CHAPTER II
MEDITERRANEAN YACHTING
ON a beautiful spring morning a frigate cast anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. Lady Hester disembarked with a young lady companion, Miss Williams, who had been a long time in the service of the family, an English lady's-maid, Anne Fry, a German cook and innumerable trunks. Everyone was lodged, including the brother, at the Convent, the residence of the Governor, Lieutenant-General Campbell. Mr. Sutton and the doctor were obliged to find lodgings elsewhere.
Spain was then almost entirely in the hands of the French, and it was by no means prudent to go far from the fort. Rides on horseback could not be indulged in except on the narrow isthmus which connected the fort with the shore, sandy ground, which was, besides, excellent for a gallop. The travellers also visited the fortifications. The most content in the matter was Dr. Meryon. Consider, then, the weather was fine, the weather was warm, the trees were green and the flowers in bud, and one was able to bathe every day in the tepid sea, which, for an Englishman, is important. And it was only by the merest chance that he had not remained in England! In truth—if the weather had not been icy-cold; if he had not missed the coach; if he had not run along the Oxford road to overtake it; if he had not mounted the coach heated from his exertions; if he had not caught cold; if he had not returned to London; if Cline, the surgeon's son, had not come to see him; if he had not spoken to him of the proposal of Lady Hester Stanhope, who was in search of a doctor, he would be at that moment in the damp meadows of Oxford, coughing and growing musty! You see how destiny is sometimes affected by a few glasses of ale! And the doctor, who was a philosopher, took bathe upon bathe with delight. There were some slight inconveniences in living on this isolated rock: the meat was tough and bony, and vegetables were lacking. On the other hand, there was plenty of wine, but it was bad, which did not prevent the servants from being always drunk.
Lady Hester did she regard this halt as a pilgrimage? In Spanish soil slept her brother, Major Charles Stanhope, and her friend, General Sir John Moore, killed scarcely a year earlier, in that terrible battle of Coruña. General Moore was one of those fine types of officer which fascinate energetic and enterprising women, combining in some fashion their dream of heroism and virility. Very handsome in his person, tall and admirably made, the features of the face attaining a perfection which had nothing of insipidity about them, he had fulfilled the promises which he gave at the age of thirteen, when his father wrote:
"He is truly a handsome boy; he dances, rides on horseback, fences with extraordinary skill. He draws capably, speaks and writes French very well and has serious notions of geography, arithmetic and geometry.... He is continually showing me how Geneva can be taken."
The Moores were then at Geneva, which the young man was soon to leave to travel in France, Germany and Italy. He continued to perfect his education; the first part permitted him to render himself agreeable to women, the second aided him in his career as an officer, at any rate it is to be hoped that it did. The knowledge of French was useful to both. The profession of arms was at that time a very attractive one, for England was in the midst of the American War, while the more serious wars of the Revolution and Empire were to follow. There was promotion to be won and no time to stagnate in garrison towns. Young Ensign Moore took part in all the fêtes and journeyed across the world. For an intelligent lad to see the country is never a disagreeable thing. We find him at Minorca in 1776, then in America in 1779. He takes part in the famous Corsican expedition by the side of Paoli. He is sent to San Lucia, commands a brigade at the Helder under the orders of Abercromby, returns to Minorca, goes to Malta, takes part in the Egyptian campaign, is very nearly going to the Indies and in 1808 is finally appointed commander-in-chief of the troops in Spain. Accidents by the way were not lacking. He was wounded so often that his friends surnamed him the "unlucky one."
In his last campaign it seems that ill-luck, indeed, pursued him. Moore relied confidently on the resistance of the Spaniards in Madrid and was in entire ignorance of the negotiations of Prince Castelfranco and Don Thomas Morla to surrender the town. The admirable English army, 29,000 strong, was concentrated at Toro and the infantry was within two hours' march of the French, when a letter, intercepted by chance, suddenly informed him that Napoleon had made his entry into Madrid no less than three weeks earlier. Then began that magnificent retreat, in the depth of winter, over 250 miles of difficult and hilly country. Hard pressed by the enemy, the exhausted English army reached Coruña on January 16. The embarkation was hurried on, but the enemy was already descending from the heights in serried columns. Lord Bentinck's brigade sustained the shock. Moore was justly applauding an heroic charge of the 50th, under the orders of Majors Napier and Stanhope, when a bullet struck him and shattered his shoulder. He lived until the evening. His soldiers buried him as dawn was breaking, on a gloomy January day, and while they were digging the grave with their bayonets the enemy's cannon began to growl again, as if to render funeral honours to the dead.
Moore was certainly not an ordinary officer. "His abilities and his coolness," said Napoleon of him, "alone saved the English army of Spain from destruction. He was a brave soldier, an excellent officer and a man of valour. He committed some faults which were no doubt inseparable from the difficulties in the midst of which he was struggling and occasioned perhaps by the mistakes of his intelligence service." In the mouth of Napoleon, rather sparing of praise, is not this the finest military eulogium?
What Lady Hester did not perhaps know is that her hero, during a mission in Sicily, had nearly married Miss Caroline Fox, the daughter of General Henry Edward Fox. He had been prevented by a chivalrous sentiment in thinking of the difference of age which existed between the young girl and himself. And also, to be candid, by the fear of being indebted to his high position for a heart which he aspired to owe only to himself. Singular scruple when we reflect that the general was then forty-five years old!
Would Lady Hester have continued to wear the miniature of the brilliant officer and to drag it with her in her peregrinations across the Orient, if she had been acquainted with this trifling detail? It is probable that she did not lack kind lady friends too happy to furnish her with abundant information on this subject. But General Moore was dead, and survivors have a tendency to idealise those who are no longer there to contradict them....