The Phantom Regiment

THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH.

"Adios, Señora Paulina—adios, mi Señora Dominga."

"Adios, Señor Don Ricardo," replied a sweet voice from the depths of the old Spanish coach.

"Vaya usted con Dios, y que no haya novedad Señoras," said I, making a vigorous effort with my best Castilian; and with these words, and one bright parting glance from two black Andalusian eyes, so ended my little romance of a month, as the old-fashioned coach, which was doubtless the production of some cunning workman of Seville or Jaen, rolled slowly, pompously, and heavily away towards the Spanish lines, from the north gate of Gibraltar.

And this farewell took place exactly this day twelve months ago.

The coach which bore away the old lady who rejoiced in the euphonious cognomen of Donna Dominga de Lucena y Colmenar de Orieja, and her daughter the pretty Paulina, was a genuine old Castilian contrivance of the true caravan species; and, though still in use, in this our age of luxury and invention, had been constructed, perhaps, before folding steps were conceived; for a three-legged stool, to facilitate ingress and egress, hung near the door. The roof was shaped like the crust of an apple-pie, and the lower carriage, like that portion of a triumphal car. It was drawn by a pair of fat sleek mules, which seemed to have grown old with the vehicle, and with Pedrillo, the little postilion, who floundered away on a demi-pique saddle, with a gigantic cocked hat surmounting his dark visage; and his lean spindle legs lost in two gigantic jack-boots, which belonged to the beforesaid saddle rather than to his own person.

Such was the antediluvian vehicle which bore away the pompous old Donna and her daughter the charming Paulina, who, for the past month (during which she had resided in Gibraltar), had turned all the heads of "Ours;" and was boasted by the Spaniards as the fairest belle in las Cuatros Reinos—yes in the three mighty little kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which are now conglomerated into the beautiful province of Andalusia.

And so, without other escort than the redoubtable Pedrillo, who wore a trabujo or blunderbuss slung across his back, and strong in their belief in the virtues of the Santa Faz of Jaen, a picture of which was hung in the back of their coach, these two Spanish ladies, on the conclusion of their visit, departed on their return to Seville, their native city; and from the British fortifications, which frown in solid tiers towards the Spanish lines, I watched the venerable carrozzo as it rolled across the low sandy Isthmus, which is known as the neutral ground; and it disappeared just as the sun began to fade upon the beautiful masses of the Serrania de Rondo, which rose in piles against the golden clouds, and as the evening gun pealed like thunder among the Moorish peaks of Jebel Tarik; and then I turned away with a sigh as I thought of the winning smile I should never see again.

"It's all over now, Ramble," said my friend Jack Slingsby, who was the subaltern of my company, and who had been my chum at Sandhurst; "it is all over, Dick," he continued, with a laugh and one of those rough slaps on the shoulder, which no one ventures to give but an Englishman; "and so, instead of airing your sorrows here, 'sighing to the evening breeze' and all that sort of thing, you may as well come with me and knock the balls about a little—or join Shafton, the colonel, and some of "Ours" who have proposed a pool to-night—and meanwhile solace yourself with another of my 'very superior' cabanas."

"Perhaps it is as well she is gone, Jack," said I, endeavouring to imitate his light-hearted indifference; "had she remained among us another week, I would certainly have booked for her, and so have bedevilled myself, as you said yesterday."

"For Donna Paulina?"

"Of course—had you any doubts as to which?"

"Why—no. I certainly did not think that you were in love with the mother."

"Well," said I, impatiently.

"Paulina is very beautiful, no doubt; she has those Andalusian eyes and ancles which all the world talk about, but which all the world must see to feel the full effect of either. She has a charming manner—a glorious 'espiêglerie'—yes, that's the word! full of pretty repartee, and all that sort of thing—you understand me, Dick, or Don Ricardo, as she called you; but withal, I assure you, I should not like to enter for a Spanish wife, of all women in the world; no, no—what does the song say?" and as we reascended to the higher parts of the fortress, this careless fellow sang aloud a scrap of a popular mess-table song, somewhat to this purpose:—

"No fair fräulein or demoiselle, nor donna with her smile,
Shall ever teach me to forget the dear ones of our isle;
And when I seek a heart and hand among the fair and free,
Still constant in my faith, I'll say an English girl for me."

