Henty George Alfred
Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War
"We are cousins, you know, Terence," she said, "and as your arms are occupied, I have to take the initiative."
She was half laughing and half crying.
The guard hurried to get the portmanteaus out of the boot. As soon as he had placed them in the road he shouted to the coachman, and climbed up on to his post as the vehicle drove on; the passengers on the roof giving hearty cheers for the two disabled officers. By this time, the major was heartily shaking hands with O'Grady.
"I saw in the Gazette that you were hit again, O'Grady."
"Yes. I left one little memento of meself in Portugal, and it was only right that I should lave another in Spain. It has been worrying me a good deal, because I should have liked to have brought them home to be buried in the same grave with me, so as to have everything handy together. How they are ever to be collected when the time comes bothers me entirely, when I can't even point out where they are to be found."
"You have not lost your good spirits anyhow, O'Grady."
"I never shall, I hope, O'Connor; and even if I had been inclined to, Terence would have brought them back again."
As they stood chatting, a manservant had placed the portmanteaus on the box of a pretty open carriage, drawn by two horses.
"This is our state carriage, Terence, though we don't use it very often for, when I go about by myself, I ride. Mary has a pony carriage, and drives herself about.
"You remember Pat Cassidy, don't you?"
"Of course I do, now I look at him," Terence said. "It's your old soldier servant," and he shook hands with the man. "He did not come home with you, did he, father?"
"No, he was badly wounded at Talavera, and invalided home. They thought that he would not be fit for service again, and so discharged him; and he found his way here, and glad enough I was to have him."
Aided by his father and O'Grady, Terence took his place in the carriage. His father seated himself by his side, while Mary and O'Grady had the opposite seat.
"There is one advantage in losing legs," O'Grady said. "We can stow away much more comfortably in a carriage. Is this the nearest point to your place?"
"Yes. It is four miles nearer than Ballyhovey, so we thought that we might as well meet you here, and more comfortably than meeting you in the town. It was Mary's suggestion. I think she would not have liked to have kissed Terence in the public street."
"Nonsense, uncle!" Mary said indignantly. "Of course I should have kissed him, anywhere. Are we not cousins? And didn't he save me from being shut up in a nunnery, all my life?"
"All right, Mary, it is quite right that you should kiss him; still, I should say that it was pleasanter to do so when you had not a couple of score of loafers looking on, who would not know that he was your cousin, and had saved you from a convent."
"You are looking well, father," Terence said, to turn the conversation.
"Never was better in my life, lad, except that I am obliged to be careful with my leg; but after all, it may be that, though it seemed hard to me at the time, it is as well that I left the regiment when I did. Quite half the officers have been killed, since then. Vimiera accounted for some of them. Major Harrison went there, and gave me my step. Talavera made several more vacancies, and Salamanca cost us ten officers, including poor O'Driscoll. I am lucky to have come off as well as I did. It did not seem a very cheerful lookout, at first; but since this young woman arrived, and took possession of me, I am as happy and contented as a man can be."
"I deny altogether having taken possession of you, uncle. I let you have your way very much, and only interfere for your own good."
"You will have another patient to look after now, dear, and to fuss over."
"I will do my best," she said softly, leaning forward and putting her hand on that of Terence. "I know that it will be terribly dull for you, at first–after being constantly on the move for the last five years, and always full of excitement and adventure–to have to keep quiet and do nothing."
"I shall get on very well," he said. "Just as first, of course, I shall not be able to get about very much, but I shall soon learn to use my crutches; and I hope, before very long, to get a leg of some sort; and I don't see why I should not be able to ride again, after a bit. If I cannot do it any other way, I must take to a side saddle. I can have a leg made specially for riding, with a crook at the knee."
Mary laughed, while the tears came in her eyes.
"Why, bless me, Mary," he went on, "the loss of a leg is nothing, when you are accustomed to it. I shall be able, as I have said, to ride, drive, shoot, fish, and all sorts of things. The only thing that I shall be cut off from, as far as I can see, is dancing; but as I have never had a chance of dancing, since the last ball the regiment gave at Athlone, the loss will not be a very grievous one.
"Look at O'Grady. There he is, much worse off than I am, as he has no one to make any particular fuss about him. He is getting on capitally and, indeed, stumped about the deck so much, coming home, that the captain begged him to have a pad of leather put on to the bottom of his leg, to save the decks. O'Grady is a philosopher, and I shall try to follow his example."
