The Spanish Bride

5

They were never going to quarrel again, not even when the ladies of Guinaldo tied ribbons to Harry’s coat, and blew him kisses in the street. Luckily the Greenjackets were not as popular as the officers of the 52nd, now quartered in the town, and so much caressed by the natives that it was a wonder their heads were not turned.

Reinforcements of cavalry, arriving from England, provoked some admiration and a good deal of ribaldry from the shabby, weather-beaten Peninsular veterans. ‘As fair and beautiful as lilies!’ mocked Captain Leach, encountering a squadron of Life Guards in all their unsoiled magnificence, Cadoux shook his head, murmuring wistfully: ‘If I could afford it, I think I should exchange into a cavalry regiment. Really, you would be hard put to it to find smarter uniforms ! I do what I can, of course, but one is terribly hampered.’ ‘Oh no, don’t leave us!’ begged Jack Molloy. ‘You couldn’t indulge your taste in fancy waistcoats if you joined the Life Guards!’

‘True, very true!’ Cadoux said, the lurking smile, which Harry could never be brought to see, narrowing his sleepy eyes. ‘I have such a pretty new one for the party, too.’ ‘Oh, are you going to it?’ asked Molloy. ‘No one sent me an invitation.” Yes, Cadoux, obtaining his invitation through God knew what underground channels, said his brother-officers, was certainly going to the party. He had not been able to get himself asked to the dinner, however.

The party was being given by Lord Wellington, in Ciudad Rodrigo, on the occasion of the investiture of General Lowry Cole with the Order of the Bath. It was to consist of a select dinner, followed by a ball and supper. Never having given one of his grand parties at Rodrigo, of which battered city he had been made Duque, his lordship was anxious to do the thing in style. All the headquarters plate was requisitioned; wagon-loads of glass were sent from Almeida, twenty-five miles away; and as soon as Colonel Colin Campbell, who managed his lordship’s household, reported that there was no possibility of getting a banquet prepared in Rodrigo, arrangements were made to carry a half-cooked dinner there on carts and mule-back from Frenada. Colin Campbell swore, and said in his rough way that he could not imagine what could possess a sane man to go to such trouble for the sake of a dinner-party. But his lordship liked parties, and he could not see that to carry every dish seventeen miles would be the least trouble in the world. Depend upon it, the headquarters cooks would make nothing of it.

Harry, happening to accompany his Brigadier to Frenada on business, had the good fortune to come under his lordship’s notice. His lordship liked young Smith, who never applied for leave, nor went sick when he was most needed, and he remembered that he was married to a charming representative of one of the best families in Estremadura. He told him that he must be sure to bring his little guerrtire to the ball, and promised him an invitation. Harry thought that twenty miles was too far to take his wife, but Juana speedily undeceived him.

‘You will be too tired to dance,’ Harry said. ‘I am never too tired to dance,’ replied Juana simply.

So the Smiths were going to the party, too, and Harry rode all the way to Almeida, no little journey from Guinaldo, to buy the most handsome Braganza shawl there for his Juana to wear.

Cadoux drawled that he would make it his business to dance with Juana, to annoy Harry. ‘I doubt whether it will,’ said Kincaid. ‘Why annoy him, in any case?’

‘But he annoys me,’ said Cadoux plaintively. ‘There’s no getting away from him. Wherever you go, there’s Smith: a skinny little devil, making enough noise for two of his size, never still, never thinking anyone can do anything but himself, and always so damned sure that there’s nothing he couldn’t do, if he did but wish to.’

Kincaid laughed, but said: ‘Oh, Harry brags atrociously! We all know that! But he’s a damned good Staff-officer, Dan. If you had served under some of the real bad ’uns I’ve met in my career, you’d thank God for a Harry Smith! You never see him tired-’ ‘I find that very annoying,’ murmured Cadoux. ‘When every man in the brigade is dropping with fatigue, it isn’t decent, it isn’t seemly, to be full of energy.’

Kincaid smiled, but shook his head. ‘All very well, but you wouldn’t get the men to agree with you. They know that no matter what may have occupied the day or night, or what elementary war may be raging, Smith will never be found off his horse until he’s seen every man in the brigade under cover.’

