Barbara gave a laugh. ‘Is anything else of consequence? I like him for that!’
‘You are made to be a soldier’s wife! I was put out of all patience! Oh, Bab, that message! What can he have meant by it?’
Barbara looked at her with glinting eyes, and the lifting smile that meant danger. ‘I could take him away from that chit in a week. Less! A day!’
‘I daresay you might: indeed, I’ve no doubt of it. But I wish you would not talk so.’
‘Do not alarm yourself. I shan’t do it. If only he comes safe back he may have her—yes, and I’ll smile and be glad!’ Her face broke up; she cried out: ‘No, not that! but I won’t make mischief—I promise I won’t make mischief!’
Twenty minutes later Worth re-entered the room to find both ladies seated on the sofa, in companionable silence. He said in his calm way: ‘Take my advice, and go to bed. There is no danger tonight, but I may be obliged to convey you to the coast tomorrow. So get what rest you can now.’
‘Has Charles gone?’ Judith asked.
‘Yes—and your Sunday dinner with him.’
‘Oh dear! But it does not signify. I wish it would stop raining! I do not like to think of him riding all that way in this downpour!’
‘He will do very well, I assure you. If you wish to be pitying anyone, pity the poor devils who are bivouacking out in the open tonight.’
She rose. ‘I do pity them. Come, Bab! he is right; we should go to bed.’
The words were hardly spoken when they heard a knock on the street door. Even Worth looked a little surprised, and raised his brows. The butler had not yet retired to bed; they heard him go to the door and open it; and a moment later the stairs creaked under his heavy tread. He entered the salon, but before he could announce the visitor, Lucy Devenish had rushed past him into the room.
A wet cloak and hood enveloped her; she was pale, and evidently in great agitation. She looked wildly round the room, and then, fixing her eyes on Judith’s astonished countenance, faltered: ‘My uncle heard that Colonel Audley had been at Sir Charles Stuart’s!’
‘He has been there, and here, too, but I am afraid he has this moment gone,’ said Judith. ‘My dear child, surely you did not come alone, and in this shocking storm? Let me take your cloak! How imprudent this is of you!’
‘Oh, I know, I know! But I could not sleep without trying to get news! No one knows that I am not in my bed—it is wrong of me, but indeed, indeed I had to come!’
Judith removed the dripping cloak from her shoulders. ‘Hush, Lucy! There is no need for this alarm. Charles is safe, and all is well, upon my honour!’
Miss Devenish pushed the hair from her brow with one distracted hand. ‘I ran the whole way! I hoped to see him—but it is no matter!’ She made an effort to be calm, and sank down upon a chair, saying: ‘I am so glad he is safe! Did he tell you what had been happening? Was there any news? What did he say?’
‘Yes, indeed; he has been describing to us how our Army has been obliged to retreat to Mont St Jean. It appears there has been no very serious fighting today: nothing but some cavalry skirmishes, which he said were extremely pretty, if you please!’
‘Oh—! Please tell me! I—we have heard so little all day, you see,’ Lucy said, with a forced laugh.
‘There was nothing of any consequence, my dear. Indeed, from what he said I gathered that only some hussars and the Life Guards have been actually engaged with the enemy. Charles himself—’
She stopped, for Lucy had sprung up, her face so ghastly and her manner so distraught that for a moment Judith almost feared that she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Charles? What is he to me?’ Lucy said hoarsely. ‘It is George—George! Was there no word? No message for me? Lady Barbara, for God’s sake tell me, or I shall go mad with this suspense!’
‘George?’ gasped Judith, grasping a chairback for support.
‘Yes, George!’ Lucy cried fiercely. ‘I can bear no more! I must know what has become of him, I tell you!’
‘He is perfectly safe,’ said Barbara coolly.
Lucy gave a long sigh and dropped on to the sofa. ‘Oh, thank God, thank God!’ she sobbed. ‘What I have undergone—The torture! The suspense!’
Across the room, Barbara’s eyes met Judith’s for a moment; then she glanced down at Lucy’s bowed head, and said: ‘Oh, confound you, must you cry because he is safe?’
Judith stepped up to the sofa and laid her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Lucy, what is this folly?’ she asked. ‘What can Lord George be to you?’
