The Regency (100 page)

‘Is your leg hurting you? Shall I look at it again?'

‘
What, here? he said with a smile. He had taken a nasty sword wound in the thigh, which had not healed properly, and which had been draining his strength so much that his
colonel had sent him home to recover. 'No, it doesn't hurt —
itches abominably, though.'

‘That's good. That means it's healing.'

‘
So you tell me,' he smiled. 'I was just thinking this is the
wrong time to be out of the game, when so much is happening
over there.'

‘
Poor Danby,' she said, amused. 'Who would have thought
you'd turn out to be so bloodthirsty?'

‘
Not a matter of that,' he began to protest, and she
squeezed his hand to shew it was a joke.

‘
Who would have thought also,' she went on, 'that things
could change so much in such a short time? This time last
year, we thought the war would go on for ever.'

‘You did,' he corrected. 'It still may.'

‘But so much has changed since then.'

‘
Boney's invading Russia was the turning point. Bit off
more than he could swallow.'

‘
It was insanity,' Lucy said. 'After that, no-one could doubt
that he's mad. Only a madman would have gone on so long
just to reach Moscow: and for what?'

‘
The Russians did just as they ought. Refusing to face the
French, luring them further and further from their supply
bases. Weakening them with every mile into the heartland.'

‘
Captain Haworth said he didn't think Boney had any idea how large Russia was,' Lucy said. 'But I suppose if Moscow
hadn't been burned down, it might have been different. He
might have made that his base. I wonder who did set fire to
it?'

‘
Don't suppose we'll ever know. But there would still have
been the winter to get through.’

Bonaparte had reached Moscow in the middle of
September, 1812. It had taken him three months to march to
Moscow from the border, from which all his stores must be
sent; with Moscow a smouldering ruin, there was nothing he
could do but to march back, into the oncoming winter.

Stories were still filtering through about that nightmare
retreat across Russia, but perhaps no imagination would ever
be able to do justice to the sufferings of the men who made it.
The severity of the Russian winter did what no troops in
Europe could have managed. Bonaparte had crossed the
Nieman in June with six hundred thousand men; the survivors
straggling back over the frozen river in December numbered
only fifty thousand. How many had been taken prisoner no-
one knew; but by any reckoning half a million men had died,
of cold, starvation, and the gangrene that follows frostbite —
all for the Corsican's ambition.

‘
He shouldn't have abandoned his men like that, to save his
own cowardly skin,' Lucy reflected. 'He should have stayed
with them to the end, not gone posting off in a comfortable
carriage, leaving them to die.'

‘It isn't like that,' Danby was forced to say. 'A general must
save himself — no-one else to give orders. Wouldn't do any
good for him to die with them.'

‘It would have been best for everyone if he had,' Lucy said stubbornly.

‘
Astonishing that he managed to raise another army so
soon,' Danby said with reluctant admiration. The Russians,
pouring out from their country in Bonaparte's wake, had
occupied Poland and Prussia. Prussia had declared war
against France; cautious Austria had gone half way and
declared itself neutral; and Sweden had agreed to join the
alliance in exchange for Norway. Bonaparte's kingdom seemed
to be falling apart.

Meanwhile, Wellington's new campaign of 1813 had
achieved what last year's had failed to do, and driven the
French out of Spain, back into France. Britain had joined the allies, offering gold to help the Russians keep a hundred and
fifty thousand men in the field against the tyrant. Yet
Bonaparte would not behave like a defeated man. Deserting the
lost cause in Russia, he had posted to Paris, raised another
army, and marched north into Prussia to retake Hamburg.
Since then he had marched here and marched there, fought battles and won them; but he was losing men through casu
alties and desertions, and every loss strengthened the Allies. It
was clear that he was no longer invincible in Europe.

‘
Well, I expect they'll manage to beat Boney without you,'
Lucy said comfortingly. 'Lady Tonbridge told me last week that Lady Castlereagh told her that we're going to offer the
French terms for peace. Something about natural frontiers —
what are those?'

‘
It means that France would be confined to the land
between the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Rhine,' Danby said. 'But I can't see Boney accepting. He'd have to give up Italy,
which I believe he loves more than France; and Germany and
Holland, and Belgium. And what about the colonies? I don't
think he'll just tamely accept and lay down his arms. Why
should he? We think we've got him cornered, but we've
thought that before. A cornered fox is dangerous.'

‘
You're pessimistic,' Lucy said. 'What about the Allies? He
can't fight everyone.'

