Sue Petigru Bowen - The Actress in High Life
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Sue Petigru Bowen >> The Actress in High Life
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"But the same testimony proves them to have been bad Spanish, even to
the ears of a Portuguese borderer, and evidently used by foreigners
for the purpose of disguise, like the dresses they wore. Who ever
heard of a Spaniard breaking a man's head, when he could give him the
blade of his knife? The farmer's bloody crown was a plain piece of
English handicraft. Spaniards would have rummaged the house for _la
plata_, and have snatched the earrings from the women's ears; the
robbers, a more thirsty race, thought chiefly of carrying off the
liquor."
The number and loud voices of those opposed to him only made L'Isle
more stubborn in maintaining his views. He seemed rather to like being
in a minority of one. On the other hand, Lord Strathern construed his
remarks into an undisguised censure of his lax discipline. Luckily he
was a truly hospitable man: nowhere, but at his own board, could he
have kept his temper under control. Between the fumes of wine and
smoke of cigars, the matter only became more and more cloudy. It was
late when L'Isle left the table and entered the drawing-room, with a
brow still ruffled by the controversy.
Striving to resume his equanimity, he took a seat by Lady Mabel. But
she, by no means pleased at the long absence of her interpreter, and
his late neglect in attending on her, pushed her chair back, and said
something about "falling into bad habits."
"Do you think so?" said L'Isle, looking surprised, then reflecting a
moment. "Why, Lady Mabel, I am not aware of having committed any
excess, at least of the kind you suspect."
"Why, then, do you come from below so much heated and excited?"
"I have been engaged in a hot argument with my Lord, and others."
"Coolness would be more appropriate to argument than heat. But this
was plainly an after-dinner discussion. The subject should be handled
a second time, in imitation of those wise barbarians, who resolved on
nothing until they had twice taken counsel, once of their cups, and
then of cool sobriety the morning after."
"I feel no need of appealing to the cool reflecting morning hours."
"Of course you do not feel it now; that, too, will come with the sober
morning."
L'Isle, a good deal nettled, was about to reply, when she exclaimed,
"Why, you have been smoking!"
"No, I have only been smoked."
"That is just as unpleasant," she said, pushing her chair farther
off. "The Portuguese snuff-taking is offensive enough, but this
Spanish habit of smoking perpetually is intolerable. Wherever our
officers go they pick up the small vices of the country, without
abandoning any of their own. Here they add smoking to their native
wine-bibbing propensities. They spoil a man utterly."
"Not utterly," said L'Isle; "there is Warren now, a capital fellow, a
delightful companion, and an inveterate smoker."
"For that I cannot abide him," said Lady Mabel, out of humor with
everybody.
"There is your friend, Colonel Bradshawe, who sets no little store by
his wine and cigar."
"He is intolerable with them, and would be a bore without them."
"But my Lord himself smokes. Will you not tolerate him?"
"He is an old man, a general officer, and my father," said Lady
Mabel. "After a life of hard service in the worst climates in the
world, he may need indulgences not necessary to younger men. Besides,
he is obliged to see so much of his officers. If he could choose his
companions, he would lead a very different life. When we happen to be
alone here," continued Lady Mabel, "he never sits long after dinner,
seldom touches a cigar, and it is evidently only his position, and the
habits forced upon him in a long military career, which interfere with
his quiet tastes and love of domestic life."
L'Isle looked at Lady Mabel to see if she was in earnest. She had only
said what she willingly believed on rather slight foundations. In
truth, the novelty of having his daughter with him on the few
occasions on which they were here left alone together, had proved of
quite sufficient interest to enable Lord Strathern to dispense with
other society and excitements, and led him to look back and to speak
much of his short married life, and far beyond that, the days of his
boyhood. L'Isle found himself convicted of contributing, with others,
to mar the comfort and spoil the habits of the most abstemious and
domestic old gentleman in the king's service. This was plainly a point
on which it was not safe to contradict Lady Mabel, if he would keep in
her good graces--so he gladly waved the discussion.
Mrs. Shortridge, under the reviving influence of her love of
sight-seeing, now asked L'Isle to suggest some excursion for them, on
which they might see something new. But she begged that it might be
within a reasonable distance, for she had been so thoroughly shaken on
the rough paths to and from Evora, that she was not yet up to another
long ride.
