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<h2> CHAPTER III. LADY O’MOY </h2>
<p>Across the frontier in the northwest was gathering the third army of
invasion, some sixty thousand strong, commanded by Marshal Massena, Prince
of Esslingen, the most skilful and fortunate of all Napoleon’s generals, a
leader who, because he had never known defeat, had come to be surnamed by
his Emperor “the dear child of Victory.”</p>
<p>Wellington, at the head of a British force of little more than one third
of the French host, watched and waited, maturing his stupendous strategic
plan, which those in whose interests it had been conceived had done so
much to thwart. That plan was inspired by and based upon the Emperor’s
maxim that war should support itself; that an army on the march must not
be hampered and immobilised by its commissariat, but that it must draw its
supplies from the country it is invading; that it must, in short, live
upon that country.</p>
<p>Behind the British army and immediately to the north of Lisbon, in an arc
some thirty miles long, following the inflection of the hills from the sea
at the mouth of the Zizandre to the broad waters of the Tagus at Alhandra,
the lines of Torres Vedras were being constructed under the direction of
Colonel Fletcher and this so secretly and with such careful measures as to
remain unknown to British and Portuguese alike. Even those employed upon
the works knew of nothing save the section upon which they happened to be
engaged, and had no conception of the stupendous and impregnable whole
that was preparing.</p>
<p>To these lines it was the British commander’s plan to effect a slow
retreat before the French flood when it should sweep forward, thus luring
the enemy onward into a country which he had commanded should be laid
relentlessly waste, that there that enemy might fast be starved and
afterwards destroyed. To this end had his proclamations gone forth,
commanding that all the land lying between the rivers Tagus and Mondego,
in short, the whole of the country between Beira and Torres Vedras, should
be stripped naked, converted into a desert as stark and empty as the
Sahara. Not a head of cattle, not a grain of corn, not a skin of wine, not
a flask of oil, not a crumb of anything affording nourishment should be
left behind. The very mills were to be rendered useless, bridges were to
be broken down, the houses emptied of all property, which the refugees
were to carry away with them from the line of invasion.</p>
<p>Such was his terrible demand upon the country for its own salvation. But
such, as we have seen, was not war as Principal Souza and some of his
adherents understood it. They had not the foresight to perceive the
inevitable result of this strategic plan if effectively and thoroughly
executed. They did not even realise that the devastation had better be
effected by the British in this defensive—and in its results at the
same time overwhelmingly offensive—manner than by the French in the
course of a conquering onslaught. They did not realise these things partly
because they did not enjoy Wellington’s full confidence, and in a greater
measure because they were blinded by self-interest, because, as O’Moy told
Forjas, they placed private considerations above public duty. The northern
nobles whose lands must suffer opposed the measure violently; they even
opposed the withdrawal of labour from those lands which the Militia Act
had rendered necessary. And Antonio de Souza made himself their champion
until he was broken by Wellington’s ultimatum to the Council. For broken
he was. The nation had come to a parting of the ways. It had been brought
to the necessity of choosing, and however much the Principal, voicing the
outcry of his party, might argue that the British plan was as detestable
and ruinous as a French invasion, the nation preferred to place its
confidence in the conqueror of Vimeiro and the Douro.</p>
<p>Souza quitted the Government and the capital as had been demanded. But if
Wellington hoped that he would quit intriguing, he misjudged his man. He
was a fellow of monstrous vanity, pride and self-sufficiency, of the sort
than which there is none more dangerous to offend. His wounded pride
demanded a salve to be procured at any cost. The wound had been
administered by Wellington, and must be returned with interest. So that he
ruined Wellington it mattered nothing to Antonio de Souza that he should
ruin himself and his own country at the same time. He was like some
blinded, ferocious and unreasoning beast, ready, even eager, to sacrifice
its own life so that in dying it can destroy its enemy and slake its
blood-thirst.</p>
<p>In that mood he passes out of the councils of the Portuguese Government
into a brooding and secretly active retirement, of which the fruits shall
presently be shown. With his departure the Council of Regency, rudely
