A gendarme in a blue uniform, with white grenades, and high, gleaming boots, rode over the bridge, glancing curiously at the Colonel, who was still leaning his elbows on the parapet and watching the slow canal traffic. He passed on, riding towards Brussels, and for some little time the Colonel's solitude was undisturbed. But presently, glancing down the Allee he saw a horse approaching in the distance, and caught the flutter of a pale blue skirt. He swung himself into the saddle, and rode to meet the Lady Barbara.
She came galloping towards him and reined in. Cheeks and eyes were glowing; she stretched out her hand, and exclaimed: "I thought you still in Ghent! This is famous!"
He leaned forward in the saddle to take her hand; it grasped his strongly. "I have been bored to death!"
Barbara said. "Confound you, I have missed you damnably!"
"Excellent! There is only one remedy," he said.
"To marry you?"
He nodded, still holding her hand.
She said candidly: "So I feel today. You are haunting me, do you know? But in a week, who knows but that I may have changed my mind?"
"I'll take that risk."
"Will you?" She considered him, a rather mischievous smile hovering on her lips. "You have not kissed me, Charles," she murmured.
He caught the gleam under her long lashes, and laughed. "No."
"Don't you want to - dear Charles?"
"Yes, very much."
"Oh, this is a pistol held to my head! If I want to be kissed I must also be married. Is that it?" she asked outrageously.
"That is it, in a nutshell."
Her eyes began to dance. "Kiss me, Charles: I'll marry you," she said.
Chapter Seven
Colonel Audley was very late for breakfast. He came into the parlour to find his brother standing by the window, glancing through the Gazette de Bruxelles, and his sister-in-law with her chair already pushed back from the table. She looked searchingly at him as he entered, for she had heard the front door slam a minute earlier and knew that he had been out riding again. Her heart sank; she had never seen quite that radiant look on his face before. "Well, Charles," she said. "You've been out already?"
"Yes." He held out his hands to her. "Wish me joy!" he said.
She let him take her hands, but faltered: "Wish you joy? What can you mean?"
"Lady Barbara has promised to be my wife," he answered.
She snatched her hands away. "Impossible! No, no, you're joking!"
He looked down at her, half laughing, half surprised. "I assure you I am not!"
"You scarcely know her! You cannot mean it!"
"But, my dear Judith, I do mean it! I am the happiest man on earth!"
The dismay she felt was plainly to be read in her face. He drew back. "Don't you intend to wish me joy?" he asked.
"Oh, Charles, how could you? She will never make you happy! You don't know -"
"She has made me happy," he interrupted. "She is fast - a flirt!"
"You must not say that to me, you know," he said, quite gently, but with a note that warned her of danger. The Earl, who had lowered his paper at the Colonel's first announcement, now laid it down, and said in his calm way: "This is very sudden, Charles."
"Yes."
Judith would have spoken again, but Worth engaged her silence by the flicker of a glance in her direction. "Your mind is, in fact, quite made up?" he said.
"Quite!"
"Then of course I wish you joy," said Worth. "When do you mean to be married?"
"Nothing is decided yet. I must see her grandfather. She is her own mistress, but I don't want to - It is not as though I were a very eligible parti, you know."
"You are a great deal too good for her!" exclaimed Judith.
He turned his head, and said with a smile: "Oh no, Judith! It is she who is a great deal too good for me. When you know her better you will agree."
She replied as cheerfully as she was able: "I do wish you very happy, Charles. I will try to know Lady Barbara better."
He looked at her in rather a troubled way as she went out of the room. But when he had closed the door behind her the trouble vanished from his eyes, and he walked back to the table, and sat down at it, and began to eat his breakfast.
The Earl watched him for some moments in silence. Presently he said: "Is your engagement to be publicly announced, Charles?"
"Why, I suppose so! There is no secret about it, you know."
"It is very wonderful," Worth observed. "What did she find in you to like so well?"
The Colonel grinned. "I don't know."
"You would not, of course," Worth said dryly. "Forgive my curiosity, but does Lady Barbara mean to follow the drum?"
"She would, I think, and like it very well. Women do, you know - have you ever met Juana, Harry Smith's wife?"
