition that’s going to America.’ ‘America! Oh, Enrique, mi esposo, no, no, no!’ she cried, throwing herself into his arms. ‘Don’t cry! alma mia, don’t cry! I’ll tell Colborne I can’t! God knows I don’t want to!’ But when the first abandonment of her despair was over, Juana said: ‘You must go. It is your duty. I am sorry I cried. You see, I—I had never thought that perhaps we might be separated.’

‘I daresay I haven’t a chance of being chosen,’ Harry said. She tried hard to smile. ‘You would like to go, would you not, mi Enrique?’ ‘If I were not married! But to be parted—No, it’s not to be thought of! I’ll tell Colborne.’ ‘You know you could never, never tell Colborne such a thing,’ said Juana mournfully. She cried herself to sleep that night, but in the early morning she saw Harry off with a smile on her lips. Madame La Riviere, their hostess, put an arm round her waist, and told Harry he must not worry about her, since she would take care of her till his return; but when Harry joined Colborne he was looking so haggard that Colborne took him to task, and reminded him that he himself had not seen his bride for over a year.

Juana spent the day trying not to cry, and hoping desperately that Harry’s application would be refused. One glance at his face, when he returned at four in the afternoon, told her that it was all settled. She had made up her mind that she would be calm, and reasonable, and she said at once, with only the smallest quiver in her voice: ‘You are going. I am—I am glad, Enrique, because it is for your advantage, and neither of us must repine. Tell me—tell me what happened?’

He sat down beside her, drawing her head down on to his shoulder. ‘Hija, what shall I do without you?’

‘You will do very well. You did, before I knew you. You will m-make love to all the American women,’ she said, with a forlorn attempt at a joke.

‘That I swear to you I will not!’

‘Yes, but you are a bad, faithless one. Don’t let us talk about it! What did you do at Toulouse?’

‘We went at once to the AG’s office, and found that someone had already put my name down on the list of Majors of Brigade wishing to serve in America. It was rather high up—third, I think. We asked old Darling who had done it, and what do you think?—he said, Colonel Elley! Wasn’t it kind of the dear old man? He used to know my family very well, but I never expected him to do a thing like that for me. He actually mentioned me to Pakenham! Then Colborne said: “My friend Ross, who commanded the 20th when I was Captain of the Light Company, is going. I’ll go and ask him to take you as his Brigade-Major.” Ross knew me, of course, on the retreat to Corunna. He is to command a force consisting of three brigades. I’m to be Deputy-Adjutant-General.’ ‘It is very comforting to think that Ross was so ready to take you,’ said Juana carefully. ‘All your friends have been so kind in arranging everything so satisfactorily.’ Her tears fell on to the wings of his jacket. ‘Oh, Enrique, you have friends everywhere, but I have no one, no one in the world but you, and you are sending me to live with strangers, in a strange country!’ He gave her a convulsive hug. ‘You will have Tom. He will go with you. And my father, and my sisters will welcome you—’

‘Oh, I can’t, Enrique! I can’t! Not without you! What will they think of me? How can I face them, without being able even to speak their language? No, no, if I must go to England without you, I will be alone, not amongst people who are strangers, and will perhaps despise me!’

‘They Would not!’ Harry said, but although he spoke stoutly his imagination could not quite see Juana in sleepy Whittlesey. ‘If only my mother were alive!’ he said, with a deep sigh. ‘Hija, I have been a bad husband to you, not to have made you learn to speak English!’ But when Madame La Riviere heard this, she said: ‘Well now, that is excellent, for it will give the little one something to do while you are away. She will learn to speak your tongue, so that when you come back she will be able to astonish you.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Juana doubtfully.

Brother Tom, who was being sent home on account of an old wound, which had been troubling him for weeks, said: ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay in London, I must say. I wouldn’t send her to Whittlesey, if I were you, Harry. Let her take lessons in English from a good master in town. She’d find it devilish flat at Whittlesey, besides being cut-off from all our friends, I’ll keep an eye on her. And really, you know,’ he added, dropping into his own tongue, ’it isn’t fan—to thrust her into the family when she can’t make herself understood in English, nor they in any language she speaks.’

Juana looked so much more cheerful at the prospect of being allowed to await Harry’s return in London, that in the end that was how the matter was arranged. Any doubts Harry might have nourished of the propriety of sending a sixteen-year-old to fend for herself in London were outweighed by the consideration, bluntly expressed by Tom, that: ‘She will do very much better amongst our fellows (for there are bound to be several of us fixed in London for a few months) than being cosseted and fussed, and very likely lectured by Eleanor, and Betsy, and Mary. You know, Harry, we all love her, but there’s no denying she’s not at all like the girls at home.’

