Marry in Haste (9 page)

In his corner, Lavenham was asking himself if he had, perhaps, gone raving mad. Here he was, at the outset of what he intended to be a successful career in the diplomatic service, burdened with not one, but two of the females he detested. Now that there was time to think—for his wily old grandmother had allowed him quite as little as she had Camilla—he could only decide he was recovering, too late, from a fit of insanity. It would take more than his grandmother’s fortune to compensate him for its results. With an impatient sigh, he looked from the corner where Chloe slept, her face flushed, her mouth half open, her curls dishevelled under a lopsided bonnet, to Camilla in her dove-coloured dress, as neat asleep as awake, her face a little pale, as it had been all day, her eyes dark-shadowed, her hands loosely clasped in her lap. His wife. If he was mad, he thought, suddenly sorry for her, so was she to have accepted his terms. There was nothing ahead for either of them but trouble and sorrow. The migraine headache began to flicker once again behind his eyes. Best try not to think about it. He reached into a pocket of the coach, drew out the instructions Mr. Canning had had drawn up for him, and made himself concentrate on them.

The inn at Falmouth was far from luxurious, and it was a weary little party that boarded the packet next morning. Once out at sea, the fresh land breeze seemed to become a hurricane, the little ship tossed and shuddered, and Camilla found it increasingly difficult to endure Chloe’s tearing spirits. To Chloe, everything was exciting; even the idea of possible pursuit and capture by a French man-of-war seemed to delight her. She was free at least, the world before her, and nothing could subdue her.

Camilla, on the other hand, was worn out with the events of the past week and it was with a sensation of relief that she finally found herself so overcome by nausea that she had to admit her sickness and hurry below to her cabin. Chloe was all sympathy at once and during the wretched week that followed, Camilla thanked heaven, over and over again, for the lucky chance that had brought her with them. The maid, Frances, who had never even seen the sea before, had retired to her cabin before the boat left harbour; if it had not been for Chloe, Camilla would have been entirely dependent on her husband’s ministrations. It was an appalling thought, for it was all too obvious that he found a sick woman even less attractive than a well one. After the first visit of duty he paid her, she begged Chloe to keep him away and Chloe laughed and promised to do her best. ‘*Not that it will be difficult,” she added. “Poor Lee never could abide the sight of sickness. I think perhaps it was from seeing our father die,” she added as she prepared to bathe Camilla’s forehead with lavender water.

“Seeing what?”

“Did you not know? I thought my grandmother would have told you. You know about the duel, I collect?”

“Oh yes, Lady Leominster told me.” This was dangerous ground. If only her head did not ache so.

“Oh well, then,” Chloe went on cheerfully, “she cannot have told you that when they fought not only was my mother in the other carriage, she had Lee with her. If it came to flight she was going to take him too.”

“Good God! But what happened?”

“Why, when my father fell, Lee saw, jumped out of the carriage, and ran to him. They could not drag him away, and the runners found him there when they came up. Of course, my mother was gone by then; they could not afford to stay.”

“She left him there alone?”

“Yes, it is no wonder that he cannot abide the sight of blood, or, indeed, of illness of any kind. You can see,” she went on, “that in a way I was lucky. My mother never thought of taking me. I would have been far too much trouble. Indeed, I have been nothing but a trouble to everyone ever since,” she added with sudden passion.

Camilla reached out to catch her hand. “Not to me, Chloe,” she said. “I cannot think how I would have managed without you.”

Chloe pressed her hand fiercely. “I will never be a trouble to you, Camilla.”

CHAPTER 5

Life in Portugal proved everything that Lavenham had said. Chloe seemed neither to notice nor to mind the dirt, but Camilla was Frenchwoman enough to be appalled by the condition in which she found their house, and spent the first few weeks of her stay battling—in sign language—with her Portuguese servants in an effort to have it made habitable. They thought her quite mad, but luckily, liked her, and liked blond Chloe, with her smattering of Portuguese, still more. If the crazy
Inglesas
wanted their floors scrubbed to a fantastic standard of cleanliness, they should have them. Only in the servants’ quarters did Camilla have to give up the struggle. There, by an honourable compromise, chaos still reigned, with pigs and poultry happily sharing the apartments with the staff.

