An Infamous Army (35 page)

"How do you go on with the Duke?" asked Worth.

"Very well, I believe. He is agreeable, and in matters of service very short and decided."

"Excessively short, I understand!" said Judith, with a laugh.

"Perhaps, yes," he acknowledged. "He exercises far greater power in the Army he commands than Prince von Blucher does in ours. It is not the custom, I find, to criticise or control your commander-in-chief. With us it is different. On our staff everything is discussed openly in the hearing of all the officers, which is, I find, not good, for time is wasted, and there are always what the Marshal calls Trubsals-Spritzen - I think you say - trouble-squirts?"

"No, you won't find the Duke discussing his plans with his officers," said Worth. "He is not held to held to be over-and-above fond of being asked questions, either."

The Baron replied in a thoughtful tone: "He allows questions. It would be more correct to say that he dismisses all such as are unnecessary. There is certainly an impatience to be observed sometimes, but his character is distinguished by its openness and rectitude and must make him universally respected. There should be the utmost harmony between him and the Marshal and the exertions of myself and of your estimable Colonel Hardinge must be alike directed towards this end."

"Yes, indeed," said Judith faintly. "I am sure - And how do you like being in Brussels, Baron? I hope you do not agree with General von Roder in thinking us very frivolous!"

"Madame, it is not possible!" he said, with a gallant bow. "Everyone is most amiable! One envies the English officers the beautiful wives who follow them so intrepidly to the seat of war."

She could not help laughing. "Oh! Are you married, Baron?"

"Yes," he replied. "I am the possessor of a noble-minded wife and three hopeful children."

"How - how delightful!" said Judith, avoiding her husband's eye.

But in spite of the occasionally paralysing remarks he made, Baron Muffling was a man of considerable shrewdness, and he soon learned not only to adapt himself to his company but to induce the Duke to trust him. He was perfectly frank with his lordship. "Prince Blucher will never make difficulties when the talk is of advancing and attacking. In retrograde movements his vexation sometimes overpowers him, but he soon recovers himself," he told the Duke. "General Gneisenau is chivalrous and strictly just, but he believes that you should always require from men more than they can perform, which is a principle which I consider as dangerous as it is incorrect. As for our infantry, it does not possess the same bodily strength or powers of endurance as yours. The greater mass of our troops are young and inexperienced. We cannot reckon on them obstinately continuing a fight from morning till evening. They will not do it."

"Oh! I think very little of soldiers running away at times," said his lordship. "The steadiest troops will occasionally do so - but it is a serious matter if they do not come back."

"You may depend upon one thing," Muffling assured him. "When the Prince has agreed to any operation in common, he will keep his word."

Yes, the Duke could be more than ever sure that he and old Blucher would be able to do the business, in spite of his infamous Army, his inexperienced staff, and every obstacle put in his way by the people at home. His personal staff had been augmented by Lieutenant Colonel Canning, who had served him in the Peninsula, and had had the temerity to beg to be employed again as an aide-de-camp; and by Major the Honourable Henry Percy, whom he had enrolled as an extra. He had nothing to complain of in his own family at least, though he was inclined to think it a great pity that Audley should not have recovered from his affair with Barbara Childe. However, it did not seem to be interfering with his work, which was all that signified.

Colonel Audley had, in fact flung himself into his work with an energy that must have pleased General Roder, had he been there to see it. It did not help him to forget Barbara, but while he was busy he could not be thinking of her, picturing the glimmer of her eyes, the lustre of her hair, the lovely smile that lifted the corners of her mouth; or torturing himself with wondering what she was doing, whether she was happy or perhaps secretly sad, and, most of all, who was with her.