"That is the mark, Dick,—

"——an English girl for me!"

Besides, half of the young fellows in garrison here ran after Paulina; and at every mess-table she was as well known as the big drum, or the regimental snuff-box, or that great ram's head with its devilish horns, with which those highland fellows of the 92nd decorate their table, after the cloth is removed. At every jail, field-day, and tertulia—at church, and on the promenade, a crowd of admirers surrounded her, like flies round honey, and she seemed to be equally delighted with all."

"That was one of the peculiar charms of her manner, Jack," said I.

"Peculiar, indeed!" said he, letting out a cloud of smoke from his well-mustachioed lip.

"In public, she distinguished none in particular, but was alike gay with all."

"And in private, who was said generally to be the happy Lothario?"

I made no reply, but knocked the ashes away from the 'very superior' cabana, with which he had just favoured me.

"It was said to be a certain person known as Dick Ramble of 'Ours'," continued Slingsby, in his bantering way; "but I am deuced glad it is all over, like any other flirtation, and you are 'free to win and free to wed another;' I don't like Spaniards—and never shall. In fact, I have hated them ever since that unpleasant adventure I had at Malaga last year, and about which I shall tell you some other time; but here come Shafton, Morton, and some more of 'Ours,' and as soon as we leave the mess, we shall adjourn to the billiard table."

What this 'unpleasant adventure,' to which Slingsby referred—and to which I had often heard him refer before—might have been I cared not then to inquire; but walked on, more chilled than consoled by his rattling manner and by that mess-room raillery, which I have known to laugh many a wiser man than your humble servant, out of an honest and sincere passion; while it has also been the saving of many an inflammable "Newcome," or unfledged, but amatory ensign, from the lures of those passé garrison belles, whose feathers are beginning to moult, and whose brilliance is beginning to fade, after a long career of close flirtation, round-dancing, supper-crushes, cold fowl, ices, pink champagne, affectionate farewells in the grey morning, when the drowsy drum-boys beat reveillie, or when the route arrived, and each lover—a lover alas! but for the time—departed with his regiment to return no more.

Of Paulina de Lucena (such a pretty name it is!) I had seen much during her short residence in Gibraltar, and had become—what shall I term it, for 'Ours' were not marrying men—charmed by her sweetness of temper and piquant manner, as well as by her acknowledged beauty.

Jack Slingsby stigmatised this under the denomination of "being spooney;" but as I have a proper abhorrence of all that slang phraseology which is peculiar to the university, the barrack, the clubhouse, and the turf, I believe I shall quote honest Jack no more, but proceed in my own fashion.

She was the only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Don Ignacio de Lucena, a Knight of San Ferdinando, an officer of Lancers in the service of the Queen of Spain, in one of whose battles he was taken prisoner by Cabrera, and shot in cold blood with fifty of his soldiers: for this ferocious Carlist behaved with such barbarity to the Constitutional Army that one of its officers, who had been a prisoner, assured me that at Valencia he and his comrades were subjected to such cruelty by their captors, that after a thousand sufferings, on being denied food, they were driven to the dreadful necessity of devouring the body of a fellow captive.*

* A work published in Valencia positively asserts this.

The profession of her father, together with the circumstance of one of her brothers being in the Spanish sea service, and another in the army of Portugal, caused her to view with a favourable eye all who have the honour to live by the sword; and my small smattering of Spanish, which I picked up in those idle hours of a garrison life that otherwise must have hung heavily over me, gave me every facility for cultivating a friendship which had in it everything that might serve to dazzle and charm a young man; for with the idea of Andalusia and Spanish beauty we are apt to conjure up so much of love and of romance that the imagination gets the better of the senses; besides, those rogues of travellers and romancers have always given us such exaggerated pictures of Spanish loveliness.

