She had imagined herself fair and pretty with a white skin against the soft muslin of the gown and it was like a blow to realise that she looked almost grotesque.
“The Señorita is pleased?” the seamstress asked.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Elvina answered, knowing that it was not the woman’s fault that she looked so strange.
The gown fitted her with the skirt falling gracefully from the high waist. But above the waist there was only flatness and a lack of curves.
‘No one will ever suspect me of being anything but a child,’ Elvina thought ruefully.
She no longer worried that her hair was beginning to lose its dye. No one was likely to look at her or indeed suspect that she was anything but what she appeared.
The sewing woman had trimmed the chip bonnet for day wear and she had a little wreath of flowers and ribbons to wear in the evening which would prevent anyone looking too closely and noting where the gold was supplanting an artificial darkness.
“Shall I finish the other gowns now?” the seamstress asked, interrupting Elvina’s thoughts.
“Yes, yes, please do.”
She turned from the mirror to go downstairs. She had thought to run down, gay-hearted and excited, and surprise Lord Wye with her appearance.
Now she knew that she did not really wish him to look at her but to remember her as she had been when they trudged together side by side away from St. Jean de Luz, when she had slept close beside him in the heather or when he had carried her close against his heart through the fog.
‘Never again! Never again!’
The words seemed to echo in her mind and memories of what had been and what lay ahead had kept her awake last night when she had slept between sheets in the comfortable inn at Santander.
As soon as dawn broke she had gone to the window and seen the line of troops, the supply wagons and the guns coming from the quay and moving away through the town towards the mountains where the Duke of Wellington awaited them.
She watched them pass with envy in her eyes. How she wished she could be going with them! If only she and Lord Wye could join the newly disembarked troops.
If only they had not to take a ship for England.
Once she had longed to go to England with an intensity that had supplanted everything else in her mind.
Now she wanted only one thing – to remain with the man she loved.
It was agony to think that the minutes were ticking past and that they had only a very short time left together.
Elvina knew little of Society and its ways, but she was quite certain that once Lord Wye was back with his own people, surrounded with all the trappings and pomposity of his position, he would seem a very different person.
“When you are hungry,” a soldier had once said to her when she was talking with him in the hospital in Lisbon, “a man’s rank and his position cease to count.”
She knew the truth of that. She remembered the potatoes that Lord Wye and she had devoured in St. Jean Pied de Port. She could see him now savouring every mouthful and then licking his fingers at the end like a child.
They had laughed about it and he had said,
“I would rather have eaten those at this moment than a dozen banquets in the past.”
“Could you manage some more?” Elvina had asked, teasing him.
“A sackful,” he replied, “and then I should still be hungry!”
On the march they had fought for the tough meat that was doled out from the food carts and had been so hungry that they had hardly waited until it was properly cooked before stuffing it into their mouths.
While the bread, which had been black and heavy so that many of the troops had grumbled and complained about it, seemed to them like manna to the Israelites of old.
How different it was going to be in England!
Elvina walked down the oak stairs of the inn slowly, reluctant for Lord Wye to see her and yet at the same time eager to be with him again.
She had reached the door of the private sitting room that had been allotted to them when she heard voices inside.
‘Who could be with Lord Wye?’ she wondered.
Then suddenly the door opened and she found herself face to face with a strange young man.
“Excuse me,” he said and opened the door wider for her to pass through.
Over his head Elvina could see Lord Wye standing by the mantelshelf and talking to a woman. She saw his face, animated and amused, his eyes alight, his lips smiling.
Then she moved forward, a sudden heavy constriction within her chest and a sudden tightening within her throat.
She had reached Lord Wye’s side before he seemed to realise that she was there.
Then he turned to her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I was just thinking of you,” he said. “In fact I had asked Mister Howard to go in search of you.”
Elvina wanted to answer and wanted to ask who Mister Howard was, but she had eyes only for the woman who faced her. Never had she seen anyone so attractive, so fashionable or so overwhelming in every way.
Dark flashing eyes with dark curls framing a magnolia skin and a mouth as red as ripe cherries. She was fascinating, whoever she might be and Elvina knew, as surely as if someone had told her so, dangerous.
“Lady Cleone, may I present Elvina, who, as I have already told you, has saved my life?”
“What a charming child!” Lady Cleone said in what Elvina knew to be an affected voice. “And how clever of her to be so useful to you.”
“Useful is hardly the word,” Lord Wye answered. “A Guardian Angel is perhaps more appropriate.”
“A very dark one,” Lady Cleone said with a little sidelong glance of her eyes.
Lord Wye’s arm tightened round Elvina’s shoulders. At the same time he laughed and Elvina felt her face burn with anger and resentment.
She managed to make a small curtsey and then heard Lord Wye say as he turned her round towards the young man who had opened the door and who was now coming towards them,
“And this, Elvina, is Lady Cleone’s brother, Peregrine Howard.”
“I thought this must be the young lady I was seeking,” the Honourable Peregrine Howard smiled.
