Over The Hills And A Great Way Off...

18

Over The Hills And A Great Way Off…

    It was very early, and the sky still had that faint milky haze which presaged a hot day to come. Raffaella had escaped from the house, and from the house party, and from the troop of kind females of her husband’s family who had descended upon the country house in order to assist at the birth—even although that event was not due yet for another six weeks. In the stables young Paolo, the only groom visible at this hour, was easily bullied into saddling up her yellow horse. He had a Portuguese name, but Raffaella had re-named him Yellow Pillow in memory of the white Feather-Bed and the Season in London with her kind cousin. She was unable to bully Paolo out of accompanying her on a solid pony, but at least he agreed to ride at a respectful distance behind her. Since Raffaella was not a fool and did not in the least want to lose her baby, she rode very slowly and did not attempt even to jump a log, to the young groom’s immense relief.

    “I shall get down here,” she said firmly to him, as they reached the brow of a hill. “You may help me. Use that rock.”

    With the aid of the handy rock the sweating Paolo got the Senhora safely onto the ground.

    “I need the air,” said Raffaella carefully in her best Portuguese.

    He looked at her blankly, so either she had not got the idiom right, or— Well, never mind. In any case it was not precisely true: if she needed the air, it was not because it was any fresher up here than down at the house, where about now the servants would be watering the courtyard, but in order to feel, just for a little while, that she was free, and herself, and not the petted little wife of anybody, and not the wayward cousin of anybody, and not the expectant subject of the kindly concern of a tribe of anybody’s relatives—but just herself. Raffy Andrews.

    Paolo was ordered to retire to a little distance with the horses, and Raffaella walked slowly to the very top of the rounded hill and sat down on the grass. She would have hugged her knees but the bulge prevented that. If it was a boy it was definitely going to be Christopher, or whatever the Portuguese form might be. If it was a girl, there were many candidates after whom it ought to be named, but too bad: it was going to be Bella. It would be an easy name to pronounce, whether she stayed here or eventually went back to England… Insensibly her thoughts drifted away from the baby that was to come, and her own future, and she began to construct a story in which a fiery young woman, full of derring-do, having successfully disguised herself as a page and rendered sterling service to her liege-lord, was unexpectedly handed on by the said liege-lord as a gift to a certain Black Warrior who had rendered gallant service…

    “Hullo,” said a voice mildly in Portuguese. “Lovely time of day, is it not?”

    Raffaella jumped, and gasped, and looked up quickly. It was a thin, rangy man: hatless, in shabby breeches and a leather waistcoat over a worn shirt. His thin, rather lined face was very brown, but not at all in the Portuguese style. He did not look precisely dangerous, but she would not have said that “law-abiding” was the first expression that sprang to mind at the sight of him, either. Perhaps it was as well that she had let Paolo come out with her, after all. “Good morning,” she replied cautiously.

    Dick Marchant often rambled over the hills in the early mornings: sometimes on horseback, sometimes merely on foot. This morning, having left José, Martinho, and their cousin Larry all snoring their heads off, he had been able to suit himself, and so had set out on foot, with a piece of bread, a hunk of spicy sausage and a flask of water in the satchel slung on his back. He looked down at her quizzically. There was no doubt that this heavily pregnant young woman, in spite of the untidily tumbled dark curls and rumpled print gown, was the luscious little peach—or apricot—observed just a few weeks back in old Baldaya’s box at the opera. “I’m sorry: did I startle you?” he said in his excellent but accented Portuguese. “I think perhaps we are neighbours. My name’s Dick Marchant. –The Englishman,” he explained politely.

    “Oh!” said Raffaella with a choke of laughter. “How do you do, Mr Marchant?” she said in English, smiling. “I am Senhora Baldaya. The Englishwoman,” she added, looking prim.

    “Delighted,” said Dick, sitting down beside her without more ado. “But it ain’t the Englishwoman, y’know; they call you the little Senhora. My sons and nephew and I saw you at the opera not so long since. Never thought I’d be privileged to get this close. Fancy a bit of bread and sausage?”

    “Yes, I would, if it is not depriving you. And there is nothing stopping you from calling at the house at any time: we should be delighted to receive you and your family,” replied Raffaella in a firm tone. She could see that he was needling her, but she was not at all sure why.

    “Oh, General Baldaya is above my touch,” replied Dick amiably, getting out his provisions. “When’s it due?” he asked simply, as she embarked hungrily on a slab of sausage with a piece of the bread.

    Raffaella swallowed. “Mid-July. Do not tell me it is not well timed, please: all our relatives have already done so. But one cannot order these things. And in any case, if the summer months are too hot to do anything very much, I might just as well spend them in my bed with my baby.”

    “Oh, absolutely. Hoping for a boy or a girl?” he said with a smile.

    “I don’t mind,” said Raffaella simply.

    “Oh?” Dick ate sausage slowly. “Don’t mind or don’t care, Senhora?”

    “Don’t mind!” said Raffaella with her gurgling laugh. “It is my first, although I was married before, and I am looking forward to it tremendously. And whether or not you saw me at the opera, Mr Marchant, at heart I am neither fashionable nor, I hope, entirely frivolous. And I am very fond of children. I have a crowd of half-brothers and -sisters at home in Italy, and I miss them very much.”

    “Italy? But your English is quite unaccented,” said Dick with interest.

    “Goodness gracious, do not tell me the local gossips have not all the details of that story!” she said with another laugh.

    “I dare say they may do. –Have a drink: it’s just water,” said Dick, passing her his flask. “We don’t socialise with them, y’see. Well, they don’t approve of me: I’m a penniless nobody and a foreigner who married a rich local widow and grabbed her property. We did see a bit of them when my wife was alive, but she died six years back, and I’ve made not having a hostess an excuse to get out of having anything to do with the pack of ’em. So I dare say your entire history may be known to all of the neighbourhood but us, ma’am.”

    Raffaella nodded, her eyes twinkling, and passed him back his flask. “Well, there is a lot to tell, but the main point is that although my father was English, my mother is Italian. When Papa died she took us all to Italy, and has since remarried there.”

    “I see,” said Dick calmly. “It’s the bits you’ve left out that the cats’ll be licking their chops over, is it?”

    She dimpled, and nodded.

    Dick sipped water and gazed out at a view of rapidly browning hills, dotted here and there with a few scraggy, bent trees. In the distance a tiny flock of sheep could be observed, moving slowly up the flank of a hill. Just audible on the clear air was the clink of the leader’s neck-bell. “Like it here, do you, Senhora Baldaya?”

    “Very much,” she said with a deep sigh. “It is a little like the countryside near my stepfather’s country house. Not as lush, though. I suppose it’s not as pretty, but I find it more interesting.”