In regularity of feature and fairness of complexion, Donna Paulina was inferior to many a pretty girl I have seen at home. Her most glorious attractions were her dark glossy tresses and her black eloquent eyes—brilliant, sad, subduing, ever varying, but ever black, and under their long, long fringes, ever melting. In beauty of form and grace of movement she was unmatched out of her own province, and I can assure the reader that the first time her very striking figure appeared among the promenaders in the Alameda of Gibraltar with her drapery of black lace falling from a high pearl comb, her mantilla, her close-fitting dress, her pretty feet in their Cordovan slippers, and her large fan, the unhappy bones of which were ever in a state of flutter and excitement, and between which she shot her most dangerous glances, it occasioned much marvel, curiosity, and speculation at all the mess-tables of Her Majesty's forces stationed on the rock.

To such a companion imagine the charm of acting cicerone about the fortifications of old Gibraltar; imagine our evening rambles round Rosia Bay and along the new mole, where the ships of the British and Yankees, the French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Turks, Greeks, Moors, Arabs, and Jews, with all their varieties of ensigns, costume and rig, are riding at anchor, and where many a grim mortar and cannon gun frown over the new bastion; imagine the transition from the sunny Alameda to the deep cool galleries which are hewn in the heart of the living rock, and which are now turned to such war-like purposes as old Pomponius Mela, who first wrote of them, could never have conceived, and where we wandered for many an hour, the pretty donna forgetting the starched customs of her country so far as to grasp my arm with both her hands at times, for the aspect of these places filled her with timidity and awe.

To these subterranean batteries there is admitted but a dim and dubious light that steals through their embrasures, glinting on the damp slime of their walls and roof of rock; and on the heavy ordnance—sixty-eight pounders some of them—which stand on frames of metal, on piles of balls and bombs, and on doors studded with iron, that lead to other and inner vaults full of missiles and unknown terrors.

On, on would we wander, through grim batteries, gloomy magazines, and far-stretching galleries, that seemed to be without end, obtaining at times through the vaulted embrasures a glimpse of the town, then basking in the glare of the noonday sun, or of the sea, shining under a brilliance in which the vessels on its bosom became lost, while we heard only the sound of our own voices, the twang of a bugle, or the sharp rat-tat of a drum in the barracks, the faint boom of a breaker on the cliffs, or the fainter sound of voices in the town, far, far down below, where all the races of the world were mingling; for there, in its streets, might be seen the smart Greek in his scarlet fez and ample kilt; the hideous Afric Jew in his black and white striped cowl; the slow and solemn Turk; the bare-kneed Scottish soldier; the lively Italian sailor, and the puffing, perspiring, and grumbling John Bull.

I saw Paulina daily, and garrison life became one long and enchanting dream!

In the batteries of the rock we promenaded often when the heat became too great in the sunny Alameda, and with such a companion, while wandering through the subterranean and twilight shades of Saint George's Hall, or the Windsor Gallery, how was it possible to escape from loving her.—A coquettish Andalusian, who, whenever I ventured to become a little more tender than usual, would tap me over the fingers with her fan, or give me one brilliant, flashing and fascinating glance, as she closed her screen of black lace, and threatened to leave me, while she sang, with the most charming grace in the world, "Pues por besarte Minguillo," the English of which is somewhat to the following purpose:—

"Give me swiftly back, thou dear one,
    Give the kiss I gave to you;
Give me back the kiss, for mother
    Is impatient—prithee do!
Give me that, and take another,
    For that one, thou shalt have two."

And where, the while, the reader may naturally enquire, was the cautious, suspicious, and lynx-eyed Spanish mother therein referred to?

Now old Donna Dominga had conceived a vehement friendship for me since the first evening on which I had the pleasure of meeting her at the residence of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief; and where I supplied her with ices when she was warm, adjusted her mantilla when she was cool, held her fan, snuff-box, and poodle, and brought her a cigarillo and orange-water dashed with the smallest taste of brandy; and, discovering her sympathies and antipathies, soon learned to anathematise Cabrera and the Conde de Montmolin, to express a vague belief in miracles in general, and the verity of the Holy Face of Jaen in particular. I "turned" the old lady's flank, and established myself safely under the wing of her prejudices.

