‘Oh, if you but knew!’ Barbara exclaimed. ‘You do, in part, realise the evils of my situation but you cannot know what a demon was roused in me by finding myself the object of every form of cheap wit on the one hand, and of benign approval upon the other! It was said that I had met my match, that I was tamed at last, that I should soon settle down to a life of humdrum propriety! You would have had the strength to disregard such nonsense: I had not. When I was with Charles it did not signify. Every annoyance was forgotten in his presence; even my damnable restlessness left me. But he was busy; he could not be always at my side; and when he was away from me I was bored. If he had married me when I begged him to! But no! It would not have answered. There must still have been temptation.’
‘Yes, I am very sensible of that. You are so much admired: it must have been hard indeed to give up your—’ She hesitated.
‘My flirtations,’ said Barbara, with a melancholy smile. ‘It was hard. You know that I did not give them up. When I look back upon the past month it is with loathing, believe me! It was as though I was swept into a whirlpool! I could not be still.’
‘Oh, do not speak of it! I myself have been conscious of what you describe. There has been no time for reflection, no time for anything but pleasure! It was as though we were all a little mad. But I believe Charles understood how it was. He said once to me that the life we were leading was ruinous. It was very true! I do not deny that your wildness made him anxious; indeed, I have blamed you bitterly for it. But all that was nothing!’
‘You are thinking of my having made your brother fall in love with me. It was very bad of me.’
‘The provocation was severe. I honoured you for coming up to Harriet so handsomely that day. There can be no excuse for her behaviour. It vexed me when you made him go to you at the Richmond’s party, but I did not blame you entirely. But afterwards! How could you have let it go on? Forgive me! I did not mean to advert to this subject. It is over, and should be forgotten. I do not know what passed between you and Charles.’
‘Everything of the most damnable on my part!’ Barbara said.
‘I daresay you might lose your temper. But your conduct since that night! You left nothing undone that could hurt him.’
‘Nothing!’ Barbara said. ‘Nothing that could drive him mad enough to come back to me! I would not go to him: he was to come to me—upon my own terms! Folly! He would not do it, nor did I wish him to. The news that war had broken out brought me to my senses. There was no room then for pride. Even if his affections had been turned in another direction—but I could not believe it could be so, for mine were unaltered! He turned from me in the ballroom, but I thought I saw, in his eyes, a look—’
Her voice was suspended; she struggled to regain her composure, and after a moment continued: ‘I tried to find him. Nothing signified but that I should see him before he went away. But he had gone. Perhaps I shall never see him again.’
She ended in a tone of such dejection that Judith was impelled to say, with more cheerful
ness than she felt: ‘We shall not think of that, if you please! Recollect that his employment on the Duke’s staff is to his advantage. He will not be in the line. Why, how absurd this is! He has survived too many engagements for us to have the least reason to suppose that he will not survive this one. Indeed, all the Duke’s aides-de-camp have been with him for a long time now. Depend upon it, they will come riding back in the best of health and spirits. Meanwhile, I do earnestly beg of you to remain with us!’
‘Thank you. I will do so, and try not to disgrace you. You won’t be plagued with me too much, I hope. I shall be busy. Indeed, I ought not to be here now. I have promised to go to Madame de Ribaucourt’s. She has made herself responsible for the preparation for the wounded, and needs help.’
‘Oh, that is the very thing!’ Judith cried. ‘To be able to be of use! Stay till I fetch my bonnet and gloves! I would like, of all things, to go along with you.’
A few minutes later they left the house together, and set out on foot for their destination. They met few acquaintances on the way; streets which the day before had been full of officers and ladies were now only lined with the tilt-carts designed for the transport of the wounded, and with baggage-wagons, in perfect order, ready to move off at a moment’s notice. Flemish drivers were dozing in the carts; a few sentinels were posted to guard the wagons. The Place Royale, strangely quiet after the confusion of the night, had been cleared of all the litter of equipment. There were more wagons and carts there, with a little crowd of citizens standing about, silently staring at them. Horses were picketed in the Park, but a fair number of people were strolling about there, much as usual, except for the gravity of their countenances and the lowered tones of their voices.
At the Comtesse de Ribaucourt’s all was bustle and business. Many of Judith’s friends were there, scraping lint and preparing cherry-water.
The feeling of being able to do something which would be of use in this crisis did much to relieve the oppression of everyone’s spirits. Dr Brügmans, the Inspector-General of Health, came in at noon for a few moments, and told of the tents to be erected at the Namur and Louvain Gates for the accommodation of the wounded. Various equipments were needed for them, in particular blankets and pillows. Judith willingly undertook the responsibility of procuring all that could be had from her numerous acquaintances in the town, and lost no time in setting out on a house-to-house visitation.
The hours sped by; she was astonished on returning to Madame Ribaucourt’s to find that it was already three o’clock; she was conscious neither of fatigue nor of hunger. She sat down at a table to transcribe the list of equipments she had cajoled from her friends, but was arrested in the middle of this task by a sound that made her look up quickly, her pen held in mid-air.
All conversation was stopped short; every head was raised. The sound was heard again, a dull rumble far away in the distance.
Someone said in an urgent voice: ‘Listen!’ Lady Barbara walked over to the window, and stood there, her head a little bent, as though to hear more plainly.
The sound was repeated. ‘It’s the guns!’ said Georgiana Lennox, dropping the lint she was holding.
‘No, no, it’s only thunder! Everyone says there can be no action until tomorrow!’
‘It is the guns,’ said Barbara. She came away from the window, and quite coolly resumed her work of scraping lint.
The distant cannonading had been heard by others besides themselves. All over the town the greatest consternation was felt. People came running out of their houses to stand listening in the street; crowds flocked to the ramparts; and a number of men set out on horseback in the direction of Waterloo to try to get news.
They brought back such conflicting accounts that it was soon seen that very little dependence could be placed on what they said. They had seen nothing; their only information came from peasants encountered on the road; all that was certain was that an action was being fought somewhere to the south of Brussels.
When Judith and Barbara reached home at five o’clock the cannonading was still audible. Everyone they met was asking the same questions: were the Allied troops separately engaged? Had they joined the Prussians? Where was the action being fought? Could the cavalry have reached the spot? Could the outlying divisions have come up? There could be no answer to such questions; none, in fact, was expected.
Worth was at home when the ladies came in. He had seen Barbara’s trunks brought round from the Hôtel de Belle Vue, and had installed her frightened maid in the house. He had driven out, afterwards, a little way down the Charleroi road, but, like everyone else, had been unable to procure any intelligence. The baggage-wagons lined the chaussée for miles, he said, but none of the men in charge of them knew more than himself.
They sat down to dinner presently in the same state of anxious expectation. The sound of the guns seemed every moment to be growing more distinct. Judith found it impossible not to speculate upon the chances of defeat. The thought of her child, sleeping in his cot above stairs, made her dread the more acute. She should have sent him to England with Peregrine’s children; her selfishness had made her keep them in Brussels; she had exposed him to a terrible danger.
She managed to check such useless reflections, and to join with an assumption of ease in the conversation Worth and Barbara were maintaining.
Some time after dinner, when the two ladies were seated alone in the salon, Worth having gone out to see whether any news had been received from the Army, a knock sounded on the front door, and in a few minutes they were astonished by the butler’s announcing Colonel Canning.