by Nita Abrams
“We will be in the way here,” Meyer said. “Would you like to go forward?” He helped her to climb around the block that supported the mast. In front of the block was a sort of hollow, filled with casks and crates and neat coils of rope. The last made surprisingly comfortable seats, Abigail discovered. Meyer handed her down and then lowered himself onto an adjacent coil.
“Do you think Diana is all right?” Abigail asked, for the hundredth time since they had left London.
He made the same answer he always did. “Yes.” This time he elaborated a bit. “She is not as reckless as she seems. Recollect that when she ran off after Anthony in France, she took a groom with her. I think it very likely that she is with this friend you told me of, this Miss Woodley. It cannot be coincidence that she ran away the same week the Woodleys were leaving for Brussels.”
That made her feel better. She had recalled Martha’s existence only when they reached Dover.
“Be thankful you are not responsible for my daughter,” he added. “Rachel once went over to France in boy’s clothing and managed to get herself taken prisoner by the Sûreté. Since at the time I myself was masquerading as chief inspector of that very same branch of the Sûreté the situation was rather awkward. Luckily her brother and some of his fellow officers managed to rescue her.”
That did not make Abigail feel better. She knew the ending of that story. Rachel Meyer had married one of those officers. She stiffened and shifted slightly on her coil of rope so as to put more distance between herself and Meyer.
“What is it? What is wrong?”
She shook her head.
“My scandalous past, I suppose.” He was only half-joking.
The question came rushing out before she could stop herself. “How could you? How could you let her become a Christian? And your son?”
“Ah.” He hunched forward, clasping his knees. He said, almost to himself, “So that is the problem.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, drawing herself even farther away. “It is none of my business, of course.”
He ignored this last. “Rachel has not converted. Neither has James. It is true, however, that they have both been compelled to pretend briefly that they were Christian: my son to obtain his commission and my daughter to obtain a marriage license. As far as my mother is concerned, there is no difference between the pretense and the reality. She will not let their names be spoken in her house. They are dead to her.”
“And what of you?” she asked, her mouth dry. “Did she disown you as well?”
“No.” He leaned back against the gunwale. “She graciously informed me that she would not hold me responsible for the sins of my children. I, however, found myself unwilling to pretend that James and Rachel were dead. I have not seen her in three years.”
“I have not seen my mother in ten years,” she confessed, her head bowed. “Since the divorce. She sends messages to me through my sister.”
He was silent for a moment. “Do you know why Rodrigo avoids using his surname?” he asked abruptly. “Because his father disowned him. Formally disowned him, taking a public oath in front of witnesses.”
She shivered. “For what reason?”
“Rodrigo opposed the French regime in Spain. His father supported it.”
“Politics?” she asked, incredulous. “Rodrigo’s father disowned him because of politics?”
“Señor Santos called it treason, not politics. But yes, he did. I myself see very little difference between his actions and my mother’s.” He sat up and looked at her intently. “What of you? Do you believe I should have disowned James and Rachel? Do you disapprove of me because I still consider them my children?”
There was a long pause. “Perhaps,” she said in a low voice.
“And if Diana were to convert, would you renounce her? Would you forbid her name to be spoken in your presence? Destroy every picture of her? Walk by her on the street as though she did not exist?”
There was an even longer pause. “No,” she confessed. “I could not do it. I paid a terrible price to bear her, and another almost as terrible to get her back. Even if she did something truly dreadful, she would still be my child.”
“Running away to Belgium, I take it, does not count as truly dreadful.”
“No.” She gave a painful smile. “Although I beg you not to tell Diana that.”
The wind freshened, and the boat began to pitch slightly, sending the occasional spray of water over the bow. “You will wish to go below again,” he said, standing and offering her his hand.
The thought of the cramped, musty cabin made her shudder. “I would rather not,” she said.
“Take my coat, then,” he said, pulling it off and draping it over her shoulders. He sat down again.
They sat for a long time without speaking. It was growing lighter; she could see the coast now, low hills and dunes just visible above the rail of the boat. She knew that she should go and see if Rosie needed something, but a strange lassitude possessed her. Her limbs felt heavy. She did not know if she could move. After a while she leaned back against the gunwale and closed her eyes.
“Abigail?” He sounded hesitant.
She did not correct his over-familiar address. She did not answer at all; she was in some sort of trance.
“Asleep,” he muttered. She felt him tucking the coat more closely around her and then, tentatively, reaching out to brush some windblown strands of hair away from her forehead. His hand hovered for a moment at her temple and then traced a slow line downward to her jaw, barely grazing her skin.
“God,” he whispered. He moved abruptly away from her and there was a small thump as he settled back against the side of the boat.
With an immense effort, she forced her eyes open. He was sitting a few feet away, staring off into the distance. The expression on his face made something twist painfully inside of her.
She must have moved, or made some small noise. His eyes met hers. “You were not asleep just now.”
“No,” she said. She wanted to tell him that she did not mind, did not mind at all. But her voice was frozen.
