Under Enemy Colors Read Online Free Page A

town, it is hardly worth all the trouble and expense. Forgive me for changing the subject, Mr Hayden, but how do you know this claret is from the French Pyrenees and not Spain? Surely the two nations are but a border apart in that region.”
    Robert’s partly suppressed smile blossomed fully. He took a malicious pleasure in making his friend perform.
    Hayden took up his glass in resignation. “The style, largely; the French and the Spanish have different ideas about wine. And then each variety of grape has its own distinctive palette.” Hayden tasted the wine. “This is a skilful blend of Carignane…Teret noir, with perhaps a hint of the Picpoule. But I am no authority. My uncles could tell you who made the wine and precisely where the grapes were grown. They would go on at length regarding the terrier , then shake their heads at the backward methods of the rustic wine-makers.” He held the glass up to the light. “Where this wine is made the soil is often so thin over the rock that the vineyard owner must use a dibble, an iron bar, to break a depression in the stone into which the vine is planted. Then the vine is allowed to grow over the ground, wherever it will, rather than upon echalas —properly constructed wooden frames. They persist in crushing by foot, and refuse to use the press. Scientific methods have not reached them.”
    Henrietta glanced at her cousin, the look impenetrable to Hayden.
    “When this foolish war is over,” Mrs Hertle said, “Charles has promised to take us on a tour of France. Until then, I suppose, we must be content with seeing the parts of England we do not know, though I can’t imagine when we will manage even that, with Dame Duty always knocking at our door.”
    “You must come to visit Lady Endsmere with me this summer, Eliza,” Henrietta urged, returning to their earlier subject. “Captain Hertle shall be upon his ship, and you will not be disappointed in the countryside.”
    “Yes,” Robert said, “you must not miss this chance. I want to hear the stories.”
    “You see,” Henrietta said, “you will join ‘the menagerie,’ as everyone names it, for there are monkeys and exotic birds and who knows what all around the grounds. Lord Uffington said the only difference between the animals and the humans was that the animals only dressed for supper if they were of a mind to…because a monkey once spent most of a meal sitting in Lady Endsmere’s lap, like a favoured child, eating whatever it fancied from her plate.”
    “Now we know you are exaggerating, Henri!” Mrs Hertle laughed.
    “You will come with me this summer and see for yourself. Enough stories can be gathered in a fortnight to dine out on the rest of the year.”
    The smile suddenly disappeared from Mrs Hertle’s face. “But I shall worry so for Captain Hertle,” she responded softly.
    Henrietta reached out and patted her cousin’s hand. “We will pray the war will be over, the radicals all suffering the fate they so readily prescribe others.”
    “What do you think, Charles?” Mrs Hertle asked, lines appearing at the corners of her eyes. “You know more of France than anyone in our circle. Certainly this war cannot be as long as the last?”
    Charles took a sip of claret. As his glass returned to the table the footman leaned silently forward and recharged it. “So we might hope, but it is my experience that wars often defy predictions of their brevity.”
    “But so many of the officers of both the French Army and Navy have resigned their commissions,” Mrs Hertle said. “How will they fight without officers?”
    “Recent evidence would indicate quite well,” Hayden said, “in the case of the Army, at least. The Navy has yet to be tested.”
    Robert waved a hand. “Charles, you let your sympathies blind you, I think. Surely an entire officer corps cannot be replaced by ill-trained tailors and farm boys and success then expected.”
    Charles felt suddenly defensive. “But imagine a navy where