"Why should one bother oneself, Miss O'Connor, when bothering won't help? When the war is over, I shall buy Tim Doolan, my soldier servant, out. He is a vile, drunken villain; but I understand him, and he understands me, and he blubbered so, when he carried me off the field, that I had to promise him that, if a French bullet did not carry him off, I would send for him when the war was over.
"'You know you can't do without me, yer honour,' the scoundrel said.
"'I can do better without you than with you, Tim,' says I. 'Ye are always getting me into trouble, with your drunken ways. Ye would have been flogged a dozen times, if I hadn't screened you. Take up your musket and join your regiment. You rascal, you are smelling of drink now, and divil a drop, except water, is there in me flask.'
"'I did it for your own good,' says he. 'Ye know that spirits always heats your blood, and water would be the best for you, when the fighting began; so I just sacrificed meself.
"'For,' says I to meself, 'if ye get fighting a little wild, Tim, it don't matter a bit; but the captain will have to keep cool, so it is best that you should drink up the spirits, and fill the flask up with water to quench his thirst.'"
"'Be off, ye black villain,' I said, 'or I will strike you.'
"'You will never be able to do without me, Captain,' says he, picking up his musket; and with that he trudged away and, for aught I know, he never came out of the battle alive."
The others laughed.
"They were always quarrelling, Mary," Terence said. "But I agree with Tim that his master will find it very hard to do without him, especially about one o'clock in the morning."
"I am ashamed of you, Terence," O'Grady said, earnestly; "taking away me character, when I have come down here as your guest."
"It is too bad, O'Grady," Major O'Connor said, "but you know Terence was always conspicuous for his want of respect towards his elders."
"He was that same, O'Connor. I did me best for the boy, but there are some on whom education and example are clean thrown away."
"You are looking pale, cousin Terence," Mary said.
"Am I? My leg is hurting me a bit. Ireland is a great country, but its by-roads are not the best in the world, and this jolting shakes me up a bit."
"How stupid I was not to think of it!" she said and, rising in her seat, told Cassidy to drive at a walk.
They were now only half a mile from the house.
"You will hardly know the old place again, Terence," his father said.
"And a very good thing too, father, for a more tumble-down old shanty I never was in."
"It was the abode of our race, Terence."
"Well, then, it says mighty little for our race, father."
"Ah! But it did not fall into the state you saw it in till my father died, a year after I got my commission."
"I won't blame them, then; but, at any rate, I am glad I am coming home to a house and not to a ruin.
"Ah, that is more like a home!" he said, as a turn of the road brought them in sight of the building. "You have done wonders, Mary. That is a house fit for any Irish gentleman to live in."
"It has been altered so that it can be added to, Terence; but, at any rate, it is comfortable. As it was before, it made one feel rheumatic to look at it."
On arriving at the house, Terence refused all assistance.
"I am going to be independent, as far as I can," he said and, slipping down from the seat into the bottom of the chaise, he was able to put his foot on to the ground and, by the aid of his crutches, to get out and enter the house unaided.
"That is the old parlour, I think," he said, glancing into one of the rooms.
"Yes. It is your father's snuggery, now. There is scarcely any alteration there, and he can mess about as he likes with his guns and fishing tackle and swords.
"This is the dining room, now."
And she led the way along a wide passage to the new part of the house, where a bright fire was blazing in a handsome and well-furnished room. An invalid's chair had been placed by the fire, and opposite it was a large, cosy armchair.
"That is for your use, Major O'Grady," she said. "Now, Terence, you are to lay yourself up in that chair. I will bring a small table to your side, and put your dinner there."
"I will lie down until the dinner is ready, Mary. But I am perfectly capable of sitting at the table. I did so the last week before leaving the ship."
"You shall do that tomorrow. You may say what you like, but I can see that you are very tired and, for today, you will take it easy. I am going to be your nurse, and I can assure you that you will have to obey orders. You have been in independent command quite long enough."
"It is of no use, Terence; you must do as you are told," his father said. "The only way to get on with this young woman is to let her have her own way. I have given up opposing her, long ago; and you will have to do the same."
Terence did not find it unpleasant to be nursed and looked after, and even to obey peremptory orders.
A month later, Mary came into the room quietly, one afternoon, when he was sitting and looking into the fire; as his father and O'Grady had driven over to Killnally. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he did not hear her enter.
Thinking that he was asleep, she paused at the door. A moment later she heard a deep sigh. She came forward at once.
"What are you sighing about, Terence? Your leg is not hurting you, is it?"
"No, dear, it has pretty well given up hurting me."
"What were you sighing about, then?"
He was silent for a minute, and then said:
"Well you see, one cannot help sighing a little at the thought that one is laid up, a useless man, when one is scarce twenty-one."
