Page 64 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

‘Why not? They’d fit in perfectly there.

Hollywood loves royalty. He still has a certain cachet, and she’s very smart and fashionable, and knows how to work a room.

They’d do very well, going to parties, opening nights, galas, being photographed with movie stars.

He could play golf with celebrities. She might write fashion notes for a newspaper.

And living is quite cheap in California, I understand.

You can make a splash without huge expense. ’

Emma shook her head, unsure if he was joking. The wedding stood in her mind as a terribly lonely thing, and the thought of that pointless, nomadic future was lonelier still. ‘We’ll never see them again,’ she said, and it was half a question.

‘No,’ said Kit. He took her hand into the crook of his arm, and looked down at her. ‘It’s all over now. We can go home.’

James was helping the servants to dismantle the chapel and put the house back as it had been, when Charlie came downstairs from taking back his bedroom and said, ‘James, there you are! What are your plans now?’

‘I haven’t any,’ he said.

‘I hope you’re not thinking of going back to England right away? Please don’t. We’re having a few days here to get over it all. I’m sure you need a rest too. But then I’m going back to Paris. Lots to do. And I want you with me, if you’d care to have your old job back.’

James smiled slowly. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. He’d missed Paris. Morland Place would always be home, but it would always be there for him. He was ready for a new challenge.

‘Good. Well, I’ll have them move your things over to one of the guest rooms – no need to rough it in the staff quarters now there’s plenty of space in the house.

Enjoy yourself for the rest of the week.

Make use of the facilities, golf, tennis, the gym.

There’s the lake to swim in, lovely walks.

You can use one of the cars if you want to go out.

And I can borrow a horse for you, if you’d like to ride.

Then we’ll go up on Monday and make a start. ’

‘On anything in particular?’ James asked.

‘Yes – as well as the regular business, I’m going to arrange a trip to Germany for the Duke and Duchess in the autumn.

I’ve already mentioned it to him, and he’s dead keen.

He wants to cement relations between the two nations, and study housing and working conditions in Germany, now the Nazis have cleared up the mess left by the war.

And I’ve got business interests there. The Duke’s name could be useful. You’ll help me?’

‘I’d be happy to.’ Closer ties between England and Germany could only be a good thing – an alliance to face down Communist Russia.

Charlie slapped his shoulder. ‘Good man!’ he said. ‘And after the Germany visit, I’ve got something else up my sleeve: a royal tour of America. What do you think? Would you like a trip to the States with us?’

‘I’d love it,’ James said. America! Morland Place seemed very far away.

It had grown very hot on the Aragonese plain.

Routine work, such as digging trenches and replacing sandbags, was now carried out under a burning sun.

The temptation was to strip off, and there were many cases of sunburn, one or two of sunstroke.

The heat also triggered tremendous thunderstorms and torrential rain.

The rain was at least a relief, but quickly turned the ground into a quagmire, and the ditches into streams. There were more foreigners now in the centuria – two more English men, Williams and Kellerman, and three German students who had run away to join the Communists out of a dislike of Fascism.

Most German combatants were on the Fascist side, and Basil wondered how these three would feel about shooting their own people, if it came to it.

They were full of idealism and high courage, and seemed very young to him, making him realise again how he had changed in the months he had been there.

The heat brought other problems: mice and rats, which ate everything, including leather belts and cartridge-pouches, and would even nibble at boots; clouds of black flies that flew into your mouth as you panted under the sun shifting sandbags; and lice, which were worst of all because they were actually inside your clothes, living on your body.

Basil went through another crisis of revulsion, and knew he would never be reconciled to the sensation of something running across his skin.

He bathed in the still-icy stream as often as he could; and one of the older Spaniards showed him how to burn the eggs, which nestled along the seams of clothing, with a metal rod heated in the fire.

It kept the numbers down, but nothing could eradicate them completely.

There were shortages now, of candles, matches and oil.

Replacements for uniforms, which had been hastily made and were falling apart, came through rarely.

Everyone’s boots were coming to pieces, and there were no new ones.

Worst of all was the shortage of tobacco.

The daily pack per man had gone down to an issue of ten cigarettes, then reduced to five; then for a week there was no issue at all, and men were scouring the ground for long-discarded cigarette ends.

Basil wondered whether anyone at home had sent him parcels, as promised: he hadn’t received so much as a letter.

He indulged in fantastic dreams where a parcel arrived, full of cigarettes and soap and chocolate, tea and cake and biscuits and jam, razor blades and socks, but it never happened.

Williams said he’d heard that the Post Office would not accept mail of any sort for Spain; Kellerman said he’d heard parcels were stolen as they passed through France.