"I have not met Juana, nor have I met Harry Smith.""He's a rifleman: a rattling good fellow, mad as a coot! He went out to America with Pakenham, more's the pity! He married a Spanish child after Badajos: it's too long a story to tell you now, but you never saw such a little heroine in your life! I believe she would go with Harry into action if he would let her. I have seen her fording a river with the water right up to her horse's girths. She will sleep out in the open by a camp fire, wrapped up in a blanket, and never utter a word of complaint. Bab is made of just that high-spirited stuff."
"I hope you may be right," said Worth, unable to picture the Lady Barbara in any such situations.
Not very far away, in the Rue Ducale, Lady Vidal shared this mental inability and did not scruple to say so. She had looked narrowly at her sister-in-law when she had come in to breakfast, and had not failed to notice the flame in Barbara's eyes and the colour in her cheeks. "What have you been doing?" she asked. "You look quite wild, let me tell you!"
"Oh yes! I am quite wild!" Barbara answered. "I have taken your advice, Gussie! There! Aren't you pleased?"
"I wish I knew what you meant!"
"Why, that I am engaged to be married, to be sure!" Her brother's attention was caught by these words.
"What's that? Engaged? Nonsense!"
Lady Vidal exclaimed: "Bab! Are you serious? It is Lavisse?"
"Lavisse?" repeated Barbara, as though dragging the name up from the recesses of her memory. "No! Oh no! My staff officer!"
"Are you mad? Charles Audley? You cannot mean it!"
"Yes, I do - today, at least!"
Augusta said bitterly: "I never reckoned stupidity among your faults. Good God, Bab, how can you be such a fool? With your looks and birth you may marry whom you please: the lord knows you've had chances enough! and you choose a penniless soldier! I will not believe it of you!"
"Charles Audley?" said Vidal. He looked at his sister over frowningly, but not displeased. "Well, I must say I am surprised. A very good family - perfectly eligible!"
Augusta broke in angrily: "Eligible! A penniless younger son with no chance of inheriting the title! Pray, how do you propose to live, Bab? Do you see yourself in the tail of an army, sharing all the discomforts of a campaign with your Charles?"
"I might, I think," said Barbara, considering it. "It would be something new - exciting!"
"I have no patience with such folly!"
Vidal interposed to say in his heavy fashion: "It is not a brilliant match - by no means brilliant! I could wish him wealthier, but as for his being penniless - pooh! I daresay he has a very respectable competence."
"Then Bab will have to learn to live upon a competence," said Augusta. "I hope, my dear love, that you have not forgotten the terms of your late husband's will?"
"Oh, who cares! With a handsome fortune I had never enough money, so I may as happily live in debt on a mere competence."
This ingenious way of looking at the matter had the effect of pulling down the corners of Vidal's mouth. He began to read his sister a homily, but she interrupted him with a little show of temper, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Lady Vidal remarked that
if one thing were more certain than another it was that the engagement would be of short duration.
"I hope not," replied Vidal. "Audley is a very good sort of fellow, very well-liked. If she throws him over it will go hard with her in the eyes of the world. What I fear is that a sensible man will never bear with her tantrums. I wish to God she had stayed in England!" He added with an inconsequence Augusta found irritating: "We must ask him to dine with us. I wish you will write him a civil note."
"By all means!" she returned. "The more Bab sees of him the sooner she'll be bored by him. He may dine with us tonight, if he chooses, and accompany us to Madame van der Capellan's party afterwards."
The civil note was accordingly sent round by hand to the British Headquarters, where it found Colonel Audley in the company of the Prince of Orange and Lord Fitzroy Somerset.
The Colonel took the note, and tore it open with an eagerness which did not escape the Prince. That young gentleman, observing the elegance of the hot-pressed paper and the unmistakably feminine character of the handwriting, winked at Lord Fitzroy, and said: "Aha! The affair progresses!"
The Colonel ignored this sally, and moved across to a desk and sat down at it to write an acceptance of the invitation. The Prince strolled after him, and perched on the opposite side of the desk, swinging his thin legs. "It is certainly an assignation," he said.
