Authors: Jane Aiken Hodge
Marry in Haste (19 page)
The news Dom Fernando brought them was mixed bad and good, with the bad preponderating. No word had been received from the Brazils, but no news, he said, was good news. In Europe, Bonaparte seemed all powerful. Russia and Austria had given up the struggle, and England faced him alone. But in Spain and Portugal, he told them, the scene was changing. Spain, too, had been occupied, treacherously, by Bonaparte’s armies and there, as in Portugal, the people at large were awaking slowly to a realisation of disaster. Passive at first, the people of both countries were rousing to fierce resistance under the goad of French tyranny. “They have learned at last,” Dom Fernando said, “that France is not the saviour they hoped. Now, when it is too late, they begin to sigh for their lost rulers. I think we shall have a hot summer of it in Iberia; I only wish I could see you safe home before the fighting really begins. How long do you think ...?” He stammered to a halt.
Camilla laughed. “Not long now,” she said. “Sister Maria says it is a matter of days.”
“Good.” He rose to take his leave. “I confess I shall breathe more freely when you are safe away from here. I find that your identity is an open secret in the village by now: they are all your devoted friends and I hope you have nothing to fear ... but,” he shook his head and repeated, “I shall feel safer when you are gone.”
Camilla laughed. “And so shall we! It seems little less than a miracle that we have been unmolested so far.”
He smiled at her very kindly. “Perhaps it is one. Who knows?” And took his leave.
Two days later, Camilla roused Chloe in the small hours of the morning. “Chloe, I think it is time to go for Sister Maria.”
Chloe was out of bed in a flash. “Are you sure? Will you be all right while I am gone? Oh, Camilla, I wish we were at home.”
“So do I, but never mind; it has happened before, and will again. I have no doubt I shall do well enough ... only, hurry, Chloe.”
Chloe ran all the way to convent, but Sister Maria, who was as lazy as she was good-tempered, refused to be hurried: “Time enough, time enough,” she said, in her broad, country Portuguese. “These first mothers always think the end of the world is at hand, but, I promise you, we will have time for breakfast—yes, and lunch too, before we see his young lordship.” Wheezing with the exertion, she packed up her sinister-looking tools, and Chloe, equally alarmed by her grimy equipment and the delay, could finally bear it no longer and ran on, alone, to their cottage. As she crossed the garden, a sudden almost unrecognisable scream from Camilla gave wings to her feet. She entered the tiny bedroom, gasping for breath, just in time to receive her squalling nephew. Sister Maria, arriving placidly ten minutes later, found herself with nothing but the tidying up to do and could hardly forbear scolding Camilla for her unlady-like speed. But Camilla, white and exhausted, was too happy to care. “Edward,” she whispered, and fell asleep.
It was Sister Maria who first noticed the thin webbing between the baby’s smallest toes and pointed it out, with eldritch shrieks, to Chloe. Chloe, an aunt and entirely grownup now, merely dismissed her from the house with unearned thanks and a string of beads the sister had admired and now accepted with enthusiasm: “For the blessed Virgin, of course.” Then she returned to the little room where Camilla and the child slept peacefully. If she could help it, Camilla should not be troubled with news of her child’s deformity before she was strong enough to bear it.
To her delighted surprise, Camilla’s return to strength was very much more rapid than she had expected. It almost seemed that there was something to be said for bearing a child in an atmosphere of domesticity and gardening and without society’s benefits of laudanum plasters, devoted relatives, and straw in the streets. At any rate, by the fourth day, Camilla insisted that she was tired of lying in bed and wanted to bathe her son herself: “You are not to have all the care of him, Chloe. Aunts have their rights, I know, and you have most certainly earned yours, but his mother must come first.”
Chloe protested, but in vain, and watched in anguished expectation while Camilla removed little Edward’s clothes with loving unskilful hands and held him gently in the large cooking pot they used for a bath. In a moment, Camilla looked up at her. “I see,” she said. “That is why he was always dressed. Did you think I should mind it, Chloe? I shall only love him all the more. Do you know, I was beginning to be afraid there was something really
wrong
with him, but this—who cares about this?”
“Not I, for one,” said Chloe robustly, but could not help adding. “I only wondered—Lavenham and Lady Leominster ...”
