Marry in Haste (21 page)

All too soon, he gave the signal to resume the march. The two girls found that their muscles had stiffened as they sat, and stumbled along slowly enough at first, Mr. Smith slackening his pace to theirs. But as Camilla got back into her stride she found that Chloe still lagged behind, walking as if each step was agony. Mr. Smith had gradually increased his pace. Now, as Chloe fell further and further behind, Camilla called to him softly.

He stopped and turned back. “What is the matter?” He spoke with the brusqueness of anxiety.

“I don’t know.” They waited in silence as Chloe came up.

As she approached, Mr. Smith spoke bracingly. “We must go faster than this. If your sister can keep up, surely you can?”

Chloe coloured, bit her lip, and was silent. Camilla took her hand. “It is just the stiffness from sitting,” she said encouragingly. “It will pass off soon. Mine has already. Come, Chloe.”

Still silent, Chloe stepped out faster and they resumed their dogged march. But soon she was falling behind again. At last she sat down by the roadside. “You go on, Camilla,” she said. “Leave me here. I can go no further.”

“Leave you? What madness is this?” Looking down, almost impatiently at Chloe, Camilla suddenly noticed blood oozing over her left shoe. “Chloe? What’s the matter?”

“My shoe.” Wearily Chloe lifted her foot and showed that the rope sole of her shoe had worn clean through. For some miles she had been walking almost barefoot on the rocky road. Her foot was bleeding from a dozen wounds and lacerations. “You see,” she said. “It is no use. I cannot go on.”

Mr. Smith, who had been some distance ahead, came back to join them. “What new absurdity is this? We cannot afford these delays.” He saw Chloe’s foot: “Good God.” He said no more, but hurried to a nearby stream, brought water, and bathed the foot before bandaging it gently with strips of his shirt. “No, no,” he ignored her protest, “I shall do well enough without. But—you cannot go on thus.”

“No,” Chloe said. “You must leave me. Take my sister, and the baby. Remember, you said yourself that the news you carry is too important to be jeopardised by a mere girl.

He stood for a moment, looking down at her silently, then, “Wait here,” he said, “rest, and, if you know how, pray. If I do not return, you must try to get back to Lisbon. Dom Fernando will look after you, if you can reach him.”

“But what are you going to do?” Camilla asked.

“Beg, buy, or steal a mule—or two, or, best of all, three. If I am not back before the shadow of that tree falls across you, you will know that I have failed, and you must find your way back to Lisbon as best you may.”

“But,” Camilla protested, “you could go on alone without taking the risk. Leave us here. As you say, Dom Fernando will protect us.”

‘“If you reach him. No,” he anticipated her further protest, “it is no use. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to abandon you here. The message I carry is important, it is true, but there are other things more important still. Besides, we must hope that we will all carry it together.” And then, “Goodbye. Rest well. You will need all your strength when I return.”

He was gone. For a few moments, as they settled themselves in the little glade by the stream, neither girl spoke. At last, “Do you think he will return?” Camilla asked.

“Of course,” said Chloe. “He said he would.”

“I am glad you are so sure. We know so little about him. I did wonder whether this was not a gentler mode of leaving us.”

“What? After what he said? Camilla, how can you?” Surprised at her vehemence, Camilla said mildly, “Well, why not? We are nothing to him, the message he carries doubtless means everything, his career, his future ... Tell me, Chloe, who do you think he is? Do you realise we have never heard him speak in English, nor seen what he is really like: that filthy face—those ragged clothes—how can one possibly tell what is underneath. Do you think he is a gentleman?”

“I have no idea,” said Chloe. “I only know he is a man, and will return. And now, he told us to rest. It is a pity we cannot eat first, but for myself I am tired enough to sleep through worse hunger than this. I do not believe I slept at all last night.”

“And lucky for us you did not,” said Camilla as she obediently composed herself and little Edward for sleep. “I suppose Mr. Smith feels he owes it to you to return. After all, as he said, you did save his life last night.”

“Oh—a fiddlestick for Mr. Smith!” Chloe’s burst of temper surprised Camilla. “Stop talking, Camilla, and go to sleep.” Drifting off into a doze of nervous exhaustion, Camilla thought with amusement that her position and Chloe’s seemed to have reversed themselves of late. Now, it was Chloe who gave the orders, she who meekly obeyed. Well, it was restful. She slept.