shaken by the ultimatum which had driven him forth, became more docile and
active, and for a season the measures enjoined by the Commander-in-Chief
were pursued with some show of earnestness.</p>
<p>As a result of all this life at Monsanto became easier, and O’Moy was able
to breathe more freely, and to devote more of his time to matters
concerning the fortifications which Wellington had left largely in his
charge. Then, too, as the weeks passed, the shadow overhanging him with
regard to Richard Butler gradually lifted. No further word had there been
of the missing lieutenant, and by the end of May both O’Moy and Tremayne
had come to the conclusion that he must have fallen into the hands of some
of the ferocious mountaineers to whom a soldier—whether his uniform
were British or French—was a thing to be done to death.</p>
<p>For his wife’s sake O’Moy came thankfully to that conclusion. Under the
circumstances it was the best possible termination to the episode. She
must be told of her brother’s death presently, when evidence of it was
forthcoming; she would mourn him passionately, no doubt, for her
attachment to him was deep—extraordinarily deep for so shallow a
woman—but at least she would be spared the pain and shame she must
inevitably have felt had he been taken and, shot.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, however, the lack of news from him, in another sense, would
have to be explained to Una sooner or later for a fitful correspondence
was maintained between brother and sister—and O’Moy dreaded the
moment when this explanation must be made. Lacking invention, he applied
to Tremayne for assistance, and Tremayne glumly supplied him with the
necessary lie that should meet Lady O’Moy’s inquiries when they came.</p>
<p>In the end, however, he was spared the necessity of falsehood. For the
truth itself reached Lady O’Moy in an unexpected manner. It came about a
month after that day when O’Moy had first received news of the escapade at
Tavora. It was a resplendent morning of early June, and the adjutant was
detained a few moments from breakfast by the arrival of a mail-bag from
headquarters, now established at Vizeu. Leaving Captain Tremayne to deal
with it, Sir Terence went down to breakfast, bearing with him only a few
letters of a personal character which had reached him from friends on the
frontier.</p>
<p>The architecture of the house at Monsanto was of a semiclaustral
character; three sides of it enclosed a sheltered luxuriant garden, whilst
on the fourth side a connecting corridor, completing the quadrangle,
spanned bridgewise the spacious archway through which admittance was
gained directly from the parklands that sloped gently to Alcantara. This
archway, closed at night by enormous wooden doors, opened wide during the
day upon a grassy terrace bounded by a baluster of white marble that
gleamed now in the brilliant sunshine. It was O’Moy’s practice to
breakfast out-of-doors in that genial climate, and during April, before
the sun had reached its present intensity, the table had been spread out
there upon the terrace. Now, however, it was wiser, even in the early
morning, to seek the shade, and breakfast was served within the
quadrangle, under a trellis of vine supported in the Portuguese manner by
rough-hewn granite columns. It was a delicious spot, cool and fragrant,
secluded without being enclosed, since through the broad archway it
commanded a view of the Tagus and the hills of Alemtejo.</p>
<p>Here O’Moy found himself impatiently awaited that morning by his wife and
her cousin, Sylvia Armytage, more recently arrived from England.</p>
<p>“You are very late,” Lady O’Moy greeted him petulantly. Since she spent
her life in keeping other people waiting, it naturally fretted her to
discover unpunctuality in others.</p>
<p>Her portrait, by Raeburn, which now adorns the National Gallery, had been
painted in the previous year. You will have seen it, or at least you will
have seen one of its numerous replicas, and you will have remarked its
singular, delicate, rose-petal loveliness—the gleaming golden head,
the flawless outline of face and feature, the immaculate skin, the dark
blue eyes with their look of innocence awakening.</p>
<p>Thus was she now in her artfully simple gown of flowered muslin with its
white fichu folded across her neck that was but a shade less white; thus
was she, just as Raeburn had painted her, saving, of course, that her
expression, matching her words, was petulant.</p>
<p>“I was detained by the arrival of a mail-bag from Vizeu,” Sir Terence
excused himself, as he took the chair which Mullins, the elderly,
pontifical butler, drew out for him. “Ned is attending to it, and will be
kept for a few moments yet.”</p>
<p>Lady O’Moy’s expression quickened. “Are there no letters for me?”</p>
<p>“None, my dear, I believe.”</p>
<p>“No word from Dick?” Again there was that note of ever ready petulance.