Lucy lifted her face from her hands. ‘He is my husband!’ she said.
A dumbfounded silence fell. Barbara was staring at her with narrowed eyes, Judith in utter incredulity. With deliberation, the Earl polished his quizzing glass, and raised it, and gazed at Lucy in a dispassionately considering fashion.
‘George actually married you?’ said Barbara slowly. ‘When?’
‘Last year—in England!’ Lucy replied, covering her face with her hands.
‘Then all these months—!’ Judith ejaculated. ‘Good God, how is this possible?’
‘It is true. I am aware of what your feelings must be, but oh, if you knew how bitterly I have been punished, you would pity me!’
‘I do not know what to say! It is not for me to reproach you! But what can have prompted you to commit such an act of folly? Why this long secrecy? I am utterly at a loss!’
‘Ah, you are not acquainted with my grandfather!’ said Barbara. ‘The secrecy is easily explained. What, however, passes my comprehension is how the devil you persuaded George into marriage!’
‘He loves me!’ Lucy said, rearing up her head.
‘He must indeed do so. Odd! I should not have thought you the girl to catch his fancy.’
‘Oh, Bab, pray hush!’ besought Judith.
‘Nonsense! If Miss Devenish—I beg pardon!—if Lady George has become my sister the sooner she grows accustomed to the language I use the better it will be. So George was afraid to confess the whole to my grandfather, was he?’
‘Yes. I cannot tell you all, but you must not blame him! Mine was the fault. I allowed myself to be swept off my feet. The marriage took place in Sussex. George was in the expectation of gaining his promotion—’
‘Ah, I begin to understand you! My grandfather was to have given him the purchase money, eh? Instead he was obliged to spend in hushing up the Carroway affair, and was disinclined to assist George further.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Everything went awry! That scandal—but all that is over now! Indeed, indeed, George loves me, and there can be no more such affairs!’
‘My poor innocent! But continue!’
‘He said we must wait. His circumstances were awkward: there were debts; and I was unhappily aware of my uncle’s dislike of him. I feared nothing but anger could be met with in that quarter. My uncle thinks him a spendthrift, and that, in his eyes, outweighs every consideration of birth or title. To have declared our marriage would have meant George’s ruin. But the misery of my position, the necessity of deceiving my uncle and my aunt, the wretchedness of stolen meetings with George—all these led to lowness of spirits in me, and in him the natural irritation of a man tied in such a way to one who—’ Her utterance was choked by sobs; she overcame them, and continued: ‘Misunderstandings, even quarrels, arose between us. I began to believe that he regretted a union entered into so wrongly. When my uncle and aunt decided to come to Brussels in January, I accompanied them willingly, feeling that nothing could be worse than the life I was then leading. But the separation seemed to draw us closer together! When George arrived in this country all the love which I thought had waned seemed in an instant to reanimate towards me! He would have declared our marriage then: it was I who insisted on the secret still being kept! Think me what you will! I deserve your censure, but my courage failed. Situated as I was, in the midst of this restricted society, believed by all to be a single woman, I could not face the scandal that such a declaration would have caused! I was even afraid to
be seen in his company lest anyone should suspect an attachment to exist between us. All the old wretchedness returned! George—oh, only to tease me into yielding!—began to devote himself to other and more beautiful females. I have come near to putting an end to my existence, even! Then the war broke out. I saw George at the Duchess’s ball. Every misunderstanding seemed to vanish, but we had so little time together! He was forced to leave me: had it not been for Colonel Audley’s promising to send me word if he could, I must have become demented!’
‘Then Charles knew?’ Judith exclaimed.
‘Yes! On the very night that his engagement was put an end to he found me in great distress, and persuaded me to confide in him. His nature, so frank and upright, must have revolted from the duplicity of mine, but he uttered no word of blame. His sympathy for my situation, the awkwardness of which he understood immediately, his kindness—I cannot speak of it! I had engaged his silence as the price of my confidence. His promise was given, and implicitly kept.’
‘Good God!’ said Judith blankly. She raised her eyes from Lucy’s face, and looked at Barbara. She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘Oh, Bab, the fools we have been!’
