by Mary Nichols
‘Why should I do that?’
‘It is not unknown for women to do such work.’
‘Not I.’
‘We shall see.’
‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘Keep you here while we find out where you have come from.’ He paused and grinned. ‘Do not worry, madam, we will not touch a hair of your head until we know the truth, but if you are lying…’ He nodded towards Philippe. ‘We will not hesitate to carry out the same punishment. You understand?’
She understood all too well. Could they prove she had lied? She was very much afraid that they could, and then what? She inclined her head in acquiescence. ‘I will wait.’
‘Good. Now you will eat.’ He untied her hands and beckoned to another of the band and issued orders. Olivia, who had been in the Peninsula long enough to pick up a little Spanish and Portuguese, though she found speaking the latter difficult, understood he was ordering food and wine and a blanket for her. That meant they intended to spend the night in the camp, high up in the rugged mountains somewhere on the border between Spain and Portugal.
By the time the food was brought, they had taken Philippe’s body down and carried it off, presumably to bury it, or perhaps to send it back to the occupiers of Ciudad Rodrigo as a lesson to any who strayed outside the perimeter of the town. Whichever it was, she forced herself to pretend indifference, though she was glad when she no longer had to see it.
The food was good and the blanket welcome and she spent the rest of the evening pretending she was pleased to be among friends. Only after they had all settled down on the hard ground to sleep did she decide to test whether they had posted sentries. Stealthily she crept away, but before she had gone far a man stepped out of the shadows and barred her way. ‘I must relieve myself,’ she whispered, clutching at her abdomen and grimacing. ‘I have a pain.’
He waved her on. She walked slowly at first, even going so far as to pause and pretend to be squatting down, but when he moved over to the other side of the camp she started to run and did not stop until she was sure they were not pursuing her. By the time the sun had risen above the distant mountains and felt warm on her back, she estimated she had put several miles between herself and her husband’s murderers.
It was strange that they had not come after her, but then perhaps they did not think she was worth the effort. Now she had to make up her mind whether to go into the village in the valley, which might contain the homes of those same partisans, or keep to the high ground and try to find her own way.
She had become so used to the distant rumble of guns that she ignored the sound, but when the wind blew suddenly chill and the sky became overcast she realised it was not guns but thunder which reverberated round the mountains. At the same moment she became aware of huge spots of rain splashing on to the road. She began to run.
The road dipped into the tree-covered lower slopes and she noticed an iron gate with a crest on top, guarding a long drive. There was bound to be a house at the end of it, and a house meant shelter. The gate creaked noisily as she pushed it open but no one came out of the nearby gatehouse to ask her business. She ran up the drive, pulling Philippe’s coat up over her head, and arrived, panting, on the steps of a considerable mansion.
She pounded on the door, but there was no response. She ran round to the back, found a door unlocked and let herself in. It had once been a luxurious home, she decided, as she moved through the kitchen quarters into the main hall with its grand staircase and beautifully tiled floor. Shouting in Spanish and then Portuguese, ‘Is anyone at home?’ produced no reply. She took off her wet coat and threw it over a chair, then made her way up the stairs and checked every room. The house was completely deserted. The few pieces of furniture which remained were of good quality, and those curtains which still hung at the windows were sumptuous, though covered in thick dust. She found a huge bedchamber with a carved and gilded four-poster and in the next room a hip-bath. She looked in the cupboards and discovered soap and towels and, thrown in the back of a wardrobe, a quilted dressing-gown. It was unclear whether the owners had had time to pack before leaving or whether the clothes and more easily carried furniture had been looted. She began a more systematic search and discovered a few more garments which, apart from the dust, were infinitely better than the skirt and blouse she had been wearing for the past week. They would have to be cleaned before she could wear them but that could be done later.
She had become so accustomed to watching French soldiers looting for their needs that she had no compunction about appropriating what she found for her own use. Here was luxury she had not seen since leaving her father’s home. It was heaven. She dashed down the stairs again to look for food. There was nothing to be found in any of the storerooms except a few large onions, but outside there were thick-stalked cabbages growing in the vegetable garden; she could make herself caldo verde, a rich green cabbage soup which seemed to be the staple diet of the Portuguese.
In no time she had a fire lit in the kitchen stove and set a cauldron of water on it. Hungry as she was, a bath came before food. She dragged the bath down the stairs and set it before the kitchen fire, then went out to gather the cabbage leaves. By the time she had sliced the onions, set them on to boil and shredded the cabbage finely, the water in the pan was hot enough to add to the cold water she had already poured into the tub. She smiled to herself as she threw off her clothes and climbed into it. Once upon a time she had had a maid to fill her bath, help her dress and see to her hair. Her clothes had been clean and pressed and were always ready to put on. As soon as the slightest sign of wear or a tear had appeared, they had been discarded. She looked across at the peasant skirt and blouse she had been wearing for weeks and smiled; they were fit for nothing but the bonfire.
