'He thinks him a spendthrift, sir.'
'Ha! Damned Cit! He may consider himself lucky to have caught George for his nobody of a niece!'
'As to that, Lucy is his heir. I fancy he was looking higher for her. Her fortune will not be inconsiderable, you know, and in these days -'
'So he was looking higher, was he? An Alastair is not good enough for him! I'll see this greasy merchant!'
The Duchess said in her matter-of-fact way: 'You should certainly do so. It will be much more the thing than that wild notion you had taken into your head of riding out with Lord Worth towards the battlefield.'
'Fisher can wait,' replied his Grace. 'I have every intention of going to see what news can be got the instant I have swallowed my dinner.'
'Dinner!' Judith exclaimed. 'How shocking of me! I had forgotten the time. You must know, Duchess, that here in Brussels we have got into the way of dining at four. I hope you will not mind. You must please stay and join us.'
'You should warn them that Charles bore off our Sunday dinner,' Barbara said, with a wry smile.
'You may be sure my cook will have contrived something.'
The Avons were putting up at the Hotel de Belle Vue, and the Duchess at once suggested that the whole party should walk round to dine there. It was declined, however; Judith's confidence in her cook was found not to have been misplaced; and in a very few minutes they were all seated round the table in the dining-parlour.
The conversation was mostly of the war. The wildest rumours were current in Ghent, and the Duke was glad to listen to a calm account from Worth of all that had so far passed. When he heard that the Life Guards had driven the French lancers out of Genappe, he looked pleased, but beyond saying that if George did not get his brevet for this he supposed he would be obliged to purchase promotion for him, he made no remark. As soon as they rose from the table, he and Worth took their departure, to ride towards the Forest of Soignes in search of intelligence, and Judith, excusing herself, left Barbara alone with her grandmother.
'I have surpassed myself, ma'am,' Barbara said in a bitter tone. 'Did Vidal write you the whole?'
'Quite enough,' replied the Duchess. 'I wish, dearest, you will try to get the better of this shocking disposition of yours.'
'If Charles comes back to me there is nothing I will not do!'
'We will hope he may do so. Your grandfather was very much pleased with the civil letter Colonel Audley wrote to him. How came you to throw him off as you did, my love?'
'O God, Grandmama!' Barbara whispered, and fell on her knees beside the Duchess, and buried her face in her lap.
It was long before she could be calm. The Duchess listened in understanding silence to the disjointed sentences gasped out, merely saying presently: 'Don't cry, Bab. It will ruin your face, you know.'
'I don't give a damn for my face!'
'I am very sure that you do.'
Barbara sat up, smiling through her tears. 'Confound you, ma'am, you know too much! There, I have done! You don't wish me to remove to the Hotel de Belle Vue, do you? I cannot leave Judith at this present.'
'By all means stay here, my love. But tell me about this child George has married, if you please!'
'I cannot conceive what possessed George to look twice at her. She is quite insipid.'
'Dear me! I had better go and call upon her aunt.'
She very soon took her leave, setting out on foot to the Fishers' lodging. Her visit did much to sooth Lucy's agitation; and her calm good sense almost reconciled Mr Fisher to an alliance which he had been regarding with the deepest misgiving. Neither his appearance nor the obsequiousness of his manners could be expected to please the Duchess, but she was agreeably surprised in Lucy, and although not placing much dependence upon her being able to hold George's volatile fancy, went back presently to her hotel feeling that things might have been much worse.
Worth returned at about six o'clock, having parted from the Duke at the end of the street. He had very little news to report. He described meeting Creevey in the suburbs, and their mutual surprise at finding the Sunday population of Brussels drinking beer, and making merry, round little tables, for all the world as though no pitched battle were being fought not more than ten miles to the south of them. It had been found to be impossible to penetrate far into the Forest, on account of the baggage choking the road, but they had met with a number of wounded soldiers making their way back to Brussels, and had had speech with a Life Guardsman, who reported that the French were getting on in such a way that he did not see what was to stop them.
'He had taken part in a charge of the whole Household Brigade, and says that they have lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, more than half their number. George, however, was safe when the man left the field. A private soldier's opinion of the battle is not to be depended on, but I don't like the look of things.'
Scarcely an hour later, the town was thrown into an uproar by the Cumberland Hussars galloping in through the Namur Gate, and stampeding through the streets, shouting that all was lost, and the French hard on their heels. They seemed not to have drawn rein in their flight from the battlefield, and went through Brussels scattering the inhabitants before them.
People began once more to run about, crying: 'Les Franqais sons ici! Its's'emparent a porte de la ville! Nous sommes tons perdus! Que ferons nous?' Many people kept their horses at their doors, but no more troops followed the hussars, and the panic gradually abated. A little later, a large number of French prisoners entered the town under escort, and were marched to the barracks of Petit Chateau. The sight of two captured Eagles caused complete strangers to shake one another by the hand; more prisoners arrived, and hopes ran high, only to be dashed by the intelligence conveyed by one or two wounded officers that everything had been going as badly as possible when they had left the field. The Adjutant-General's chaise-and-four was seen by Mr Creevey to set out from his house in the Park and bowl away, as fast as the horses could drag it, to the Namur Gate. More and more wounded arrived in town, all telling the same tale: it was the most sanguinary battle they had ever known; men were dropping like flies; there was no saying in the smoke and the carnage who was still alive or who had been killed; no time should be lost by civilians in getting away.
In curious contrast to this scene of agitation, light shone in the Theatre de la Monnaie, where Mlle Ternaux was playing in Edipe a Colonne before an audience composed of persons who either had no relatives or friends engaged in the battle or who looked forward with pleasure to the entrance of Bonaparte into Brussels.
At half past eight o'clock, Worth, who had gone out some time before in quest of news, came abruptly into the salon where Judith and Barbara were sitting in the most dreadful suspense, and said, with more sharpness in his voice than his wife had ever heard: 'Judith, be so good as to have pillows put immediately into the chaise! I am going at once towards Waterloo: Charles is there, very badly wounded. Cherry has just come to me with the news.'
He did not wait, but strode out to his own room, to make what preparations for the journey were necessary. Both ladies ran after him, imploring him to tell them more.
'I know nothing more than what I have told you. Cherry had no idea how things were going - badly, he thinks. I may be away some time: the road is almost blocked by the carts overturned by the German cavalry's rout. Have Charles's bed made up - but you will know what to do!'
'I will have the pillows put in the chaise,' Barbara said in a voice of repressed anguish, and left the room.The chaise was already at the door, and Colonel Audley's groom waiting impatiently beside it. He was too overcome to be able to tell Barbara much, but the little he did say was enough to appal her.
Colonel Audley had been carried to Mont St Jean by some foreigners; he did not know whether Dutch or German.
'It does not signify. Go on!'
Cherry brushed his hand across his eyes. 'I saw them carrying him along the road. Oh, my lady, in all the years I've served the Colonel I never thought to see such a sight as met my eyes! My poor master like one dead, and the blood soaked right through the horse-blanket they had laid him on! He was taken straight to the cottage at Mont St Jean, where those damned sawbones - saving your ladyship's presence! - was busy. I thought my master was gone, but he opened his eyes as they put him down, and said to me: 'Hallo, Cherry!' he said, 'I've got it, you see'.'
He fairly broke down, but Barbara, gripping the open chaise door, merely said harshly: 'Go on!'
'Yes, my lady! But I don't know how to tell your ladyship what they done to my master, Dr Hume, and them