"Cranfield has just been talking of Fort la Lippe," said L'Isle,
"which overlooks us from the North. Let us make up a party to visit it
to-morrow. Cranfield can entertain and instruct us by discoursing on
this masterpiece of the Count de Lippe, and unveil the mysteries of
the engineer's art. In the intervals, we can, from that high point,
survey the country around us."
Cranfield eagerly seconded the proposal. Anything that looked like
diversion was welcome to the ladies and the idlers about them, and
Lady Mabel, somewhat mollified, condescended to approve of it.
Accordingly, the next morning she met, by appointment, Mrs.
Shortridge and the three Portuguese ladies at the foot of the long
flight of steps that lead up to the cathedral of Elvas. They were
accompanied by L'Isle, Cranfield, and half a dozen gentlemen more,
including the young surgeon of the ---- regiment, who was always
imagining that Lady Mabel had a cold, headache, or some other little
ailment, that he might have the pleasure of prescribing for it.
Irreverently turning their backs on the old church, without one prayer
to the saints within, or those depicted on its windows of stained
glass, they walked out of town down into the narrow valley lying north
of the city, and crossing the brook which runs at the bottom (the
Portuguese, making a river of it, have christened it the Seto), on the
few stepping-stones which well supply the place of a foot-bridge, they
toiled up the opposite hill, the lower part of which is covered with a
grove of prickly oaks.
On reaching the gate Captain Cranfield stepped forward to the head of
the party, and entered zealously on his duties as _cicerone_. He led
them through the spacious barracks, in which the scanty garrison
seemed buried in monastic seclusion; through the huge store-houses and
bomb-proof kitchens and bakeries; showed them the vast tank containing
water for a full garrison for a year; and what was better, a natural
spring, welling out mysteriously within the circuit of the works. From
the ramparts of this huge coronet that crowned the head of this
eminence, he pointed out the strength of the position, the efficiency
of the works, and their importance to the safety of Elvas. From this
stronghold, with the works of the city and Fort St. Lucia on the other
side of it, lying before them, Cranfield discoursed at length on his
art, dealing largely in its technical terms: bastions, and curtains,
covered ways, scarps and counter scarps, with ravelins thrown out in
front of them, until Mrs. Shortridge, who listened with open-mouthed
admiration, got so confused that she imagined that a ravelin was some
kind of missile to be hurled at the French. Dona Carlotta and the
other Portuguese ladies were not so attentive, not understanding the
language of the lecturer, and feeling less interest in the defence of
their country than in the attentions of the foreign officers, who were
devoting themselves to their special service. But Lady Mabel, who
prided herself on being a soldier's daughter, lent a willing ear to
Cranfield, asked many questions, and even contrived to understand much
that he had to say.
L'Isle now thought that the engineer had held the first place in Lady
Mabel's attention long enough; so he broke in upon his eulogy on this
inland Gibraltar, the master-piece of "_o gran Conde de Lippe_."
"The whole thing is certainly grand and complete in itself," said he,
looking around; "and is a monument to the engineering talents of the
Count de Lippe. But, after all, constructing a great fortress in
Portugal is like building a ducal palace on a dairy farm; the thing
may be very fine in itself, but is altogether out of place. Half a
dozen such strongholds as Elvas, with its forts, would swallow up the
Portuguese army, yet be but half garrisoned, and leave not a man to
take the field. See the extent of the works between this and St.
Lucia, that other sentinel standing guard over Elvas on the south. It
would need twelve thousand men to garrison the city and the forts. I
never heard that this fortress was of use to any but the French, who
got it without fighting; and the possession of it helped them to
obtain the convention of Cintra; but for which we would have tumbled
Junot and his fellows into the Tagus. The Count de Lippe was
wonderfully successful in regenerating the army, and restoring the
military character of Portugal in the last century; but his
countryman, Schomberg, in the century before, showed how Portugal
could be better defended, and we have now in the country one who
understands it better than the Duke de Schomberg himself."
There was so much truth in what L'Isle said, that Cranfield was
obliged to yield up his impregnable fortress as a very fine thing in
itself, but quite out of place.
"I gather from your remarks," said Lady Mabel, "that Portugal has
often had a foreigner at the head of its army."
