Fortune's Bride (18 page)

Having drunk her tea and obtained every scrap of rumor Tom
Pace had heard, much of it so wild that Esmeralda, frightened as she was, had
sense enough to dismiss it, she went upstairs to her own room. At first she
felt only relief. A day’s respite had been granted her. For one more day Robert
would be safe.

However, the day’s reprieve soon became more painful than
pleasant. Her mind ran from one misery to another. If Robert did not come—and
it was not likely that he could because Sir Arthur’s staff must be constantly
employed before a battle—there was a chance she would never see him again.
Esmeralda’s throat closed so tight that she could not breathe. Black swirled
before her eyes, and her mind blanked in a near faint so that she gasped air
unconsciously. As she swam toward consciousness some defensive mechanism inside
her shut away that ultimate terror. She fixed on a safer problem.

If Robert found time to visit, how was she to control
herself? Even if she said nothing, he would see the fear in her eyes. Would she
be able to speak without bursting into tears? Suddenly she remembered Molly’s
sigh of relief when Pace said M’Guire’s company had not been involved. Molly
had been an army wife for years. How did she bear it?

Esmeralda ran down the stairs and peeped cautiously into the
kitchen. Pace was gone, she saw with relief, and Molly was bending over the
sink, probably washing the dishes. For one moment Esmeralda’s pride struggled
with her misery. Was it wrong to show her fear to a servant? In the next
instant she knew she did not care what was right or wrong.

“Molly,” she said, “aren’t you afraid?”

The woman turned from the sink and, seeing Esmeralda’s face,
put down the cup and hurried forward wiping her hands on her skirt. “Och, me
luv,” she said, “’tis ye’er first toime. Sure Oi’m afeared, but ye’ev t’
remimber he’s no th’ onny one. Ye’er thinkin’ that ivry gun on t’other soide’s
pointed at him onny, but ‘t’isn’t true. Theer’s thousinds uv ‘em. Think. Me
first man, he wuz i’ action many a toime, but it wuz th’ fever got him.”

Esmeralda sat down heavily on a chair, and Molly sat down
opposite her this time without invitation. She understood that for this little
while they were two women together not mistress and maid.

“But I have no one else, no one else in the world,”
Esmeralda quavered. “You have your mother and your daughter. I have no one.”

“Ye’er a young bride ‘nd in luv,” Molly soothed. “It seems
so, surely, but…”

“No, it
is
true,” Esmeralda insisted, and told Molly
about her father and her life in India.

“Poor luv,” the older woman said, “I cin see thit he’s moor
precious thin most, ‘nd o’coorse ye feel thit he stands oot t’all as he stands
oot t’ ye, but ‘tis no true. Ind he’s staff, too. Y’know, if th’ battle goes
loike Sir Arthur planned, staff wun’t even be neer. Thiy’ll sit on a hill wit
th’ gineral ‘nd watch. That’s why th’ dukes ‘n th’ earls are willin’ t’ send
theer young’uns oot as staff.”

There was no bitterness in Molly’s voice and only kindness
and concern in her face, but Esmeralda again became aware of the gulf between
them. What Molly said about the possibility that Robert would never be involved
in the fighting at all was true. Moreover, even if he should be hurt, his
chances of survival were many times greater than that of the ordinary soldier. Robert
would be missed and searched for. He would be treated before any common
trooper. He would be transported behind the lines separately with more care.
And all the rest was true, too. She had been feeling as if every single enemy
gun would be trained upon Robert just because he was so precious to her.

“I’m being very foolish, I’m afraid,” Esmeralda said with a
watery smile.

“Well, y’are,” Molly agreed, smiling also. “No fer fearin’.
We all fear. There’s no help fer thit. But ‘tisn’ goin’ t’ help
him
fer
ye t’ be faintin’ ‘nd whoinin’ wit red eyes ‘nd a pale face whin he comes back
roarin’ wit good spirits—fer that’s how he’ll come—and a stink on him loike ye
wouldn’t believe. So ye’ll want changes fer him from breeks out. Now, ‘tisn’t
lady’s woork t’ wash smalls, but ye’ll be th’ better for somethin’ t’ do, so
what say we do all frish ‘nd clean?”

“Yes,” Esmeralda agreed, “I’d like that.”