"You have done your work, Terence. You have made a name for yourself, when others are just leaving college and thinking of choosing a profession. You have done more, in five years, than most men achieve in all their lifetime.
"This is the first time I have heard you grumble. I know it is hard, but what has specially upset you, today?"
"I suppose I am a little out of sorts," he said. "I was thinking, perhaps, how different it might have been, if it hadn't been for that unlucky shell."
"You mean that you might have gone on to Burgos, and fallen in the assault there; or shared in that dreadful retreat to the frontier again."
"No. I was not thinking of Spain, nor even of the army. I was thinking of here."
"But you said, over and over again, Terence, that you will be able to ride, and drive, and get about like other people, in time."
"Yes, dear. In many respects it will be the same, but not in one respect."
Then he broke off.
"I am an ungrateful brute. I have everything to make me happy–a comfortable home, a good father, and a dear little sister to nurse me."
"What did I tell you, sir," she said, after a pause, "when I said goodbye to you at Coimbra? That I would rather be your cousin. You were quite hurt, and I said that you were a silly boy, and would understand better, some day."
"I have understood, since," he said, "and was glad that you were not my sister; but now, you see, things have altogether changed, and I must be content with sistership."
The girl looked in the fire, and then said, in a low voice:
"Why, Terence?"
"You know why," he said. "I have had no one to think of but you, for the last four years. Your letters were the great pleasures of my life. I thought over and over again of those last words of yours, and I had some hope that, when I came back, I might say to you:
"'Dear Mary, I am grateful, indeed, that you are my cousin, and not my sister. A sister is a very dear relation, but there is one dearer still.'
"Don't be afraid, dear; I am not going to say so now. Of course, that is over, and I hope that I shall come, in time, to be content to think of you as a sister."
"You are very foolish, Terence," she said, almost with a laugh, "as foolish as you were at Coimbra. Do you think that I should have said what I did, then, if I had not meant it? Did you not save me, at the risk of your life, from what would have been worse than death? Have you not been my hero, ever since? Have you not been the centre of our thoughts here, the great topic of our conversation? Have not your father and I been as proud as peacocks, when we read of your rapid promotion, and the notices of your gallant conduct? And do you think that it would make any difference to me, if you had come back with both your legs and arms shot off?
"No, dear. I am just as dissatisfied with the relationship you propose as I was three years ago, and it must be either cousin or–" and she stopped.
She was standing up beside him, now.
"Or wife," he said, taking up her hand. "Is it possible you mean wife?"
Her face was a sufficient answer, and he drew her down to him.
"You silly boy!" she said, five minutes afterwards. "Of course, I thought of it all along. I never made any secret of it to your father. I told him that our escape was like a fairy tale, and that it must have the same ending: 'and they married, and lived happy ever after.' He would never have let me have my way with the house, had I not confided in him. He said that I could spend my money as I pleased, on myself, but that not one penny should be laid out on his house; and I was obliged to tell him.
"I am afraid I blushed furiously, as I did so, but I had to say:
"'Don't you see, Uncle?'–of course, I always called him uncle, from the first, though he is only a cousin–'I have quite made up my mind that it will be my house, some day; and the money may just as well be laid out on it now, to make it comfortable; instead of waiting till that time comes.'"
"What did my father say?"
"Oh, he said all sorts of nonsense, just the sort of thing that you Irishmen always do say! That he had hoped, perhaps, it might be so, from the moment he got your letter; and that the moment he saw me he felt sure that it would be so, for it must be, if you had any eyes in your head."
When Major O'Connor came home he was greatly pleased, but he took the news as a matter of course.
"Faith," he said, "I would have disinherited the boy, if he had been such a fool as not to appreciate you, Mary."
O'Grady was loud in his congratulations.
"It is just like your luck, Terence," he said. "Luck is everything. Here am I, a battered hero, who has lost an arm and a foot in the service of me country, and divil a girl has thrown herself upon me neck. Here are you, a mere gossoon, fifteen years my junior in the service, mentioned a score of times in despatches, promoted over my head; and now you have won one of the prettiest creatures in Ireland and, what is a good deal more to the point, though you may not think of it at present, with a handsome fortune of her own. In faith, there is no understanding the ways of Providence."
A week afterwards the whole party went up to Dublin, as Terence and O'Grady had to go before a medical board. A fortnight later a notice appeared, in the Gazette, that Lieutenant Colonel Terence O'Connor had retired from the service, on half pay, with the rank of colonel.