No, Harry thought, remembering long marches under molten skies, bivouacs in streaming woods, the fording of swirling rivers, mattresses spread in filthy, flea-ridden hovels, the washing of gangrenous wounds which would have made an English miss swoon with horror: she was not like the girls at home.

Fortunately for them both, they had not much time to waste in dwelling on the miseries of separation. Not only had arrangements to be made for Juana’s voyage to London, but Harry had to settle his affairs: no easy matter, with nine months’ regimental pay owing to him, and no time to get a private draft from England. He did it, in the end, but only through the staunchness of his friends, who forwent the greater part of their first issues of pay in order to make Harry’s up to the requisite amount.

His own regiment gave him a farewell dinner, and so did the 1st and 3rd Caçadores, themselves very sad at the imminent prospect of being sent back to Portugal. ‘Ah, my friend, you are more fortunate than we are!’ said the Commander of the 3rd Caçadores with a shake of his head. ‘You will return to your comrades, but we, never!’ ‘Oh, don’t say that! It doesn’t bear thinking of!’ said Harry.

‘Alas!’ said the Portuguese, a look of melancholy spreading over his homely countenance. ‘When, I ask myself, shall I again hear my English name on English lips?’ That made Harry laugh, for the Colonel’s name being Manuel Terçeira Caetano Pinto de Silvuica y Souza, he had very early in his career in the Allied army been dubbed, much more simply, Jack Nasty-Face. ‘By Jove, Jack, I should think that would be an advantage, at any rate!’ ‘I regard it as a name expressing the most gratifying affection,’ said Souza sadly. When the day of leaving Castel Sarrasin came, Harry nearly broke his heart. Much more affecting than the parting with his friends, was the send-off he got from the rank-and-file. His own battalion, a thousand strong when it had embarked for the Peninsula just before Talavera, now reduced to five hundred, lined up to cheer him. There was hardly a man amongst them who had not been wounded; not one, Harry swore, whose knowledge of outpost duty had not been brought to perfection.

‘Come back to us, Mr Smith!’ shouted the veterans, who never, all their lives, gave him any other title.

‘By God, I will!’ Harry choked.

‘He’s true-blue: he’ll never stain!’ said Tom Crawley. ‘Lordy, I’d give a month’s pay to be by when he starts in to damn this new brigade of his into shape! They’ll learn a thing or two once they gets our Brigade-Major amongst ’em!’

Accompanied by Tom, and by little Digby, who had got leave to go with them to Bordeaux, the Smiths embarked in a skiff, and journeyed to the coast down the Garonne, anchoring each night, and putting up at bins which, after the posadas of Spain, seemed the height of luxury to them. If the black cloud of separation had not hung over their heads, they would have enjoyed their river-voyage immensely; as it was they pretended to each other that they were delighted with everything they saw, and thought secretly that they would surely never live through unhappier days.

They found Bordeaux quite the most beautiful city (except, said Juana firmly, Madrid) that they had ever seen. They put up at one of the best inns, and desperately crammed their days with sightseeing, and theatre-going. Harry was to embark on the Royal Oak, a 74, anchored off Pauillac, under the command of Rear-Admiral Malcolm; and Juana was to remain with Tom in Bordeaux until the next transport sailed for England. Quite a number of their friends, who were suffering from the effects of wounds, were going to England too; and since Harry was taking West with him to America, Digby was sending his own excellent private servant with Juana, with orders not on any account to leave her until she was safely installed in London, and had no further use for his services. He was a very capable man, and could be trusted to look after all her baggage, and Tom’s too; not to mention Tiny, and Harry’s greyhounds; and would be of much more use to her than the female attendant whom Madame La Riviere had wished her to engage.

Four days was all the time granted to the Smiths in Bordeaux. Harry sent West on ahead of him with his horses to Pauillac, and himself remained with Juana until the last possible minute. She bore up with wonderful courage, but her face grew steadily more pinched, and her eyes blacker-rimmed and when the dreadful moment of parting came, she clung convulsively to Harry for an instant, trying to speak. His face swam before her anguished eyes; her throat worked; she tried with all the resolution left to her to smile at him, but as he kissed her, the suffocation in her breast overcame her, and she sank mercifully into a deep swoon.

Digby, taking her forcibly out of Harry’s embrace, thought that in another minute Harry too would be in a swoon, so deathly white had he become. ‘She’s all right! Go now, Harry, before she comes round! She can’t stand any more of this, or you either!’ ‘For God’s sake, Bob, take care of her!