"It is. An invitation to dinner," replied the Colonel, rejecting one quill and choosing another.
"And it was I who set your feet on the road to ruin! Fitzroy, Charles is in love!"
Lord Fitzroy's small, firm mouth remained grave, but a smile twinkled in his eyes. "I thought he seemed a little elated. Who is she?"
"The Widow!" answered the Prince. "What widow?"
The Prince flung up his hands. "He asks me what widow! Mon Dieu, Fitzroy, don't you know there is only one? The Incomparable, the Dashing, the Fatal Barbara!"
"I am not a penny the wiser," said Lord Fitzroy, his quiet, slightly drawling voice in as great a contrast to the Prince's vivacity as were his fair locks and square, handsome countenance to the Prince's dark hair and erratic features. "You forget how long it is since I was in England. Charles, that's my pen, and it suits me very well without your mending it. What's more, it's my desk, and I've work to do."
"I shan't be more than a minute," replied the Colonel. "Have you noticed how devilish official he's become lately, Billy? It's from standing in the Great Ian's shoes, I suppose."
"You shall not divert me," said the Prince. "I observe an attempt, but it is useless. When do you announce your approaching marriage?"
"Now, if you like," said the Colonel, dipping his pen in the ink, and drawing a sheet of paper towards him.
The Prince's jaw dropped. He stared at Colonel Audley and then laughed. "Oh yes, I am very stupid! I will certainly swallow that canard!"
"If he's going to conduct his flirtations on Government paper, I demand to know the identity of the Fatal - what did you say her name was, Billy?"
"Barbara! The disastrous Lady Barbara Childe!" answered the Prince dramatically.
"Barbara Childe? Oh, I know! Bab Alastair that was. Is she accounted fatal?"
"But entirely, Fitzroy! A veritable Circe - and I delivered Charles into her power!"
The Colonel looked up. "Yes, you did, so you shall be the first to know that she is going to become my wife."
The Prince blinked at him. "Plait-il?"
Colonel Audley sealed his letter, wrote the direction, and got up. "Quite true," he assured the Prince, and went out to deliver his note to the waiting servant.
The Prince turned an astonished countenance towards Lord Fitzroy, and said, stammering a little, as he always did when excited "B - but it's - it's n - not possible! Scores of men have offered for Lady Bab, and she refused them all!"
"Well, she's chosen a very good man in the end," responded Fitzroy, seating himself at the desk.
"My poor Fitzroy, you do not understand! It is most remarkable - eclatant!"
"I see nothing very remarkable in two persons falling in love," said Fitzroy with unaltered calm. "Did I happen to mention that I was busy?"
"I am your superior officer," declared the Prince. "I command that you attend to me, and immediately treat me with respect."
Lord Fitzroy promptly stood up, and clicked his heels together. "I beg your Royal Highness's pardon!"
His Royal Highness made a grab at a heavy paperweight on the desk, but Lord Fitzroy was quicker. The entrance into the room of a very junior member of the staff put an end to what promised to be a most undignified scene. Lord Fitzroy at once released the paperweight, and the Prince, acknowledging the newcomer's salute, departed in search of a more appreciative audience.
By the end of the day the news of the engagement had spread all over Brussels. Both parties to it had had to endure congratulation, incredulity, and much raillery. The Colonel bore it with his usual good humour, but he was not surprised, on his arrival in the Rue Ducale, to find his betrothed in a stormy mood. Neither his host nor his hostess was in the salon when he entered it; there was only Lady Barbara, standing by the fireplace with her elbow on the mantelshelf, and one sandalled foot angrily tapping the floor.
The servant announced Colonel Audley, and he walked in to encounter a flashing glance from Barbara's eyes. Her lips parted, not smiling, and he saw her teeth gritted together. He laughed, and went up to her, and took her hands. "My dear, has it been very bad?" he asked. "Do you think you can bear it?"
She looked at him; her teeth unclenched: she said: "Can you?"
"Why yes, but my case is not so hard. They all envy me, of course."
The white, angry look left her face. She pulled one of his hands up to her mouth, and softly kissed it. "You're a dear, Charles."
