An Infamous Army Read online

  ‘It was a little more than that. I became acquainted with him when I was staying in Brighton with my cousins last year. There was a degree of intimacy which—which I could not avoid.’

  Her voice failed. Judith suspected that the attentions of a dashing young officer had not been wholly unwelcome. She had no doubt that Lord George had speedily overstepped the bounds of propriety, and understood, with ready sympathy, Lucy’s feelings upon being confronted with him again. She said kindly: ‘I perfectly understand, and beg you won’t think yourself bound to confide in me. There is not the least necessity!’

  She was obliged to turn away directly after, to shake hands with a departing guest. Lucy rejoined her aunt, who was making signs to her that it was time to go, and no further talk was held on the subject. Lord George, who was engaged with a dazzling brunette, did not observe her departure. Judith, who knew that at least two other ladies had been the objects of his gallantry that evening, was encouraged to hope that his persecution of Lucy had been nothing more than a piece of Alastair devilry, designed merely to make the poor child uncomfortable.

  He soon came up to take his leave. He was escorting his sister, whose head just topped his broad shoulder. In spite of the difference in colouring there was a remarkable likeness between them. Spiritually, too, they seemed to be akin; they delighted in the same mischief, used the same careless, engaging manners, shocked the world like children anxious to attract attention to themselves. Judith, confronting them, admitted their charm, and looked indulgently on such a handsome couple.

  ‘I have spent a capital evening, Lady Worth,’ said George. ‘When you give your next party I hope you may send me a card. I shall certainly come.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I am glad you took your courage in your hands and came tonight. It would have been a sad thing not to have seen your sister after riding all that way for the purpose.’

  ‘Did he tell you he had come expressly to see me?’ said Barbara. ‘George, what a liar you are! Depend upon it, Lady Worth, he had quite another quarry in mind. Shall I see you at the Review tomorrow?’

  ‘At Nivelles? Oh no! It is too far—and only a review of Belgian troops. I shall wait to see our own troops reviewed, I believe.’

  ‘Then we shall not meet. But you will be at the Duke’s party, I daresay, on Friday. ‘Oh, where is Charles? He must procure an invitation for George!’

  She drew her hand from her brother’s arm as she spoke, and darted off to find the Colonel. She soon came back with him; he promised that a card should be sent to George, and accompanied them both to the door of the carriage. George shook hands at parting, and said warmly: ‘You’re a good fellow: I wish you happy—though I don’t above half like to find Bab engaged to a damned staff officer, I can tell you!’

  ‘We all have our crosses!’ retorted the Colonel. ‘Mine is to be saddled with a Hyde Park soldier for a brother-in-law.’

  ‘Oh, the devil! You know, you’re so puffed up, you Peninsular men, that there’s no bearing with you! Goodnight: I shall see you on Friday, I suppose?’

  He got into the carriage beside his sister and settled himself in one corner. ‘Well, that makes the tenth since Childe died,’ he remarked.

  ‘No! I was only once engaged before!’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Oh, you are thinking of Ralph Dashwood! That was never announced, and can’t signify. I am serious now.’

  He gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Until the next man drifts by! Has he any money?’

  ‘I suppose him to have a younger son’s portion. He is not rich.’

  ‘Well, what the devil made you choose him?’ demanded George. ‘I see no sense in it!’

  ‘I don’t care for money,’ she replied pettishly.

  ‘More fool you, then. I never knew you when you weren’t dipped. Besides, this fellow Audley: I like him, he’s a good man—but he ain’t your sort, Bab.’

  ‘True, but I loved him from the first. I don’t know how it came about. Isn’t it odd that one should keep one’s heart intact so many years, only to have it crack for a man no more handsome or wealthy than a hundred others? I can find no reason for it, unless it be the trick his eyes have of smiling while his mouth is grave—and that’s nonsensical.’

  He said rather gloomily: ‘I know what you mean. Take it from me, it’s the devil.’

  ‘It is the devil. I wish to be good, to behave as I should—and yet I don’t! If I had never been married to Childe it would be so different! Damnable to have done that to me! I believe it ruined me.’

  He yawned. ‘Where’s the use in worrying? You were willing, weren’t you?’

  ‘At eighteen, and the hoyden that I was! What could I know of the matter? Papa made the match; I married to oblige my family, and wretched work I made of it! Jasper—oh, don’t let us talk of him: how I grew to loathe him! I was never more glad of anything than his death, and I swore then that no one—no one should ever possess me again! Even though I love Charles, even when I desire most earnestly to please him, there is something in me that revolts—yes, revolts, George! It drives me to commit such acts of folly! I use him damnably, I suppose, and shall end by making us both wretched.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ said George, with brotherly unconcern. ‘I know I wouldn’t be in his shoes for a thousand pounds.’

  She underwent one of her lightning changes of mood, breaking into a gurgle of laughter. ‘You, without a feather to fly with! You’d sell your soul for half the sum!’

  Eleven

  The review of the Dutch-Belgian Army at Nivelles, by King William and the Duke of Wellington, passed off creditably. The Duke found the Nassau troops excellent; the Dutch Militia good, but young; and the Cavalry, though bad riders, remarkably well-mounted. Prince Frederick impressed him as being a fine lad, and he wrote as much to Earl Bathurst, in a private letter.

  The pity was that his lordship was not similarly pleased with Prince Frederick’s father. He was the most difficult person to deal with his lordship had ever met. ‘With professions in his mouth of a desire to do everything I can suggest, he objects to everything I propose; it then comes to be a matter of negotiation for a week, and at last is settled by my desiring him to arrange it as he pleases, and telling him that I will have nothing to say to him.’

  Bathurst, who was well acquainted with the Duke’s temper, might smile a little over this letter, but there was no doubt that his lordship was being harassed on all sides. He was hampered by possessing no command over the King’s Army; and he was receiving complaints of the conduct of his engineers at Ypres, who were accused of cutting his Majesty’s timber for palisades. He believed the complaints to be groundless, and was not quite pleased with the way in which they were made.

  But the jealousies of the Dutch and the Belgians were small matters compared with the behaviour of the Horse Guards in London. He was accustomed to meet with annoying hindrances in foreign countries, and could deal with them. The powers at the Horse Guards were irritating him far more, with their mania for sending him out bevies of ineligible young gentlemen to fill staff posts. No sooner had he turned off eight officers from the adjutant-general’s staff than he received an official letter from Sir Henry Torrens appointing eight others. He had written pretty sharply to Sir Henry on the subject. They talked glibly at the Horse Guards of all such appointments resting at his nomination, but, in actual fact, this was far from being true. His lordship complained of being wholly without power to name any of the officers recommended by his generals, because every place was filled from London. ‘Of the list you and Colonel Shawe have sent, there are only three who have any experience at all,’ wrote his lordship acidly. ‘Of those there are two, Colonel Elley and Lord Greenock, who are most fit for their situations, and I am most happy they are selected . . . As for the others, if they had been proposed to me I should have rejected them all.’

  The very same day he was sending off another despatch to Torrens, begging him to let him see more troops before sendi