“It is too provoking. He should know that he must make me anxious by his
silence. Dick is so thoughtless—so careless of other people’s
feelings. I shall write to him severely.”</p>
<p>The adjutant paused in the act of unfolding his napkin. The prepared
explanation trembled on his lips; but its falsehood, repellent to him, was
not uttered.</p>
<p>“I should certainly do so, my dear,” was all he said, and addressed
himself to his breakfast.</p>
<p>“What news from headquarters?” Miss Armytage asked him. “Are things going
well?”</p>
<p>“Much better now that Principal Souza’s influence is at an end. Cotton
reports that the destruction of the mills in the Mondego valley is being
carried out systematically.”</p>
<p>Miss Armytage’s dark, thoughtful eyes became wistful.</p>
<p>“Do you know, Terence,” she said, “that I am not without some sympathy for
the Portuguese resistance to Lord Wellington’s decrees. They must bear so
terribly hard upon the people. To be compelled with their own hands to
destroy their homes and lay waste the lands upon which they have laboured—what
could be more cruel?”</p>
<p>“War can never be anything but cruel,” he answered gravely. “God help the
people over whose lands it sweeps. Devastation is often the least of the
horrors marching in its train.”</p>
<p>“Why must war be?” she asked him, in intelligent rebellion against that
most monstrous and infamous of all human madnesses.</p>
<p>O’Moy proceeded to do his best to explain the unexplainable, and since,
himself a professional soldier, he could not take the sane view of his
sane young questioner, hot argument ensued between them, to the infinite
weariness of Lady O’Moy, who out of self-protection gave herself to the
study of the latest fashion plates from London and the consideration of a
gown for the ball which the Count of Redondo was giving in the following
week.</p>
<p>It was thus in all things, for these cousins represented the two poles of
womanhood. Miss Armytage without any of Lady O’Moy’s insistent and
excessive femininity, was nevertheless feminine to the core. But hers was
the Diana type of womanliness. She was tall and of a clean-limbed, supple
grace, now emphasised by the riding-habit which she was wearing—for
she had been in the saddle during the hour which Lady O’Moy had
consecrated to the rites of toilet and devotions done before her mirror.
Dark-haired, dark-eyed, vivacity and intelligence lent her countenance an
attraction very different from the allurement of her cousin’s delicate
loveliness. And because her countenance was a true mirror of her mind, she
argued shrewdly now, so shrewdly that she drove O’Moy to entrench himself
behind generalisations.</p>
<p>“My dear Sylvia, war is most merciful where it is most merciless,” he
assured her with the Irish gift for paradox. “At home in the Government
itself there are plenty who argue as you argue, and who are wondering when
we shall embark for England. That is because they are intellectuals, and
war is a thing beyond the understanding of intellectuals. It is not
intellect but brute instinct and brute force that will help humanity in
such a crisis as the present. Therefore, let me tell you, my child, that a
government of intellectual men is the worst possible government for a
nation engaged in a war.”</p>
<p>This was far from satisfying Miss Armytage. Lord Wellington himself was an
intellectual, she objected. Nobody could deny it. There was the work he
had done as Irish Secretary, and there was the calculating genius he had
displayed at Vimeiro, at Oporto, at Talavera.</p>
<p>And then, observing her husband to be in distress, Lady O’Moy put down her
fashion plate and brought up her heavy artillery to relieve him.</p>
<p>“Sylvia, dear,” she interpolated, “I wonder that you will for ever be
arguing about things you don’t understand.”</p>
<p>Miss Armytage laughed good-humouredly. She was not easily put out of
countenance. “What woman doesn’t?” she asked.</p>
<p>“I don’t, and I am a woman, surely.”</p>
<p>“Ah, but an exceptional woman,” her cousin rallied her affectionately,
tapping the shapely white arm that protruded from a foam of lace. And Lady
O’Moy, to whom words never had any but a literal meaning, set herself to
purr precisely as one would have expected. Complacently she discoursed
upon the perfection of her own endowments, appealing ever and anon to her
husband for confirmation, and O’Moy, who loved her with all the passionate
reverence which Nature working inscrutably to her ends so often inspires
in just such strong, essentially masculine men for just such fragile and
excessively feminine women, afforded this confirmation with all the
enthusiasm of sincere conviction.</p>
<p>Thus until Mullins broke in upon them with the announcement of a visit
from Count Samoval, an announcement more welcome to Lady O’Moy than to
either of her companions.</p>
<p>The Portuguese nobleman was introduced. He had attained to a degree of
familiarity in the adjutant’s household that permitted of his being
received without ceremony there at that breakfast-table spread in the
open. He was a slender, handsome, swarthy man of thirty, scrupulously
dressed, as graceful and elegant in his movements as a fencing master,
which indeed he might have been; for his skill with the foils was a matter
of pride to himself and notoriety to all the world. Nor was it by any
means the only skill he might have boasted, for Jeronymo de Samoval was in
many things, a very subtle, supple gentleman. His friendship with the
O’Moys, now some three months old, had been considerably strengthened of
late by the fact that he had unexpectedly become one of the most hostile
critics of the Council of Regency as lately constituted, and one of the
most ardent supporters of the Wellingtonian policy.</p>
<p>He bowed with supremest grace to the ladies, ventured to kiss the fair,
smooth hand of his hostess, undeterred by the frosty stare of O’Moy’s blue
eyes whose approval of all men was in inverse proportion to their approval
of his wife—and finally proffered her the armful of early roses that
he brought.</p>
<p>“These poor roses of Portugal to their sister from England,” said his
softly caressing tenor voice.</p>
<p>“Ye’re a poet,” said O’Moy tartly.</p>
<p>“Having found Castalia here,” said, the Count, “shall I not drink its
limpid waters?”</p>
<p>“Not, I hope, while there’s an agreeable vintage of Port on the table. A
morning whet, Samoval?” O’Moy invited him, taking up the decanter.</p>
<p>“Two fingers, then—no more. It is not my custom in the morning. But
here—to drink your lady’s health, and yours, Miss Armytage.” With a
graceful flourish of his glass he pledged them both and sipped delicately,
then took the chair that O’Moy was proffering.</p>
<p>“Good news, I hear, General. Antonio de Souza’s removal from the
Government is already bearing fruit. The mills in the valley of the
Mondego are being effectively destroyed at last.”</p>
<p>“Ye’re very well informed,” grunted O’Moy, who himself had but received
the news. “As well informed, indeed, as I am myself.” There was a note
almost of suspicion in the words, and he was vexed that matters which it
was desirable be kept screened as much as possible from general knowledge
should so soon be put abroad.</p>
<p>“Naturally, and with reason,” was the answer, delivered with a rueful
smile. “Am I not interested? Is not some of my property in question?”
