An Infamous Army Read online

  Judith, wishing to believe that Charles, freed from his siren, had become sensible of Lucy’s worth, still could not quite convince herself that it was so. ‘Do you think,’ she asked her husband hopefully, ‘that a man who had fancied himself in love with Lady Barbara might perhaps suffer from a revulsion of feeling, and so turn to her very opposite?’

  ‘I really have no idea,’ replied Worth.

  ‘It is quite true that he has been very much in her company since the engagement was broken off. He dances with her frequently, and seems to look at her with a great deal of kindness. Only—’

  She broke off. Worth regarded her with a faint smile. ‘What profound observation are you about to make?’ he enquired.

  ‘I can’t believe that if he were falling in love with Lucy he would be so unhappy. For he is, Worth: you can’t deny it! There is an expression in his face when he thinks one is not looking at him—I would like to kill that wicked creature! She to jilt Charles!’

  ‘This is all very bewildering,’ complained Worth. ‘I thought your hopes had been centred on her eventually doing so?’

  ‘Yes, I did hope it, but I didn’t know it had gone so deep with him. How wretched everything is! Even my spirits are quite oppressed. Lucy, too! She has no appearance of happiness, which makes me fear that Charles only feels towards her as a brother might.’

  He raised his brows. ‘Is she in love with him?’

  ‘I very much fear it.’

  ‘Now you have gone quite beyond me,’ he said. ‘I was under the impression that you had made up your mind that she should fall in love with him?’

  ‘So I had, but I never dreamed then that he would become entangled with the horridest woman in Brussels. If he could requite Lucy’s love it would be the most delightful thing imaginable, but I don’t believe he does.’

  ‘You will admit it to be early days yet for him to be bestowing his affections a second time.’

  ‘Lady Barbara does not seem to find it too early! But Lucy!’ She paused, frowning. ‘I was afraid that the child was losing her prettiness over Lord George, but nothing could be more resolute than her shunning of his society. It has seemed to me that since Charles has been free, she has been regaining some of her spirits. But I would not for the world encourage that attachment, if there is no hope of Charles’s affections becoming animated towards her.’

  ‘May I make a suggestion?’

  ‘Of course: what is it?’

  ‘That you cease to worry your head over either of them,’ said Worth. ‘You will do no good by it, and if you begin to lose your prettiness you will find you have me to reckon with.’

  She smiled, but shook her head. ‘I cannot help but worry over them. If only Lady Barbara had had enough good feeling to go away from here! It must be painful beyond words for Charles to find himself continually in her company. My only dependence is on his being at last disgusted by her conduct.’

  ‘We will hope for that agreeable end. Meanwhile, Charles can at least consider himself fortunate in being kept busy by the Duke.’

  ‘I suppose so. What does he think of it? Has he made any comment?’

  ‘None to me.’

  ‘I daresay he might not care. I do not consider him a man of much sensibility. He is very amiable and unaffected, but there is a coldness, a lack of feeling for others, which, I confess, repels me at times.’

  ‘He’s a hard man, no doubt, but it is just possible, my dear, that he has matters of more moment to occupy him than the love affairs of his staff,’ said Worth, somewhat ironically.

  The Duke, however, did comment on the broken engagement, though not perhaps in a manner which would have raised Judith’s opinion of his character, had she been able to hear him. ‘By the by, Fitzroy,’ he said, looking up from the latest missive from General Decken on the vexed question of the Hanoverian subsidy, ‘what’s this I hear about Audley?’

  ‘The engagement is at an end, sir, that’s all I’ve been told.’

  ‘By God, I’m very glad to hear it!’ said his lordship, dipping his pen in the Standish. ‘She was doing him no good, and I’m damned if I’ll have my officers ruined for their duties by her tricks!’

  That was all his lordship had to say about it, but, as Worth had correctly surmised, he was too busy to have any time to waste on the love affairs of his staff.

  He had got his Army together, but spoke of it in the most disparaging terms, and was continually being chafed by the want of horses and equipment. General Decken’s demands were rapacious: he could do nothing with the fellow, and would be obliged to refer the whole question of the Hanoverian subsidy to the Government. King William had taken some nonsense into his head over the junction of the Nassau contingent, under General Kruse, with the Dutch-Belgian troops, and was in one of his huffs. It was very difficult to know what went on in that froggish head, but his lordship believed the trouble to have arisen largely out of the Duke of Nassau’s failure to write formally to His Majesty on the subject of these troops. Well, if the King would not have them his lordship would be obliged to make some other arrangement.

  He had had an exasperating letter from his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, putting a scheme before him for the augmentation of the German Legion by volunteers from the Hanoverian line regiments. If the Royal Dukes would be a little less busy his lordship would be the better pleased. A nice feeling of dissatisfaction there would be if any such measures were put into action!

  ‘Both the Legion and the line would be disorganised exactly at the moment I should require their services,’ he wrote, and enclosed for his Royal Highness’s digestion a copy of the objections to the precious scheme which he had sent to Lord Bathurst.

  In polite circles he was still being flippant about the chances of war, but occasionally he dropped the pretence now. When Georgiana Lennox mentioned a pleasure party to Lille, or Tournay, which some officers had projected, he said decidedly: ‘No, better let that drop.’

  He gratified Mr Creevey by talking to him in the most natural way, joining him in the Park one day, where Mr Creevey was walking with his stepdaughters. He spoke quite frankly of the debates in Parliament on the war, and Mr Creevey, finding him so accessible, asked with one of his twinkling, penetrating glances: ‘Now then, will you let me ask you, Duke, what you think you will make of it?’

  ‘By God!’ said his lordship, standing still. ‘I think Blücher and myself can do the thing!’

  ‘Do you calculate upon any desertion in Bonaparte’s army?’ enquired Creevey.

  No, his lordship did not reckon upon a man. ‘We may pick up a marshal or two,’ he added, ‘but not worth a damn.’

  Mr Creevey mentioned the French King’s troops at Alost, but that made his lordship give one of his whoops of laughter. ‘Oh! Don’t mention such fellows!’ he said. ‘No, no! I think Blücher and I can do the business!’ He saw a British soldier strolling along at some little distance, and pointed to him. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It all depends on that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, and I am sure.’

  This was good news to take home to Mrs Creevey. It gave Creevey a better opinion of the Duke’s understanding, too, and made him feel that in spite of every disquieting rumour from the frontier there was no need to fly for safety yet.

  There were plenty of rumours, of course, but people had been alarmed so many times to no purpose that they were beginning to take only a fleeting interest in the news that came from France. It was said that everywhere on the road from Paris to the frontier preparations were being made for the movements of troops in carriages. It was said that Bonaparte was expected to be at Laon on June 6th; on June 10th report placed him at Maubeuge, but the Duke had certain intelligence of his being still in Paris, and issued invitations for a ball he was giving later in the month.

  He was always giving balls, informal little affairs got up on the spur of the moment, but this was to be a splendid function, outdoing all the others which had been held in Brussels. There would be s