    “Aye; I like the hills,” he said dreamily, leaning his chin on his knees.

    “Si.”

    They were both silent, gazing out over the hills. Dick smiled a little as the Senhora Baldaya absent-mindedly finished up his bread and sausage.

    “That’s a pretty horse,” he murmured, as her groom was seen to lead the yellow horse and the sturdy pony under a tree, the meanwhile casting an anxious look in his mistress’s direction.

    “Well, yes, he is pretty, though the utmost slug. But as I am no equestrienne, he suits me very well. He is entirely placid and dislikes going at more than a slow walk. I have renamed him: Yellow Pillow,” said Raffaella, looking very prim.

    Dick choked.

    “Fortunately our people have not the slightest idea what it means, and so in the stables he is become Elão-pilão,” she added placidly.

    Dick at this went into such a choking fit that the Senhora Baldaya was forced to bash him on the back.

    “Thanks!” he gasped, coughing.

    “I had you there,” she said pleasedly.

    “You did, indeed. Er—may I ask, do you often come up here by yourself?”

    “No, you may not,” said Raffaella grimly. “if all you mean to do is criticise.”

    “Far be it from me,” said Dick mildly.

    “But?” she said dangerously.

    “There are no buts at all. I can see you have your groom with you, and I’m quite sure that one would have actually to make an effort to fall off Yellow Pillow. I haven’t seen you up here before, that’s all. Though I don’t always come over this way. Sometimes head east, further into the high hills.”

    She gave their vast blue shapes a longing look and said: “Yes.”

    “My place is a lot closer, of course. The hills would be a day’s trip from here, I suppose.”

    “A day’s trip with carriages and outriders and a host of grooms, and the man who makes the fire, and several footmen to serve the picknick, and the special footman to hold the parasol over one’s head—yes!” said Raffaella on an angry note, tossing the curls.

    “I suppose it is natural that your family should be overprotective at this time.”

    “Well, yes. But I can assure you that at any time it would not be possible for me just to get out on a horse and head for those blue hills!” she said angrily.

    “No. I shan’t say anything platitudinous about it’s being your choice; for whatever your history, I quite understand that a woman does not have near as many choices as a man.”

    “Er—that is quite right,” she said, giving him a wary look.

    Dick Marchant stretched out on the warm, short, dusty grass, propped his head on his elbow, and said dreamily: “I suppose I was about your age when I had my captaincy. The regiment had been in the Americas, but had not seen much action. Then we came home and were chafed to death, knowing the sailor-boys to be hard at it with Nelson, fighting the French and Spanish, and us with time on our hands, wondering if we’d ever get a chance to have a go at Boney’s lot. We were mighty glad when the conflict broke out in these parts, and we were sent off.”

    “I am sure,” she agreed.

    He grimaced. “The result of that was, my best friend died in my arms in horrible agony ere the late campaign was barely under way. With John gone, I got my step-up and could call meself Major Marchant. I think it was at about that time that it began to dawn that one is very largely, regardless of one’s sex, at the mercy of—well, call it Fate or circumstance, whichever you will. John left a little widow and three small children in England, and I had no chick nor child and would not have been missed by a soul; had barely seen my family since I joined up as a lad of seventeen. Yet he was taken and I was spared.” He shrugged. “I have had no taste for fighting or the so-called affairs of men from that day on.”

    “That is very understandable,” she said in a low voice.

    He shrugged again. “Perhaps. My fellow officers would not have agreed, though. I was damned careful about risking my men in any skirmishes after that, and got hauled over the coals by the colonel: he all but accused me of rank cowardice. I said to him, What the Devil should we care, if the Spaniards or the Frogs or the Portuguese have this particular piece of the world to bustle in or not? Let us defend the shores of England, by all means. But what in God’s name are Englishmen doing, dying in Europe? After that my name was Mud in the regiment. Not that I gave a damn. Then I got a bullet in the leg and was sent to Lisbon to recuperate. Met my Isabella, and that was that. I sold out. Funnily enough they didn’t make any effort to retain my services.”

    “I think that is all very understandable,” said Raffaella firmly.

    “Do you? Well, you are alone in that opinion, Senhora Baldaya. Even my late brother-in-law, Simon Wedderburn, who was not a bad fellow, could not understand at all why a great up-standing lad like me was so reluctant to stand up and do his duty.”

    “Wedderburn?” she said with a smile. “We know a Mrs Wedderburn, in Lisbon.”

    “My sister, Lucinda. Think you met her young nephew, Larry Wedderburn, though I’d be the first to understand a failure to remember him, ma’am!” said Dick with a grin.

    “I certainly remember him,” she said severely.

    Dick forbore to ask her to describe him. “Young, eager, freckles, ears with a tendency to stick out,” he said smoothly.

    The Senhora collapsed in a giggling fit, nodding, so quite possibly she did remember him. Or at least knew the type.

    “Aye. His father’s destined him for the Diplomatic Service, thank God. Not that he’ll be an ornament to it, but anything is better than becoming cannon-fodder in the name of some misconceived idea of duty and country,” he said on a grim note.

    “Ye-es… I do understand the folly and waste of war, sir. But there is the gallantry also, surely?” she said dubiously.

    “I don’t know what you’ve been reading, Senhora, though I dare say it ain’t no different from what the rest of ’em read. But if war very, very occasionally produces the opportunity for gallantry, what it most often produces is unnecessary pain, suffering, and waste. No son of mine is going for a soldier, I can promise you. Another reason why the neighbours don't approve of us,” he added drily.

    “Er—yes, I see.” Raffaella thought of her Black Warrior and gnawed on her lip, finally producing: “How would you define true gallantry then, sir?”

    “I wouldn’t define it any differently from the way anyone else does, Senhora Baldaya. Only, I don’t think war produces all that much of it, I don’t think the amount it produces is worth the waste, and, I suppose, at the end of the day,” said Dick, gazing out across the brown hills of Portugal, “I don't think any cause is worth the loss of innocent lives. Nor do I think that the excitement of war renders life itself more meaningful. Possibly it provides rare moments when we seem to live life more intensely—yes. They ain’t worth it, though.”

    “You can say that, when you have experienced it all. But if one has never lived intensely?” she said, frowning.

    Dick looked at the frown on the pretty little face, and at the swollen body, and involuntarily thought as he had at the opera: Poor little thing. “I think I started in to say, way back before I started rambling, that we are all, male or female, equally at the mercy of Fate or circumstance, however much we may imagine ourselves in charge of our destinies. In the case of the male, it is easy enough to rush off and join up with the vision of performing deeds of great derring-do.”