There was very little room for doubt about that, he knew. She would be with Lavisse, riding with him, waltzing with him, held too close in his arms for propriety, his black head close to her flaming one, his lips almost brushing her ear as he murmured his expert lovemaking into it. She was behaving outrageously: even those who had grown accustomed to her odd flights were shocked. She had borrowed Harry's clothes, and had gone swaggering through the streets with George for a vulgar bet; she had won a race in her phaeton against a wild young ne'er-do-well in whose company no lady of breeding would have permitted herself to have been seen. She had appeared at the opera in a classical robe which left one shoulder bare and revealed beneath its diaphanous folds more than even the most daring creature would have cared to show; she had set a roomful of gentlemen in a roar by singing in the demurest way a couple of the most shocking French ballads. The ladies present had been unable to follow the words of the songs, which were extremely idiomatic, but they knew when their husbands were laughing at improper jokes, and there was not a married man there who had not to endure a certain lecture that night.

Lord Vidal was furious. He threatened to turn his sister out of doors, which made her laugh. He could not do it, of course, for ten to one she would simply install herself at one of the hotels, and a pretty scandal that would create. There was only one person to whom she might possibly attend, and that was her grandmother.

Vidal had written to that wise old lady the very night the engagement was broken off, begging her to exert her influence, but apparently she did not choose to do so for she had neither answered his letter nor written one to Barbara.

Even Augusta was taken aback by Barbara's behaviour, and remonstrated with her. Barbara turned on her with a white face and blazing eyes. "Leave me alone!" she said. "I'll do what I choose, and if I choose to go to the devil it is my business, and not yours!"

"Oh, agreed!" said Augusta, shrugging bore shoulders. "But I find your conduct very odd, I must say. If you are hankering after your staff officer -"

A harsh little laugh cut her short. "Pray do not be ridiculous, Gussie! I had almost forgotten his existence!"

"I am happy to hear you say so, but I fail to see the purpose of all this running about. Why can you not be still?"

"Because I can't, because I won't!"

"Do you mean to have Lavisse?"

"Oh, don't talk to me of more engagements. I have had enough of being tied, I can assure you."

"Take care he does not grow tired of your trick . In my opinion you are playing a dangerous game." She added maliciously: "You are not irresistible, you know. Colonel Audley seems to have had no difficulty in consoling himself elsewhere. How do you like to be supplanted by a little nobody like Lucy Devenish?"

She had the satisfaction of seeing a quiver run over Barbara's face. Barbara replied, however, without hesitation: "Oh, she'll make him a capital wife! I told him so."

Lord George received the news of the broken engagement with careless unconcern. "I daresay you know your own business best," he said. "I never thought him our sort."

But Lord Harry nearly wept over it. "The nicest fellow that ever was in love with you, and you jilt him for a damned frog!" he exclaimed.

"If you mean Lavisse, he is a Belgian, and not a Frenchman, and I did not jilt Charles Audley. He was perfectly ready to let me go, you know," replied Barbara candidly.

"I don't believe it! The truth is you played off your tricks till no man worth his salt would stand it! I know you!"

She twisted her hands in her lap, gripping her fingers together. "If you know me you must admit that we were not suited."

"No!" he said hotly. "You are only suited to a fellow like Lavisse! He will do very well for you, and I wish you joy of him!"

"Thank you," she said, with a crooked smile. "I have not yet accepted him, however."

"Why not? He's as rich as Croesus, and he won't care how you behave as long as you don't interfere with his little pleasures. You'll make a famous pair!"

He slammed out of her presence, and sought Colonel Audley. The interview was rather a trying one for the Colonel, for there was no curbing Harry's unpetuous tongue. "Oh, I say, sir, don't give her up!" he begged. "She'll marry that Belgian fellow if you do, sure as fate!"

"My dear boy, you don't -"

"No, but only listen, sir! It ain't vice with Bab really it ain't, She's spoilt, but she don't mean the things she says, and I'm ready to swear she's never gone beyond flirtation. I daresay you're thinking of that Darcy affair, but -"

"I am not thinking of any affair, Harry."

"Of course I know she has the devil's own temper - gets it from my grandfather: George has it too - but perhaps you don't understand that the things they do when they are in their rages don't mean anything. 0f course, George is a shocking fellow, but Bab isn't. People say she's heartless, but myself I'm devilish fond of her, and if she marries a damned rake like Lavissz it'll be just too much to bear!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, but you have it wrong. It wasn't I who broke the engagement."