He mistook her silence for condemnation. “Put it on my account,” he said savagely. “Item, one attempted embrace of sleeping mother while searching for missing daughter. Add it to Pont-Haut.” He stood up. “We will be coming into port soon. You should see if your maid is ready to disembark.” He beckoned a sailor to assist her back into the stern. By the time she had climbed aft he had disappeared into the bowels of the boat.
She returned to the cabin, still moving very slowly, as though the air was water. Rosie was sitting up on the edge of her berth, looking rather wan.
“We will be landing soon,” Abigail said.
Rosie brightened at this news.
“I hope you are feeling a bit better.”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” She peered at Abigail. “Is everything all right? You look a bit pale.”
No, she wanted to say. Everything is not all right. My daughter has run off to a city that is about to be invaded, and I have fallen in love with a spy. But instead she handed Rosie a damp towel. “Everything is fine,” she said. “Do you think you could keep down some tea?”
Even exempting personal affairs from consideration, everything was not fine. Napoleon had not waited until mid-July to attack. From Ostend in a continuous line stretching back to Brussels the road was packed with fugitives, and their stories grew more and more ominous: there had been a great battle. Tens of thousands of soldiers had been killed. Wellington was dead; the Allied army had broken and fled.
After the first garbled reports at the dock, Meyer hired a young Belgian to ride crosscountry into the city and return with some reliable news. In the meantime, he made sure that Abigail and her maid were bundled into a carriage, and set on their way as quickly as possible. At every halt he brought refreshments to them himself, and escorted them personally when they stopped for longer rests. He could not prevent her from overhearing the conversations of others, however,
and Abigail huddled in the carriage, more and more terrified as they crawled along. She wished that she did not understand French. Even the normally placid Rosie heard enough from the numerous English-speaking fugitives to make her round-eyed with anxiety.
At the fourth halt, Abigail opened the carriage door. “Can we not go any faster?” she pleaded as Meyer came over to assist her.
“We would have to ride through the fields. They are a sea of mud, and in any case I do not think it would be safe for you and your maid; not with deserting soldiers between us and the city.”
“I hate this,” she said, her voice shaking. “We are going so slowly, and every new rumor is worse than the last.” She looked back at the highway. Coaches clogged the road, the frantic passengers shouting and cursing as slower vehicles in front of them blocked their progress. Alongside the carriages and wagons and gigs groups of refugees trudged northwards on foot, moving hardly more slowly than the vehicles. Women were sobbing as they walked along, and the wails of hungry infants could be heard everywhere. It was as though the world was coming to an end.
“This?” he said, gesturing towards the wretched crowd of fugitives. “It happens every time armies engage near a large city. You cannot trust anything these people tell you.”
“If you tell me there is no cause for alarm,” Abigail said in a tight voice, “I will never speak to you again.”
“There is certainly cause for alarm. There has been a battle. That much I believe. For the rest, there is no evidence whatsoever. Look at those people. We have been driving past them, hundreds of them, for hours. Have you seen a single British soldier?”
“No,” she admitted.
“And do you hear that noise? Almost like a very low drum?”
She nodded.
“Those are cannon,” he told her. “No one fires cannon after a battle. Therefore, the battle is not over. The Allies may or may not win, but they have not lost. Not yet. And that means that the armies are not yet in Brussels.”
She was unconvinced.
With a sigh, he handed her into the carriage and climbed back onto his own horse. He and a groom had been riding ahead of the carriage, trying to clear a path; the road was wide and well drained but even when the northbound vehicles kept to their side the pedestrians oozed out around them and made the road impassable.
Four hours later, she saw a messenger pull up next to the carriage, sweating and breathless. She recognized him only by his jacket: it was the young man Meyer had hired at Ostend. He was now hatless and covered from the waist down in a layer of mud. She was already out the door before Meyer had even dismounted, and she stood clenching and unclenching her hands as he came over to her.
“I have news from someone I know in the city,” Meyer said, holding up a folded piece of paper.
“Someone in the army?”
“I am afraid the only person whose address in Brussels I could recall is an informant for the British foreign office,” he said apologetically. “But I believe him to be an honest man.” He broke the seal and scanned the closely written page. “DeCoster reports that as of four o’clock this afternoon, the two armies were heavily engaged about ten miles south of the city. And as you can hear, they are still fighting now, two hours later.” The sound of the cannon had grown louder and louder as they drew farther south.
“So the city has not been invaded?”
“No.” His eyes ran down the rest of the page. “The rumors of Wellington’s death date from Friday, when there was a preliminary engagement, and those rumors are false.” He turned the sheet over and drew in his breath sharply. After a moment he said, “Diana is safe. She is with Mrs. Woodley, as we suspected.”
“Thank God,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment in relief. “Thank God.” Rosie was peering out of the carriage window. “They have found her,” Abigail called. “She is safe; she is with the Woodleys.”