    “Yes,” she said in a strangled voice, going very red. Dick perceived that he had somehow struck a chord, there. He went on slowly: “But we wind up finding that is it not we, but Fate, which decides for us, after all. I suppose you might say I chose an army career: well, my father decided it for me, but I agreed eagerly, I admit it. After that, God or Fate, or Wellington decided the rest. –And believe you me, to a member of the British Army in the Peninsula they were all one and the same! No, well, once I was in the army I was as much the slave of my circumstances as any woman who finds herself with the responsibilities of marriage, home and family.”

    Suddenly she smiled at him. “Not quite!” she said, putting her hand on her belly. “Can you help me up, sir? I had better get home or my circumstances will all come down on my head like a thundercloud, and I shall spend the next se’en-night in a state of guilty remorse for having made them all worry about me!”

    Dick scrambled up and held out his hand. “Sorry,” he said abruptly. “Don’t usually bore on like me own grandfather.”

    “I thought the English expression was ‘like a Dutch uncle’?” she replied smoothly, the big dark eyes twinkling. “No, whatever you do, pray do not apologise, Mr Marchant. You have no idea what a relief it is to talk sensibly, for once!”

    Dick took her elbow gently and walked her down to the yellow nag. “I can understand that they mostly don't, ma’am. But I’ve got no party manners, I’m afraid.”

    “No!” said Raffaella with a laugh. “I noticed! It is such a lovely change! I will hope to see you again sometimes on the hills. Though I think this will be my last expedition for some time. –That was very interesting, what you said about gallantry, and the waste of war. I shall re-read Henry V,” she said determinedly.

    “Er—do,” said Dick limply, assisting the groom to get her onto Yellow Pillow.

    “And if you can bear to, please come to call,” she said, smiling.

    “I don’t know that I can,” he admitted with a wry grimace.

    “No, well, there you are!” she said with her gay laugh. “You may make as many claims as you like, but you see, it is relative: you are a male, so you are less bound by your circumstances than I! –Perhaps we shall meet again on the hills, then.” She nodded, and moved the horse off slowly.

    “Goodbye,” said Dick limply.

    She looked over her shoulder, and nodded and smiled.

    “And may I wish you all the very best, for your confinement,” he added hurriedly.

    “Thank you! Worthy of the stuffiest drawing-room in Lisbon!” she cried, laughing. “Goodbye!”

    “Goodbye,” said Dick feebly again.

    If it had occurred to him, during the encounter with the Senhora Baldaya, that this would make an amusing story for the boys, somehow or another when he got home he did not after all breathe a word of it. Well—no doubt there was a story there, indeed a story and a half, if a fraction of damned Lucinda’s hints were true. But all the same: the poor little thing.

    “I suppose I do not dare to ask what you were up to this morning,” said Eudora cautiously as, the dust having more or less settled after her errant hostess’s return to the house on the appalling slug of a Yellow Pillow, she and Raffaella were enabled to stroll out onto the terrace alone together.

    “Well, if your Portuguese was better, you would have heard that I merely went for the smallest of rides on Elão-pilão!” she said with a laugh.

    “I think I did gather that, even with my poor Portuguese,” said Eudora drily.

    “Yes!” Raffaella took her arm, laughing. “I am so very well, and they are chafing me to death! Oh, well, they mean well. I did merely go for a little ride, though its purpose was not the exercise so much as a wish to get away from them all.”

    “I see,” said Eudora cautiously.

    “There is only a very little more,” she said, looking prim.

    “My God, tell me that damned Luís Ainsley has come over from Spain and I’ll shoot myself,” she groaned.

    “No!” said Raffaella with a startled laugh. “Lady Rockingham’s brother? Of course not!”

    “He admires you tremendously, why else did he turn up in Lisbon this Season?” she groaned.

    “He does not admire me tremendously, silly one. Just somewhat. He was headed for his mother’s estates in Spain, and coming by boat by way of Lisbon is an easy way to get to them.”

    “Sailing straight on to Cadiz or thereabouts is an even easier way, or so I had heard,” she noted drily.

    “I do know the story of how they got his cousin out of Spain in a sherry barrel, thank you!” she said gaily.

    Eudora did not think she did, but she was not interested enough to say so. “I dare say. Well, if it was not he, don’t let us quarrel over it. Who was it?”

    “Just a man,” said Raffaella in an odd voice.

    Eudora closed her eyes for a moment.

    “I cannot say why, for facially they are not alike, but he reminded me just a little of Lord Stamforth. The same sort of wiry figure, I think. And to some extent, the same dislike of the conventions.”

    “Stamforth leads a conventional enough life,” said Eudora cautiously. “Did this unknown introduce himself?”

    “More than that! He sat down beside me in the most sans façon manner imaginable and offered me part of his breakfast! –Do not look so dubious,” she said with a moue. “He is a gentleman and a neighbour, and must be entirely respectable, because he is English.”

    Eudora coughed slightly. “I see,” she said weakly.

    “I suppose he must be—well, not as old as Lord Stamforth, perhaps,” she said dubiously. “Though he was certainly in the army during the Peninsula Campaign, and earlier in the Americas. And I think he has grown-up sons.”

    “And old though he was and unlike pretty Mr Ainsley though he was, he clearly admired you tremendously?”

    “Not at all. He was entirely sans façon, as I said, and conversed like a sensible man.”

    “Conversed on what?” said Eudora, staring.

    “Oh, this and that. He asked me about the baby in the most matter-of-fact way!” said Raffaella, laughing suddenly. “Do you know what I thought of? Dear Mr Quarmby-Vine, speaking to me so sensibly and seriously in his garden after I had decided to marry Érico.”

    “This unknown Englishman encountered by chance on the damned Portuguese hills gave you advice about your marriage?” she croaked.

    “No! Cousin, you are doing this deliberately! No, we discussed several topics, but not my marriage at all. He told me a little of his army career.”

    “Did he tell you his name, or did I miss that bit?”

    “Dick Marchant.”

    Eudora shrugged. “Never heard— Hang on: Marchant? –What are you laughing for?” she demanded as Raffaella dissolved in giggles.

    “You—know—everybody!” she gasped.

    “Not here, I do not. I do know some Marchants at home: they have a property near Bath.”

    “Near Bath! How respectable!” breathed Raffaella.

    “Stop it. Um—well, Sir Bernard and Lady Marchant. They do sometimes come up to town. Mamma knows her sister, a Mrs Lyons, very well: she lives in Bath.”

    “He did not mention sirs nor ladies, nor Bath, neither, but he did say his father chose his army career for him, so it could well be the same family: why not? He married a Portuguese lady, you see—I think quite early in the Peninsula campaign, after he was wounded—and has been settled here for years. Oh, and Mrs Wedderburn is his sister.”