"But Charles, if you would only see her!"

"Do you imagine that I am going to crawl to your sister, begging to be taken on the strength again?"

Harry sighed. "No. No, of course you wouldn't do that."

"You say that she is going to marry Lavisse. If that is so, there is no possibility of our engagement's being renewed. In any case - No! it will not do. I have been brought to realise that, and upon reflection I think you must realise it too."

"It's such a damned shame!" Harry burst out. "I don't want Lavisse for a brother-in-law! I never liked any of the others half as well as you!"

He sounded so disconsolate that in a mood less bleak the Colonel must have been amused. His spirits were too much oppressed, however, for him to be able to bear such a discussion with equanimity. He was glad when Harry at last took himself off.

Harry's artless disclosures left a painful impression: an unacknowledged hope had lingered in the Colonel's mind that Barbara's encouragement of Lavisse might have been the outcome merely of pique. But Harry's words seemed to show that she was indeed serious. Her family looked upon the match as certain; Colonel Audley was forced to recall the many occasions during their engagement when she had seemed to feel a decided partiality for the Count. He had believed her tireless flirtations to be only the expression of a certain volatility of mind, which stronger ties of affection would put an end to. It had not been so. The mischief of her upbringing, the hardening effect of a distasteful marriage, had vitiated a character of whose underlying worth he could still entertain no doubt. That the heart was unspoiled, he was sure: could he but have possessed himself of it he was persuaded all would have been different. Her conduct had convinced him that he had failed, and although, even through the anger that had welled up in him at their last meeting, he had been conscious of an almost overpowering impulse to keep her upon any terms, a deeper instinct had held him silent.

He had passed since then through every phase of doubt, sometimes driven so nearly mad by the desire to hold her in his arms that he had fallen asleep at night with the fixed intention of imploring her to let everything be as it had been before their quarrel, only to wake in the morning to a realization of the impossibility of building happiness upon such foundations. Arguments clashed, and nagged in his brain. He blamed himself for lack of tact, for having been too easy, for having been too harsh. Sometimes he was sure that he had handled her wrongly from the start; then profounder knowledge would possess him, and he would recognise with regret the folly of all such arguments. There could be no question of tact or mishandling where the affections were engaged. He came back wearily to the only thing he knew to be certain: that since the love she had felt for him had been a light emotion, as fleeting as her smile, nothing but misery could attend their marriage.

After prolonged strife the mind becomes a Iittle numb, repeating dully the old arguments, but ceasing to attach a meaning to them. It was so with Colonel Audley. His brain continued to revolve every argument. but he seemed no longer capable of drawing any conclusions from them. He could neither convince himself that the rift was final nor comfort himself with the hope of renewing the engagement. He was aware. chiefly, of an immense lassitude, but beneath it, and underlying his every word and thought, was a pain that had turned from a sharp agony into an ache which was always present, yet often ignored, because familiarty had inured him to it.

The unfortunate circumstance of his being obliged to remain in Brussels, where he must not only see Barbara. continually but was forced to live under the eyes of scores of people whom he knew to be watching him imposed a strain upon him that began very soon to appear in his face. Judith, obliged to respect his evident wish that the affair should be forgotten, was goaded to exclaiming to Worth: "I could even wish the war would break out, if only it would take Charles away from this place!"

Upon the following day, June 14th, it seemed as though her wish would be granted. She was at Lady Conynghame's in the evening, congratulating Lord Hay upon his win at the races at Grammont upon the previous day, when Colonel Audley came in with news of serious movement on the frontier. On June 13th, Sir Hussey Vivian, whose hussar brigade was stationed to the south of Tournay, had discovered that he had opposite him not a cavalry picket, as had previously been the case, but a mere collection of douaniers, who, upon being questioned, had readily disclosed the fact of the French army's concentration about Maubeuge. Shortly after the Colonel's entrance some other guests came in with a rumour that the French had actually crossed the frontier. All disbelief was presently put an end to by the Duke's arrival. He was calm, and in good spirits, but replied to the eager questions put to him that he believed the rumour to be true.