Their first few weeks were surprisingly peaceful. When they arrived the Court was at the Caldas da Rainha taking the waters, and, since Lord Strangford was there too, Lavenham felt obliged to join him, leaving his wife and sister to their domestic devices. It would be time enough, he said, for them to make their appearance in society when he—and the Court—returned. They had found British society in Lisbon sadly shrunk since he had been there last. Bonaparte’s demands on Dom John, the Prince Regent, had not been limited to the closing of his ports against English ships: he also wanted the thriving British colony banished from Portugal and their possessions expropriated. And the Regent, while trying desperately to please both sides, had strongly advised the English residents to sell up and go while the going was good. The English factory was closed, its staff gone, and until they had made their debut in Portuguese society, Camilla and Chloe were almost entirely dependent on each other for companionship.

But then, there was so much to do and see and talk about. The weather was just what they had expected, but so far they had not found it too hot, revelling in a warmth and richness that made their light muslins practical almost for the first time in their lives. Their house, which stood on a hill at the eastern end of Lisbon, had a broad marble terrace overlooking the harbour, and here, every evening, they sat, alternating between sun and shade as the spirit moved them, Chloe growing browner every day, while even Camilla was gradually losing the sallow tinge that had previously marred her pale complexion. Soon she too was faintly brown, with a health that made Chloe exclaim one evening as they settled themselves with books and work, “Why, you are growing quite a beauty, Camilla. Lavenham will be amazed when he returns.”

Camilla laughed. “If he notices,” she said. She found Chloe wonderfully easy company these days and was increasingly grateful for the chance that had brought her with them. Though in many ways an adult, Chloe still had a child’s easy acceptance of a situation. She did not seem to find it strange that Lavenham should have abandoned his bride to go and dance attendance on the Court, nor that he and Camilla had their own independent apartments in the house. If no one else appeared to find this odd, then neither would she. Perhaps, Camilla thought, she was too happy to notice much. Freed at last from the tyranny of the schoolroom, she blossomed each day into new life and gaiety. She was not endowed with a particularly deep or serious nature and it was indeed remarkable how happily ignorant she had contrived to remain after all those years of forced study. Her genius was for happiness, not learning, and she contrived to find and convey to Camilla a fresh delight in every detail of their new life. Presently, Camilla feared, she might, since she had so few resources within herself, begin to find their simple daily round monotonous, but by then, no doubt, Lavenham would have returned and Portuguese society would provide a new scene of pleasure and interest.

As for Camilla, she, too, was very happy in her own, quieter way. This breathing space of Lavenham’s necessary absence could be given up to the pleasure of being a married woman, someone with a place in the world at last. And it was all Lavenham’s doing. There was a deep, quiet pleasure in setting his house in order against his return, which, she hoped, would not be much longer deferred. A feeling of tension hung about Lisbon these hot days of early summer: rumours ran the streets in the daytime, as packs of scavenging dogs did by night, and Camilla did not know which she found more disturbing, the whispers that ran, incomprehensibly, through the Great Square by day, or the desolate howling of the dogs at night. She would be glad when Lavenham returned, with his understanding of the language and the situation.

The Prince Regent came back at last, rowing down the Tagus in the royal barge on the eve of the Festival of Corpus Christi. Chloe was delighted and spent the morning watching the animated scene on the river from the terrace of the house, running in, from time to time, to urge Camilla to come out and join her, or to ask if there had been any news of Lavenham. Her anxiety for his return was considerably heightened by the fact that Camilla had positively refused to take her to see the procession next day unless he should be there to escort them.

When he arrived at last, tired, and travel-stained from a morning’s jolting over the rough Portuguese roads, Chloe rushed to throw her arms around him and put her request. “Lee, you are here at last! Oh, Lee, you will take us tomorrow, will you not? Camilla will not go without you, she is grown positively matronly while you have been gone. Oh, Lee, we can go, can we not?”

With something half-way between a laugh and a groan, he disengaged himself from her embrace and held her at arm’s length, looking over her head to Camilla, who had followed her, more calmly, into the carriageway behind the house. “Quiet, child, a moment.” To Camilla’s relief, the rebuke was a gentle one. “You are both well, I can see,” he went on. “I must ask your pardon for leaving you so long alone,” he was addressing Camilla now; “we have been expecting, daily, the order to return, but Dom John, excellent man, has a perfect genius for vacillation. I am only relieved that his beloved church has brought him at last. It is, I collect, unthinkable, that one of the great festivals should take place in his absence.” And then, to Chloe: “So you wish to see the procession tomorrow? I promise you, it will prove disappointing and tawdry enough, but if you have been behaving yourself, why, we shall see.”