She slid down among the soap bubbles and imagined herself back at home. Her bath would be in her bedroom, where a fire would be blazing and all her clean clothes laid out on the bed. Jane would be fussing round her, soaping her back and helping to wash her red-gold hair. It had been long in those days but that had become impractical while she was following the colours, not only because she had no one to dress it for her, but because of the difficulty of keeping it clean and free from vermin. She had cut it very short and been surprised when it sprang into curls all over her head. She soaped it now and ducked beneath the water to rinse it, then came up laughing.
She was free! Gloriously and happily free! She felt no guilt because she had always done her very best for both Tom and Philippe, sharing the hardships of the march, scavenging for food, cooking in almost impossible conditions, cleaning their uniforms and even, on occasion, carrying their packs, when they were utterly exhausted. She had taken both for better or worse and now it was all over. Over!
Never again! She had had her fill of marriage. From now on she would keep her independence. She still had to find her way back to England, still had to face up to her father, but that was nothing compared with what she had endured in the last two years. Two years. Two years wasted. No, she decided, not entirely wasted; she had learned a great deal about herself, not all of it good, but she had emerged, she hoped, a little wiser. She began to sing as she soaped herself and the bath filled with bubbles.
‘The noble Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.’
‘Madame is in good spirits,’ said a voice in English.
She froze. Slowly she reached out for a towel and held it to cover her breasts, then turned her head towards the door. The man who had come in from the rain and was standing on the doormat knocking the water from his shako was the rider she had seen earlier. He was carrying a rifle and a dead hare. Was this his home? Was she the intruder or was he? She decided to attack first.
‘Is it not the custom where you come from to knock before entering?’
‘I did. You were making so much noise you did not hear.’
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bsp; ‘Noise, sir?’ She dared not move for fear of disturbing the bubbles which enveloped her. ‘Some have said I have a passably good voice.’
He smiled and walked over to the stove to sniff appreciatively at the pot; it brought him round to her front. ‘Is your mistress at home?’
‘My mistress?’ she repeated, then, realising he thought she was a servant, laughed. ‘I call no one mistress.’
‘You are surely not the lady of the house?’
‘No. I have never met her.’
He laughed aloud. ‘Oh, I see. An opportunist like myself. Are you alone?’
She hesitated, but there was no point in denying it; he would soon discover the truth. ‘Yes.’
He indicated the pot with a jerk of his head. ‘That smells good.’
‘The least a gentleman would do is leave a lady to finish her toilette in privacy.’
‘But I am no gentleman.’ There was a hint of bitterness in his voice which made her look up into his face. There were tiny lines etched around his eyes which could have been laughter-lines but could equally have been caused by long hours squinting into the sun. His mouth was firm and his teeth were strong and white; a handsome man, she decided, but refreshingly unaware of it.
‘No, that much is evident,’ she said crisply, and when he made no move to go picked up the bar of soap and hurled it at him. Her aim was good and it struck him on the side of the head, bounced off his shoulder and slithered to the floor. ‘Get out!’ she yelled.
He laughed and retrieved it, weighing it in his hand as if considering whether to throw it back. ‘Out?’ he asked mildly, appraising what he could see of her — a mane of red-gold hair, which lay against freckled cheeks in wet tendrils, a long neck and sloping white shoulders which disappeared behind the towel she was holding against herself. The vision was spoiled to some extent by hardened brown hands which were obviously accustomed to work. ‘But it is pouring with rain. And besides, I am hungry. Now if you were to share the pot with me I could provide something to improve its flavour.’ He waved the hare at her.
‘Go away and leave me in peace. I do not want or need your company.’ There was nothing else at hand to throw except the towel and she was loath to let go of that, and he showed no sign of doing as she asked. With nothing in her hand to defend herself, she was obliged to change her belligerent attitude to one of reasonableness; and the idea of meat made the saliva run in her mouth. ‘Can’t you see I am in no position to do anything about the soup or the meat with you hovering over me? And this water is becoming cold and I want to dress.’
He grinned. ‘I could do with a bath too. How about sharing it with me?’
‘If you go and leave me to dress, I will cook the hare and heat up some more water for you.’
‘That sounds like a fair bargain to me.’ He paused and pointed to the door into the rest of the house. ‘Have you been through there?’
‘Yes. It is empty, nothing to steal, I am afraid.’
‘What a disappointment for you.’
She was about to say she was referring to him and that she was not a thief when she remembered the clothes she had found and intended to keep. Instead she said, ‘Go and wait in the hall if you want any dinner.’
He made an ostentatious leg and left the room. As soon as she was sure he had really gone, she scrambled out and dried herself quickly, then dressed in her own underclothes and topped them with the dressing-gown she had found. She went to the door and called to him. ‘If you want a bath, you had better empty this one and draw more water.’
She went to stir the pot and skin the hare and did not know he had come back into the room until he spoke. ‘Where is the owner of this?’
She turned towards him. He was standing just inside the door holding Philippe’s coat at arm’s length. ‘Dead,’ she said flatly, returning to her task.
‘Who was he?’
‘My husband.’
‘Your husband?’
‘Yes. Lieutenant Philippe Santerre.’
‘A Frenchman?’