‘Yes! And the wretch Charles has been! Infamous!’ Barbara walked up to the sofa, and laid her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Dry your tears! Your marriage is in the best tradition of my family, I assure you.’
Lucy clasped her hand. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’
‘What the devil has my forgiveness to do with it? You have not injured me. I wish you extremely happy.’
‘How kind you are! I do not deserve to be happy!’
‘You are very unlikely to be,’ said Barbara, somewhat dryly. ‘George will make you a damnable husband.’
‘Oh no, no! If only he is not killed!’ Lucy shuddered.
It was some time before she could regain her composure, and nearly an hour before she left the house. Worth had ordered the horses to be put to, and undertook to escort her to her uncle’s lodgings. Judith and Barbara found themselves alone at last.
‘Well!’ Barbara said. ‘You will allow that at least I never contracted a secret marriage!’
‘I have never been so deceived in anyone in my life!’ Judith replied, in a shocked tone.
Twenty-One
Colonel Audley reached the village of Waterloo a few minutes before midnight. The road through the Forest of Soignes, though roughly paved down the centre, was in a bad state, the heavy rainfall having turned the uncobbled portions on either side of the pavé into bogs which in places were impassable. Wagons and tilt cars were some of them deeply embedded in mud, and some overturned after coming into collision with the Belgian cavalry in their flight earlier in the day. In the darkness it was necessary for a horseman to pick his way carefully. The contents of the wagons in some cases strewed the road; here and there a cart, with two of its wheels in the air, lay across the pavé; and several horses which had fallen in one of the mad rushes for safety had been shot, and now sprawled in the mud at the sides of the chaussée. The rain dripped ceaselessly from the leaves of the beech trees; the moonlight was obscured by heavy clouds; and only by the glimmer of lantern slung on the wagons lining the road was it possible to discern the way.
At Waterloo, lights burned in many of the cottage windows, for there was not a dwelling-place in the village, or in any of the hamlets nearby, which did not house a general and his staff, or senior officers who had been fortunate enough to secure a bed or a mattress under cover. The tiny inn owned by Veuve Bedonghien, opposite the church, was occupied by the Duke, and here the Colonel dismounted. A figure loomed up to meet him. ‘Is it yourself, sir?’ his groom enquired anxiously, holding up a lantern. ‘Eh, if that’s not his lordship’s Rufus!’
The Colonel gave up the bridle. ‘Yes. Rub him down well, Cherry!’ The faint crackle of musketry fire in the distance came to his ears. ‘What’s all this popping?’
Cherry gave a grunt. ‘Proper spiteful they’ve been all evening. Pickets, they tell me. “Well,” I said, “we didn’t do such in Spain, that’s all I know.’’’
The Colonel turned away and entered the inn. An orderly informed him that the Duke was still up, and he went into a room in the front of the house to make his report.
The Duke was seated at a table, with De Lancey at his elbow, looking over a map of the country. Lord Fitzroy occupied a chair on one side of the fire, and was placidly writing on his knee. He looked up as the Colonel came in, and smiled.
‘Hallo, Audley!’ said his lordship. ‘What’s the news in Brussels?’
‘There’s been a good deal of panic, sir. The news of our retreat sent hundreds off to Antwerp,’ replied the Colonel, handing over the letters he had brought.
‘Ah, I daresay! Road bad?’
‘Yes, sir, and needs clearing. In places it’s choked with baggage and overturned carts. I spoke to one of our own drivers, and it seems the Belgian cavalry upset everything in their way when they galloped to Brussels.’
‘I’ll have it cleared first thing,’ De Lancey said. ‘It’s the fault of these rascally Flemish drivers! There’s no depending on them.’
Sir Colin Campbell came into the room, and upon seeing Audley remarked that there was some cold pie to be had; the Duke nodded dismissal, and the Colonel went off to a room upstairs which was occupied by Gordon and Colonel Canning. A fire had been lit in the grate, and several wet garments were drying in front of it. Occasionally it belched forth a puff of acrid woodsmoke, which mingled with the blue smoke of the two officers’ cigars, and made the atmosphere in the small apartment extremely thick. Gordon was lying on a mattress in his shirtsleeves, with his hands linked behind his head; and Canning was sprawling in an ancient armchair by the fire, critically inspecting a crumpled coat which was hung over a chair back to dry.