Samoval sighed. “But I bow to the necessities of war. At least it cannot
be said of me, as was said of those whose interests Souza represented,
that I put private considerations above public duty—that is the
phrase, I think. The individual must suffer that the nation may triumph. A
Roman maxim, my dear General.”</p>
<p>“And a British one,” said O’Moy, to whom Britain was a second Rome.</p>
<p>“Oh, admitted,” replied the amiable Samoval. “You proved it by your
uncompromising firmness in the affair of Tavora.”</p>
<p>“What was that?” inquired Miss Armytage.</p>
<p>“Have you not heard?” cried Samoval in astonishment.</p>
<p>“Of course not,” snapped O’Moy, who had broken into a cold perspiration.
“Hardly a subject for the ladies, Count.”</p>
<p>Rebuked for his intention, Samoval submitted instantly.</p>
<p>“Perhaps not; perhaps not,” he agreed, as if dismissing it, whereupon
O’Moy recovered from his momentary breathlessness. “But in your own
interests, my dear General, I trust there will be no weakening when this
Lieutenant Butler is caught, and—”</p>
<p>“Who?”</p>
<p>Sharp and stridently came that single word from her ladyship.</p>
<p>Desperately O’Moy sought to defend the breach.</p>
<p>“Nothing to do with Dick, my dear. A fellow named Philip Butler, who—”</p>
<p>But the too-well-informed Samoval corrected him. “Not Philip, General—Richard
Butler. I had the name but yesterday from Forjas.”</p>
<p>In the scared hush that followed the Count perceived that he had stumbled
headlong into a mystery. He saw Lady O’Moy’s face turn whiter and whiter,
saw her sapphire eyes dilating as they regarded him.</p>
<p>“Richard Butler!” she echoed. “What of Richard Butler? Tell me. Tell me at
once.”</p>
<p>Hesitating before such signs of distress, Samoval looked at O’Moy, to meet
a dejected scowl.</p>
<p>Lady O’Moy turned to her husband. “What is it?” she demanded. “You know
something about Dick and you are keeping it from me. Dick is in trouble?”</p>
<p>“He is,” O’Moy admitted. “In great trouble.”</p>
<p>“What has he done? You spoke of an affair at Evora or Tavora, which is not
to be mentioned before ladies. I demand to know.” Her affection and
anxiety for her brother invested her for a moment with a certain dignity,
lent her a force that was but rarely displayed by her.</p>
<p>Seeing the men stricken speechless, Samoval from bewildered astonishment,
O’Moy from distress, she jumped to the conclusion, after what had been
said, that motives of modesty accounted for their silence.</p>
<p>“Leave us, Sylvia, please,” she said. “Forgive me, dear. But you see they
will not mention these things while you are present.” She made a piteous
little figure as she stood trembling there, her fingers tearing in
agitation at one of Samoval’s roses.</p>
<p>She waited until the obedient and discreet Miss Armytage had passed from
view into the wing that contained the adjutant’s private quarters, then
sinking limp and nerveless to her chair:</p>
<p>“Now,” she bade them, “please tell me.”</p>
<p>And O’Moy, with a sigh of regret for the lie so laboriously concocted
which would never now be uttered, delivered himself huskily of the hideous
truth.</p>
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