“Who cares what they think, or the world for that matter? And, besides, why should anybody know? It is not yet the fashion that I know of for gentlemen to dance barefoot, is it, my precious?” And she bent to concentrate on the intricate and unfamiliar task of washing her son, who was beginning to wriggle in her hands like the fish he resembled.
He was a wonderfully well-conducted baby, but then, as Camilla said, so he should be, with the entire attention of a devoted mother and aunt. When Sister Maria called to see how he and Camilla were going on, she was amazed to find them both out under a huge cork tree in the garden and raised her hands in horror, prognosticating all kinds of disasters from such an early risking of fresh air. As for the baths, when she learned of them she was convinced the baby would not survive its second week. “And perhaps as well,” she said to Chloe, who was shepherding her out of the garden, “poor little monster. What good can come of it? Let me but baptise him and he will be better off with the angels.”
Grateful that Camilla had not heard, Chloe paid a visit to the convent that night and begged the Prioress, who had always been their understanding friend, to prevent Sister Maria from visiting them again.
The old nun nodded her comprehension. “Yes,” she said, “perhaps it would be best. Sister Maria is well enough for the peasant women, and even for our own girls when they go astray, but perhaps I will take her place from now on. She has told me, of course, about the poor little boy. We can only pray that it will prove, by God’s grace, a blessing to him in disguise.”
Chloe could hardly see how it could do so, but was too relieved at the success of her mission to care. From then on, the Prioress visited them daily, cheering them with her robust common sense and her hearty and convinced praise of the baby, who grew and throve in daily contradiction of Sister Maria’s prophecies.
He was a month old, and a picture of placid health, when Dom Fernando paid them an unexpected visit. He arrived late in the evening, when the shadow of the cork tree had lengthened across the sunny garden and they were beginning to think about bed. One look at him told Camilla that something was wrong, and she helped him to hurry through the formal greetings and congratulations as fast as possible. He came quickly to the point: “I am more relieved than I can say to find you so well, for I fear I bring bad news.”
Camilla turned white. “Not Lavenham?”
“No, no. How could I be so stupid? I have good news of him. We have heard at last that the Court are arrived safe at Bahia, though after a sufficiently grievous voyage, poor things. Your husband is alive and, so far as I know, well. No, my news is not of him but of Charles Boutet, who is returned to Lisbon and who, I fear, must have learned that you did not escape with the fleet as he first thought. I discovered only this afternoon that he has been tampering with my servants, asking them all kinds of questions about my movements. That is why I am come so late; I did not dare let anyone know where I was going. But now he has started making enquiries it is only a matter of time—and not very much at that—until he discovers your whereabouts and then, I gravely fear, I would be powerless to protect you.”
Camilla had taken Chloe’s hand. “But what shall we do? Where can we hide?”
He answered her with another question. “Are you truly better? Strong enough to face a journey, and, I fear, an exhausting one?”
“To go home?” Camilla asked. “I could face anything for that. And indeed I am entirely recovered. Chloe will tell you that I have been working in the garden all afternoon, and none the worse for it.”
“I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear it. No hope, now, of getting you out to the blockading fleet. Since Boutet arrived, the French vigilance in the harbour has been redoubled. It was with the greatest difficulty that I made the crossing to visit you tonight. To attempt to get out to the British ships would be to court disaster. But I have another plan which I begin, now I see you so well, to think may be possible. There is a British agent, a Mr. Smith, who is returning from a visit to Spain. He is to be picked up by a British frigate north of Lisbon, where the French watch is less close, and I have suggested to him that you might accompany him.”
“You have seen him, then? Where is he? Can we really go with him? What did he say?”
He smiled a shade reprovingly. “One question at a time, I beg. Or rather, the fewer questions, the better. The less you know, in fact, the safer for you. But, yes, he has agreed to take you with him, always provided that you are strong enough to stand the journey. He has vital information to take home to England and asks me to warn you that he must travel fast and can stop for nothing. Luckily his rendezvous is not for another three days or he could not wait for you. But as it is he will be delighted to escort you and, indeed, thinks that your company will much improve his chances. The French are, we believe, on the lookout for him, but are not likely to suspect a family travelling together. Only,” he paused to look anxiously at Camilla, “are you strong enough? And what of the baby?”
“To get home,” Camilla said again, “we can face anything.”
