‘I had not supposed that Charles’s fate was any longer a concern of yours,’ Judith said.
‘I am aware of that. But it is my concern, nevertheless.’ She stared at Judith with haunted eyes. ‘Perhaps I may never see him again. But if he comes back I shall be here.’ She drew a sobbing breath, and continued in a hard voice: ‘That, however, is my affair. Lord Worth, you are very obliging. My groom shall bring the horses round during the course of the day. Goodbye!’ She held out her hand, but drew it back, flushing a little. ‘Oh—! You would rather not shake hands with me, I daresay!’
‘I have not the least objection to shaking hands with you,’ he replied, ‘But I should be grateful to you if you could contrive to stop being foolish. Now sit down and try to believe that your differences with my brother leave me supremely indifferent.’
She smiled faintly, and after a brief hesitation sat down in the chair by the table. ‘Well, what now?’ she asked.
‘Are you staying with friends? May I have your direction?’
‘I am at the Hôtel de Belle Vue.’
‘Indeed! Alone?’
‘Yes, alone, if you discount my maid.’
‘It will not do,’ he said. ‘If you mean to remain in Brussels you must stay here.’
She looked at him rather blankly. ‘You must be mad!’
‘I am quite sane, I assure you. It can never be thought desirable for a young and unprotected female to be staying in a public hotel. In a foreign capital, and in such unsettled times as these, it would be the height of folly.’
She gave a short laugh. ‘My dear man, you forget that I am not an inexperienced miss just out of the schoolroom! I am a widow, and if it comes to folly, why, I make a practice of behaving foolishly!’
‘Just so, but that is no reason why you should not mend your ways.’
She got up. ‘This is to no purpose. It is unthinkable that I should stay in your house. You are extremely kind, but—’
‘Not at all,’ he interrupted. ‘I am merely protecting myself from the very just anger I am persuaded my brother would feel were he to find you putting up at an hotel when he returns to Brussels.’
She said unsteadily: ‘Please—! We will not speak of Charles. You don’t wish me to make a fool of myself, I imagine.’
He did not answer; he was looking at Judith. She was obliged to recognise the propriety of his invitation. She did not like it, but good breeding compelled her to say: ‘My husband is right. I will have a room prepared at once, Lady Barbara. I hope you will not find it very disagreeable: we shall do our best to make your stay comfortable.’
‘Thank you. It is not I who would find such a visit disagreeable. You dislike me cordially: I do not blame you. I dislike myself.’
Judith coloured, and replied in a cool voice: ‘I have not always done so. There have been times when I have liked you very well.’
‘You hated me for what I did to Charles.’
‘Yes.’
‘O God, if I could undo—if I could have it back, all this past month! It is useless! I behaved like the devil I am. That wretched quarrel! The very knowledge that I was in the wrong drove me to worse conduct! I have never been answerable to anyone for my misdeeds: there is a fiendish quality in me that revolts at the veriest hint of—but how should you understand? It is not worthy of being understood!’
She covered her face with her hands. Worth walked across the room to the door, and went out.
Judith said in a kinder tone: ‘I do understand in part. I was not always so docile as you think me. But Charles! There is such a sweetness of temper, such nobility of mind—’
‘Stop!’ Barbara cried fiercely. ‘Do you think I don’t know it? I knew it when he first came up to me, and I looked into his eyes, and loved him. I knew myself to be unworthy! The only thing I did that I am not ashamed of now was to try not to let him persuade me into becoming engaged to him. That impulse was the noblest I have ever felt. Though I knew I should not, I yielded. I wanted him, and all my life I have taken what I wanted, without thought or compunction!’ She gave a wild laugh. ‘You despise me, but you should also pity me, for I have enough heart to wish I had more.’
‘I do pity you,’ Judith said, considerably moved. ‘But having yielded—’
‘Yes! Having yielded, why could I not submit? I do not know, unless it be that from the day I married Jasper Childe I swore I would never do so, never allow myself to be possessed, or governed, or even guided. Don’t misunderstand me! I am not trying to find excuses for myself. The fault lies deeper: it is in my curst nature!’