She turned back to Meyer. “May I see the letter?” Not waiting for an answer, she plucked it from his hand, searching for Diana’s name, as though the sight of it was proof that she was indeed unharmed.
It took her a minute to realize that she would not see the word Diana, another minute to grasp that the letter was in French. Mademoiselle Hart. There it was. She savored the entire sentence. As to Mademoiselle Hart, as monsieur had foreseen, she is situated with the Woodley family, who have taken a house on the Rue de la Madeleine. She felt suddenly alive for the first time in days, full of eager questions. Where was this Rue de la Madeleine? How long would it take them to reach the city from here? The battle and its potential outcome had receded into the back of her mind, and she looked at the plodding ranks of fugitives on the road with bemused pity.
She was about to hand the letter back when she caught sight of another name: Roth. And then, lower down, James. She had forgotten that she was not the only parent with a child in Brussels. Numbly, she read the rest of the page.
The 44th, the regiment of Monsieur Roth, took part in the engagement Friday afternoon and lost many men. I know nothing further. Your son James I saw here in the city yesterday, but the runners arriving at the Namur Gate say that his battalion is in the middle of the fighting today, in a very exposed position between the French artillery and the Allied lines. I will await you at the city gate with further news.
So that quick, stifled gasp had not been a reaction to the good news about her daughter. It had been a reaction to the unsettling news about his nephew and his son. Very subdued, she handed back the piece of paper. Meyer accepted it without comment, folded it neatly, and tucked it into a pocket.
“I am sorry,” she said. The words sounded ridiculous.
“James has not managed to get himself killed yet,” he said. “And not for want of trying, I assure you. I am more concerned about Anthony.” He surveyed the jammed road. A grim smile appeared. “At least we will not have any trouble finding a hotel room in Brussels.”
26
News of Anthony had arrived piecemeal, a bewildering jumble of contradictory items, alternately terrifying and reassuring. Mrs. Woodley, who seemed to know half the military wives in Brussels, had been able to confirm within a few hours of their arrival last night that the 44th had indeed taken part in Friday’s engagement at Quatre Bras, and that there had been a significant number of men killed on both sides. Although an entire day had gone by, however, there did not seem to be an official casualty list. Only very late last night had a boy arrived, dripping wet, with a note from one of her acquaintances. It contained not only the welcome news that Major Woodley had been posted north to reorganize the coastal garrisons but also an eyewitness report: Anthony Roth, the banker-infantryman, had survived Friday’s battle unharmed.
“Your Mr. Roth appears to have become something of a celebrity,” Mrs. Woodley had commented as she read the note. “Apparently he dressed down an officer in the Rifles in front of half of Brussels. We will not have trouble getting news of him.” And she was right. The trouble was, the news seemed always to be half a day behind. On Saturday morning at Ostend, the news was of Friday’s battle. On Saturday evening, it was of the survivors mustered that morning.
Things had become even more confusing today. For one thing, Diana had thought that everything was over. It had never occurred to her—especially after she saw the scores of wounded men lying in the streets—that there could be two such horrible events within the space of forty-eight hours. She had assumed that the casual references to “the battle” made by Mrs. Woodley and the other wives were references to Friday’s affair, and only gradually had she realized her mistake.
“They are going to fight again?” Diana had asked in horror, looking up at her friend from yet another half-conscious patient. Martha, Diana, and Mrs. Woodley had been working nearly around the clock tending the wounded since they had arrived the previous evening.
“No one won,” explained her friend. “And it has stopped raining now. Of course they will fight again.”
“When?”
Martha
poured more water into the cup Diana was holding. “This morning, most likely. I am surprised they have not started already.”
“On a Sunday?”
“They have prayers first.”
Realizing suddenly what this meant, she almost dropped the cup. “Anthony might be fighting right now!”
“No, not until you hear the cannon.”
Diana had moved along the rows of men in a state of terror for over an hour, convinced that every loud noise was the guns starting up again. A chance remark by one of her patients had relieved her anxiety: Anthony’s regiment was not fighting today. They were stationed as reserves north of the city.
When the guns had begun firing just before noon, she had felt very thankful that she did not have to think about Anthony and picture the balls crashing into his company. She was worried on Martha’s behalf, of course. Her friend’s father was safe for the moment, and Charles Woodley was posted in London, but Christopher Woodley was in an infantry regiment which had marched out last night to take their places in today’s conflict. As the other wives and daughters and sisters who were helping tend the wounded looked up at the sound of the first shot, Diana felt almost guilty to be spared.
That happy state had lasted for only a few hours. In the middle of the afternoon a very cheerful man had come along, wearing a tattered uniform that Diana could barely recognize as the one from the parade ground at Horse Guards.
“My wife tells me there’s a pretty girl paying for news of the 44th,” he said, grinning at Martha. She pointed at Diana. “Is it you, then, love?” he asked, turning with an equally wide smile to Diana. “I’m bound for camp now, who’s the lucky fellow? I’ll tell him I’ve seen you.”