The marriage did not take place for another six months, by which time Terence had thrown away his crutches and had taken to an artificial leg–so well constructed that, were it not for a certain stiffness in his walk, his loss would not have been suspected by a casual observer. For three months previous to the event, a number of men had been employed in building a small but pretty house, some quarter of a mile from the mansion, intended for the occupation of Majors O'Connor and O'Grady.
"It will be better, in every way, Terence," his father insisted, when his son and Mary remonstrated against their thus proposing to leave them. "O'Grady and I have been comrades for twenty years, and we shall feel more at home, in bachelor quarters, than here. I can run in three or four times a day, if I like, and I expect I shall be as much here as over there; whereas if I lived here, I should often be feeling myself in the way, though I know that you would never say so. It is better for young people to be together and, maybe some day, the house will be none too large for you."
The house was finished by the time the wedding took place, and the two officers moved into it. The wedding was attended by all the tenants, and half the country round; and it was agreed that the bride's jewels were the most magnificent that had ever been seen in that part of Ireland, though some objected that diamonds, alone, would have been more suitable for the occasion than the emeralds.
Terence, on his return, had heard from his father that his Uncle, Tim M'Manus, had called very soon after the major had returned to his old home. He had been very friendly, and had been evidently mollified by Terence's name appearing in general orders; but his opinion that he would end his career by a rope had been in no way shaken. He had, however, continued to pay occasional visits; and the rapid rise of the scapegrace, and his frequent mention in despatches, were evidently a source of much gratification to him; and it was not long after his return that his uncle again came over.
"We will let bygones be bygones, Terence," he said, as he shook hands with him. "You have turned out a credit to your mother's name, and I am proud of you; and I hold my head high when I say Colonel Terence O'Connor, who was always playing mischief with the French, is my great nephew, and the good M'Manus blood shines out clearly in him."
There was no one who played a more conspicuous part at the wedding than Uncle Tim. At his own request, he proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom.
"I take no small credit to myself," he said, "that Colonel Terence O'Connor is the hero of this occasion. Never was there a boy whose destiny was so marked as his, and it is many a time I predicted that it was not either by flood, or fire, or quietly in his bed that he would die. If, when the regiment was ordered abroad, I had offered him a home, I firmly believe that my prediction would be verified before now; but I closed my doors to him, and the consequence was that he expended his devilment upon the French; and it is a deal better for him that it is only a leg that he has lost, which is a much less serious matter than having his neck unduly stretched. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can say with pride that I have had no small share in this matter, and it is glad I am that, when I go, I can leave my money behind me, feeling that it won't all go to the dogs before I have been twelve months in my grave."
Another old friend was present at the wedding. Bull had made a slow recovery, and had been some time before he regained his strength. When he was gazetted out of the service, he secured a step in rank, and retired as a major. In after years he made frequent visits to Terence; to whom, as he always declared, he owed it that, instead of being turned adrift on a nominal pension, he was now able to live in comfort and ease.
When, four months later, Tim M'Manus was thrown out of his trap when driving home late at night, and broke his neck, it was found that he had left the whole of his property to Terence and, as the rents of his estate amounted to 600 pounds a year, no inconsiderable proportion of which had, for many years past, been accumulating, the legacy placed Terence in a leading position among the gentry of Mayo.
For very many years the house was one of the most popular in the county. It had been found necessary to make additions to it, and it had now attained the dignity of a mansion. The three officers followed, with the most intense interest, the bulletins and despatches from the war and, on the day when the allies entered Paris, the services of Tim Doolan, who had been invalided home a year after the return of his master, and had been discharged as unfit for further service, were called into requisition, for the first time since his return, to assist his master back to the house.
O'Grady, however, explained most earnestly to Mary O'Connor, the next day, that it was not the whisky at all, at all, but his wooden leg that had got out of order, and would not carry him straight.
Dick Ryan went through the war unscathed and, after Waterloo, retired from the service with the rank of lieutenant colonel; married, and settled at Athlone; and the closest intimacy, and very frequent intercourse, were maintained between him and his comrades of the Mayo Fusiliers.
Terence, in time, quite ceased to feel the loss of his leg; and was able to join in all field sports, becoming in time master of the hounds, and one of the most popular sportsmen in the county. His wife always declared that his wound was the most fortunate thing that ever happened to him for, had it not been for that, he would most likely have fallen in some of the later battles in the Peninsula.
"It is a good thing to have luck," she said, "and Terence had plenty of it. But it does not do to tempt fortune too far. The pitcher that goes too often to the well gets broken, in the end."