‘He damns them up hill and down dale,’ Cadoux complained.

But the men did not care a button for any of the fearful expletives their Brigade-Major was in the habit, in moments of stress, of flinging at their heads. In battle, there was no oath beyond the range of his vocabulary, but any officer who shared the hottest shell-fire with them, and wore himself down to bone and muscle in their interests, was welcome to call them individually and collectively the foulest names he could lay his tongue to. It was hardly to be expected that he and soft-spoken, dandified Cadoux would ever agree, but men who liked both tried several times to point out the good points of one to the other. George Simmons said that the silly enmity was mostly Cadoux’ fault, because he never let slip an opportunity to irritate Harry’s quick, intolerant temper.

But when Cadoux waltzed with Juana at Lord Wellington’s ball, Harry paid very little heed. He was sorry for Juana’s having to stand up with such a frippery fellow, and merely shrugged his incomprehension when she said she found Cadoux quite a pleasant companion. The ball was a great success, and everyone but Colin Campbell, and the Spanish General O’Lalor, who were responsible for its management, enjoyed it hugely. The best house left standing in the town had been taken for it, and the depredations of the siege were covered up by some very fine hangings of yellow damasked satin, which had been brought away from the Palace of St Ildefonso, and hidden in Rodrigo to save them from the French. General O’Lalor discovered these, and they were hung up tent-like in the ballroom, providing at once an air of magnificence and a certain degree of protection from the cold air which came into the room through a large hole knocked out of the roof by a cannon-ball. The supper-rooms were hung with crimson satin and gold, and looked very well too. Claret, champagne, and Lamego, which was like the best port, had been brought from Frenada in spring-wagons; the dinner, over which the agitated cooks tore their hair, did not seem to have suffered from having been partially prepared seventeen miles away; and the headquarters plate was enough to provide each guest with one change of silver during the meal. A blaspheming mob of batmen staggered about behind the scenes with immense cauldrons of hot water, and washed all the spoons and forks with feverish haste between courses; and the band of the 52nd regiment arrived after dinner to play the latest dance-tunes for the company.

It was rather chilly in the ballroom, and there was one dangerous hole in the floor; but dancing soon warmed one, and as for the hole, a mat laid over it, and a man posted to see that no one plunged a leg in it, made it of no particular consequence.

Lord Wellington, who had been hard at work in Frenada until half-past three in the afternoon, rode over to Rodrigo in excellent time for the dinner, and appeared at it, dressed in all his orders. He was quite the life and soul of the party. He danced himself, several times, quizzed his Staff, flirted with all the prettiest ladies, stayed to supper, and rode back by moonlight to Frenada, with every intention of being in his office again by midday. Of his family, only Colonel Gordon could be got to go back with him. Everyone else had procured a lodging in the town, so that the party did not break up until five in the morning. It got a little rough after his lordship’s departure, and Harry took Juana away to their quarters. When he had seen her safely into bed, however, he went back to the ball, and was in time to assist in teaching the excited Spanish guests to shout hip, hip, hip, hurrah in place of their vivas. The toasts were becoming incessant, the most popular being ‘The next campaign,’ and ‘Death to all Frenchmen!’ It presently seemed good to the other members of his lordship’s personal Staff to chair the young Prince of Orange, for no particular reason except that he was a nice lad, and they liked him. The idea took, and the next person to be carried on high round the room was General Vandeleur. There, however, the chairing stopped, for the General’s bearers were distinctly foxed, and they let him fall.

Harry rejoined his Juana when daylight was shining through the shutters, and tumbled into bed beside her with a rueful groan which woke her. She sat up, saw his head buried in the pillow, and demanded: ‘Why, what is the matter? Are you ill?’

‘No, I’m drunk,’ said Harry in a thickened voice.

Juana gave a gurgle. ‘Horrid creature!’ she said, nestling down again, and pulling his head on to her shoulder. ‘Go to sleep, then: you will have a very bad headache presently.’ He put a heavy arm across her body. ‘You’re a wife in a thousand, m’darling,’ he said sleepily.