Before Knowles could speak further, Hayden told Billie, “I must get you home” He attempted to lead her back toward the entrance. “This is a wretched business-”
“No,” she said, balking. At the single, stubborn word he looked startled. “No, I will not go home. I am coming with you.”
“But, Miss Billie, you cannot mean it! You do not understand. There is no room-”
“On your yacht, my lord? Or in Brussels? I should think an extra pair of hands would be welcome.”
He tried to smile. “Yours-always. But the discomforts . .
“I would decide that for myself, Lord Hayden. I also have a brother who is wounded. And under the circumstances, we needn’t continue to-to playact. Aunt Ephie needn’t come.”
“Aunt Ephie will most certainly come,” Ephie inserted mildly. “As she also has a worthy pair of hands”
Hayden considered Billie with obvious resignation, but perhaps an equal measure of understanding. He sighed. “Then, ladies, let us collect your luggage and be off. Demarest?” he asked. “Will you join us?”
“I think I must be staying, Hayden. At least a day or two. If possible, I shall sail my own bark across later.” He placed a consoling hand on the arm of Lady Constance, who still sniffled.
“I know Mama will not let me go,” she choked, “even ifeven if it is Freddy.”
As their group left the Horse Guards’, they shouldered their way out to the carriage. The place was now flooding with those running into the offices seeking information, some of them having arrived by foot from the Boehms’.
“Where is your brother this evening?” Hayden asked Billie. “We must tell him.”
As Morty was dining at the Urquharts’, just a few streets away from Ephie’s town home, they stopped to see him first. Demarest set off on foot to escort Lady Constance around the corner. Billie and Hayden entered the Urquharts’ and asked for Morty.
The Urquharts and their guests had just sat down to a late dinner. After summoning an obviously irritated Morty into the hall, Hayden took him aside to explain their plans. As Billie waited impatiently at the door, she heard only Morty’s “Kit!” All else was low, tense, and surprisingly brief. When Hayden walked on into the dining room to convey the news to those of his acquaintance at table, Morty came swiftly to Billie’s side.
“Would you like me to go as well, Billie?” he asked. But she could tell he had little desire to do so.
“No. Ephie and I shall look to Kit, Morty. You mustn’t leave Esther.” She smiled at Esther, who had slipped out to join them in the hall. Behind her, the dining room had erupted in cheers.
“I am so sorry, Miss Billie,” she said sweetly, “about Christopher.”
“We will hope his injuries are not serious, Miss Esther,” Billie assured her. “I must go now, Morty. We must leave at once. Lord Hayden told you Ephie comes with me?”
Morty nodded. “I should have insisted on it in any event,” he said, sounding affronted. Looking over his shoulder at the entrance to the dining room, where Hayden was still engaged, he added disagreeably, “You really intend to marry that man?”
“Oh, Morty!” She did not know whether to laugh or to cry. “Can you truly be so insensible?”
As Morty looked nonplussed, Esther took her arm and led her to the door. “I shall explain it to him,” she said softly. Hayden was returning promptly. “And I will pray you find your major.”
Billie had never before been at sea; she had only ever been aboard a simple skiff on calm lake waters. The crossing to Ostend left her bilious and green. As no one else on board was so affected, she had to bear the particular care and solicitude of her companions. That in itself would not have been difficult, had she not also had to endure Hayden’s carefully blank face. He had warned her of the “discomforts” after all; they had not even reached Brussels, and she was already in distress. Despite her queasiness she stayed determinedly on deck, from their dawn departure on. Her one solace was that the crossing was brief.
She thought Hayden must regret consenting to her company. So she was surprised, once they were transferring to a slow canal barge from Ostend, when he troubled to relieve her mind.
“David has told me he never does well on the Channel crossing,” he said simply, and Billie instantly viewed him with greater favor.
