An Infamous Army Read online

  ‘Fitzroy, too,’ he said, in a fretting tone. ‘You would have heard if the Duke had been hit. But March took Slender Billy away. That was after Canning fell. How many of us are left? They dropped off, man after man—I cannot recall—’ He broke off, and drew his hand away, once more covering his eyes with it.

  She saw that he was growing agitated, and although she longed to ask for news of her brothers, she remained silent. But after a slight pause, he said abruptly: ‘George was alive just before I was struck. I saw him.’

  Her pent-up anxiety found relief in a gaping sigh. She waited for a moment, then whispered: ‘Harry?’

  He shook his head. A sob broke from her; she buried her face in the coverlet to stifle the sound, and presently felt his hand come back to hers, feebly clasping her fingers.

  She remained on her knees until she saw that he had dropped into an uneasy sleep. As she rose, Worth came into the room. She laid a finger to her lips, and moved silently to meet him.

  ‘Has he waked?’ Worth asked in a low voice.

  ‘Yes. He is quite himself, but I think in a good deal of pain.’

  ‘That was bound to be. Go down to breakfast. Your grandmother is here. I will send if he should rouse and wish for you.’

  She nodded, and slipped away. Judith was asleep on her bed, but breakfast had been laid in the parlour, and the Duchess of Avon was sitting behind the coffee cups.

  She greeted her granddaughter with a smile and a tender embrace. ‘There, dearest! Such a happy morning for you after all! Sit down, and I will give you some coffee.’

  ‘Harry is dead,’ Barbara said.

  The Duchess’s hand trembled. She set the coffee pot down, and looked at Barbara.

  ‘Charles told me. George was alive when he left the field.’

  The Duchess said nothing. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away, picked up the coffee pot again, poured a cup out rather unsteadily and gave it to Barbara. After a long pause she said: ‘Such foolish thoughts keep crossing my mind. One remembers little, forgotten things. He would always call me “The Old Lady”, in spite of your grandfather’s disliking it so. Such a bad, merry boy!’ She stretched out her hand to Barbara, and clasped one of hers. ‘Poor child, I wish I could say something to comfort you.’

  ‘It seems as though every joy that comes to one must have a grief to spoil it.’

  ‘It is so, but think instead, dearest, that every grief has joy to lighten it. Nothing in this world is quite perfect, nor quite unbearable.’ She patted Barbara’s hand, and said in a voice of determined cheerfulness: ‘When you have eaten your breakfast, I am going to send you round to see your grandfather. A turn in the fresh air will make you feel better.’

  ‘I could not leave Charles.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said her Grace. ‘I am going to sit with your precious Charles, my dear. I know far better than you what to do for a wounded man. I have had a great deal of practice, I assure you.’

  So when Colonel Audley opened his eyes again, it was to see a grey-haired lady, with humorous eyes, bending over him. He blinked, and, since she was smiling, weakly smiled back at her.

  ‘That is much better!’ she said. ‘Now you shall take a little gruel, and be quite yourself again. Worth, be so good as to lift your brother slightly, while I put another pillow beneath his shoulders.’

  The Colonel turned his head, as Worth came up on the opposite side of the bed, and held out his hand. ‘Hallo, Julian!’ he said. ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘I brought you in. There! Is that comfortable?’

  ‘Bab was here,’ said the Colonel, frowning. She said Boney was beat. I didn’t dream that.’

  ‘No, certainly you did not. Bab will back directly. Meanwhile, here is her grandmother come to see you.’

  ‘So that is who you are!’ said the Colonel, looking up at the Duchess. ‘But I don’t quite understand—am I being very stupid?’

  ‘Not at all. You cannot imagine how I come to be here. Well, I came to see what Bab was about to have jilted you so shockingly, only to find that that was quite forgotten and that you are going to be married after all. So now open your mouth!’

  He swallowed the mouthful of gruel put to his lips, but said: ‘Am I going to be married?’

  ‘Certainly you are. Open again!’

  He obeyed meekly. ‘I should like to see Bab,’ he said, when the spoon was once more removed.

  ‘So you shall, when you have drunk up all your gruel,’ promised the Duchess.

  The Colonel thought it over, and then said in a firmer tone: ‘I’ll be shaved first.’

  ‘My dear fellow, why worry?’ Worth said.

  ‘By all means let him be shaved,’ said the Duchess, frowning at him. ‘He will feel very much more the thing.’

  When Barbara came in with her grandfather to be met by the news that Colonel Audley was in the valet’s hands, being shaved, she exclaimed: ‘Shaved! Good God, how came you to let him disturb himself for such a foolish thing?’

  ‘My love, when a man begins to think of shaving you may take it from me that he is on the road to recovery,’ said the Duchess. She took her husband’s hands, and squeezed them. ‘Bab has told you, hasn’t she, Avon? My dear, we must be very proud of our boys, and try not to grieve.’

  He put his arm round her, saying: ‘Poor Mary! Depend upon it, we shall soon get news of that scamp George being safe and sound. I have been to Stuart’s and learned from him that the Duke is in the town. Our losses have been enormous, by all accounts, but just think of Bonaparte completely overset! By God, it makes up for all!’

  The arrival just then of the surgeon put an end to any further conversation. The Duchess and Worth accompanied him upstairs to the Colonel’s room. He admitted that he had not expected to find his patient in such good shape, but pulled a long face over the leg wound, which, from having been so roughly bound upon the battlefield, and chafed by continued exertion, was in a bad state. He took Worth aside, and warned him that he should prepare the Colonel’s mind for amputation.

  Worth said, with such an icy rage in his voice that the surgeon almost recoiled: ‘You’ll save that leg: do you hear me?’

  ‘Certainly I shall do my utmost,’ replied the surgeon stiffly. ‘Perhaps you would like one of my colleagues to see it?’

  ‘I should,’ said Worth. ‘I’ll have every doctor this town holds to see it before I’ll permit you or any other of your kidney to hack my brother about any more!’

  ‘You are unreasonable, my lord!’

  ‘Unreasonable! Get Hume!’

  ‘Dr Hume has already so much on his hands—’

  ‘Get him!’ snapped Worth.

  The surgeon bowed, and walked off. The Duchess, who had come out of the Colonel’s room, nodded approvingly, and said: ‘That’s right. Don’t pay any heed to him! We will apply fomentations, and say nothing at all to the poor boy about amputation. I wish you will ask my granddaughter to find some flannel and bring it to me.’

  ‘I will,’ he said, and went downstairs in search of Barbara.

  He met, instead his wife, who informed him that the Comte de Lavisse had that instant entered the house and was with Barbara in the back-parlour.

  He looked annoyed, but she said: ‘He came, most kindly, to enquire after Charles. Only fancy, Worth! It was he who had Charles carried off the field! I declare, I could almost have embraced him, much as I dislike him!’

  ‘I will see him, and thank you. Will you get the flannel for the fomentations?’

  ‘Yes, immediately,’ she replied.

  Downstairs, the Count faced Barbara across the small room, and said, gripping a chairback: ‘I did not think to find you here! I may know what I am to understand, I suppose!’

  She said abstractedly: ‘He is better. He has even desired to be shaved.’

  ‘I am delighted to hear it! You perhaps find me irrelevant?’

  ‘Oh no! I am so glad you are safe. Only my mind is so taken up just now—’