‘I have sometimes thought,’ Judith said, after a short pause, ‘that the circumstances of your engagement made it particularly trying for you. In this little town we are obliged to live in a crowded circle from which there can be no escape. One’s every action is remarked, and discussed. It is as though your engagement to Charles was acted upon a stage, in all the glare of footlights, for the amusement of your acquaintances.’
‘Oh, if you but knew!’ Barbara exclaimed. ‘You do, in part, realise the evils of my situation but you cannot know what a demon was roused in me by finding myself the object of every form of cheap wit on the one hand, and of benign approval upon the other! It was said that I had met my match, that I was tamed at last, that I should soon settle down to a life of humdrum propriety! You would have had the strength to disregard such nonsense: I had not. When I was with Charles it did not signify. Every annoyance was forgotten in his presence; even my damnable restlessness left me. But he was busy; he could not be always at my side; and when he was away from me I was bored. If he had married me when I begged him to! But no! It would not have answered. There must still have been temptation.’
‘Yes, I am very sensible of that. You are so much admired: it must have been hard indeed to give up your—’ She hesitated.
‘My flirtations,’ said Barbara, with a melancholy smile. ‘It was hard. You know that I did not give them up. When I look back upon the past month it is with loathing, believe me! It was as though I was swept into a whirlpool! I could not be still.’
‘Oh, do not speak of it! I myself have been conscious of what you describe. There has been no time for reflection, no time for anything but pleasure! It was as though we were all a little mad. But I believe Charles understood how it was. He said once to me that the life we were leading was ruinous. It was very true! I do not deny that your wildness made him anxious; indeed, I have blamed you bitterly for it. But all that was nothing!’
‘You are thinking of my having made your brother fall in love with me. It was very bad of me.’
‘The provocation was severe. I honoured you for coming up to Harriet so handsomely that day. There can be no excuse for her behaviour. It vexed me when you made him go to you at the Richmond’s party, but I did not blame you entirely. But afterwards! How could you have let it go on? Forgive me! I did not mean to advert to this subject. It is over, and should be forgotten. I do not know what passed between you and Charles.’
‘Everything of the most damnable on my part!’ Barbara said.
‘I daresay you might lose your temper. But your conduct since that night! You left nothing undone that could hurt him.’
‘Nothing!’ Barbara said. ‘Nothing that could drive him mad enough to come back to me! I would not go to him: he was to come to me—upon my own terms! Folly! He would not do it, nor did I wish him to. The news that war had broken out brought me to my senses. There was no room then for pride. Even if his affections had been turned in another direction—but I could not believe it could be so, for mine were unaltered! He turned from me in the ballroom, but I thought I saw, in his eyes, a look—’
Her voice was suspended; she struggled to regain her composure, and after a moment continued: ‘I tried to find him. Nothing signified but that I should see him before he went away. But he had gone. Perhaps I shall never see him again.’
She ended in a tone of such dejection that Judith was impelled to say, with more cheerful
ness than she felt: ‘We shall not think of that, if you please! Recollect that his employment on the Duke’s staff is to his advantage. He will not be in the line. Why, how absurd this is! He has survived too many engagements for us to have the least reason to suppose that he will not survive this one. Indeed, all the Duke’s aides-de-camp have been with him for a long time now. Depend upon it, they will come riding back in the best of health and spirits. Meanwhile, I do earnestly beg of you to remain with us!’
‘Thank you. I will do so, and try not to disgrace you. You won’t be plagued with me too much, I hope. I shall be busy. Indeed, I ought not to be here now. I have promised to go to Madame de Ribaucourt’s. She has made herself responsible for the preparation for the wounded, and needs help.’
‘Oh, that is the very thing!’ Judith cried. ‘To be able to be of use! Stay till I fetch my bonnet and gloves! I would like, of all things, to go along with you.’