‘Yes.’ She looked at him boldly. ‘Does that change your mind?’
‘About what?’
‘About sharing a meal.’
‘No, why should it?’ He began dragging the bath towards the door. She watched as he opened the door, tipped it up and emptied its contents into the yard where the soapy bubbles dispersed in the puddles already there. He brought it back and stood it on end against the wall. ‘Is there anyone in the house at all?’
‘No. Unless they are hiding in a cupboard. There is a cellar, but the door is locked, I couldn’t open it.’
‘Best be sure.’ He picked up his rifle and left her. She could hear him moving about the house, doing as she had done earlier and searching every cranny. She was stirring the pot and humming quietly to herself when she was startled by a shot. She ran into the hall, half expecting to see him lying dead at the feet of the rightful owner of the house, but there was no one about and all was quiet. A moment later he appeared clutching two bottles of wine. ‘Had to shoot the lock off,’ he said. ‘But there was no one there. They probably evacuated when they heard your people were advancing.’
‘My people?’
‘Johnny Bluecoats.’
‘They are not my people.’
‘One of them was. You said so.’
‘I am English, just as you are.’
‘Ah.’ He smiled wryly, taking the bottles into the kitchen and setting them on the table. ‘How can you be sure that I am?’
‘You are dressed in a British uniform and you speak English as well as I do.’
‘Neither of which is proof positive. No, if I were you, I would want to know a great deal more than that.’
‘Why? It is of little consequence; our paths are unlikely to cross again.’
‘Now that would be a pity,’ he said. ‘I thought my luck had changed at last.’
‘You are impertinent, sir.’
He stood squarely and gave her a cool look of appraisal from her bare feet — army boots were hardly a suitable accessory for a blue silk dressing-gown — up over her five feet seven — she had the figure of an angel, he decided — to an oval face in which the green eyes flashed at him with a confusing mixture of humour and anger. He laughed. ‘Pretending to be affronted by what was, after all, meant as a compliment, doesn’t fool me, Madame Santerre. You are no drawing-room miss and, I’ll wager, never have been. A camp follower, that’s what you are, and, it seems, not particular as to the camp. Tell me, is it true that Frenchman are more romantically inclined than Englishmen?’
She picked up the kitchen knife she had used to cut up the hare and raised it as if she meant to throw it but, deciding that it would be very unwise and probably dangerous, she turned back to her cooking. ‘Are you going to bath before we eat or afterwards? The water is hardly hot yet.’
‘It will do me. I’ll take it upstairs.’ He picked up the cauldron of hot water with little effort, though it was extremely heavy, grabbed the handle of the bath and disappeared with them into the hall, carrying the one and dragging the other.
She went to the door and shouted after him, ‘Not the room with the four-poster. I saw it first.’
Half an hour later he returned, looking much more presentable, though he had been obliged to put the buttonless uniform on again. ‘There are no men’s clothes at all,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the owner was a lady who lived alone. It would account for her leaving in the face of an army, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps.’ She filled two bowls to the brim with the hot stew and set them on the table, together with cutlery and glasses which she had found in the back of a kitchen cupboard. They were obviously not the family silver; that had gone, either with its owner or, after her departure, to marauding soldiers. ‘Would you like me to sew your buttons back on?’
‘No.’ He spoked sharply. ‘I like things as they are.’
‘Do you? How whimsical.’ She sat down opposite him and picked up her spoon. ‘I should have th
ought you would be glad to be able to close your coat again. The wind and rain in the mountains are cold, even in summer.’
‘I do not feel the cold.’
‘No? Not outside perhaps, but inside?’ She did not know why she said that, except that he looked like a man who kept his inner self very much to himself.
‘What do you mean?’
She answered his question with another. ‘Why are you alone, so far from the British lines?’
‘Why should the British lines be of interest to me? I told you, you should not make assumptions from appearances.’
‘Are you saying you are not an English soldier?’
‘I am not.’
‘But you were?’
‘That is neither here nor there.’
She guessed that he had been cashiered and it made her curious. In times of war when every available soldier was needed they would not discharge a man unless there was a very compelling reason. What crime had he committed? Ought she to be afraid of him? She supposed if she persisted in asking questions he might become dangerous, but at the moment he seemed more concerned with tucking into his dinner; he was obviously not going to be drawn on the subject. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It is no concern of mine. I only asked because I want to go back to the British lines myself and I thought you might take me with you.’
‘No!’ It was almost a shout. ‘My business is not in that direction at all. Now, if you don’t mind, we will change the subject.’ He lowered his voice and smiled. ‘Now, tell me how you came to be out on the mountain alone. It was you I saw earlier on the road, was it not?’
‘Yes, but I did not think you had noticed me, you seemed so preoccupied.’
‘I have been trained to notice things, but I must admit the filthy peasant I saw on the road bears very little resemblance to the beautiful young lady I found naked in a bath. If it had not been for the uniform coat, I might not have been so quick to realise they were one and the same.’
‘Careless of me,’ she said. ‘I suppose if I want to get back to the British lines I had better dispose of it.’