"Very often, indeed," answered L'Isle. "This same kingdom, which, in
spite of its narrow territory and small population, had, through the
enterprise of its rulers and the energy of the people, extended its
conquests in the East and the West; which, in the sixteenth century
had thirty-two foreign kingdoms and four hundred and thirty garrisoned
towns tributary to it--has now so much degenerated in its
institutions, that for two centuries it has never been able to defend
itself, or even make a decent showing in the field, but by foreign aid
and under a foreign leader. The Duke of Schomberg, Archduke Charles,
the Count de Lippe the Prince of Waldeck, and other Germans, have in
turn led the army, and each had to reorganize it, and revive its
discipline. Now, they rely on Beresford to train them for battle, and
Wellington to lead them to victory. The Count de Lippe found the
military character so sunk, that officers were often seen waiting at
the tables of their colonels; and the sense of individual honor was so
lost, that one of his first reforms was to insist on his officers
fighting when insulted, if they would not be cashiered."
"The former greatness of Portugal," said Lady Mabel, "is even more
wonderful than its present decay. Yet that is lamentable, indeed, when
the government, without striking a blow, could run away from the
country on the approach of the invader."
"That might have been called an act of deliberate wisdom," said
L'Isle, "had it not been stamped with feebleness and cowardice in the
execution. Resistance was hopeless against France united with Spain,
its tool, and soon to be its victim. Yielding to the storm left the
invaders without apology for the plunder and atrocities the French
have since perpetrated on the people. Nor was it a sudden thought. As
long ago as the beginning of the last century, a Portuguese Secretary
of State, seeing the defenceless condition of his country, urged that
the King should remove to Brazil, and fix his court at Rio Janeiro. He
points out the dependent state of his country in Europe, and asks:
'What is Portugal?' A corner of land divided into three parts; one
barren, one belonging to the church, and the other part not even
producing grain enough for the inhabitants. Look now at Brazil, and
see what is wanting! The soil is rich, the climate delightful, the
territory boundless, and the city would soon become more flourishing
than Lisbon. Here he might extend his commerce, make discoveries in
the interior, and take the title of Emperor of the West.' In truth,
the behavior of the house of Braganza in this migration, contrasts
well with the infamous conduct of the Spanish Bourbons."
They had strolled on to the foot of a tower within the fort, and
Cranfield led the party to the top to survey the panorama around them.
The horizon was pretty equally divided between Portugal and Spain. On
the North, close at hand, rose the rugged Serra de Portalegre, famous
for its chesnut forests; to the west was the fertile plain of Eastern
Alemtejo, crossed by the enormous pile of the aqueduct, and backed by
the heights of Serra D'Ossa; to the south and east, the valley of the
Guadiana lay before them, with few marks of culture on the Spanish
side; and the eye could range over the sheep pastured plains of
Estremadura to the misty sides and blue tops of the sierras that shut
them in on either hand.
In the East, nine miles off, by the straight path the vulture makes,
rose Badajoz, capped by its castle, and over-looked by fort San
Christoval on a high hill across the river. The fame of its sieges
during this war, its stubborn defence and bloody fall within the year,
drew the eyes of the ladies on it. L'Isle pulled out a field glass to
aid them in inspecting it. When the Portuguese ladies got hold of it,
they were as much delighted as children with a new toy, snatching it
out of each other's hands, without allowing time for its deliberate
use, and protesting against their Spanish neighbors being brought so
near to them.
"If they are so delighted at the powers of this little thing," said
L'Isle, "what would they think of the glass Lord Wellington had put up
in this tower during the siege of Badajoz?"
"Were its powers so great?" Mrs. Shortridge asked.
"Wonderful, according to rumor," answered L'Isle, "But I never had
time to come from the trenches to prove them. It is said to have
brought Badajoz so near, that you saw how the French soldiers made
their soup, and even smell the garlic they put into it. Once, when my
Lord saw Philipon leaning against the parapet of the castle, sneering
at the besieger's clumsy approaches, he so far forgot himself, as to
call for his holsters, that he might pistol the contemptuous Frenchmen
on the spot."
"Did he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge; then laughing at herself
for being quizzed for the moment, begged L'Isle to tell this to the
Portuguese ladies, and see if they would not believe it.