    “Then it is the same family: she was Lucinda March— Did you say Dick Marchant?” said Eudora in a hollow tone.

    “Mm.”

    “I wonder that he had the brass face to mention his army career, in that case!”

    Raffaella withdrew her arm from hers, frowning. “Pooh! I can guess very well what the cats must say of him. But let me tell you, he is the only male creature whom I have ever heard speak sensibly on the subject of war! And if you could but hear him, you would admit that he has the character and sentiments of a feeling being! I shall not tell you a thing more, however, for I perceive you are determined to uphold the standards of the Bath cats.”

    “Raffaella, that is very unfair,” said Eudora weakly.

    “Well?” she said dangerously, putting her rounded chin in the air.

    “I merely wished to warn you to have a care before you make a friend of him.”

    “And to not let my own impressions count? Well, he is not interested in making boring calls, so I dare say I shall not see him again. But I shall certainly not judge him by the drawing-room gossip of a parcel of English prudes,” she stated, glaring.

    Eudora bit her lip. “My dear, don’t be like that. I’m sorry.”

    “He was sensible, pleasant, and down-to-earth: of how many creatures, male or female, can one say that, on first acquaintance?”

    Eudora had to swallow. “Very few.”

    “Exactly.” Raffaella plucked a rose from the climber which trailed around the pergola sheltering the terrace. “These climbing yellow roses are so pretty, when they are but half-opened, no? A pity they fade out to white when they are full blown.”

    “Yes, but then, the mixture of shades as a whole is charming,” said Eudora, screwing up her eyes a little as she looked up into the pergola. She turned and smiled at her. “You have so many different roses here: they are all lovely.”

    “Si, that is true.” Suddenly she came up close and took Eudora’s arm again. “Are you glad you came?” she said in a low voice.

    “Yes, very glad. And very glad you asked me to stay on here with you, too: otherwise I would have gone away with a quite a false impression of what your life is like,” said Eudora, smiling at her.

    “Si. It is very pleasant here, isn’t it? Érico has promised to leave the house to me,” she said happily.

    “Er—so it is not entailed?”

    “Well, no, it cannot be. And I can assure you once Baby comes and all the sisters and so forth are gone, life here will be even pleasanter!”

    “Er—yes. I had the impression that Senhora da Fonseca and her daughter are—er—settled in,” she murmured.

    “Possibly they also have that impression, but do not worry: I am more than capable of disabusing them of it! But I shall let them come to visit every year,” she said, smiling happily.

    “Shall you? That is kind,” replied Eudora somewhat limply. The subject seemed to be changed. She did not, somehow, have the strength to change it back, though she knew she ought. For whatever Raffaella’s first impressions of Mr Marchant might be, he was most certainly not well thought of in England. And would not make a desirable acquaintance, to say no more, should Raffaella ever wish to return to England. But—well, they must just hope that in fact he did not intend calling. For an he did, it would be quite like Raffaella to turn him into a bosom-bow merely to show her, Eudora, and all her English acquaintance, not to say the Bath cats, that she did not care a fig for the world’s opinion of the fellow. Oh, dear. Speak to the General? Er—no. For, amiable as he seemed, he might not care for his little wife to be out on the hills encountering odd Englishmen. Or, on the other hand, he might be only too glad to know she had made an acquaintance of the opposite sex who lived so handily near and—er… Eudora’s mind shied away from the thought. No. Definitely not. And in any case, the baby was due so soon. Doubtless that would take Raffaella’s mind off any number of odd neighbours encountered on the hills by chance when she was in a restless mood. In fact, there was no need to worry over it at all; that was all it was. She was in a restless mood, chafed by the waiting. In two months’ time she would have forgotten Marchant’s very existence.

    It was very hot. Eudora sat under the shade of a pergola adorned by a vine in heavy leaf, sipping a lemonade just slightly flavoured with rosewater, and watched as a scrawny brown dog, a grimy little boy and a toddler almost swamped by a large straw hat played a game in the dust of the square with a stick and a stone. She was vaguely aware of activity over by the inn, but took no notice; she had by now discovered that as the little village nearest General Baldaya’s country house served as a staging post for travellers heading north to even obscurer parts of the country, there was a continual coming and going there. However, as the fat landlord of the little tavern then bustled out to assure her anxiously, if her very elementary Portuguese was not betraying her, that the gentlemen heading across the square in their direction would not be allowed to annoy her, she smiled and nodded kindly, and allowed him to fetch her another glass of the concoction. And did not glance in the direction of the senhores.

    “Good afternoon, Miss Bon-Dutton,” said an amused voice. “Still braving the rigours of the afternoon sun?”

    “Oh—Sir John,” said Eudora lamely as one of the gentlemen resolved itself into a figure she had certainly not expected to see in these parts.

    Smiling, Sir John Stevens came to sit at her table. “How are you? Are you enjoying the country life?”

    “I am very well, thank you, and enjoying the country life very much, though I admit I still cannot adjust to the idea of doing nothing during a large part of the daylight hours.”

    “So I perceive!” he said with a laugh. “And how are the Baldayas?”

    “They are keeping very well, I am glad to say.”

    “Good. Has the Senhora had her baby yet?”

    “Yes, indeed: Baby Bella is three weeks old, and they are both doing splendidly.”

    “So you stayed on for it?” he said, smiling.

    Eudora eyed him uncertainly. Exactly what misconceptions had he got into his head? “Er—yes. Well, I would not have, of my own accord, because as you may have perceived, I am not at all the maternal type. But Raffaella wished me to stay; I think she had some idea that I would wish to be godmother.”

    “And did you not?” he murmured, as the landlord bustled up, beaming.

    “Given that the family is Roman Catholic, no.”

    “No, but an honorary godparent?”

    “Something like that, I suppose, yes. Well, I am already godmother to half a dozen nieces, nephews and first cousins once removed; I dare say one more will not hurt.”

    “I see: you are chafed to death by the whole business.”

    She reddened. “Not that, no. But I don’t see that I can be of any help, and I am afraid the household must be wishing me at Jericho.”

    “Oh? Have they given any indication of it?”

    “Well, no. On the contrary, her sister-in-law, her two step-daughters, her step-granddaughter, and her step-niece, who are all visiting especially to assist, you understand, seem to accept it as perfectly natural. I suppose I am merely attributing to them the feelings that would be mine in their shoes.”

    “I think so!” he said, his eyes twinkling very much. “And do I dare ask whether Senhora Baldaya was hoping for a girl or a boy?”

    “She appeared happily prepared for either, having picked out names for both a boy and a girl, redecorated the nursery, made innumerable small garments, and purchased innumerable small toys.”

    “That’s good,” he murmured.

