Part 5 (1/2)

”I am very glad to hear it,” answered L'Isle, without betraying that he knew it before. ”Even one English lady is a precious addition to our society in this dull place.”

”Mrs. Shortridge has never forgotten your rescuing her from under the feet of the idolatrous rabble of Lisbon. She is still a strong friend of yours, and will be delighted to see you, as soon as she is mistress of a decent apartment.”

”Where is she now?”

”Not far from here--but in such an abominable hole, that a lady is naturally ashamed to be caught there by any genteel acquaintance.”

”I am truly sorry to hear that she is so badly lodged.”

”Our officers,” said Shortridge, ”have taken up all the best houses; and the troops being quartered here has attracted such an additional population from the country around, that I was afraid I would have to carry Mrs. Shortridge to rooms in the barracks.”

”That will never do,” said L'Isle. ”But, pray, if I am in her neighborhood, let me call on Mrs. Shortridge, and welcome her to Elvas.”

Thus urged, the commissary led the way, and soon reached his lodgings. They found the lady in a room of some size, but dark, dirty, and offensive enough to eye and nose to disgust her with Elvas and drive her back to Lisbon, without unpacking the numerous trunks, baskets, band-boxes, and portable furniture which lumbered the room.

These her man-servant was arranging, under her direction, while she was good-humoredly trying to pacify her maid, who, with tears in her eyes, was protesting that she could not sleep another night in that coal-hole, into which the people of the house had thrust her, and which they would persist in calling a chamber.

Mrs. Shortridge, a plump and pretty woman of eight-and-twenty, was a good deal fluttered at seeing such a visitor at such a time. She declared ”that she did not know whether she was more delighted or ashamed to see Major--I beg your pardon--Colonel L'Isle, in such a place; we, who have been accustomed to a suite of genteel apartments wherever we went.”

L'Isle cast his eye around the forlorn and dismal walls. ”Let me beg you, Colonel L'Isle, to be conveniently near-sighted during your visit. I would not, for the world, have our present domicil, and our household arrangements, minutely inspected by your critical eye.”

Without minding her protest, he completed a deliberate survey; then said, suddenly, ”Why, Shortridge, how could you think of shutting up a lady in such a dungeon? If Mrs. Shortridge were not the best-tempered woman in the world, it would cause a domestic rebellion, and we would soon see her posting back to Lisbon, and London, perhaps, without leave or license. Do you forget how she yearns after the two little boys she left at home, that you venture to aggravate so her regrets at leaving England?”

”How can I help it?” said Shortridge, looking much out of countenance; ”I have been into a dozen houses, and these rooms are the largest and least comfortless I can find.”

”I would pitch my tent in the _praca_, and pa.s.s the winter in it,”

said L'Isle, ”sooner than share with these people the pig-sties they call their houses.”

”But a lady is not quite so hardy or fearless as a soldier,” said Mrs. Shortridge, ”and needs more substantial shelter and protection than a canvas wall.”

”I have some thoughts of getting rooms in the barracks,” said Shortridge; ”but it is not pleasant for a lady to be in the midst of the rank and file.”

”Of course not. By the by,” said L'Isle, as if he had just thought of it, ”I intend, as soon as I get quite well, to take quarters at the barracks; I lodge too far from the regiment now. I may as well hasten my removal, and transfer my present abode to you. My house is large, well situated, and not more dilapidated than every thing else is in this country. It will suit Mrs. Shortridge as well as a Portuguese house can suit an English lady.”

”But I cannot think of turning you out of it,” said Mrs.

Shortridge. ”You are still an invalid, and need every comfort and convenience about you.”

”I am nearly as well as I ever was in my life,” answered L'Isle; ”a little like the lean knight of La Mancha, it is true, but time and good feeding will soon cure that. And, let me tell you, good feeding is the order of the day here just now. I am only afraid we will eat up the country around, before the opening of the campaign. But my present house has a fault to me, which will be none to you. There is no stabling for my horses, unless I follow the Portuguese custom, and lodge them in the ground-floor of the house. I have to keep them at the barracks, and like to be so quartered that I can put my foot in the stirrup at a minute's warning.”

The commissary and his wife made many scruples at accepting his offer, but L'Isle overruled them, and at length it was settled that he should march out at the end of three days, and Mrs. Shortridge and suite should garrison the vacant post.

”And now I will leave you,” said L'Isle; ”I will finish my visit when you are more suitably lodged. I know how annoying it must be to a neat English woman to receive her friends in such a place as this.” And he left Mr. and Mrs. Commissary full of grat.i.tude for his attentions, and of a growing conviction that they were people of some importance and fas.h.i.+on.

The military gentlemen in Elvas had, most of them, abundant leisure on their hands, and, like the Athenians in St. Paul's day, spent their time in little else ”than either to tell or to hear some new thing every day.” Colonel Bradshawe, strolling about the _praca_ with this praiseworthy object, had the luck to meet with Adjutant Meynell, and at once began to pump him for news. But the adjutant, being a man of the same kidney, needed no pumping at all. He at once commenced laying open to the colonel, under the strictest injunctions to secrecy, the thing weighing most on his mind, which was the curious little conversation he had just held with his own colonel, not forgetting to give a few extra touches to the expressions of satisfaction that the news of Mrs. Shortridge's arrival had called forth. After sifting and twisting the matter to their own satisfaction, they parted, and the colonel continued his stroll, chewing the cud of the last news he had swallowed. An hour or so after, whom should he meet with, by the greatest good luck, but the commissary himself. Now, Shortridge was rather a favorite with the colonel, being a man who knew how to make himself useful. For instance, he was the very agent who had so judiciously declined purchasing the refuse sherry wines which Soult, Victor & Co. had contemptuously left on the market; while, with equal judgment and prompt.i.tude, he had laid in for the mess an abundant stock of the best port, malmsey and Madeira. Two such cronies, meeting for the first time for ten days, had much conference together; in the course of which the colonel learned all about the straits Mrs. Shortridge was put to for lodgings, and how she was to be relieved through the considerate kindness of L'Isle. This led to a minute account of the occasion on which their acquaintance began, and rather an exaggerated statement of the social relations existing between the aristocratic colonel and the Shortridge firm.

”I have been sometimes galled and ruffled by his haughty manner,” said the commissary; ”but now I know it is only his manner. He is very considerate of other people, and is getting more and more agreeable every day.”