Meanwhile, Lady Mabel was gazing thoughtfully over the winding valley,
which running toward them from the East, turned abruptly to the South,
indicating the course of the Guadiana, and on the wide plains of
Estremadura _baja_, or the lower, to the blue sierras that walled it
round. "This, then, is Spain," said she; "the land I have read of,
dreamed of, and for the last four years, thought of more even than of
my own."
"And yet," said L'Isle, "you calling yourself a traveler, have been
for months within sight of it, and have never set your foot on Spanish
ground."
"I blush to own it. But you, my self-appointed guide, should blush,
too, at never having led me thither. Come, Mrs. Shortridge: these
soldiers are too slow for us; let us take horse to-morrow, and make an
inroad into Spain."
"Willingly," said Mrs. Shortridge. "But let us take a strong party
with us. We do not know how we might be received, should the Spaniards
mistake us for Portuguese!"
"If a visit to Badajoz is your object," said Cranfield, "I offer
myself as a guide. As I have been lately engaged in repairing its
shattered walls, I may be useful in showing you how to get in.
Knowing, too, some of the Spanish officers there, I may in a parley
induce them to come to terms."
They now descended from the tower, and on leaving the fort, Lady Mabel
led the party to head-quarters, to take their luncheon there, while
they planned their measure for to-morrow's expedition to Badajoz.
CHAPTER XV.
"Where Lusitania and her sister meet,
Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide?
Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet,
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide?
Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride?
Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall?
No barrier wall, no river deep and wide,
No horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall,
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul.
But these between, a silver streamlet glides,
And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook;
Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides,
Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook,
And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,
That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow,
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke;
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know
'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low."
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_.
The next morning early a numerous party issued from the eastern gate
of Elvas. The descending road led them between groves of olives, whose
sad colored foliage was relieved by the bright hues of the almond
tree, clothed with pink blossoms, the scarlet flowering pomegranate,
the dark, rich green of the orange-tree, already spangled over with
small white blossoms, yet still laden with its golden fruit, and the
prune trees of Elvas, favorites through the world, leafless as yet,
but conspicuous by the clouds of white flowerets which covered them.
The roofs of the suburban quintas showed themselves here and there
above the orchards, and by the roadside the _iris alata_ bloomed on
every bank.
The air is balmy, the scene lovely, and all nature smiling with the
sweet promises of Spring. Is this the goddess Flora leading down a
joyous train to the fields below? It is only Lady Mabel cantering
somewhat recklessly down hill. When she reached the more level ground,
she so far out-rode the ladies of her party, who were mounted on
mules, that, tired of loitering for them to come up, she proposed to
L'Isle, who had kept by her side, to employ their leisure in ascending
the bare hill on their left, to examine the old tower, that stood
solitary and conspicuous on its top. From the clearness of the
atmosphere it seemed nearer than it was, and the broken ground
compelled them to make a circuit before they reached it. Hence they
looked down upon their friends, crawling at a snail's pace along the
road to Badajoz. They rode round the weather-beaten, ruinous tower. It
was square, with only one small entrance, many feet above the ground,
and leading into a small room amidst the thick walls.
"What could this have been built for?" Lady Mabel asked.
"It is one of those watch-towers called _atalaias_," answered
L'Isle. "Many of them are scattered along the heights on the border.
They are memorials of an age in which one of people's chief
occupations was watching against the approach of their neighbors."
"Stirring times, those," said Lady Mabel. "People could not then
complain that their vigilance was lulled to sleep by too great
security; but this is, perhaps, a more comfortable age."
"To us in our island home," said L'Isle. "The improvement is more
doubtful here. There was a time when your forefathers and mine thus
kept watch against each other; when our own border hills were crowned
with similar watch-towers; but never did any country continue so long
a debatable land, and need, for so many centuries, the watch-tower and
the signal fire on its hills, as this peninsula during the slow
process of its redemption from the crescent to the cross."
"From this point," said Lady Mabel, "Elvas and Badajoz look like two
giant champions facing each other, in arms, each, for the defence of
his own border, yet one does not see here any of those great natural
barriers that should divide nations."
"They are wanting, not only here," said L'Isle, "but on other parts of
the frontier. The great rivers, the Duoro, the Tagus and the Guadiana,
and the mountain chains separating their valleys, instead of dividing
the two kingdoms, run into Portugal from Spain. The division of these
countries is not natural, but accidental; and in spite of some points
of contrast, the Portuguese are almost as much like the Spaniards, as
these last are like each other--for Spain is in truth a variety of
countries, the Spaniards a variety of nations."