She always accompanied Paulina and me in our rambles; but I generally contrived, by a little successful manoeuvring, to leave her to the care of Dr. MacLeechy, our senior surgeon, after Jack Slingsby had very disobligingly revolted against this duty; and as the doctor and the Donna were either somewhat pursy, or disposed to prose and linger, we usually left them far in the rear and lost sight of them altogether.

Now the doctor, who quoted Kelaart as if he had been his own father, and expatiated to the old lady on geology (with mineralogy, botany, and Scottish metaphysics), was so very particular in explaining the leaves, fibres, and various properties of the
Iberus Giberaltarica
, the only plant peculiar to the rock, that the stout Donna Dominga, who deemed all this but the language of the flowers, and viewed everything through the medium of gallantry, became troubled in spirit, and would occasionally blush behind the sticks of her fan, or ogle and look unutterable things at our poor unconscious medico. She would sigh tenderly when he plucked the soft palmetto which grows in the rocky crevices, or tremble over the white polyanthus, and was ready to drop like a ripe pumpkin into his arms, when he grew eloquent upon the various species of the cacti.

This was all very well while it lasted, for while the ponderous old donna thought that our quiet, canny, and discreet Galen, who signed himself M.D. of St. Andrews, and F.E.C.S. of Edinburgh, was a lover of her own, she forgot to look too narrowly after us; and believed that she had found a most agreeable mode of passing the month in Gibraltar, which, for change of air, had been recommended by some sangrado of Seville, as her health had become somewhat impaired by ease and good living.

I was so dazzled and delighted with the charming Paulina, and her pretty little ways, that I had really begun to prepare my mind for repelling the banter of the mess, and for waiting with due solemnity upon Donna Dominga to confer with her alone, upon settlements and so forth, when a terrible denouement took place! Having rashly boasted of her imaginary conquest over our doctor, to a lady whom she met at the house of a rich Spanish merchant in the Alameda, there ensued between them an immediate scene; for this unlucky communication (given with all the coy triumph with which the plump old lady could invest it) was made to no other than the doctor's wife, who had just arrived from Dublin; and as it had never entered the head of Donna Dominga to inquire whether our unsuspecting medico was a Benedick—bond or free, as they say in Australia—a storm was the consequence.

Now, Mrs. Leechy MacLeechy, our Scotch doctor's better half, was a strong-minded Irish woman, who wore a species of turban, and was the terror of the regiment; on each of her fat wrists she wore a bracelet of blood-encrusted medals, torn, as she said, "off Rooshian breasts," and sent to her from Sebastopol by her brother, who was "the matchor—the saynior matchor—devil a less, or the foighting eighty-ayth;" and so this lady, in her deep Galway patois, poured on the Spaniard a broadside that would have sunk the Santissima Trinidad.

Finding her love affair at an end, the cruel donna resolved to cut short mine. Within an hour after this meeting, Pedrillo was summoned; the old Spanish coach was brought forth; the baggage packed, and her farewell cards—P.P.C.—dispatched to the governor and his military secretary; to the aides-de-camp and staff colonel; to the officers commanding regiments, and all the great folks of the place. The old lady and the pretty Paulina got into the depths of the ponderous 'carrozza;' the three-legged stool was strapped to the door; Pedrillo clambered into his bucket-like boots, and muttered many 'carajos!' as he applied his latigo to the sleek sides of the dapple mules, and while their proprietrix was sulking and fuming at Gibraltar and all the heretics who dwelt therein, the huge conveyance crawled along the narrow causeway which forms the communication between the town and the isthmus, and, for the present, thus ended, as I have said, my pleasant little Spanish romance of a month.

A recollection was all that remained to me of Paulina, and of that flirtation which was fast maturing into something of a better and more lasting nature.