CHAPTER 11
Neither Camilla nor Chloe slept that night. Excitement would have prevented it, even if there had not been so much to do. Before he left them, Dom Fernando had explained that Mr. Smith could not risk the detour to join them; instead, they must make their way along the south side of the Tagus and would find him waiting for them at the crossroads just before the first bridge across the river. He would, of course, recognise their little party easily enough and would identify himself by asking them, in Portuguese, “What news, today, in Setubal?” To make assurance doubly sure, Camilla must then answer, “None worth the hearing.”
After they had met Mr. Smith, Dom Fernando warned them that they would have two days’ hard riding over rough country, if they were to keep their rendezvous with the frigate. His cousin the Prioress would provide them with mules, peasant costume, and a man to escort them to the meeting place with Mr. Smith: after that, they would be in his hands. He left at last with many good wishes for what seemed a mad enough venture, and promises of a happier meeting when Bonaparte was defeated and peace restored. At the last minute, he came back with a final injunction: “I had almost forgot. Mr. Smith urges that you make yourselves look as much like peasant women as possible. The clothes my cousin will provide will help, but can you, perhaps, bring yourselves to dirty your faces and untidy your hair?” And on this semi-comic note he left them.
The Prioress came bustling over soon afterwards and added her advice to his. Better than advice, she brought a jar of black and viscous fluid with which she urged Chloe to dye her hair: “Those golden locks of yours are as good as an advertisement that you are a foreigner.” Chloe made a face, but agreed, and by morning her hair had been turned a muddy black and her face liberally streaked with the glutinous dye. She insisted, somewhere between laughter and tears, that Camilla, too, daub herself with this strong-smelling substitute for dirt, and by the time they had put on the bedraggled clothes the Prioress had brought them, and tied dirty black shawls over their heads, they made, in their own opinion, as convincing a pair of filthy peasant women as anyone could wish to see. The Prioress, however, was not so sure, and insisted, at the last moment, that the baby, too, must be wrapped in one of the grimy shawls she had brought. Camilla nearly rebelled at this, but her good sense made her yield soon enough, and she even rubbed a very little of the black dye on Edward’s pink and somnolent cheek, where it stood out like a clown’s paint.
By now, it was morning, and the man was waiting outside with the mules, of which, they realised at the last moment, the Prioress was making them a present. Protests were vain. There was no possible way to arrange for the animals’ return, and they left with a warm feeling of gratitude and the kind old nun’s blessing in their ears. They rode for the most part in silence, since Dom Fernando had urged them to speak as little as possible, and never in English: “Imagine that the very aloes have French ears.”
They had to admit the justice of his advice, although the enforced silence added very considerably to the misery and fatigue of the day’s journey. In order to be sure of their rendezvous, they must ride steadily through the noontide heat, pausing only for brief rests, to feed the baby and to encourage themselves with the lavish refreshments the Prioress had provided. Their guide was silent to the point of taciturnity, the sun blazed down, their only consolation was that little Edward, carried first by his mother and then by his aunt, slept like an angel, soothed, no doubt, by the rocking gait of the mule.
Towards evening, however, he woke and began to whimper in his mother’s arms; the fatigue of the journey had made him hungry earlier than usual. But their guide rejected Camilla’s suggestion that they stop to feed him with a surliness that was all too evidently the mask for anxiety. They were late already, he said. There was an hour’s hard riding still to the crossroads and Dom Smith would be already awaiting them there—if he waited, added the man gloomily, troubled by visions of having to escort his awkward companions back to the convent.
The last hour’s ride was a silent misery. Both Camilla and Chloe were proficient riders, and had had plenty of practice on mule-back over the rough Portuguese roads, but neither of them had realised what an awkward addition little Edward would be to the party. Even asleep, he was a problem to carry; now that he was awake, crying and wriggling, it was all that they could do to hold him and still keep their beasts on the road. “Truly, my angel,” Chloe exclaimed as she handed him back to his mother, “if I did not adore you, I should be in a fair way to thinking you a little pest.”
She had spoken in English, and Camilla was beginning a reply in the same language when a warning exclamation from their guide silenced her. Absorbed in the handover of the baby, they had neither of them noticed that they had come to the outskirts of a village. It was an encouraging sight, for the crossroads at which they were to meet Mr. Smith was only a mile or so further. But just as Camilla and Chloe were exchanging glances of mutual congratulation, their guide’s hand on the knotted rope that served as bridle halted Camilla’s mule. Without a word he turned its head towards a filthy alleyway leading past a group of hovels and away from the Tagus. A fierce glance silenced the question that rose to Camilla’s lips, and she and Chloe followed him without a word down the stinking lane and into the untidy orange grove to which it led. There, at last, he let them come up with him. “You did not see them?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The French soldiers.” He spat expressively. “The village was full of them. I hope it does not mean they have caught Dom Smith. But it certainly means we must avoid the village. How long it will take to go round it, God knows. I only hope Dom Smith will wait—if he is not already in French hands.”