A few minutes later they left the house together, and set out on foot for their destination. They met few acquaintances on the way; streets which the day before had been full of officers and ladies were now only lined with the tilt-carts designed for the transport of the wounded, and with baggage-wagons, in perfect order, ready to move off at a moment’s notice. Flemish drivers were dozing in the carts; a few sentinels were posted to guard the wagons. The Place Royale, strangely quiet after the confusion of the night, had been cleared of all the litter of equipment. There were more wagons and carts there, with a little crowd of citizens standing about, silently staring at them. Horses were picketed in the Park, but a fair number of people were strolling about there, much as usual, except for the gravity of their countenances and the lowered tones of their voices.
At the Comtesse de Ribaucourt’s all was bustle and business. Many of Judith’s friends were there, scraping lint and preparing cherry-water.
The feeling of being able to do something which would be of use in this crisis did much to relieve the oppression of everyone’s spirits. Dr Brügmans, the Inspector-General of Health, came in at noon for a few moments, and told of the tents to be erected at the Namur and Louvain Gates for the accommodation of the wounded. Various equipments were needed for them, in particular blankets and pillows. Judith willingly undertook the responsibility of procuring all that could be had from her numerous acquaintances in the town, and lost no time in setting out on a house-to-house visitation.
The hours sped by; she was astonished on returning to Madame Ribaucourt’s to find that it was already three o’clock; she was conscious neither of fatigue nor of hunger. She sat down at a table to transcribe the list of equipments she had cajoled from her friends, but was arrested in the middle of this task by a sound that made her look up quickly, her pen held in mid-air.
All conversation was stopped short; every head was raised. The sound was heard again, a dull rumble far away in the distance.
Someone said in an urgent voice: ‘Listen!’ Lady Barbara walked over to the window, and stood there, her head a little bent, as though to hear more plainly.
The sound was repeated. ‘It’s the guns!’ said Georgiana Lennox, dropping the lint she was holding.
‘No, no, it’s only thunder! Everyone says there can be no action until tomorrow!’
‘It is the guns,’ said Barbara. She came away from the window, and quite coolly resumed her work of scraping lint.
The distant cannonading had been heard by others besides themselves. All over the town the greatest consternation was felt. People came running out of their houses to stand listening in the street; crowds flocked to the ramparts; and a number of men set out on horseback in the direction of Waterloo to try to get news.
They brought back such conflicting accounts that it was soon seen that very little dependence could be placed on what they said. They had seen nothing; their only information came from peasants encountered on the road; all that was certain was that an action was being fought somewhere to the south of Brussels.
When Judith and Barbara reached home at five o’clock the cannonading was still audible. Everyone they met was asking the same questions: were the Allied troops separately engaged? Had they joined the Prussians? Where was the action being fought? Could the cavalry have reached the spot? Could the outlying divisions have come up? There could be no answer to such questions; none, in fact, was expected.
Worth was at home when the ladies came in. He had seen Barbara’s trunks brought round from the Hôtel de Belle Vue, and had installed her frightened maid in the house. He had driven out, afterwards, a little way down the Charleroi road, but, like everyone else, had been unable to procure any intelligence. The baggage-wagons lined the chaussée for miles, he said, but none of the men in charge of them knew more than himself.
They sat down to dinner presently in the same state of anxious expectation. The sound of the guns seemed every moment to be growing more distinct. Judith found it impossible not to speculate upon the chances of defeat. The thought of her child, sleeping in his cot above stairs, made her dread the more acute. She should have sent him to England with Peregrine’s children; her selfishness had made her keep them in Brussels; she had exposed him to a terrible danger.
She managed to check such useless reflections, and to join with an assumption of ease in the conversation Worth and Barbara were maintaining.
Some time after dinner, when the two ladies were seated alone in the salon, Worth having gone out to see whether any news had been received from the Army, a knock sounded on the front door, and in a few minutes they were astonished by the butler’s announcing Colonel Canning.
Only one visitor could have been more welcome. Judith almost sprang out of her chair, and started forward to meet him. ‘Colonel Canning! Oh, how glad I am to see you!’
He shook her warmly by the hand. ‘I have only dropped in a for a few moments to tell you that Charles was well when I saw him last. I have been on a mission to the French King, at Alost, and am on my way back now to Quatre-Bras.’