‘Welcome to our humble quarters!’ said Canning. ‘Don’t be afraid! You’ll soon get used to the smoke.’
‘What a reek!’ said Audley. ‘Why the devil don’t you open the window?’
‘A careful reconnaissance,’ Gordon informed him, ‘has revealed the fact that the window is not made to open. What are you concealing under your cloak?’
The Colonel grinned, and produced his bottles of champagne, which he set down on the table.
‘Canning, tell the orderly downstairs to get hold of some glasses!’ said Gordon, sitting up. ‘Hi, Charles, don’t put that wet cloak of yours anywhere near my coat!’
Canning hitched the coat off the chair back, and tossed it to its owner. ‘It’s dry. We have a very nice billet here, Charles. Try this chair! I daren’t sit in it any longer for fear of being too sore to sit in the saddle tomorrow.’
Colonel Audley spread his cloak over the chair back, sat down on the edge of the truckle bed against the wall, and began to pull off his muddied boots. ‘I’m going to sleep,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I rather think that I’m asleep already. Where’s Slender Billy?’
‘At Abeiche. Horses at L’Espinettes.’
The Colonel wiped his hands on a large handkerchief, took off his coat, and stretched himself full length on the patchwork quilt. ‘What do they stuff their mattresses with here?’ he enquired. ‘Turnips?’
‘We rather suspect mangel-worzels,’ replied Canning. ‘Did you hear the pickets enjoying themselves when you came in?’
‘Damned fools!’ said Audley. ‘What’s the sense of it?’
‘There ain’t any, but if the feeling in our lines and the French lines tonight is anything to go by we’re in for a nasty affair tomorrow.’
‘Well, I don’t approve of it,’ said Gordon, raising himself on his elbow to throw the stub of his cigar into the fire. ‘We used to manage things much better in Spain. Do you remember those fellows of ours who used to leave a bowl out with a piece of money in it every night for the French vedettes to take in exchange for cognac? Now, that’s what I call a proper, friendly way of conducting a war.’
‘There wasn’t anything very friendly about our fellows the night the Fren
ch took the money without filling the bowl,’ Audley remarked. ‘Have the French all come up?’
‘Can’t say,’ replied Canning. ‘There’s been a good deal of artillery arriving on their side, judging from the rumbling I heard when I was on the field half an hour ago. Queer thing: our fellows have lit campfires, as usual, but there isn’t one to be seen in the French lines.’
‘Poor devils!’ said Audley, and shut his eyes.
Downstairs, the Duke was also stretched on his bed, having dropped asleep with that faculty he possessed of snatching rest anywhere and at any time. At three o’clock Lord Fitzroy woke him with the intelligence that Baron Müffling had come over from his quarters with a despatch from Marshal Blücher at Wavre.
The Duke sat up, and swung his legs to the ground. ‘What’s the time? Three o’clock? Time to get up. How’s the weather?’
‘Clearing a little, sir.’
‘Good!’ His lordship pulled on his hessians, shrugged himself into his coat, and strode into the adjoining room, where Müffling awaited him. ‘Hallo, Baron! Fitzroy tells me the weather’s beginning to clear.’
‘It is very bad still, however, and the ground in many places a morass.’
‘My people call this sort of thing “Wellington weather”,’ observed his lordship. ‘It always rains before my battles. What’s the news from the Marshal? Hope he’s no worse?’
The Marshal Prince had been last heard of as prostrate from the results of having been twice ridden over by cavalry when his horse was shot under him at Ligny. It would not have been surprising had an old gentleman of over seventy years of age succumbed to this rough usage, but Marshal Forwards was made of stern stuff. He was dosing himself with a concoction of his own, in which garlic figured largely, and had every intention of leading his army in person again. He had ordered General Bülow to march at daybreak, through Wavre, on Chapelle St Lambert, with the Second Army Corps in support; and wrote asking for information, and promising support.
After a short conference with the Duke, Müffling went back to his own quarters to send off the intelligence that was wanted, and to represent to General Gneisenau in the plainest language the propriety of moving to the support of the Allied Army without any loss of time.