"At length, however," said she, "Spain and Portugal are united in one
cause."
"Yet the Portuguese still hates the Spaniards," said L'Isle, "and the
Spaniard contemns the Portuguese."
"And we despise both," said Lady Mabel.
"Perhaps unjustly," said he.
"Why, to look no further into their short-comings and back-slidings,
to use Moodie's terms, have they not signally failed in the first duty
of a nation, defending itself?"
"Remember the combination of fatalities that beset them," said L'Isle,
"and the atrocious perfidy that aggravated their misfortunes. Both
countries were left suddenly without rulers, distracted by a score of
contending _juntas_, to resist a great nation, under a government of
matchless energy, the most perfectly organized for the attainment of
its object, which is not the good of its subjects, but solely the
developement, to the uttermost, of its military power. They at once
sunk before it, showing us how completely the vices of governments,
and yet more, the sudden absence of all government, can paralyze a
nation. But they have since somewhat redeemed their reputation, by
many an example of heroism."
"Why did not the nation, as one man, imitate the heroes of Zaragoza
and Gerona, and wage, like them, war to the knife's point against the
infidel and murderous horde of invaders?" exclaimed Lady Mabel, with a
flushed cheek and flashing eye, that would have become Augustina
Zaragoza herself.
"Because every man is not a hero, nor in a position to play a hero's
part. Spain was betrayed and surprised. The invaders came in the guise
of friends, under the faith of treaties, by which the flower of the
Spanish army had been marched into remote parts of Europe as allies to
the French; nor was the mask thrown off until long after it was
useless to wear it."
"Did the world ever before witness such complicated perfidy?"
"Perhaps not. But I trust it is about to witness its failure and
punishment."
"_We_ and the Czar will have to administer it," said Lady Mabel, with
the air of an arbitress of nations. "We cannot look for much help from
our besotted allies here."
"It must be confessed," said L'Isle, "that an unhappy fatality in
council and in action, has beset the Portuguese and Spaniards,
throughout the war. They have too often shown their patriotism by
murdering their generals, underrating their enemies and slighting
their friends. They have, too, attained the very acme of blundering;
doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and choosing the wrong man to
do it."
"Say no more," exclaimed Lady Mabel. "If that be the verdict you find
against our allies, I will not accuse you of blindness to their
faults. They are unworthy of the lovely and romantic land they live
in," she added, gazing on the scene before her. "What beautiful
mountain is that which trenches so close upon the border, as if it
would join itself to the Serra de Portalegre?"
"It is the mountain of Albuquerque, so called from a town at its
foot."
"That was the title of the Spanish duke, who died lately in London,"
Lady Mabel remarked.
"And in one sense the most unfortunate Spaniard of our day," added
L'Isle. "Of the highest rank among subjects, uniting in his person
names famous in Spanish history; he was brave and patriotic, and
though still young, one of the few Spanish leaders whose enterprize
did not lead to disaster. But the Supreme Junta, in its jealousy would
never entrust him with any but subordinate commands, subjecting him to
the orders of Castanos Cuesta, and other inefficient leaders whose
blunders his good conduct often covered. When, at length Andalusia was
lost by the folly and cowardice of others, he only had his wits about
him, and by a speedy march saved Cadiz. The rabid democrats of the
city repaid him with ingratitude and insults, which drove him into
exile; and, denied the privilege of falling in defence of his country,
he died broken-hearted in a foreign land."
"Are these people worth fighting for?" exclaimed Lady Mabel,
indignantly, reining back her horse, as if about to abandon her
Spanish allies to their own folly.
"Perhaps not," said L'Isle, "if we were not also fighting for
ourselves. Spain is a convenient field on which to drub the
French. But it is time to follow our party."
They now left the hill and getting back into the road, galloped after
their friends, but did not overtake them until they had reached the
little river Cayo, which here divides Portugal from Spain. The ladies,
on their mules, were grouped together in doubt and hesitation on this
bank, while several of the gentlemen were riding about in the water,
searching for holes in the bed of the stream, which was swollen and
turbid from the late rains.
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