The next hour or so was pure nightmare. Camilla and Chloe had thought the riding over country roads bad enough, but now they were following mere goat tracks. Brambles slashed their faces; even the sure-footed mules slipped and slid on the rocky ground; carrying the baby was so difficult that when their guide, with an impatient exclamation, snatched him from Camilla, she was simply grateful. When they finally returned, down a precipitous slope, to the little road on the far side of the village, they were already two hours late for their rendezvous. Their guide’s face was a picture of gloom; Camilla and Chloe were both near tears and the baby, in Chloe’s arms now, wailed on the despondent note of exhaustion.
A sudden turning of the road showed them the crossroads—and a small group of French soldiers camped at it. They had been seen already; there was nothing for it but to go on, with sinking hearts and as bold an appearance as possible. The soldiers, they now saw, were grouped around a tattered figure and his dejected mule. Camilla and Chloe exchanged quick glances. Impossible that this vagabond, who was holding forth to a French officer in rapid Portuguese, could be Mr. Smith, the British agent. But he had seen them, and broke, all of a sudden, into a loud wail of thanksgiving to all his patron saints, whom he named in exhaustive catalogue, while the French officer listened impassively. “Mary, Mother of God, and all the saints be praised,” he concluded, when he was sure that Camilla and Chloe were within earshot, “here, at long last, are my beloved wife, my sister, my child.” He ran towards them, mule and Frenchmen alike following him closely, embraced Camilla in a cloud of garlic and salt cod, and then, to her utter amazement, gave her a resounding slap across the face. “And that,” he said, “is for keeping me waiting. As for you, neighbour Tomas, I’ll not ask you to escort my wife again! Two hours I have waited for you, here in the sun,” and he turned on their guide in such a threatening manner that the man kicked his mule into a gallop and disappeared around the corner in a cloud of dust.
The French soldiers found all this highly entertaining, and laughed still harder when their prisoner, for such he obviously was, fetched Chloe a box on the ears, and then snatched the baby from her and covered it with dirty kisses, calling it his lamb, his only son, his treasure, his hope in heaven. Handing little Edward back to Camilla, he turned to the French officer and broke into what seemed an endless tirade against the whole of womankind, describing their shortcomings in such a wealth of unprintable detail that Camilla and Chloe were grateful for the dirt that hid their blushes, and for their limited Portuguese, which spared them full comprehension of what he was saying.
At last, the officer grew impatient. “Enough,” he said. “I am sure your wife and sister are everything you say, and more so,” he spared them a quick, contemptuous glance, “but we have work to do. Away with you, and do not let me find you loitering about the highways again.” He gave him a push that sent him staggering into the filthy ditch, shouted an order to his men, and wheeled his horse back in the direction of the village.
The man lay in three inches of stinking water and watched them go, muttering a mixture of prayers and curses, while Camilla and Chloe sat speechless on their mules. Of their guide, there was no sign; he had taken his cue and vanished. At last, when all the Frenchmen were out of earshot, the man crawled out of the ditch, shook himself, and approached Camilla and Chloe with a smile that gave a sparkle to grey eyes and revealed startling white teeth in his filthy face. “Well,” he said, “what news, today, in Setubal?”
“None worth the hearing.” Camilla, who had noticed with fury that he had contrived to filthy the baby’s face all over, controlled her voice as best she might. “Is it really you?” she went on, still in Portuguese.