One day in July, Basil and Zennor were told they were going on leave.

They had been at the Front for three and a half months, and Basil had not even considered the possibility of leave.

He had sunk to a point where the daily tedium and privations seemed like the eternal order.

They cleaned themselves up as best they could, and with a dozen others – eight Spaniards, two Belgians and two Frenchmen – they climbed with their kitbags into a lorry and were jolted away over the appalling roads to the nearest railway station.

There was a long wait for the train, and when it came, belching black smoke from the inferior grade of coal it was burning, they found the carriages were all ancient, third class, with bare wooden benches, and no glass in the windows.

More and more lorries had disgorged more and more militiamen onto the station during the wait, and now they all crowded in, packed close together.

In holiday mood, they laughed, bellowed revolutionary songs, and passed bottles of wine and anis from hand to hand.

The train made frequent stops, and at every one, local peasants forced their way in with bundles of vegetables, chickens tied together by the feet, and sacks of live rabbits, which kept writhing across the floor and having to be retrieved.

Basil’s group had been told they were going to Barcelona, but a little conversation with the peasants revealed they thought they were going to Tarragona.

Zennor was quite worried – he whom nothing in the war so far had troubled – that either the soldiers or the peasants would end up lost and stranded.

But when the train finally pulled into Tarragona, there were lorries waiting for the militiamen, and the peasants tumbled out onto the platform and dispersed, evidently familiar with the place.

They were driven to what had been a convent, from which the nuns had long been ejected: the Communist side was very anti-religion, as opposed to the Fascists, who were strongly Catholic.

The main block was now a hospital, and the militiamen were accommodated in the former guest-house.

As soon as they were settled, Basil and Zennor went out to explore.

Tarragona was an ancient stone-built city and a modern port.

There was a medieval old town and numerous Roman remains, and pleasant walks along the ramparts and the riverbank.

Strangest of all was to see the beach, with its promenade and cafés and striped deckchairs, where prosperous-looking Spaniards enjoyed a seaside holiday, sitting on the sand and bathing in the sea, as though they had never heard the words ‘civil war’.

The convent had extensive grounds, mostly being cultivated for fruit and vegetables, but there was also a garden, where the wounded were sometimes wheeled out to sit in the fresh air.

It had a green lawn and beds packed with red, white and pink flowers, and in the centre a fountain featuring a nude nymph tilting an amphora from which the water tinkled into the bowl.

After the first couple of days, Basil gravitated naturally to it.

There was a rose climbing across the sunniest wall, covered in enormous pink flowers with a heady, slightly spicy scent.

He liked to sit on his own on a bench in the shade and smoke and think his thoughts, while Zennor went out with the others for more conventional fun.

He was sitting there one day when a young Spanish woman appeared, carrying a basket.

She was slender and high-coloured with glossy black hair, and she gave him one long, considering look from under thick lashes before beginning to work, dead-heading the rose, clearing up fallen petals and leaves, pretending to ignore him.

He finished his cigarette, got up, and strolled slowly around the path until, arriving in her vicinity, he coughed discreetly and, when she looked up, smiled and greeted her.

They chatted. Her name was Consuelo. He explained that his name was that of a herb.

Some discussion established that it was probably albahaca .

She said they had some growing in the vegetable garden – would he like to come and see?

They strolled through the arch in the garden wall, while she told him that she had worked in the garden when the sisters had lived here, and after they had gone, the garden fell into disarray, until several of them in the town formed a group to take care of the grounds.

Some of the vegetables went to the sick in the hospital; the remainder they sold in the town and the money went to the Cause.

Basil told her he was English, and she said she could tell, although his hair was dark enough for a Spaniard and he spoke Spanish very well.

Her brothers, she said, were in the militia.

She hadn’t seen them since December. Her father had a lame leg and could not serve.

He told her that his father had been an aviador in the war.

She found the patch of herbs and pinched off a leaf for Basil to smell, and he agreed that it was the right one, though he really had no idea.

Further on there was a patch of strawberries, bright red and as glossy in the sunshine as if they had been lacquered.

She picked a fat one for him, put it into his mouth, and watched his lips as he ate it.

So he was pleased but not surprised that she agreed to meet him that evening to go for a walk.

Along the riverbank there was a strip of greenery, trees and bushes and rough grass, providing cover and seclusion, a traditional haunt, he suspected, of young lovers.

Consuelo was willing, passionate and evidently not inexperienced.

He indulged her afterwards with love-talk about seeing her again and finding her when the war was over, but though she listened and seemed to enjoy it, he had a strong feeling that she knew it was nonsense, and didn’t care.

She was surprisingly hard-headed, and he guessed she had got what she wanted out of the encounter, even as he had.