    “Sir John,” said Eudora on a note of exasperation, “she does not seem to have any idea at all of what might become of it once it is short-coated! I mean, its schooling and so forth. Let alone giving thought to what profession it might follow if it were a boy. Actually, the godparent thing is typical: I said to her that I could not possibly stand, since Bella was to be baptised into her father’s faith, and she merely laughed that careless laugh of hers and said she did not think that God would mind!”

    “Do you think He would?”

    “N— That is not the issue! The particular point must be that the priest would never have accepted me as a godmother, no matter what largesse Érico Baldaya forced upon him, and that I could not countenance standing as one under such circumstances! And I suppose, if I must be strictly truthful, that while I do not think our Creator very much minds under what guise we worship Him, I have a rooted objection to the customs and practices of the Church of Rome! –I do not see,” she added coldly, as his shoulders quivered, “what there is amusing in that.”

    “I do sincerely beg your pardon. It is just that you are so entirely unlike: I cannot imagine why you are friends,” he said feebly.

    “Raffaella and I? Er—well, nor can I. I suppose I feel her charm, as much as any other of her friends… No, well, we spoke once of her intelligence, I think? There are not many women of my acquaintance of whom I would use the word. And then… Well, added to that, it is her lack of illusions that appeals, I think. And also—though perhaps a man might not see it,” said Eudora dubiously, “her dislike of pretence.”

    “Perhaps the fribbles who hang on her skirts and cannot see past the curls and the smiles do not see it, no; but I perfectly understand what you mean.”

    “Oh? I had the impression that you did not like her,” said Eudora cautiously.

    “I scarcely know her. I do not approve of her manners, that is true. Though the freedom which she allows herself is rather more suited to her present position than it was to that of a guest in your house. To be quite honest, the chief emotion she raises in me is one of regret.”

    “Regret?” said Eudora, somewhat startled.

    “Mm. The sort of regret that one experiences on seeing a lovely piece of china that is just very slightly cracked.”

    Eudora went very red.

    “Before you condemn me utterly, let me say that all I mean is that the circumstances of her life have not allowed a charmingly natural, unspoilt girl to develop into the innocent and devoted young wife and mother which she should be; and I think it is a very great pity.”

    Eudora had to swallow. “Yes; I think Katie Dewesbury feels very much the same about her. –The which,” she said, taking a deep breath, “is natural enough, for after all, you and she share the same background, upbringing and set of principles.”

    “Er—do we?” he said limply.

    She eyed him drily. “Certainly. Lady Lavinia would doubtless be proud to call you son.”

    “Really, Miss Bon-Dutton!” he said, trying to smile. “That is somewhat uncalled for.”

    “Oh? I think it is very just,” said Eudora at her driest. “No, thank you,” she added as, the landlord surfacing with a tray of food and drink, Sir John offered her a plate of the local sliced sausage. “One does nothing but snack from morn till night in the Baldaya household.”

    “Of course. But if you will excuse me, I am very hungry.”

    “Please—go ahead.” She watched silently for a while as he ate and drank. “I suppose that was rude,” she admitted.

    “Mm?” he said, looking up from a concoction of something oily and odd-looking. “This is eggplant: they have a way of doing them in this area which is all their own. Would you care to try them? No? In that case I shall gobble them up before you can change your mind!” he said with a laugh. He ate oily sliced aubergines with the aid of his fingers and a little bread, and added: “What was rude?”

    “Comparing you to a proper little maid like Katie Dewesbury,” said Eudora with a slight shrug.

    “Not at all. I am sure we do share the same principles: Lavinia Dewesbury is an admirable woman.”

    Eudora gave him a baffled look; he smiled a little and said: “Don’t let us fratch, it is too warm a day for that. They are not still here, by the way, are they?”

    “No: Raffaella invited them to stay on, but I think Lady Lavinia thought it would be more tactful not to. Added to which, Katie was beginning to feel the heat very much.”

    “Mm. And Captain Quarmby-Vine?” he said, pouring himself a glass of wine.

    “That may make you thirstier and hotter, I fear. Though of course I am aware that all gentlemen are immune to that effect of the juice of the vine. –Charles has gone, too: it was his yacht which brought us all.”

    “All males are immune, Miss Bon-Dutton,” he said primly. “It is not confined to the upper classes, y’know. So Q.-V. has weighed anchor? You do surprise me.”

    “I do not think, though he admires Senhora Baldaya as much as he ever did the Contessa dalla Rovere, he was particularly interested in hanging around to see if the General’s brat would be a boy or a girl.”

    “No doubt; but was that the interest which brought him here?”

    After a moment Eudora, to her own annoyance, went very red indeed. “Yes,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “Oh? I had a different story from Pamela P.-G.,” he murmured, eating a small fried cake. “Do have one of these, they are quite delicious. Fried up and smothered in soft sugar, is all my feeble male powers of description can come up with.”

    “I have absolutely no culinary expertise: that is precisely how I would describe them, too. The Baldaya household is bursting with them, and a dozen other varieties. Well, just one,” conceded Eudora, smiling in spite of herself. “The rosewater in them will go rather well with the rosewater in my lemon drink.”

    “Of course.” He took another but did not eat it, just sat there looking at it. “So Pamela P.-G.’s information was wrong?”

    “If you are implying that Charles Q.-V. was here on my account, yes,” said Eudora levelly.

    “I own, I am rather glad to hear it.”

    Eudora once again found she had reddened. It was, now, of course, not possible to make a conventional inquiry as to why he was in the district—bother the creature! Added to which, while he was an attractive fellow, he was, she feared, labouring under several misapprehensions with regard to herself. Not the least of which was the one that she had stayed on here because she wished to see Raffaella's. baby safely born. Not that she had not wished— Oh, bother the man! Why was he here?

    “So if you were in the Senhora’s shoes, you would have made plans as to its schooling, would you?” he said, giving her what was—well, not a goopy look, no, he did not have the features for that. Nor yet the temperament of, to name only one, an Arthur Jerningham. Something verging on the softly sentimental, though, alas.

    “I hope I would at least cast a glance in that direction, yes,” she said grimly.

    “Mm. Hold strong views on the education of girls, do you?” he murmured.

    Eudora stuck her chin out. “Yes.”

    “That’s good,” he said mildly. “I used to, myself.”

    Suspiciously she returned: “Used to?”

    “Until I endeavoured to put them into practice, Miss Bon-Dutton. My daughter Amy takes after her late mother: a very pretty little face with nothing behind it but fluff and the best cure for croup. –It is an excellent cure and she has brought her two little ones through very nasty attacks,” he added tranquilly.

    “So you have concluded that that is all any woman is fit for!” said Eudora, too angry to stop and consider her words.