They moved on to Ghent, and at Ghent to a carriage pulled by a team that had seen better days. The driver told them that the army had requisitioned every serviceable horse-and that many thousands of them had been killed at Waterloo. The report silenced their already serious party. Billie was left to consider that this was the very same route that David had traveled in March. Indeed, she had his letter with her. If she had replied to him promptly … if she had somehow managed to control Kit … I f, i f! As her anxiety mounted, she forced herself to pay attention to their surroundings.
What little she could see of the countryside in this last week of June was of farming-dairy cattle and vegetables and the occasional field of grain, with the consequent local farm vehicles. They were not the only travelers; there were also streams of people moving north, including one contingent of French prisoners.
Encountering any English troops, Hayden always inquired after David. No one had news of him. But much of the allied army, including the 52nd-Alan Athington’s regiment and, initially, Kit’s-had gone on to France, chasing Bonaparte.
Hayden was most generous with the ready, paying to send messengers to Hals, Enghien, and elsewhere asking after Guards officers. The response was always the same: casualties among all infantry officers from the battles at Quatre Bras and Waterloo had been appalling, perhaps as high as fifty percent. Many were as yet “unrecovered.” Swallowing her dismay, Billie chose to believe they would soon learn something of import at Brussels.
But the minute they passed through the ancient walls of the city, she wished she had not insisted on coming. For the town was in great confusion-hot, steamy, and malodorous with the crowded, wounded, and unwashed. The sidewalks were still covered with straw, where great numbers of wounded men, given no other shelter, had lain for days. Hayden told her it had taken three days to collect the allied wounded from the battlefield; many of the French wounded had had to await help even longer. The terrible situation for such men soon roused Billie’s sympathies rather than her shock. Amid that mass of suffering she was more determined than ever to find Kit and David and to render whatever assistance she might.
Hayden had procured them two rooms-seemingly the last available-on the Rue de la Madeleine, at l’Hotel d’Angleterre. As most of the English community seemed to be housed near the Royal Palace and the park, he assured Billie they would soon be in close communication with those who would have word of their brothers.
Billie and Ephie settled into their tiny room with the maid, Simms, and washed some of the travel dirt from their faces and hands. They would have to share the bed, with Simms on the trestle, as all available mattresses and bedding had been surrendered to the care of the wounded. The circumstances were indeed dire.
“You boasted of your capable hands, lass,” Ephie said mildly as they met each others’ glances. “We are not likely to remain untested”
“I shall do what I can, Ephie,” Billie said, though the extent of the problems overwhelmed her. “But first I should just like … that is, I need to know”
Ephie nodded as they set out to join Hayden and Knowles to walk the few blocks to the house the Athingtons had leased so close to the park. Though the bright sun beat hotly outside, the curtains were shut; the front hall was dark and the air too close. Billie heard a groan from a salon to her right; the footman told them that the Athingtons were housing half a dozen other wounded soldiers in their lower rooms.
Mr. Athington, advancing from down the hall, bowed to Hayden.
“My lord, I had your note,” he said, acknowledging the rest of them with nods. “Do come on back and see Alan. He ishe is doing well.” And they followed him into a back parlor, which seemed airier than the rest of the
house.
Charis and her mother, who had been sitting on opposite sides of the single bed, rose rather stiffly as their visitors entered. But Billie was not in the mood for ceremony.
“Charis!” she said, moving forward to kiss the beauty on the cheek. Charis would always look lovely, but just now her face was anguished.
“Miss-Miss Billie,” she gulped. “So good of you to-Oh!” she burst out, her celebrated composure snapping in a flood of tears. “They do hope to spare his arm!”
Billie helped her to sit. She glanced at Alan Athington, who lay upon the bed. Whatever pain or worries he had, his gaze was alert and bright.
“Miss Caswell, you mustn’t mind m’sister. She is bein’ a goose. How d’you do, Hayden? Knowles. Miss Caswell-”
“Athington,” Hayden said, “we would not have troubled you-”
“Not at all! Glad of the company. There are so many of us bedridden, there are too few to make calls!” He seemed to find this worthy of a laugh. Billie thought his color healthy, though he looked to have lost weight. “I shall be laid up here some time. Might as well make the best of it. And there are too many grim faces about. I’ll tell you, Hayden, my greatest pain at the moment is not bein’ able to march on Paris with the Fifty-second!”