“It is indeed,” Lord Wye nodded. “And now I must offer you both a glass of wine.”
“No, no,” Lady Cleone replied. “I feel we have no time for it. There is so much to be done if we are to sail this evening. There are a dozen things I must buy in the town if it is possible to buy anything in such a benighted spot.”
“It depends what you require,” Lord Wye said.
“I will not bore you with a recitation of them, but I shall look forward to greeting you this evening, my Lord, and let’s pray we have a pleasant voyage.”
“It is most kind of you to invite us,” Lord Wye replied.
He hurried forward to escort Lady Cleone and her brother to the door. He held her small grey-gloved hand for what seemed to Elvina an unconscionable time before he raised it to his lips and then, with a little coquettish smile from under her feather-trimmed bonnet and a rustle of her silk-lined skirts, Lady Cleone was gone.
“That is indeed fortunate,” Lord Wye said, coming back to the sitting room where Elvina awaited him.
“What is?” she asked in a voice that even to herself sounded cold and far away.
“A frigate is carrying Lady Cleone and her brother back from Sicily where their father, the Earl of Severn, is commanding our Expeditionary Force. They have invited us to join them and I have accepted with much gratitude.”
“Why?” Elvina asked.
“Why!” Lord Wye questioned with raised eyebrows. “Because, my dear child, we shall be much more comfortable and our passage to England will be much swifter. A troop ship, in which I had expected we should make the voyage, would be excessively slow. What is more I think that you and I have roughed it for quite long enough. We shall find everything we need abroad the frigate.”
‘We shall also find Lad
y Cleone,’ Elvina longed to say.
But because she was too afraid to put her thoughts into words she could only turn away from him and walk towards the window.
“It will be good to be in England again,” Lord Wye went on. “At the same time already I am feeling a little sorry our adventure is over, aren’t you, Elvina?”
“Is it – over?” she asked in a curiously flat tone.
“No, I forgot. For you it is only just beginning. You are going to join your sister in England. You are going to start a new life in a new country. For me it will be a case of taking up life where I left it.”
He stretched himself.
“Ah, well! I have certainly learned to appreciate a comfortable bed. Those nights on the mountain were hardly one’s idea of being comfortable.”
“Yet they were fun – were they not?” Elvina queried.
Before he could answer she turned from the window and went towards him.
“You will not forget me. Promise me you will not – forget me.”
There was an intensity and a plea in her voice.
But he did not seem to hear it.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “I did not notice when you came into the room. You have on a new gown! That was most remiss of me. Let me look at you.”
“No, no, don’t look at me,” Elvina said. “I look – horrible. I should not have chosen white muslin. It was stupid of me.”
“You are getting fashion conscious, are you?” he asked with a little note of laughter in his voice. “Oh, Elvina, don’t grow up too quickly. Remain a child. You will be far happier that way.”
“Why do you think that?” she enquired.
“Because,” he answered, “once you are grown up you will be embroiled in the intrigues of your heart. You will either be in love with someone who is not in love with you or you will be bored with someone who is lovesick for a look from your eyes. Either way you will be a dead bore. Stay as you are, that is how I like you.”
With an effort that was almost superhuman Elvina forced a smile to her lips.
“If that is how – you want me,” she said, “I will remain young. I will not grow any older.”
“That is right,” he laughed. “Thirteen years of age for ever. We will drink a toast to it, shall we?”
He turned from the mantelshelf and pulled the bell pull. They heard the bell clang far away somewhere in the bowels of the inn.
“A toast,” Lord Wye repeated, “to Elvina the brave, to little Portugal and damnation to Napoleon’s Armies.”
He crossed to the window to watch a detachment of troops passing in the street below and Elvina followed him.
Suddenly she slipped her small thin fingers into his hand.
“Let’s go with them,” she whispered. “Let’s go back to fight beside the Duke of Wellington. You would like that – I know. The British are advancing and soon they will be over the mountains and into France, driving towards Paris and defeating the Emperor with every step they make. Let’s go – with them.”
She felt Lord Wye’s fingers tighten over hers and knew that he was listening to what she was saying, following in his mind the British reinforcements.
For a moment she knew that he was tempted. For a moment she even thought that he might agree to her suggestion.
And then he released her hand.
“No,” he answered. “I have to go back. The Prime Minister will be expecting me. When he sent me to Lisbon he refused to let me join Wellington and the Prince Regent will already be annoyed that I have been away for so long.”
Elvina knew that she had failed and once again her spirits dropped and she felt a dark wave of depression encompass her almost like the fog that they had groped their way through to Sir Rowland Hill’s headquarters.
*
She was depressed for all the rest of the day. She tried to laugh and talk naturally with Lord Wye.
She tried not to count the minutes as they passed, knowing that each one brought them nearer to the time when they must board the frigate.
But relentlessly the afternoon came to an end and a hired carriage took them down the narrow streets to the quay where the frigate was berthed. Elvina had a quick glance at the ship and then turned to Lord Wye.