‘Quatre-Bras! Is that where the action is being fought? Oh, stay just for a few minutes! We have been without news the whole day, and the suspense is dreadful. Sit down: I will ring for the tea tray to be brought in directly. But have you dined?’
‘Yes, yes, thank you! I dined at Greathed’s, in the Park. Seeing me pass by his house, he very kindly called to me to come up and join him. Creevey was there too. I can’t tell you much, you know. I was sent off just before 5.00, so I don’t know how it has been going. However, by the time I left the Brunswickers and the Nassau contingent had arrived, and Van Merlen’s Light Cavalry besides, so you may be sure everything is doing famously.’
Barbara said, with a smile: ‘Confound you, Colonel, you begin at the end! Let us have the start, if you please!’
‘By God!’ he said seriously, ‘we have had an escape! You won’t blab it about the town, but the fact is Boney took us by surprise, and if Ney had pushed on last night, or even this morning, there’s no saying what might not have happened. Prince Bernhard had only a battalion of Nassauers and one horse battery at Quatre-Bras.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘We can guess why Ney didn’t, of course. The French know the trick the Duke has of concealing the better part of his troops from sight. No doubt Ney was afraid he’d come up against the whole Army, and dared not risk an attack without more infantry. But God knows why he delayed so long today! They say the French weren’t even under arms at ten o’clock this morning. We arrived at half-past to find Orange there with two of his divisions, and nothing of a force in front of him. Charles arrived from Ath a little while after—still in his ball dress! He had no time to waste changing it last night, so there he is, in all his splendour. However, he is not the only one. Where was I?’
‘You had arrived at Quatre-Bras to find no very startling force opposing you.’
‘Oh yes! Well, so it was. The Duke inspected the position, saw that Ney was making no move, and rode over with Gordon and Müffling to confer with old Blücher, at Ligny.’
‘We ha
ve not joined the Prussians, then?’
‘Oh lord, no! They’re seven miles to the east of us, and pretty badly placed, too. I don’t know how it has gone with them: they’ve been engaged all day against Boney himself, but we’ve had no news. It appears that General Bourmont deserted to Blücher with all his staff yesterday morning, but the old man would have nothing to do with him! I haven’t heard of any other desertions. As for the Prussians today, Gordon told me Blücher had his men exposed on the slope of the hill, and that the Duke told Hardinge pretty bluntly that he thought they would be damnably mauled. I daresay they have been. Gneisenau was anxious for the Duke to move to his support, which, I understand from Gordon, he said he would do, if he were not attacked himself. But we were attacked, and there was no question of going to help the Prussians. By the time the Duke got back to our position, somewhere between two and three in the afternoon, the French were in force in a wood in front of us. They started shouting Vive l’Empereur! and then we heard Ney go down the line, calling out: “L’Empereur recompensera celui s’avancera!” We’ve heard that before, and we knew we were in for it. I can tell you, it was a nice situation to be in, with only a handful of Dutch-Belgic troops to hold the position, and no sign of old Picton with the reserve.’
‘But how is it possible?’ Judith exclaimed. ‘We saw the regiments march out of Brussels in the small hours!’
‘There was some muddle over the orders: they were halted at Waterloo, and only reached Quatre-Bras at about half past three. By God, we were glad to see them! The French opened the attack on a farm on the main road. I should think Ney had about fifteen or sixteen thousand men opposed to our seven thousand—but that’s a guess. The fields are so deep in rye you can’t make out the exact positions of anyone, friend or foe. In some places it’s above one’s head—or it was, till it got trampled down.’
He paused, for the tea tray was just then brought in. Judith handed him a cup, and he gulped some of the tea down. ‘Thank you. Well, the Dutch were driven out of Bossu Wood, and there was a general advance of the French. I needn’t tell you the Duke remained as cool as a cucumber throughout. There never was such a man! He was always in the hottest part of the fight—no one knows better than he how to put heart into the men! They may not worship him, as they say the French worship Boney, but by God, they trust him!’
An Infamous Army Page 29