An Infamous Army Read online

  There was very little room for doubt about that, he knew. She would be with Lavisse, riding with him, or waltzing with him, held too close in his arms for propriety, his black head close to her flaming one, his lips almost brushing her ear as he murmured his expert lovemaking into it. She was behaving outrageously; even those who had grown accustomed to her odd flights were shocked. She had borrowed Harry’s clothes, and had gone swaggering through the streets with George for a vulgar bet; she had won a race in her phaeton against a wild young ne’er-do-well in whose company no lady of breeding would have permitted herself to have been seen. She had appeared at the Opera in a classical robe which left one shoulder bare and revealed beneath its diaphanous folds more than even the most daring creature would have cared to show; she had set a roomful of gentlemen in a roar by singing in the demurest way a couple of the most shocking French ballads. The ladies present had been unable to follow the words of the songs, which were extremely idiomatic, but they knew when their husbands were laughing at improper jokes, and there was not a married man there who had not to endure a curtain lecture that night.

  Lord Vidal was furious. He threatened to turn his sister out of doors, which made her laugh. He could not do it, of course, for ten to one she would simply install herself at one of the hôtels, and a pretty scandal that would create. There was only one person to whom she might possibly attend, and that was her grandmother. Vidal had written to that wise old lady the very night the engagement was broken off, begging her to exert her influence, but apparently she did not choose to do so, for she had neither answered his letter nor written one to Barbara.

  Even Augusta was taken aback by Barbara’s behaviour, and remonstrated with her. Barbara turned on her with a white face and blazing eyes. ‘Leave me alone!’ she said. ‘I’ll do what I choose, and if I choose to go to the devil it is my business, and not yours!’

  ‘Oh, agreed!’ said Augusta, shrugging bored shoulders. ‘But I find your conduct very odd, I must say. If you are hankering after your staff officer—’

  A harsh little laugh cut her short. ‘Pray do not be ridiculous, Gussie! I had almost forgotten his existence!’

  ‘I am happy to hear you say so, but I fail to see the purpose of all this running about. Why can you not be still?’

  ‘Because I can’t, because I won’t!’

  ‘Do you mean to have Lavisse?’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk to me of more engagements. I have had enough of being tied, I can assure you.’

  ‘Take care he does not grow tired of your tricks. In my opinion you are playing a dangerous game.’ She added maliciously: ‘You are not irresistible, you know. Colonel Audley seems to have had no difficulty in consoling himself elsewhere. How do you like to be supplanted by a little nobody like Lucy Devenish?’

  She had the satisfaction of seeing a quiver run over Barbara’s face. Barbara replied, however, without hesitation: ‘Oh, she’ll make him a capital wife! I told him so.’

  Lord George received the news of the broken engagement with careless unconcern. ‘I daresay you know your own business best,’ he said. ‘I never thought him our sort.’

  But Lord Harry nearly wept over it. ‘The nicest fellow that ever was in love with you, and you jilt him for a damned frog!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘If you mean Lavisse, he is a Belgian, and not a Frenchman, and I did not jilt Charles Audley. He was perfectly ready to let me go, you know,’ replied Barbara candidly.

  ‘I don’t believe it! The truth is you played off your tricks till no man worth his salt would stand it! I know you!’

  She twisted her hands in her lap, gripping her fingers together. ‘If you know me you must admit that we were not suited.’

  ‘No!’ he said hotly. ‘You are only suited to a fellow like Lavisse! He will do very well for you, and I wish you joy of him!’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, with a crooked smile. ‘I have not yet accepted him, however.’

  ‘Why not? He’s as rich as Croesus, and he won’t care how you behave as long as you don’t interfere with his little pleasures. You’ll make a famous pair!’

  He slammed out of her presence, and sought Colonel Audley. The interview was rather a trying one for the Colonel, for there was no curbing Harry’s impetuous tongue. ‘Oh, I say, sir, don’t give her up!’ he begged. ‘She’ll marry that Belgian fellow if you do, sure as fate!’

  ‘My dear boy, you don’t—’

  ‘No, but only listen, sir! It ain’t vice with Bab—really it ain’t, She’s spoilt, but she don’t mean the things she says, and I’m ready to swear she’s never gone beyond flirtation. I daresay you’re thinking of that Darcy affair, but—’

  ‘I am not thinking of any affair, Harry.’

  ‘Of course I know she has the devil’s own temper—gets it from my grandfather: George has it too—but perhaps you don’t understand that the things they do when they are in their rages don’t mean anything. Of course, George is a shocking fellow, but Bab isn’t. People say she’s heartless, but myself I’m devilish fond of her, and if she marries a damned rake like Lavisse it’ll be just too much to bear!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry, but you have it wrong. It wasn’t I who broke the engagement.’

  ‘But Charles, if you would only see her!’

  ‘Do you imagine that I am going to crawl to your sister, begging to be taken on the strength again?’

  Harry sighed. ‘No. No, of course you wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘You say that she is going to marry Lavisse. If that is so, there is no possibility of our engagement’s being renewed. In any case—No! it will not do. I have been brought to realise that, and upon reflection I think you must realise it too.’

  ‘It’s such a damned shame!’ Harry burst out. ‘I don’t want Lavisse for a brother-in-law! I never liked any of the others half as well as you!’

  He sounded so disconsolate that in a mood less bleak the Colonel must have been amused. His spirits were too much oppressed, however, for him to be able to bear such a discussion with equanimity. He was glad when Harry at last took himself off.

  Harry’s artless disclosures left a painful impression: an unacknowledged hope had lingered in the Colonel’s mind that Barbara’s encouragement of Lavisse might have been the outcome merely of pique. But Harry’s words seemed to show that she was indeed serious. Her family looked upon the match as certain; Colonel Audley was forced to recall the many occasions during their engagement when she had seemed to feel a decided partiality for the Count. He had believed her careless flirtations to be only the expression of a certain volatility of mind, which stronger ties of affection would put an end to. It had not been so. The mischief of her upbringing, the hardening effect of a distasteful marriage, had vitiated a character of whose underlying worth he could still entertain no doubt. That the heart was unspoiled, he was sure: could he but have possessed himself of it he was persuaded all would have been different. Her conduct had convinced him that he had failed, and although, even through the anger that had welled up in him at their last meeting, he had been conscious of an almost overpowering impulse to keep her upon any terms, a deeper instinct had held him silent.

  He had passed since then through every phase of doubt, sometimes driven so nearly mad by the desire to hold her in his arms that he had fallen asleep at night with the fixed intention of imploring her to let everything be as it had been before their quarrel, only to wake in the morning to a realization of the impossibility of building happiness upon such foundations. Arguments clashed, and nagged in his brain. He blamed himself for lack of tact, for having been too easy, for having been too harsh. Sometimes he was sure that he had handled her wrongly from the start; then a profounder knowledge would possess him, and he would recognise with regret the folly of all such arguments. There could be no question of tact or mishandling where the affections were engaged. He came back wearily to the only thing he knew to be certain: that since the love she had felt for him had been a light emotion, as fleeting as her smile, nothi