She woke at last, to see Chloe bending anxiously over her. “Camilla? What time do you think it is?”

Camilla stretched, shivered, and tucked the shawl more closely round little Edward who still, blessedly, slept. “I have no idea. Oh! The sun has gone in.”

“Yes. I think there must be a storm coming.”

Camilla looked up at the tall tree whose shadow was to have been their clock. “For once,” she said, “Mr. Smith has not thought of everything. Now what do we do? I have a feeling it is late, Chloe. Surely, if he was coming, he would have returned long since. And it is certainly going to storm. Should we not try and find shelter? These trees will be useless if it really rains—and dangerous if it thunders.” She picked up little Edward as if ready to start at once.

“Are you mad, Camilla?” asked Chloe. “What is a wetting, compared to our chances of safety? Find shelter for yourself and Edward, if you must, but I shall stay here and wait for Mr. Smith.”

“Oh, very well.” Camilla sat down again faintly relieved at having her mind so definitely made up for her. “We will wait here a while longer.”

“We will wait till Mr. Smith comes,” said Chloe.

“But, Chloe, have you considered ... it is not only that he may have decided to go on alone ... he may have been discovered ... he may be dead by this.”

“I do not believe it,” said Chloe.

The minutes dragged, the clouds darkened, the air grew colder, and the two girls sat close together for warmth. They were silent now. There seemed nothing to say. A few large drops of rain fell in the clearing and the wind began to grumble among the trees.

“Chloe,” Camilla said, “it is getting dark.”

“It is the storm,” Chloe answered, and she jumped up and arranged her shawl over the branches of a tree so that it formed a kind of makeshift tent over their heads.

“But, Chloe, you cannot intend to stay through this.” For now the rain was falling fast, and the thunder rumbling nearer.

“I most certainly do.” Chloe’s look of white determination carried even more conviction than her words.

Camilla shrugged. “Very well, then. But I tell you it is madness. Mr. Smith is doubtless at the rendezvous now.”

“I do not believe it.” Once again they fell silent. Huddled together, they yet felt strange little currents of hostility playing between them as the rain began to penetrate their shelter. A large drop fell on Edward’s nose and he woke with a cry as forked lightning slashed to the ground dangerously near them.

Camilla was on her feet. “Now I am going, Chloe.”

Chloe was up too. “Listen,” she said.

They stood, for a moment, silent in the teeming rain, and then Camilla, too, heard the terrified braying of a mule nearby. Her hand found Chloe’s. “It cannot be,” she said.

“It is,” said Chloe.

A few moments later, Mr. Smith entered the clearing, riding a drenched mule and leading two others. “Thank God,” was his greeting. “I hoped the storm would prevent you from knowing how late I was. Now, we must lose no time. You have slept, I hope.”

“Yes.” Like him, Chloe was oddly matter-of-fact.

“Good. Then up you go.” He helped them to mount and led the way, without further words, out of the little clearing.

The rain teemed down, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and Mr. Smith rode on ahead as unconcernedly as if he had been in the Mall. Only, once, he turned to shout back, as always, in Portuguese, and with the flashing white grin they had come to know so well: “This is luck for us. No one but lunatics will be abroad tonight. We will risk taking the shortest way.”

So once more it was nightmare on mule-back. The girls were drenched to the skin and so, despite Camilla’s best efforts, was little Edward and howling resentfully as a result. But his cries were lost in the roaring of the wind and the fitful crash of thunder. There was no question of stopping; they rode on doggedly through the storm while its darkness was swallowed in that of night. At last, when they could hardly see Mr. Smith riding ahead of them, he paused to let them catch up.

“It is the next valley,” he said. “One more hill, and we are there. Keep close behind me, and let the mules find their own way.”

In single file, drenched and numbed beyond thought, they made the last climb and the even more precipitous descent into the valley of their rendezvous. There they found Mr. Smith, who had drawn slightly ahead during the descent, busy looking for dry bits of undergrowth. “It will be a pity,” he remarked calmly as they drew up, “if I cannot light the signal fire.” But even as he spoke he had it going, its flames crackling up in defiance of the slackening rain. “Watch,” he said to the girls. “Watch the sea as if your lives depended on it.”

“I collect they, do,” said Chloe, and then, “Look, there!”