    “No.” He poured himself another glass of wine. “I’ve concluded, on the one hand, that womankind is made up of as great a variety of intellects as its male counterpart. And on the other hand that it is a terrible pity we cannot ordain the intellect of our offspring, any more than we can select their sex or the colour of their eyes.” He drank wine slowly. “I shall not deny that Amy was a terrible disappointment, bless her, for I had all these notions of what a clever girl might become, given the right handling.”

    “Oh?”

    “Well, I had not quite destined her for Prime Minister of England,” he murmured. “I think our society will have to change considerably before that is possible. But certainly, England’s premier political hostess and mother of a Prime Minister. No, frankly: more than that. Mother and éminence grise.”

    Eudora had to bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “Would you not wish that for a daughter of your own?”

    “Er—I suppose… Well, I would wish that she would find something worthwhile to do with her life, and hope to educate her in order that she might achieve it. Though as to what the something might be—!” She sighed. “I suppose you are in the right of it: the mother of a future Prime Minister.” She shrugged a little.

    “Our generation has seen some fine women writers: I think that is not an ignoble ambition?”

    Eudora raised her eyebrows. “Mary Shelley? No, well, one must applaud the effort, at least.”

    “Mm. I suppose I was thinking rather of the Europeans: Adèle de Souza-Botelho, for example. I have her Ouevres complètes: they were published just a couple of years back: delightful. Or Mme de Staël: now, that was a fine mind.”

    “Indeed.”

    “And I think in English literature one could scarcely find a finer novelist than Miss Austen.”

    “Er—yes. The author of Sense and Sensibility? Yes,” said Eudora limply.

    “I prefer her Emma,” he murmured.

    She nodded limply.

    “I see: you had me down as the sort of no-nonsense fellow who would have no truck with the scribblings of females.”

    “Mm,” she admitted, biting her lip.

    “I admit I also enjoy the more robust productions of the author of Waverley: so now what do you think of my tastes?” he said with a laugh.

    Eudora swallowed. “I suppose I am forced to admit that the male half may have tastes as varied, not to say eclectic, as those of the female, sir.”

    “I think so!” he agreed, smiling very much. “Well, of course a man’s sentiments upon these occasions can in no wise be compared to the mother’s; but I own, I would have planned for its schooling, too, be it boy or girl. And—er—well, in the case it might be a boy, I would have been thinking of the possibility of a pony, and at least mentally sorting out my guns: you know the style of thing.”

    “Mm. Sir Lionel Dewesbury was actually proposing to offer it a set of silver-mounted pistols as a christening present, if it were a boy. He had acquired them locally, you see.”

    He grinned. “Certainly! Well, he’s got boys of his own.”

    “And since you do not ask, the General, at least in my hearing, his made no plans at all,” she said with a sigh.

    “My dear,” he said in a very kind voice, “he has a large family already.”

    “He might at least consider what the child’s fate will be, once he is gone!” said Eudora on an angry note.

    “I am sure he has provided for all his offspring in his will.”

    “That is not entirely what I meant. Well, will there even be any sort of any future for her here, once he has gone? The family is treating Raffaella kindly enough now, but will they concern themselves over one extra little half-Portuguese sprig on the vast Baldaya tree in later years? Then, what if Raffaella wishes to return to England once she is a widow? Having the creature baptised into the Roman Catholic faith can do it no good, in that case. –Never mind,” said Eudora with a sigh. “She cannot think beyond its short-coating, if so far, and he is not truly interested, and it is none of my business at all.”

    “So that is why you have stayed on,” he murmured.

    “No, it is not!” said Eudora crossly. “Er—well, perhaps, a little. As I say, it is none of my business. And there is nothing I can do.”

    “Perhaps not. I think you are in the position of having a watching brief,” he murmured. “She is a fortunate young woman.”

    “Nonsense,” said Eudora on a brisk note. “It is I who am fortunate to be offered the opportunity to journey abroad. Talking of which, may I ask why you are in the district, Sir John?”

    “I am about to pay a visit on an old friend: his property is quite near Baldaya’s country house. Dick Marchant.”

    Eudora felt her jaw sag. “Oh,” she said limply. “I—I believe his property is quite near, yes. Though—er—he has not called.”

    “No, he is not one for doing the pretty to what he describes as ‘a parcel of snaggle-toothed local grandes dames,’” he said with a twinkle.

    “Um, yes; I think he has that reputation in the neighbourhood,” she said feebly.

    He laughed. “I am sure he does! He is a very decent fellow; I think you would like him.”

    “Should I?” said Eudora weakly. “So—um—you have known him for many years, then?”

    “Yes. I first met him when I came out to Lisbon during the late conflict. His regiment was with Wellington, of course, but fairly early on he was in Lisbon recovering from a wound, and was seconded to me as an aide. He struck me as a sensible and thoughtful man.” His long mouth twitched. “He accepted the secondment most unwillingly, I might add, poor Dick: he would very much have preferred to get back to his brigade, for he was sure that the silly young chap appointed in his place would lead the poor fellows to their deaths in an effort to show what he was made of. Well, young officers, you know; and between you and me, their colonel was not much of a man. Lost a full quarter of his regiment in some damned foolish venture which did not win an inch of ground: Wellington was said to be furious over it. He would have retired the man on half-pay, or so the word was, but it was at the very time of Vane’s ill-judged duel with young Prince Adolpho. –I beg your pardon; Stamforth’s, I should say. As you probably know, Stamforth was lucky not to be cashiered. Wellington sent him home, but could not at that time afford to lose another colonel, so Lasenby stayed on. And Dick came to me.” He smiled at her. “I came out of that story the winner, Miss Bon-Dutton: Dick was an ideal aide: his excellent grasp of tactics enabled me to put Wellington’s point of view to our allies both succinctly and with conviction.”

    “I see.” Eudora did not quite manage to ask whether the tact with which English Society was well aware the point of view had been put had also owed anything to Major Marchant. She smiled feebly at him.

    “He was with me for over a year, and had he stayed with the Army I would have been most happy to recommend him as military attaché to any diplomatic post he cared to name, but by that time he had sold out and decided to settle here: he had married a pretty little widow with a snug property.”

    “Yes,” said Eudora limply.

    “Subsequently his sister and her husband settled in Lisbon: I think you may have met her? A Mrs Wedderburn.”

    “We were introduced, yes.”

    “Yes. Dick is a widower now, and she does her best to lure him into town and throw suitable ladies at his head, but it don’t answer!” he said with a grin.

    “No,” agreed Eudora weakly. “I see.”