“Yes, and never more glad to see anyone. If you had not kept your tryst, I should have been a dead man. I apologise to you both,” he made an awkward peasant’s bob, “for the blows I gave you, but you must admit that they saved you questions I was afraid you might not be able to answer. There is nothing more husbandly than a few matrimonial slaps. And now, we must lose no more time.” And without more ado, he mounted his bedraggled mule and led them at a brisk pace away from the village. They exchanged despondent glances and followed. He might, despite appearances, be an Englishman, but he seemed no more considerate a guide than their Portuguese one. Too exhausted to make the effort of speech in Portuguese, they followed him as best they might, drooping in the saddle. But their mules, too, were tired. They found themselves dropping further and further behind their guide. At last he disappeared into a little wood and they exchanged a glance of mute despair. Could he have decided, already, that they were too much of a liability, and abandoned them? They did the best they could to kick their unresponsive mules into a trot and reached the wood with sinking hearts, only to find Mr. Smith lying full length at the side of the road, waiting for them.
“Good,” he said, “we are out of sight at last. But we will still speak Portuguese, I think. Now, tell me, have you the strength to ride another two miles—to safety? I have good friends in the next village, where you may rest in peace.”
After a glance at Chloe, Camilla assured him that they would manage. “Then let me take the baby,” he said. “I can see that he is an awkward burden,” and then, seeing Camilla hesitate, “I know you think me a brute for blacking his face, but it was touch and go with us, then, and when did you see a clean Portuguese baby? I am sure, when he grows up, he will thank me.”
There was such obvious good sense in this that Camilla handed him the child gratefully enough and settled down to concentrate all her energies on the exhausting problem of keeping her weary mule on the road. Chloe, too, was swaying with fatigue, and she and Camilla rode silently, side by side, some way behind Mr. Smith, who went steadily on ahead, hardly sparing them a glance. Added to their fatigue, there was something infuriating about this neglect, and by the time he finally dismounted outside a lonely hovel by the road and stood awaiting their approach they were both seething with silent fury.
When they drew level with him, he merely said, “Good, we are arrived at last,” and handed the baby to Camilla, who had lost no time in sliding to the ground. Chloe, who had fallen a little behind, now drew up, swaying with fatigue, and sat, for a moment, too tired even to make the effort of dismounting. When Mr. Smith made no effort to help her, rage overcame her. “Pray,” she said in English, “do not trouble yourself to help me dismount.”
For a moment he looked as if he would strike her again, then answered in Portuguese. “I most certainly shall not. When did you see a Portuguese peasant help his women? It is far enough out of character that I should have been carrying the baby. I could not risk even that where there were people about. Most fortunately, here, we are among friends, but I warn you, if you speak English again, I shall leave you behind. The news I carry is too important to be jeopardised by a girl’s foolish tongue.” And he turned on his heel and began to lead his mule round to the back of the hut.
Following him in chastened if irritable silence, they were greeted by the hut’s ragged owner, who kissed Mr. Smith enthusiastically on both cheeks, greeting him in a flood of Portuguese so rapid and so strangely accented that neither Camilla nor Chloe could understand him. They followed the two men mutely into the hovel and then stopped to gaze in horror at its single, filthy, earth-floored room. But their host was bustling hospitably about, drawing stools up to a rickety table and fetching dirty bread and sinister dark sausage from a cupboard in a corner.
Mr. Smith eyed the two of them coolly. “I hope,” he still spoke Portuguese, “that Dom Fernando passed on my warning about the roughness of our trip.”
Camilla was too busy trying to soothe the now frantic Edward to reply, so it was Chloe who answered. “Naturally we are prepared for some discomfort, but the baby needs to be fed. Surely my sister should have some privacy.”
“Privacy? In a peasant’s hut? Are you mad? You should be grateful that my friend here has sent away his wife and children, for fear that contact with you should endanger their lives. Be thankful for the shelter he risks his life to give us, and spare me your complaints. As for the baby; why should he not be fed? I promise you, we have other things to think about.” And he drew up a stool beside their shabby host, who had just produced a bottle of local wine and filled two glasses. In a moment, the two men were deep in conversation and Camilla, who had, of course, heard everything, gave one defiant look round, opened her dress and put little Edward to suck. A contented silence replaced his previous wailings and was broken only by the murmur of the two men’s voices as they disposed of their wine, which they accompanied with great slices of greyish bread spread liberally with sausage. Mr. Smith turned once to invite Chloe to join them, but she indicated haughtily that she would wait for Camilla and busied herself with unpacking the bundle of provisions the Prioress had given them, of which a lavish quantity still remained for their supper. When the baby finally fell into a contented sleep, she handed Camilla her share and they fell to with a will. Mr. Smith after a quick and, Camilla thought, hostile glance in their direction turned back to his incomprehensible talk with their host, who was busy opening a second bottle.