“You will not – forget me,” she said. “Lady Cleone and her brother are your type of people, the sort you belong to. But you will not forget me – will you?”
“Elvina, what a thought!” Lord Wye exclaimed.
He turned to look at her and, as he did so often, slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
It was a loving gesture any man might use towards a child and then he put his hand under her chin and turned her little pointed face up to his.
“Do you imagine that I could forget you even if I wanted to?” he asked. “We have been through so much together, you and me. We have faced death and starvation and even worse things, the drunken soldiers and those who would have crucified us for treachery. Do you think I could forget all that? You must have a very poor opinion of me.”
The very relief that his words brought made her lips tremble and tears come into her eyes.
“It’s just that – I am – afraid,” she whispered.
“Afraid of what?” he asked. “The sea? Of going to England?”
“No – of losing you.”
She spoke the truth because this was no time for pretence. They had reached the ship, and, although Lord Wye could not understand it, she knew that a new life lay ahead.
“You are being fanciful and absurd,” he answered. “I have already promised you that you will never lose me. I think in fact that it would be hard for us to lose each other. Trust me, Elvina, I shall not fail you.”
He bent his head and kissed her lips lightly. It was a kiss of tenderness and affection.
To Elvina it was as if a sudden flame flared within her body, lit by the touch of his mouth on hers. She felt herself tremble, felt her whole being quiver and only with great difficulty prevented herself from putting her arms around his neck.
“And now we must go aboard,” Lord Wye said in a practical tone that swept away the emotions and the fantasies that seemed to have encompassed them both in their different ways.
The cab driver opened the door, they stepped down onto the cobbled quayside and Elvina saw ahead the gangplank leading to the frigate. She was a beautiful vessel with long clean lines and three masts.
Elvina followed Lord Wye aboard and then, even as she reached the deck, heard Lady Cleone’s high affected voice.
“Your Lordship, how entrancing to see you! I swear that I have been looking forward to it the whole day.”
She was curtseying, the very picture of grace and fashion, Lord Wye was bowing to her and for a second Elvina hated them both. They belonged to a world that she was an outsider in.
And then behind her she heard the Honourable Peregrine Howard’s voice.
“Would you like to come and see the ship?” he asked.
She looked round at him and could not help but feel a little comforted by the friendliness of his smile and the hand he held out to her.
“Come along,” he said as one might speak to a small child. “I have lots of things to show you.”
He drew her away onto the bridge. He showed her the compass, the navigating wheel and the maps that were all ready for the Captain.
“We shall have to have a pilot,” he told her, “to take us out of the Harbour. After that they will rely on these maps.”
He was condescending, talking down to a child’s intelligence and yet he was trying to be kind. But Elvina could hardly listen to him.
She was watching Lady Cleone lead Lord Wye to the side of the ship. The wind was rustling the dark curls on the front of her head as they peeped out beneath a hood of blue satin lined with swansdown.
They were talking animatedly. Lord Wye was laughing at something that Lady Cleone had said. She turned with a sudden intimate gesture and laid her hand on his arm.
‘I hate her! I hate her!’ Elvina thought.
She knew without being told that Lady Cleone was making a dead set at Lord Wye. Perhaps she had told her brother to keep that tiresome child amused while she laid her snares and set her traps for the man who had evaded matrimony for nearly thirty summers.
“You are not listening, Elvina,” Peregrine Howard said accusingly.
“I am sorry. I was wondering what your sister, Lady Cleone, was saying to Lord Wye.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Cleone. She will be flirting,” Peregrine Howard laughed. “She flirts with everyone. I had a devil of a job looking after her on this trip. I swear to you that half the garrison in Sicily was in mourning when we left!”
“Is she so attractive to men?” Elvina asked.
Peregrine Howard laughed.
“Look for yourself. She is the toast of St. James’s. ‘The most beautiful girl in England’ the Prince Regent called her last time we went to Carlton House. And, by Jove, although she is my sister, I begin to believe he is right!”
Elvina clutched her hands together. She felt her hatred for Lady Cleone intensify. Why? Why, she wondered, had she and Lord Wye arrived in Santander yesterday instead of tomorrow?
Had they been even twenty-four hours later the frigate might have sailed without Lady Cleone becoming aware of their presence.
“Why has she not married?”
She heard her own voice ask the question and knew that instead of being hard and spiteful as she felt inside, it was young and ingenuous, the question of a child.
“I often ask myself the same question,” Peregrine Howard answered good-humouredly. “I think the truth is the offers, and there have been dozens of them, have not been good enough. Cleone wants so much, as you might imagine.”
“And what sort of man would you pick for her?”
“Someone with looks and breeding, position and wealth. They are few and far between, Elvina, although you would not know that, living in this unpretentious country.”
Peregrine Howard was talking teasingly and telling the truth because, as Elvina sensed, he was talking as much to himself as to her.
Now she knew – knew what Lady Cleone was after and knew too that the man she had been looking for was at her side.
Love Under Fire Page 14