He took her in his arms. "You mustn't do that," he said.
"I wanted to," she replied, turning her face up to his. "I always do what I want. Oh, but Charles, how odiously commonplace it is! I wish we had eloped instead!"
"That would have been worse - vulgar!"
"What I do is not vulgar!" she said snappishly.
"Exactly. So you didn't elope."
She moved away from him to cast herself into a chair by the fire. She thrust one bare foot in its golden sandal forward, and demanded: "How do you like my gilded toenails?"
"Very well indeed," he answered. "Is it a notion of your own?"
"Oh no! It's a trick Parisian harlots have!" she flung at him.
Contrary to her expectation, this made him laugh.
She stiffened in her chair. "Don't you care, then?"
"Not a bit! It's a charming fashion."
"You will hear it very badly spoke of tonight, I warn you!"
"Oh no, I shan't!" said the Colonel cheerfully. "Whatever criticisms may be made of you will certainly not be made to me."
"Do you mean to fight my battles? You will be kept busy!" She opened her reticule, and drew a letter from it and handed it to him. "Your sister-in-law sent me these felicitations. She doesn't like me, does she?"
"No, I don't think she does," responded the Colonel, glancing through Judith's civil letter.
An impish look came into her eye. "I wonder whether she meant you to fall in love with that insipid protegee of hers?" she said. "I can't recall her name. But an heiress, I believe. Oh, famous! I am sure that was it!"
"But who?" he demanded. "You do not mean Miss Devenish?"
"Yes, that was the name! Lord, to think I've lost you a fortune, Charles!"
"You must be crazy! I am persuaded Judith could never have entertained such an absurd notion!"
"Flirt with the chit, and see how your sister likes it!"
"No, no, I leave all that sort of thing to you, my sweet!"
"Wretch! Good God, how has this come about? I have talked myself into a good humour. I swear I meant to quarrel with you!" A doubt assailed her; she said challengingly: "Charles! Was it your doing?"
"Strategy of a staff officer? On my
honour, no!"
She jumped up, and almost flung herself into his arms. There was an urgency in the face upturned to his; she said: "Marry me! Marry me soon - at once - before I change my mind!"
He took her face between his hands, staring down at her. She felt his fingers tremble slightly, and wondered what thoughts chased one another behind the trouble in his eyes. Suddenly his hands dropped to her shoulders, and thrust her away from him. "No!" he said curtly.
"No?" she repeated. "Don't you want to, Charles?"
"Want to!" He broke off, and turned from her to the fireplace, and stood looking down at the smouldering logs.
She gave a little laugh. "This is certainly intriguing. I am rejected, then?"
He looked up. "Do you think you don't tempt me? To marry you out of hand - to possess you before you had had time to regret! Oh, my love, don't speak of this again! You spoke of changing your mind. If that is to come, you shall not be tied to me."
"You give me time to consider? Strange! I had never a suitor like you, Charles!"
"I love you too much to snatch you before you know me, before you know your own heart!"
"Ah! You are wiser than I am," she said, with a faint smile.
They were interrupted by Lady Vidal, who came into the room, followed by her husband. She greeted Colonel Audley with cold civility, but her lack of warmth was atoned for by Vidal's marked display of friendliness. He was able to wish the Colonel joy with blunt cordiality, and even to crack a jest at his sister's expense.
They were soon joined by Lord Harry, who had ridden in from Enghien to attend the evening's party. He seemed to be delighted by the news of the betrothal. He wrung the Colonel's hand with great fervour, prophesied a devilish future for him at Bab's hands, and expressed a strong wish to see how Lavisse would receive the tidings.
"M. de Lavisse, my dear Harry, is quite a matrimonial prize," said Augusta. "I fancy your sister cannot boast of an offer from him. He is adroit in flirtation, but it will be a clever woman who persuades him to propose marriage."
"Dear Gussie! How vulgar!" said Barbara.
"Possibly, but I believe it to be true."
"Stuff!" said Lord Harry. "I can tell you this, Gussie, it will be a pretty fool of a woman who lets that fellow persuade her into marrying him!"
An Infamous Army a-3 Page 10