“So speaks the British infantry.” Hayden bowed deeply to him. “I commend you, Lieutenant.”
Athington blushed. “Shouldn’t even have been here without your brother, Hayden. Demmed-demmed fine thing he did.”
“Oh, we can never repay him!” Charts added, with such a generous look that Billie had to fight a most uncharitable thought.
“I am sure he would not think of it, Miss Athington,” Hayden said. “But do tell us, when did you last see him?”
“See him?” Charts looked confused. “Why, we have not seen him at all. Has he not gone on to Paris with the Duke of Wellington?”
As Hayden frowned, Billie tried to tamp down the anxiety that had been growing for days. She had convinced herself there would be word from one of Hayden’s many messengers, that there would be news once they reached Brussels, that the Athingtons would surely know. But Hayden’s frown made her shiver.
“Do tell us how you came here,” Knowles asked Athington, .,and how you do?”
So Alan Athington relayed the tale of his rescue, which lent Billie some minimal comfort, although David’s risk had equaled his bravery.
“I doubt I should have survived at all without his aid,” Athington said. “And certainly not with the use of my limbs. Charis moans about this ruddy arm, but even that’s nothing compared to others… “He went on, much too explicitly. Billie was thankful when Hayden interrupted, perhaps noticing-as Billie did-the Athington ladies’ white faces.
“Have you seen anything further of Barton, then?”
“No. Though that reminds me … Mama, open the drawer there, would you please?” And Mrs. Athington slid open a nightstand drawer to pull out a watch. She passed it to Hayden.
“It’s Trent’s,” Athington said. “Barton didn’t want it on ‘im, apparently. Said he was returning to the line to find the major, and there were too many rough folk about robbing and Lord knows what else. Didn’t have to sell it after all, what?” And again evidencing good spirits, Athington laughed.
Hayden was rubbing the old gold in one hand.
“Have you heard anything of my brother, Lieutenant?” Billie asked. “Of Kit?”
“I haven’t. But Charis has, haven’t you, old girl?”
Charis clearly attempted a smile, though it was apparent that she did not much care for being termed “old girl.”
“I heard from the Harradays, across the square, that they’d seen him in hospital with their son-oh, three days ago. But he was talking then about running off after the army to France. I-I fear I have no news of his injuries, Miss Billie. I have not left this house”
“You needn’t apologize, Miss Athington. I would never have expected it.” She now found it difficult to sit politely. The men made some few further comments on the battle and their shared acquaintance. Though the victory had been decisive, though word had come of Bonaparte’s abdication just days before, the toll had been ghastly for both sides. The battle site, Mr. Athington relayed, was a place of horror-fifteen thousand allied soldiers dead, with a third of all the British forces lost and at least as many French and horses.
Abruptly, and to Billie’s relief, Hayden said, “We must be getting on. Athington, I see your eyes startin’ to close upon me. I cannot suffer it in any man”
“No, indeed, Hayden,” the lieutenant managed wearily. His parents thanked them as they made their way to the door. Mr. Athington offered them the use of his open carriage with, he apologized, a very old team. The army had requisitioned his best cattle in May. Yet the carriage had been usefully employed in ferrying the wounded for four days the previous week.
Charis, perhaps in her own way now “recovered,” stared rather pointedly at Billie’s ringless left hand and then glanced quickly through her lashes up at Hayden.
“Am Ito wish you happy, then, Miss Caswell?” she asked.
“I hope so, Miss Athington. I truly hope so.”
As they turned away from the Athingtons’ home, Billie heard Hayden mutter ominously, “And now for Kit Caswell.”