‘
Alliances have been made before, and broken before,'
Wiske said grimly. 'It isn't generally known, but back in
August, Austria was making secret negotiations with Boney
for a separate peace between them, in return for certain
territories dear to Austrian hearts.'

‘The treacherous dogs!' Lucy said indignantly.

‘
Boney refused, of course, but it's a sign of what we have to
contend with. Castlereagh's been writing to all the heads of
government, begging them to stand united, saying that lasting
peace can only come if everyone agrees on the terms, and
doesn't go bargaining behind people's backs. So you see,
we're not home and dry yet. I don't believe Boney will give in
until he's cornered in his own capital without a single soldier
to his name. And I want to be with Hookey when we march
into Paris.’

Lucy stared into the middle distance. 'It's hard to imagine a Europe without Boney. We'll have to find someone else to
blame for everything.' She looked at her companion. 'Well, I
can understand your wanting to finish the game. You'll be fit
enough to go back in a week or so, though that muscle will be
weak for a while.’

He lifted her hand and kissed it, and she looked away, and
changed the subject.

Did you see much of Marcus when you were out there?'

‘
Yes, I saw quite a lot of him. He's a born soldier — taken
to campaigning like a duck to water. Popular with the other
officers, and his men adore him. Suits him down to the
ground. I shouldn't be surprised if he didn't distinguish him
self, if the war goes on long enough. You should have seen him at Vitoria — neck or nothing stuff! Took his men right
through the French flank!'

‘
You'd better not say anything like that to the children,'
Lucy said. 'Rosamund will have nightmares if she thinks
Marcus is doing anything dangerous.’

Wiske looked amused. 'My dear Lucy, you underestimate
Rosamund. She knows exactly how dangerous it is, and she's
as proud as Lucifer of Marcus's exploits. She's not her
mother's daughter for nothing.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘
She wouldn't keep him from his duty any more than you
would keep me from mine,' he said. 'There's one difference
though — she'd marry Marcus tomorrow, if he asked her.'

‘Don't be silly, she's just a child.’

‘Why won't you marry me, Lucy? It makes'no sense.'

‘
I can't explain it,' she said unhappily. 'Why must you ask?
Don't you have enough of me as it is?'

‘
No,' he said steadily. 'You know I don't. You give me what
you can too easily spare. You don't give me what I want.’

‘What do you want, then?' she said, taking refuge in anger.
‘You. Your self.’

She turned her head away. 'I don't know what you're
talking about.'

‘
Yes you do. Lucy, please be honest with me. You said you
would marry me when the war's over. If you want to marry
me, then why wait? But if you said that just to keep me quiet,
I beg you to tell me so. I wouldn't keep you to a promise you
made unwillingly, or that you've thought better of. We can be
friends again as we used to —'

‘
No we can't. You know we can't. Everything's changed
now.'

‘
I don't want you to be unhappy,' he said desperately. 'You
tell me what you want of me.'

‘
I don't know,' she said in a low voice. ‘If I knew I would
tell you. Maybe I don't want anything. How can I tell?’

They were both silent, staring at nothing. His own feelings
for her were so unequivocal, that he did not understand how
she could not understand her own.

‘
Would you prefer not to see me again?' he asked after a
while, trying to keep his voice even.

‘
No!' she said sharply. She looked at him and sighed. 'Can't we just go on as we are for a while? And see what happens?’

‘Yes, of course,' he said. ‘If you like.' He did not add, what
choice do I have? but they both heard the unspoken words all
the same.

*

In March, 1814, Mathilde went on a long visit to her friend
Lizzie Wickfield, who had just been delivered of her first
child. Edward found the house very empty without her, and
felt lost and restless. Nothing seemed comfortable without
her, and no-one else's conversation made the evenings pass
for him so quickly and delightfully.

It was the restlessness caused by Mathilde's absence that
spurred him to sound Fanny out on the subject of his
marrying. She had been so much more sensible lately, so much
more
approachable, putting all her considerable energies into
understanding the running of the estate rather than making
mischief. He thought the time might be right at last to put his
love on an official footing.

He sought Fanny out one day, finding her in the steward's
room, where she was talking to Compton, the steward, and
examining the stock books. Tiger ran to shove his cold nose into her hand, and she looked up as Edward appeared at the
doorway. The black cotton wrapper she had had made for
herself on her last visit to Manchester had become a familiar
sight now, but when she didn't smile, it made her look rather
formidable. Edward had to remind himself that she was only
eighteen, and his niece to boot.