It was not that she lacked employment. She had several gowns
cut that needed stitching up and tasteful embellishment with bows of ribbon and
knots of floss, but she could not bear to work toward an adornment Robert might
never see. It was very steadying to the spirit, on the other hand, to clean his
clothing because she expected him “home with a stink on him”. That was real, a
fixed idea to cling to, Robert striding in with his eyes sparkling, “in roaring
good spirits”, to tell her all about what had happened, and her listening
eagerly until the main points were out and then telling him to change his
clothing while she set out their supper and their wine.

But even that was not enough. Washing clothing could not
keep her occupied until Robert’s return. She felt she had to know moment by
moment what was happening. For today, she really did know. Tom Pace had
described the activities of the camp, and even to a certain extent of the
officers, vividly enough to make a satisfactory picture in Esmeralda’s mind.
Everyone was preparing. She washed clothes, the men cleaned and checked their
weapons, went over their drill, the officers planned and conferred. But what of
the next day? All the preparations would be finished. Robert’s clothes would be
clean and dry. There would be nothing for her to do but wait, and she could not
simply wait without knowing.

Esmeralda gave the kettle a hasty stir and went out. Just
before she entered the stable, she stopped to consider what she was about to
do. If Robert ever learned of it, he would be furious and might send her away.
But why should he hear of it? Very likely it would not even be possible and, in
any case, she would have plenty of time to change her mind.

“Carlos,” she called.

There was a delay, and Esmeralda repeated her call more
sharply, hoping that the boy had not run off. He had been sulking ever since
they had been left behind. At Leiria he had begged Robert to be allowed to go
along with the army rather than following with Esmeralda, crying passionately
that he had come to fight the French. Robert had given him as stern a lecture
as his limited Portuguese and Carlos’s limited English had allowed, pointing
out that he was useful to Esmeralda but that he would be a useless burden with
the army. He was untrained and too small to hold a gun, even if anyone was
lunatic enough to teach him how to load and fire one.

To their horror, Carlos had said that he was not too small
to follow the soldiers and use a knife. That had called forth an even sterner
lecture on the rules the English obeyed concerning prisoners and wounded
enemies. Everyone had heard horror stories—all the more horrible for being true—of
the torture and murder of sick and wounded French stragglers by the Portuguese
peasants. Admittedly, the French army’s custom of living off the land had
worked great hardship on the peasants. Moreover some French commanders had
ferociously repressed any resistance in towns they were able to control. The
mass executions, sacrilege, and brutality Loison had permitted, and some said
encouraged, at the sack of Évora were a byword all over Portugal. But the
behavior of one army to another did not permit such excesses, and Robert made
it clear that if Carlos wished to remain with the British, he would have to
abide by their rules.

Carlos answered Esmeralda’s second summons, however, and the
dreadful vision that had begun to take hold of her dissipated. She smiled with
relief and because she knew that what she was about to ask the boy to do would
make him happy and keep him harmlessly occupied.

“I would like you to go around the town,” Esmeralda said,
“and ask whether there is a retired ship’s officer or the widow of a ship’s
officer living here. What I desire is to borrow a glass.”

“A glass? Have we no glasses to drink from?” Carlos asked,
astonished. “And why must we borrow from—”

“No, no,” Esmeralda interrupted. “Not a glass from which to
drink, but the kind one puts to one’s eye to see things a long distance away.
If that is called something different here, use the right word.”

The boy’s eyes brightened at once. “You wish to watch the
battle?” he asked, his voice shaking with excitement.

“Yes,” Esmeralda admitted, her own voice shaking a little,
“but do not tell anyone that. Say…say I am a mad Englishwoman and I wish to…to
watch the birds.”

Carlos burst into giggles, but then he frowned. “But you
will not be able to see anything from here. Even with what you call a glass, it
is too far. Besides, we are too low. There are trees and buildings in the way.”

“First find me a glass,” Esmeralda replied, “and then we
will consider a place from which to use it.”

By noon, shortly after Esmeralda had finished her laundering,
Carlos returned almost dancing with glee, to say that he had heard of just such
a man as Esmeralda needed. She was hot and tired, and, as Molly had predicted,
physical labor had reduced her tension and dulled her fear. She might have
abandoned her wild project except for the positive change in Carlos. It could
do no harm, she told herself, to try to borrow the telescope. Very likely
whoever owned it would be unwilling to lend it to a perfect stranger.