They walked on in the wilting heat, discussing the brave spirits of Alan Athington and his description of David Trent’s selfless action. Billie felt little desire to see the battlefield or the Hougoumont farm. She was indescribably discouraged. But if she must …
`Billie dear,” Ephie asked her, “Should you like a rest first?” But Billie denied any need for a break. Ephie also disclaimed any interest in returning to the hotel. Both of them seemed determined to deprive Lord Hayden of reason to regret their company.
The state of the city was appalling. Not only private houses but churches as well had been turned into hospitals, but this generosity had scarcely alleviated the magnitude of misery. The Athingtons had told them that, during the first days after the battle, the people of Brussels had sent out thirty wagons daily to collect the wounded. Those casualties who could walk or ride had made their own way into town. And almost all the wounded had borne further injuries or some degree of suffering from exposure-from being stripped not only of valuables and mementos but often as well of the simplest of clothing. Brussels, Billie realized, had been compelled to confront the needs of an unanticipated, additional population within its medieval gates, resulting in much heartache and disorder.
At the allied hospital she almost hesitated to step in. Hayden kept them at a tiny office and read through the names.
“Christopher is no longer here,” he said in obvious frustration, and in response to her mute query added, “and David never was.” He suggested they return to the hotel for some rest and dinner. They were still in their traveling clothes from early that morning. Hayden repeated that he had left inquiries in every corner of the city.
“But Barton,” Billie said as they retraced their steps toward the park, “Lord David’s batman-where can he be?”
“One hopes-with David,” Hayden replied. And they parted silently for their rooms.
Billie and Ephie had changed for dinner and were about to go down when Simms answered a knock at the door. Beyond it, leaning partly upon crutches, was Kit.
“Kit!” Billie moved to him at once, relieved of at least one worry. Though thankful, she knew she might have been happier still.
“‘Allo, Billie, Auntie.” He attempted a smile. “You might touch me, you know-I won’t break!”
“You look-you look as though you might,” Billie said.
“Oh, but I cannot-I’ve already broken so much else!” Yet he sounded cheerful enough. He tolerated their kisses, then settled with some care into their single upholstered chair. “Hayden thought I ought to come up and see you at once, to set your minds at ease. I’ve been in lodgings with several others up at the Namur gate, where Hayden’s message reached us” His smile was st
ill the same. Billie wondered how a man could suffer through Waterloo and not change one whit.
“You must tell us, Christopher,” Ephie said at her most forbearing, “how you come to be sporting crutches”
“I am lucky to be sporting anything at all, Auntie-or so I’ve been told.” He went on to relate how he’d been knocked from his horse, broken several ribs and his ankle, been crushed and trampled repeatedly, but never struck by musket fire or shells. The surgeon expected he would recover fully, though they would continue to watch him for signs of internal injuries. He did not know if he would limp. How he had come to be so far to the rear, strapped upon Major Trent’s horse, he hadn’t a clue.
“He must’ve put me there, though I’ve no memory of it. We must have been at the line. I did hear some Frenchman yelling. But all else is a blur.”
“Did you tell Hayden this?” Billie asked.
“Oh, yes. And Barton’s down with him now.”
“Barton?”
“Trent’s batman. He found me two days ago. After he found the horse. Incendio, I think he called ‘im. And Barton sent a letter off to Hayden. But of course, all of you were already on your way here-”
“Barton’s not with Lord David.”
Kit gave her an odd look. “I’ve just told you, the man’s downstairs. We’ve been invited to dinner. Then I shall stop to see Athington and must work my way back to old General Smallwood somehow, though this reporting right and left does tire-”
“Everything `tires’ for you, Kit,” Billie said in sudden frustration. “You left your regiment without leave.”
“Well, yes. I imagine it appears I pulled a bit of a leg bail, given the debts. But they’ll be paid, Billie-you shall see. And who can blame me for coming on here? Smallwood encouraged me. And, given the victory, I ‘spect all will be forgiven at home. There’s already talk about pension payments and awards and holidays-”
Billie sat down on the arm of his chair, interrupting his casual list of extravagant expectations. “You really remember nothing of how you came to be on David’s horse?”
Major Lord David Page 16