The Spanish Bride

3

No honeymoon for this bride; no driving away in a chaise-and-four, with the wedding-guests waving farewell, and corded trunks full of bride-clothes piled high on the roof. One small portmanteau contained the few necessaries which had been procured for Juana at Elvas, and one small tent was her first home. She and Harry walked to it by moonlight through the silent camp, when they rose from the wedding feast which the officers of Harry’s regiment had given in their honour. Juana leaned lightly on Harry’s arm, and felt it trembling. When they reached his tent, he would have trimmed the lamp which hung there, but Juana said no, that was her work. She stood on tiptoe to do it, absorbed in this first wifely duty. He watched her, wondering at her, amused by the little serious air she had. The lamplight filled the tent; Juana took off her cloak, and folded it, and laid it neatly away; and began to move about the constricted space, setting small disorders to rights, as though she had kept house all her life. She found a sock of Harry’s, with a great hole worn in the heel. She lifted her eyes to Harry’s face, laughing at him, and said: ‘Oh, how bad! I think you need a wife very much indeed, mi Enrique! When we go to Elvas, I will buy needles and wool, and there shall be no more holes.’

To see her with his sock in her hand made his heart swell; he said unsteadily: ‘Can you darn such holes as that, alma mia?’

‘Of course! I can do everything!’ He smiled. ‘Ride?’

‘I can learn,’ she replied with dignity. ‘It will not be at all difficult, for already twice I have ridden upon a donkey.’

That made him laugh. The desire to take her in his arms was beginning to master him; he controlled it for a little while yet, afraid of frightening her, himself strangely moved, and diffident. His voice was rather strained, unnaturally light. ‘Bravo! And these great journeys?’ ‘Once I went to visit my grandmother; and once we went, all of us, to Olivença, to escape the siege of Badajos. Not this siege. And I rode on a donkey.’

‘Now you must learn to ride a horse.’

‘Naturally. A donkey is stupid and slow, besides being not at all English.’ ‘Do you wish to become English, hija?’

‘Yes, for I am your wife. Do you not wish it, Enrique?’ ‘I love my Spanish wife.’

She shook her head, frowning, but pleased. ‘What did they call me, your friends?’ ‘Mrs Harry Smith.’

She tried to repeat it, but stumbled over it, and gave a trill of laughter. ‘I am too Spanish!’ He moved a pace towards her, and removing the sock from her hand, tossed it aside, and gathered both her hands in his, holding them against his chest. She looked up at him, not timidly, but suddenly submissive. Staring down into her eyes, he read a girl’s hero-worship there. For the first time in his heedless life, he was afraid. His sinewy clasp on her hands tightened unconsciously; his face, in the lamplight, looked a little haggard. She said wonderingly: ‘How strongly your heart beats!’

‘Yes. It beats for you.’

She drew his hands away from his chest to lay them on her own slight breast. ‘And mine for you,’ she said simply.

He felt the flutter of her heart under his palms; he put his arms round her, but gently, and held her so, his cheek against her hair.

‘What are you thinking of, mi Enrique?’ ‘Praying to God you may not regret this!’ ‘Why?’

‘I am-I am a frippery, careless fellow, not worthy of you!’ he said, as though the words were wrung from him. ‘I’m selfish, and bad-tempered-’

‘Ah, ah!’ A gurgle of laughter escaped her. ‘I, too, amigo!’

‘No, listen, mi queridissima muger! I swear I will try to be worthy of you, but they’ll tell you-Stewart, Molloy, Beckwith, Charlie Eeles: all my dearest friends!-that I’m thoughtless, conceited, not fit to be your husband, and O God, it’s true, and I know it!’ ‘Mi esposo!’

‘Yes! And what a husband!’ he said. ‘Forgive me, forgive me! I should not have done it!’ ‘But how is this? Do you not love me?’

‘Con toda mi alma! With all my soul!’

‘It is enough. Think! I am only a silly girl: I know nothing, merely that I love you. I have all to learn: my sister told me I should make you a sad wife. Mi Enrique, I too will try.” He thrust her away from him, holding her so, at arm’s length, while his eyes stabbed hers. ‘No regrets? You’re not afraid? Even though your sister has gone, and you are left amongst a foreign people, to a life that’s hard, and bitter for a woman?’

‘But this is folly!’ she said. ‘How should I be afraid? Will you not take care of me, mi esposo?’

‘’Till death!’ he said in a shaking voice, and at last released that iron hold he had kept over himself, and seized her in a cruel embrace, crushing her mouth under his. Her body yielded adorably; one arm was pinned to his side, but the other she flung up round his neck, to hold him closer. He lifted her, and strode forward with her, checking under the lamp she had trimmed, and putting up a hand to turn it down. The little flame flickered blue, and went out.