    “Well, he has his children and stepson, and the property to interest him. And he was never the sort to bother his head about dancing attendance on the fair sex in drawing-rooms, so I fear he is a lost cause. Though she did get him to town this year: I thought perhaps you might have met him? –No,” he said as she shook her head. “Well, he stayed about two weeks and then got on out of it, dear old Dick!”

    “Yes. Er—how shall you get over there?” asked Eudora.

    “I shall hire a horse, ma’am; I am not incapable.”

    “No, of course; how silly of me. And of course you speak the language,” she said in confusion.

    “Mm.” He gave her a sharp look but said only: “May I offer you another glass of something?”

    Eudora refused and, since he seemed ready to go, determinedly got up to accompany him over to the inn to hire a horse. She herself was in charge of a small vehicle which might have started out as a trap but in its current metamorphosis featured a large awning: it was scarcely a hood, being fixed in place on a solid frame. Striped in pink and white and scalloped at the edges.

    “The Senhora Baldaya,” said Eudora on firm note, as Sir John, his shoulders shaking visibly, handed her up into this extraordinary equipage, “is very fond of this little trap.”

    “I do admire the way you didn’t shirk the word ‘trap’, Miss Bon-Dutton. I should like to see you take a six-foot jump with water at the back of it,” he said primly.

    “I generally set my teeth and go for it,” replied Eudora grimly, refusing to laugh.

    “Oh, one understands perfectly: indeed, one can see the very expression,” he murmured.

    “Stop it, you—you creature!” she said with a laugh. “Well, at least the damned awning affords some much-needed shade!”

    “Aye, and you made ’em dispense with the pink plume the nag usually has to support between the ears, didn’t you?” he said slyly.

    “How did you— No, well, I suppose one has only to have glimpsed Baldaya’s pair in London. But every other female member of the house party is at a loss to understand why I did so, I can assure you. And, indeed, when Miss Dewesbury and her sister were staying, this little vehicle was their favourite conveyance,” she said affably.

    “I’m sure!” he gasped. “Well, I shall ride along with you, I think our ways lie in the same direction for a while.” He mounted his horse and ranged alongside, his mouth twitching. “Can you make it go at more than a walk?” he asked in friendly tones.

    “Can you?” retorted Eudora fiercely.

    “Probably not,”: he admitted cheerfully. “I think this poor old boy is at the stage where they are sparing him the knacker’s only so long as he earns his keep.”

    “Er—yes. Pitiable-looking thing,” agreed Eudora. “This is our direction.”

    “Indeed.”

    They headed slowly down the dusty road, both smiling a little.

    Dick had given in. That was, he had given in to the point of allowing that José and Larry might get on over to the Baldaya property and pay a visit of ceremony with Sir John. Not to the point of consenting to accompany them, however. On their return he evinced very little interest in the facts that, imprimis, the little Senhora was as ravishing in her own sitting-room as she had appeared in her opera box, secundus, there was a crowd of snaggle-toothed hags of female relatives staying, though he did note that this might have been expected, and tertius, there was a tall, good-looking fellow, about whose precise nationality there was considerable argument, also staying. Been there a week (Larry). Dare say he did not mind that the little Senhora had a brat not six weeks old (José). The question of the nationality was settled, since the boys then seemed about to come to blows over it, by Sir John’s explaining that it was a Mr Ainsley, who had an English papa and a Spanish madre, and was reliably reported to be on course to inherit the mother’s property, given that the older bother was already living in England on the papa’s.

    “Ainsley?” said Dick at this, in spite of himself.

    Sir John eyed him drily. ‘Well, yes. The papa is—er— Perhaps the boys had best leave the room.”

    After the expected cries of protest had died down, Sir John, with a concealed twinkle in his fine eye, explained that Mr Luís Ainsley’s papa was a Sir Harry Ainsley, who had rendered signal service to our side during the late conflict, in a somewhat ambiguous rôle. Dick had a coughing fit, so Martinho, who had listened to the account of the visit to the Baldaya estate without any interest whatsoever, here put in brilliantly: “I know! He was a spy! Wasn’t he, sir?”

    “Obviously,” drawled José.

    “I say! That cannot be,” said Mr Wedderburn, very shocked. “For if ’tis the Mr Ainsley I think it must be, he is brother-in-law to the Marquis of Rockingham.”

    “That’s right: the Marchioness’s respected pa was a spy,” drawled Dick.

    “Zhat weell be why he leeves in Spain, on the estates of the madre,” noted the sapient José.

     Larry was about to refute this hotly, but thought better of it.

    “Yes: that is precisely it,” said Sir John tranquilly.

    Alas, at this Dick went into a terrific spluttering fit.

    “It ees not all a hum,” said Martinho kindly before the crestfallen Mr Wedderburn could speak.

    “I can see that!” he said crossly.

    Dick was aware that his boys were a little jealous, though he did not think they realised it, of the attention he had been paying their cousin this summer. “Of course you can,” he said mildly. “Can’t imagine, Martinho, if you’re that interested, why you did not get on over there and pay a visit of ceremony yourself.”

    “I’m not interested,” he said hurriedly.

    “No? Well, that's a pity,” said Sir John placidly. “For the Senhora has very kindly invited all of us to a little party which she declares will be a farewell for Larry.”

    Larry nodded hard, his cheeks very pink, as Dick’s jaw dropped.

    “Well, I dare say eet was a handy excuse for a party, but all zhe same, eet was vairy decent of her!” said José with a laugh. “Eet’s next week, Pa.”

    “It’ll have to be, we’re almost in September,” he said dazedly. “Did—uh—did old Baldaya consent to this arrangement?”

    The boys merely looked blank, so John Stevens said calmly: “He did not have to, Dick. Clearly he leaves it to her to arrange their social engagements.”

    “You always left it to Ma, didn’t you, Pa?” said Martinho.

    “Y— Uh, that ain’t quite the same, old man,” said Dick, passing his hand distractedly over his cropped pepper-and-salt head.

    “I don't see why not,” he said with a puzzled frown.

    José began with a smothered giggle: “Possibly Pa’s theenking of the fact that old Baldaya ees sixty—”

    “That’ll DO!” shouted Dick.

    The shabby downstairs sitting-room of the Marchant property rang with silence for a moment.

    “Sixty what?” asked Martinho uneasily.

    “Martinho, old man, just drop it,” said his father heavily. “I suppose we shall have to go, if it’s a definite invitation.”

    “Huzza!” cried José, laughing, but avoiding his father’s eye.

    Dick then cleared the lot of them out of it, on the excuse that he wanted a private word with Sir John. They exited in a bunch, the voice of Mr Wedderburn clearly audible as they did so, explaining: “Sixty years older than the little Senhora, is what he was going to say. Well, dare say ’t’ain't as uncommon as y’might think, but to hear Ma and me Aunt Beatrice tell it, she was on the catch for anything with a fortune and a marriage ring in his pocket.”

