The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer, The Australian Women’s Weekly

Brigade-Major Harry Smith met fifteen-year-old Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon after the storming of Badajos. Two days later he married her-a drum-head affair, with Wellington giving the bride away. This important piece of business over, Miss Georgette Heyer has everything clear for as interesting an historical romance as could be wished for.

For some palates there may be, in The Spanish Bride, a hint too much of

battles, camp routine, and army, but this background to the affairs of the Smiths is

never dull.

Indeed, so capably is it handled, so well does Miss Heyer know her Peninsula Campaign – not only broadly, but in the most meticulous detail – that the book gains by the inclusion of this historical data.

Yet however much pleasure may be got from other factors, Brigade-Major Smith and his adorable little wife really make the novel. No normal reader will be able to resist these two: Harry, mercurial, fine-drawn, courageous, loving, impudent, efficient; Juana, just as impulsive, passionate, tender, gay; and both of them with the very devil of a temper.

With both it was a case of love at first sight.

“There was something fierce about Harry, the look of a hawk in his eyes; a similar spirit in Juana, the daughter of a long line of hidalgos, responded to it. They were made for each other, and were simple and direct enough, both of them … to know it at a glance.”

The simple directness with which Juana accepts the arduous conditions of army life, following her husband wherever his duties take him, cheerfully facing up to rain and mud and cold, heat and dust, endears her to the whole division; even Wellington succumbs to her.

Straight from the convent, it does not occur to her that there is anything strange about her mode of life; certainly the thought that she should remain, with other officers’ wives, snugly quartered in a friendly town never enters her mind.

Her reward is Harry’s unashamed adoration.

authentic.

This being so, one can only regret not having lived in that period, if only for the pleasure there would have been in knowing this couple.

From all this, it must not be imagined that their life together was that of two turtle doves. Juana had a royal Spanish temper.

Harry could not resist flirting with a pretty girl. “He explained to Juana that there was nothing in it. She threatened to kill him with his own sword, and had to be fended off with a camp-chair. When he caught her in his arms she boxed his ears, not in the least the trusting child who adored him, but like the jealous little vixen he called her.

“Only when, all cajolery failing, he shrugged, and said: ‘I hate shrews. I’m off to find better company,’ did her rage fall from her, leaving her defenceless, gazing at him with mute lips and imploring eyes. He could never withstand that look … He melted before it, and held open his arms to her:

“‘Only teasing.’

“Trembling in his close embrace,she said passionately: ‘You love me! Say it! Swear it!'”

High words and hearty kisses figured very largely in the Smith menage.

The heroic story of the Army of the Peninsula has been handled in such a way as to make you want to read more of it. Badajos, Salamanca, Vittoria-these historic engagements and other lesser ones come to life under Miss Heyer’s pen as if they

had happened only yesterday.

Officers and men are real; and neither their heroic nor their baser qualities have been glossed. Against the description of the epic storming of Badajos, for example, is the story of the aftermath, when the town was given up to looting and rapine, with Wellington, for two days, unwilling, or unable, to stop the mad rioting of his victorious army.

“His Lordship did not love his men, but he understood them. Presently he would send a strong force into Badajos and erect a gallows there, but not until his wild, heroic troops had glutted themselves with conquest.

“Had his Lordship cared, after the bloody combat at Ciudad Rodrigo, when he had met the men of the 95th Rifles clad in every imaginable costume, excepting only the dress of a rifleman? Not a bit!

“They had their swords stuck full of hams, tongues, and loaves of bread; they were weighed down by their plunder; but when they had set up a cheer for His Lordship, he had acknowledged it in his usual stiff way . . . And when he was told that he beheld some of his crack troops he had given a neigh of laughter and ridden on.”

No, The Spanish Bride is by no means a romantic fairy tale of the warfare of a century and a quarter ago-all waving banners, shrilling trumpets, and soldiers animated by nothing but the highest ideals.

It is a comprehensive picture, and a true one, with nothing left out.

At such a time as this, with the newspapers carrying, every day, news of further advances on the part of troops driven forward by the will of a ruthless, determined, strongly armed aggressor, there is a message of comfort in this story of a desperate war, against another Continental dictator, over a hundred years ago.

Then, as now, the greater part of Europe was under the heel of a tyrant. Germany, Spain, Italy, huge sections of central Europe were dominated by Napoleon.

England stood alone!

But then, as now, she had her fleet and control of the seas! Bonaparte threatened invasion. His troops were massed at Boulogne ; flat-bottomed boats were even built to convey them over the Channel. But that invasion was not fated to be made. After a long and weakening war, England emerged triumphant.

Perhaps this novel is not everybody’s meat. What book is? But it can be  recommended to all those who want a first-class story, a real honest-to-goodness love interest, and a background of events that changed the face of Europe.