‘Nonsense! I’ll send him round at once,’ said his lordship. ‘Can’t afford to lose any more of my family.’ He bent over Colonel Audley again, and laid his hand on his right shoulder. ‘Well, Audley, I must go. You’ll be glad to know that we’re moving on immediately. Old Blücher took up the pursuit last night, and you may be sure we shan’t discontinue our operations till we get to Paris. As for Boney, in my opinion, il n’a que se pendre. But I shall be in a bad way without you fellows: take care that you lose no time in rejoining me!’
‘I shall report for duty the instant I can stand on my feet, sir. Who takes the despatch to England?’
‘Percy, with three Eagles as well. Goodbye, my boy: now, don’t forget! I rely on your following me as soon as you may.’
He pressed the Colonel’s shoulder, and went away, with a nod to Barbara and a brief handshake for Worth.
He was as good as his word in sending Dr Hume to see the Colonel. The eminent doctor presented himself before an hour had passed, briskly expressing his regret at being kept by a press of work from coming sooner.
His arrival coincided with that of the surgeon who had taken charge of the Colonel’s case, and Judith was hard put to it to decide which of the two men she disliked most. Mr Jones’s air of depression might exasperate her, but nothing, to her mind, could have been more out of place than Hume’s cheerfulness. His voice was loud, and hearty; as he followed her up the stairs he talked all the way of trivialities; and when he entered the Colonel’s room it was in a noisy fashion and with a rallying speech on his lips.
The Duke’s visit had considerably tired Audley, but he roused himself when Hume came to the bed, and managed to smile.
‘Well, now, and what is all this?’ Hume said, taking his pulse. ‘I thought I had seen the end of you when I packed you off from Mont St Jean yesterday.’
‘I am more difficult to kill than you suspected, you see,’ murmured the Colonel.
‘Kill! No such thing! I did a capital piece of work on you, and here you are demanding more of my valuable time! We’ll take a look at that leg of yours.’
The bandages and the fomentations were removed. The surgeon said something in a low tone, and was answered by a sharp: ‘Rubbish! Why do you give up a man with such a pulse, and such a good constitution? He is doing famously! You have been fomenting the leg; excellent! couldn’t do better! Now then, Audley, I’ll see what I can do to make you easier.’
He took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, while Judith ran to fetch the hot water he demanded. While he worked upon the Colonel’s wincing body, he chatted, perhaps with the object of taking his victim’s mind off his sufferings, and the Colonel answered him in painful gasps. His matter-of-fact description of the battlefield, literally covered with dead and wounded, shocked Judith inexpressibly, and made her exclaim at the plight of the French soldiers left there until the Allied wounded should have been got in. He replied cheerfully that it was all in their favour to be in the fresh air: provided they were soon moved into the hospitals they would be found to have escaped the fever which had attacked those who were got immediately under cover.
‘Do you know how the Prince of Orange is?’ asked the Colonel.
‘Do I know! Why, I’ve just been with him! You need not worry your head over him: he’s going on capitally. Baron Constant came rushing in this morning while I was with him, shouting out: “Boney’s beat! Boney’s beat!” and you never saw anyone more obliged to take Lord Uxbridge’s leg off, I daresay? He is as gallant a man as ever I met! What do you think of his telling us he considered his leg a small price to pay for having been in such a
n action?’ He stretched out his hand for some clean lint, and began to bind the Colonel’s leg up again. In a graver tone he said: ‘Our losses have been shocking. The Duke is quite cast down, and no wonder! He would have me bring him a list of such of our casualties as came within my knowledge last night. I did so, but found him laid down in all his dirt upon the couch, fast asleep, and so set my list down beside him and went away. He had had poor Gordon put into his bed, you know. Ah, that has been a sad business! There was nothing one could to except to wait for death to put a period to his sufferings. The end came at three o’clock. I went to call the Duke, but it was over before he could get there. I never saw him so much affected. People call him unfeeling, but I can tell you this: when I went to him after he had read the list of casualties there were two white furrows down his cheeks where his tears had washed away the dust. He said to me in a voice tremulous with emotion: “Well! thank God I don’t know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to win one with the loss of so many of one’s friends.’’
Judith saw that Colonel Audley was too much distressed by the thought of Gordon’s death to respond, and said civilly: ‘Nothing, I am sure, could become the Duke more than the way in which he spoke to us of his victory. I have not been used to think him a man of much sensibility, and was quite confounded.’
‘Sensibility! Ay, I daresay not, but General Alava was telling me it was downright pathetic to watch him, as he sat down to his supper last night, looking up every time the door opened, in the expectation of seeing one of his staff walk in.’ He straightened his back, saying with a reversion to his hearty tone: ‘There! I have done tormenting you at last! You will be on your feet again as soon as Lord Fitzroy, I promise you.’
He turned to give some directions to the other surgeon; recommended the application of leeches, if there should be a recurrence of fever; and took himself off, leaving the Colonel very much exhausted and the ladies quite indignant.
His visit was presently found, however, to have been of benefit to Audley. He seemed easier, and assisted by a dose of laudanum, passed as quiet a night as could have been expected.
When Barbara came into his room in the morning, she found him being propped up with pillows to partake of a breakfast of toasted bread and weak tea.
He held out his hand to her. The old gaiety was missing from his smile, but he spoke cheerfully. ‘Good morning, Bab. You see that I have rebelled against your gruel! Now you shall watch how deedily I can contrive with my one hand.’
She bent over him, and to hide her almost overmastering desire to burst into tears, said with assumed raillery: ‘Ah, you hope to impress me, but I warn you, you won’t succeed! You have already had a great deal of practice in the use of one hand!’
He put the one hand to turn her face towards him and kissed her. ‘That’s too bad! I had hoped to hold you spellbound by my adroitness. Will you oblige me by going to the dressing-table and opening the little drawer under the mirror?’
‘Certainly,’ she replied. ‘What do you want from it, my darling?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said, picking up one of his slices of toast and dipping it in the tea. She opened the drawer, and found a small box in it, containing her engagement ring. She said nothing, but brought the ring to the Colonel, smiling, but with quivering lips. He took it, and commanded her to hold out her hand. The ring slid over her knuckle, but the Colonel still retained her hand, saying quietly: ‘That stays there until I give you another in its place, Bab.’
She dropped on her knees, burying her face in his shoulder. ‘Charles, dear Charles, I shall make you such a damnable wife! Oh, only tell me that you forgive me!’
He gave a rather shaky laugh, and put his arm round her. ‘Who is the “dear fool” now?’ he said. ‘Oh, Bab, Bab, just look what I have done!’
Judith came in a minute later to find Barbara, between tears and laughter, mopping up the split tea on the sheet, and exclaimed: ‘Well! This does not look like a sick-room!’
Barbara held out her hand. ‘Congratulate me, Judith! I have just become engaged to your brother-in-law!’
‘Oh, my love, of course you have!’ Judith cried, embracing her. ‘Charles, this time I congratulate you with all my heart!’