    “God! The Diplomatic?” said Dick, clutching his head wildly, as the door closed on them.

    “Let us hope it will teach him the meaning of the word ‘discretion’,” said his friend mildly. “Did you want a word, old man?”

    “No, John, I wanted to get rid of that lot,” he sighed.

    Sir John sat down, his eyes twinkling. “This party Senhora Baldaya promises seems set to be great fun.”

    “Fun?” groaned Dick.

    “Certainly. A whole bullock on the spit in the local style is the very least of it!”

    Dick shut his eyes. “My God.”

    “Er—I’ll take them, if you really don’t wish to go; but it will look a little odd, y’know. Oh: the Senhora was most insistent that young Martinho be included.”

    Dick winced.

    “José didn't hint,” said his friend placidly.

    “Glad to hear it.”

    “I think perhaps Mrs Wedderburn had described your family to her.”

    “Mm,” said Dick noncommittally. “Er—Miss Whatsername still there? The impeccably connected one?”

    “If you mean Miss Bon-Dutton, yes,” he said coolly. “Did I lay such stress on her impeccable connections?”

    “No. You said she was a very intelligent woman, very well connected. The fact that you bothered to mention either point was what struck me,” explained Dick carefully.

    The lean cheeks had reddened a little, but he said calmly enough: “I see.”

    “Well, I’d better go to this party: make sure she’ll do,” said Dick briskly.

    “You are being precipitate.”

    “John, dear man, you’ve told me about her seat on a horse, her ability with a pair, her intelligence—several times—and you’ve mentioned her connections! Added to which, you said she wasn’t a hag.”

    “I said no such thing,” he said, trying not to laugh.

    “‘A pleasant-looking woman, with something of an air about her,’” quoted Dick carefully.

    “I think all of her acquaintance would agree, as to that.”

    “No doubt. Only, all of ’em wouldn’t bother to mention the point!” Dick gave him a triumphant look but added seriously: “If she might be the one, I’ll be the first to wish you all the happiness in the world.”

    He got up and went over to the window. After a moment he said, not looking round: “Add all that up, and is it enough?”

    Dick had to swallow, but he replied promptly enough: “No, it is not, John. I think at your age you must know that.”

    “I suppose it’s my age that is the point, rather,” he said wryly. “She would make an admirable helpmate.”

    “What a damned frightful thought,” said Dick Marchant baldly.

    “Mm. I suppose.”

    “Look, if there’s no warmer feeling, for God’s take don’t do it, man!”

    After a moment Sir John turned form the window and said with a little shrug: “There could be, on my side, if the least encouragement was offered, on hers.”

    “For the Lord’s sake, John! You cannot marry a woman who is without passion! After Constancia de Miranda Lisboa?”

    “Er—that was different,” he said, clearing his throat.

    “I know it was different!” said Dick Marchant with feeling.

    “I suppose one does not look for the same thing, in a wife.”

    “One is mad if one don’t. If you need a helpmate, get a secretary to aid you with the paperwork, and ask one of your sisters to play hostess for you.”

    “I have an excellent secretary, thank you. And all of my sisters are only too horribly eager to play hostess. No…” He turned away to the window again. Dick Marchant watched his straight back uncertainly. After quite some time he said in a low voice: “I suppose I had hoped… No, it was stupid to imagine that any woman might combine excellent company manners, a high degree of intelligence, a certain sense of humour and—well! The other thing.”

    “Perhaps. Senhora de Miranda Lisboa is certainly very far from stupid: a considerable wit, indeed, and makes an admirable Society hostess, with impeccable company manners.”

    “Yes. But I was not the first, nor yet the last, was I? I do not want a wife like that.”

    “Er—no. Understandable.” Dick hesitated. Then he said cautiously: “Shall you give it up, dear old boy?”

    He turned from the window with an impatient sigh. “I don’t know. I think perhaps I don’t wish to make any decisions, at present. Now, José and Larry have told me all sorts of horror tales of your dress clothes, Dick, so be warned; I shall inspect your wardrobe meself, before this promised party!” He grinned, and went out.

    Dick Marchant shook his head very, very slowly, frowning.

    The Marchant party looked down from the height of the dry brown hills at the sight of the Baldaya residence: the house and courtyard a blaze of lights, music playing, a giant glow from what even at this distance was clearly a giant ox roasting on a giant spit… Oh, God.

    “Come on, Pa!” cried José gaily.

    “Once more into the breach!” said Martinho with a hoarse laugh: he was very nervous, poor damned boy.

    “You’ll enjoy it once you get there, Uncle Dick!” urged Larry.

    “Just what I was going to say, myself!” agreed John Stevens, chuckling. “Come on, lads!”

    Eagerly the two young men urged their mounts in the wake of his big bay gelding.

    Dick brought up the rear, groaning slightly. God, it would be vile; vile…

    It was vile, all right. Little fountains playing, little candles in saucers floating everywhere, garlands of this, that, and t’other looped everywhere, about to be set alight by more candles before the night was through, or his name was not Dick Marchant, great bowls of God-knew-what to drink with God-knew-what floating in ’em, a regiment of servants bearing trays of enough so-called nibbles to feed the nearby village and all its cousins for the rest of the year, serried ranks of glassware, music in the courtyard, more music in the big drawing-room, clouds of smoke accompanied by shrieks and yells from the direction of the charring beast… General Baldaya overpoweringly gracious in several languages and the sveltest, if also the largest, dress coat Dick had laid eyes on in his life, completely reducing poor Martinho to awed silence; assorted snaggle-toothed hags of relations in their best frills and furbelows, terrifying the life out of all three lads; ranks of the older sort, also snaggle-toothed, in their best black silks, all looking down their Baldaya noses to a hag; assorted local minor nobility and gentry in their best, ditto; the threatened Mr Ainsley, all white flashing teeth and charm—actually he looked horribly like José: Dick gulped; the Senhora’s friend Miss B.-D., coolly friendly in cool blue silk: John must be mad even to consider the thing!—and, finally, the Senhora Baldaya herself: all warm, welcoming, outstretched arms, in a froth of—well, white stuff with fuzz and little orange-ish spots, was Dick’s best effort. Bows of while satin ribbon. Pearls. Great God Almighty: pearls worth an emperor’s ransom! Oh, well, if he were old Baldaya’s age, he’d admit the soft impeachment, too. Or whatever it was a man of eighty did when married to a soft impeachment of not a day over twenty-three. Ye Gods and little fishes.

    She was, in fact, as warm and even more charming than she had been on the hills that day, but Dick Marchant was past caring. Ye Gods and little fishes.

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