And indeed far out to sea an answering flash had shown for an instant, then vanished. Once more it showed, and then again, before Mr. Smith extinguished his own fire. “No use calling more attention to ourselves than we must,” he said. “Now it is but to wait.”

“How long will it take?” Camilla asked.

“For them to get here? Some time, I fear, in this storm.”

And indeed it was a long, cold, desperate wait before they heard the sound of muffled oars and a boat pulled into the tiny harbour. Mr. Smith had warned the two girls to lie low until he had explained their presence to its occupants and now he went down alone to meet it. There was a brief colloquy and then he returned to fetch them. “All’s well,” he said, with his usual calm. And then, “Come.”

CHAPTER 12

Cold, drenched, and exhausted, the two girls were hauled aboard His Majesty’s frigate
Indomitable
more dead than alive, past caring about their bedraggled appearance. Conducted at once to a cabin that showed signs of having been hurriedly vacated, they collapsed on to its narrow beds pausing only to strip off their soaked outer garments and settle the baby in an open sea chest. For the time being, exhaustion was more powerful than hunger. All three of them slept heavily for the rest of the night, while outside the storm raged with increased vehemence. They woke to find the little cabin a swaying inferno and the next three days were a mere struggle to keep themselves and little Edward alive and unhurt. From above, they heard, from time to time, the sound of orders and hurrying feet as the ship battled her unsteady way through the gale. Their only communication with the outside world was through the tongue-tied sailor who appeared, at irregular intervals, with meals they did not want. Questioned, he bobbed shyly, said they were weathering the storm—he did not know where they were, or when they would reach England—and left them once more to their struggle for survival.

On the fourth day, the storm subsided, little Edward turned pink again, and Chloe began to fret about her clothes. “To think that we shall have to land in England like this.” She shook out the skirts of her black peasant’s dress, which had been shabby when she put it on and was now merely deplorable.

“Yes,” Camilla agreed, “like two bumboat women—or worse. Still, better to land in rags than not at all, and I fear it is rags or nothing. It seems hardly likely that there will be anything on board that we can borrow.”

Chloe laughed with something of her old light-heartedness. “I certainly do not intend going ashore in the full rig of a first lieutenant. Mr. Smith is luckier than we are. He is doubtless on deck this very moment, enjoying the sunshine in the guise of a rear admiral.”

“Or a ship’s cook,” said practical Camilla. “Remember, Chloe, that we know nothing in the world about him.”

“Except that he saved our lives,” said Chloe.

They were interrupted by a tap at the door and their sailor attendant appeared with a beaming face, and breakfast, to announce that it was a fine morning, a calm sea, and they were three days out from Falmouth. “And,” he concluded, “cap’n’s compliments, and will you ladies dine with him and the dook tonight?”

“Him and what?” asked Camilla.

“The dook, ma’am ... His Grace, cap’n says we’re to call ’un. Can’t think why, though a prettier sailor I never wish to see ... been on his legs right through the storm, he has, and never so much as turned green—and eat! I wish you could a’ seen ’im. Would a’ et an ’orse, he said, when he come aboard, and blimy but I believe him, only we didn’t have one ’andy.” He made his customary awkward bob and left them.

Alone, the two girls exchanged glances. “A duke?” said Chloe.

“Mr. Smith?” said Camilla.

“It cannot be,” said Chloe.

“Then who else?” asked Camilla.

“But what shall we wear?” wailed Chloe.

She spent the rest of the day trying to persuade Camilla that they should make an excuse to refuse the captain’s invitation: they were tired, they could not leave the baby, anything ... But Camilla was firm. A captain’s invitation, on his own ship, she said, was the equivalent of a royal command. There could be no question of refusing. As for their clothes—he must have known how they were circumstanced when he invited them. “It is but to carry the thing off with an air—and at least we have our jewels.”

But Chloe remained rebellious and it was with the greatest difficulty that Camilla prevailed upon her to do what she could for her appearance. This was, admittedly, not a great deal, for the dye provided by the Prioress had proved all too efficacious a one. Repeated washings had merely reduced Chloe’s golden hair from greasy black to dirty brown. Camilla sympathised but pointed out that at least Chloe’s face was now clean, as were her own and the baby’s. “And, besides, Mr. Smith—I mean the Duke—I wonder, by the by, what he is Duke
of
—has seen us looking much worse than this. And who cares about the captain?”