Thus, Esmeralda went upstairs and changed into a beguilingly
simple confection of sprigged muslin trimmed with dark-blue ribbons, which she
and Molly had finished the day before. She put on a charming straw bonnet,
purchased in Leiria—the hat was safely stowed away, a precious relic now—and
set out with Carlos. He led her to a large, handsome house near the center of
the town. When she saw the place, Esmeralda was taken aback. She had envisioned
dealing with someone like a tradesman.

However far from being turned away at the door, as she
expected, she was welcomed in with grave courtesy by an elderly, one-legged
servant as soon as she identified herself as the wife of an English officer.
Carlos was dismissed to the kitchen quarters. Esmeralda was told that she would
be taken to the master of the house, Dom Aleixo de Solis, and led to a large
room furnished in a handsome, heavy style but embellished with carvings,
ivories, and brasses, which could only have come from India. Before she
thought, she had exclaimed in recognition and with a quaver of homesickness in
her voice.

“Ah, you know India,
Senhora
Moreton.”

Esmeralda turned to see a very thin, old gentleman with a
fringe of white hair surrounding a bald head seated in a large, cushioned chair
near a window. Instinctively she curtsied, and the old man smiled.

“Forgive me for not rising,
senhora
, it is not
possible for me.”

“Oh, please.” Esmeralda made a gesture of appeal. “It is I
who should ask pardon, Dom Aleixo, for intruding upon you without a proper
introduction, or—”

Dom Aleixo smiled again. “These are strange and unruly
times,
Senhora
Moreton, but to tell you the truth, I am delighted to be
intruded upon. My life is very quiet, perhaps too quiet. My servants pick up
rumors in the market, but when I heard an Englishwoman was at my door,I
thought I might hear some real news.”

Esmeralda knew that the Portuguese people as a whole were
violently opposed to the French, but that did not hold true for all of the
Portuguese nobility. Some of them had thrown in their lot with the invaders.
This might be such a man. She smiled sweetly after the briefest hesitation and
said, “I will tell you what I know, but I am afraid it will be little more
factual than the market rumors. You see, I have not seen my husband since he
brought me here.”

“But the English do intend to stand against the French, do
they not?” Dom Aleixo asked.

“Yes,” Esmeralda replied, without hesitation this time,
since she did not see how such information could be of any harm. “I know the
general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, intends to drive Junot out of Portugal. He is
also convinced that Portugal can be defended against the French once they are
driven out, no matter how strong a force they send.”

“And the men of the army and the officers, do they believe
this, too?”

“The officers, certainly. I have very little contact with
the men, but the trooper who brought me a note from my husband this morning
said it was ‘great fun to chase the Frenchies’, so they must have done so.”

The old man nodded, then sighed. “It would have been better
if we had driven them out ourselves as we did the Spanish in 1640, but…ah,
well, times change, men change. Now,
Senhora
Moreton, what can I do for
you?”

Esmeralda had been so busy running over in her mind what she
could and could not say to Dom Aleixo about military matters that his question
caught her quite unprepared, and she stared at him blankly for just a moment
before she gasped, “Oh! Oh, I heard that you had retired from a life at sea,
and I wondered whether you would have a-a seeing glass. We call it a telescope
in English, but I do not know the correct word in Portuguese.”

“Indeed, I have. I have more than one. But what use have you
for a spyglass?”

Dom Aleixo’s lips twitched as he asked the question. He was
an old man, who had lived a long and varied life and had learned much about
humanity. He had understood that slight hesitation before Esmeralda said she
would tell him anything she knew. In fact, Dom Aleixo
was
opposed to the
invaders of his country, but he had no way to prove that to Esmeralda and did
not think it worthwhile trying. Protests would only make her more suspicious.

However, there was no reason, Dom Aleixo thought, why he
should not have a little innocent amusement. From the look on the lady’s face
when she said “my husband”, Dom Aleixo had understood that
Senhora
Moreton was very much in love—well, it had to be so for any gentlewoman to
follow the drum. When he added to that the youth of the lady, which indicated
that she had not been long married, and her total lack of expression when she
mentioned the telescope, he had a pretty fair idea of her purpose. He was
curious, however, to hear what excuse she would give.