“Oh, Lee, I have been a perfect angel, a model of all the virtues, have I not, Camilla? We have hardly stirred from the house, and I have sewed, and studied, and slept like an absolute paragon. Truly, I deserve a treat, and so does Camilla, who has been so busy and domestic that I doubt you will not recognise the house. Why, it smells almost like Haverford Hall, instead of the stables it seemed when we arrived.”

Laughing, he took an arm of each and led them indoors, through the enthusiastic crowd of servants who had hurried out to welcome him. In the main salon, Chloe seized his hand and hurried him enthusiastically here and there to see the improvements Camilla had made, but Camilla, who had noticed the telltale furrow between his eyes, soon intervened, partly, she realised, to protect Chloe herself from the explosion she could see was imminent.

“Your brother is tired, my love,” she said, and then, to Lavenham, “Would you not be glad to retire for a while and recover from the fatigue of the journey? We do not dine till six; it will be time enough then to hear your news and talk of tomorrow.”

Chloe laughed. “I told you she was the complete matron, Lavenham. You had best do as she bids you.”

It was spoken thoughtlessly enough, but Camilla coloured up to the eyes at the suggestion that she was acting the part of a managing wife and began a stammered apology.

Lavenham cut her short, addressing Chloe in repressive tones. “I shall indeed do as Camilla bids me,” he said, “since she has suggested the very thing I most desire, rest. As for tomorrow, we will talk of that later. In the meantime,” he had reached the door, but now turned to speak once more to Camilla, “are you very busy, or could you, perhaps, spare the time to give me some more of that massage that proved so miraculous for my head at Exeter? I have been plagued with the headache since I saw you last, and if we are to take this bad child to see the procession tomorrow, I had as lief be rid of it.”

Camilla, who had been longing to volunteer her services, was equally delighted at his request, and at the kinder tone he used towards Chloe. Besides, she was glad of the chance to accompany him to his rooms and talk to him alone. She had done her best to keep her anxiety about the state of things in Lisbon to herself, considering Chloe too young to be burdened with such worries, but it was an immense relief to be able to ask Lavenham whether he thought an invasion by France, or Spain, or even both, to be imminent. It was an even greater relief to have him pooh-pooh her fears. “Do you think I would have left you and Chloe alone if there had been any chance of it? No, no, there will be much more of the kind of political blackmail of which Bonaparte is such a master before he moves to the attack. I do not expect any trouble before autumn. Ah, that is better,” and he gave himself up, with a sigh of relief, to the soothing pressure of her hands.

Camilla was waked at first light next morning by a hideous din, which, as she came gradually to complete consciousness, resolved itself into the jangling of all the church bells in the city, mingled with the rolling of drums and the harsh braying of trumpets. The Festival of Corpus Christi had begun. They met early for their breakfast of excellent coffee and coarse, indifferent bread and Camilla was glad to see that Lavenham’s brow was clear and to have him assure her that he had quite slept his headache away. She had given up the effort to persuade the servants to produce an English breakfast for herself and Chloe, but was amused to see ham and eggs appear, as if by magic, for Lavenham. Clearly, she teased him, men were still the lords of creation, at least in Portugal.

Chloe’s thoughts, of course, were all on the procession this morning, but, warned by Camilla, she managed to refrain from mentioning it until her brother had finished his breakfast. She was rewarded for her patience when he rose from the table Camilla had had set up in the sunshine of the terrace, smiled from one to the other of them, and asked, “And now, how do you ladies wish to celebrate my first day at home?”

Chloe, who had been wandering restlessly to and fro between the garden and the terrace, ran to him at once. “Oh, Lee, by going to see the procession, please ... It is quite near, I have found out all about it, and it starts from the Church of St. Vincent at our end of the town. We could almost walk there, and everybody says it is something quite out of the ordinary.”

He turned to Camilla. “What say you, my dear? Shall we gratify this child’s passion for spectacles?”