An Infamous Army (17 page)

Judith made haste to relieve him of his charge, saying in an undervoice as she bent over her son: "Pray, let me take Julian. You do not want to be engaged with him."

"Don't disturb yourself, my dear sister. Julian and I are doing very well, I assure you."

She replied with some tartness: "I hope you will not be stupid enough to allow that man to take your place beside Barbara! There, get up! I have Julian fast."

He rose, but said with a smile: "Do you think me a great fool? Now I was preening myself on being a wise man!"

He moved away before she could answer him, and joined Miss Devenish, who was sitting on a rustic bench, drawing diagrams in the gravel with the ferrule of her sunshade. In repose her face had a wistful look, but at the Colonel's approach she raised her eyes, and smiled, making room for him to sit beside her.

"Of all the questions in the world I believe.What are you thinking about? to be the most impertinent," he said lightly.

She laughed, but with a touch of constraint. "Oh - I don't know what I was thinking about! The swans - the dear little boy - Lady Worth - how I envy her!"

These last words were uttered almost involuntarily. The Colonel said: "Envy her? Why should you do so?"

She coloured, and looked down. "I don't know how I came to say that. Pray do not regard it!" She added in a stumbling way: "One does take such fancies! It is only that she is so happy, and good…"

"Are you not happy?" he asked. "I am sure you are food."

She gave her head a quick shake. "Oh no! At least, I mean, of course I am happy. Please do not heed me! I am in a nonsensical mood today. How beautiful Lady Barbara looks in her bronze bonnet and pelisse." She glanced shyly at him. "You must be very proud. I hope you will be very happy too."

"Thank you. I wonder how long it will be before I shall be wishing you happy in the same style?" he said, with a quizzical smile.

She looked started. A blush suffused her cheeks, and her eyes brightened all at once with a spring of tears. "Oh no! Impossible! Please do not speak of it!"

He said in a tone of concern: "My dear Miss Devenish, forgive me! I had no notion of distressing you, upon my honour!"

"You must think me very foolish!"

"Well," he said, in a rallying tone, "do you know, I do think you a little foolish to speak of your marriage as impossible! Now you will write me down a very saucy fellow!"

"Oh no! But you don't understand! Here is Lady Barbara coming towards you: please forget this folly!"

She got up, still in some agitation of spirit, and walked quickly away to Judith's side.

"Good God! did my approach frighten the heiress away?" asked Barbara, in a tone of lively amusement. "Or was it your gallantry, Charles? Confess! You have been trifling with her!"

"What, in such a public place as this?" protested the Colonel. "You wrong me, Bab!"

She said with a gleam of fun: "I thought you liked public places, indeed I did! Parks - or Allees!"

"Allees!" ejaculated Lavisse. "Do not mention that word, I beg! I shall not easily forgive Colonel Audley for discovering, with the guile of all staff officers (an accursed race!), that you ride there every morning."

The Colonel laughed. Barbara took his arm saying: "I have made such a delightful plan, Charles. I am quite tired of the Allee Verte. I am going further afield, with Etienne."

"Are you?" said the Colonel. "A picnic? I don't advise it in this changeable weather, but you won't care for that. Where do you go?"

It was Lavisse who answered. "Do you know the Chateau de Hougoumont, Colonel? Ah, no! How should you, in effect? It is a little country seat which belongs to a relative of mine, a M. de Luneville."

"I know the Chateau," interrupted the Colonel. "It is near the village of Merbe Braine, is it not, on the Nivelles road?"

The Count's brows rose. "You are exact! One would say you knew it well."

"I had occasion to travel over that country last year," the Colonel responded briefly. "Do you mean to make your expedition there? It must be quite twelve or thirteen miles away."

"What of that?" said Barbara. "You don't know me if you think I am so soon tired. We shall ride through the Forest, and take luncheon at the Chateau. It will be capital sport!"

"Of whom is this party to consist?" he enquired. "Of Etienne and myself, to be sure."

He returned no answer, but she saw a grave look in his face, which provoked her into saying: "I assure you Etienne is very well able to take care of me."

"I don't doubt it," he replied.

Lady Worth had joined them by this time, and was listening to the interchange in silence, but with a puckered brow. The whole party began to walk away from the lake, and Judith, resigning her son into Peregrine's charge, caught up with Barbara, and said in a low voice: "Forgive me, but you are not in earnest?"

"Very seldom, I believe."

"This expedition with the Count: you cannot have considered what a singular appearance it will give you!"

"On the contrary: I delight in singularity."

Judith felt her temper rising; she managed to control it, and to say in a quiet tone: "You will think me impertinent, I daresay, but I do most earnestly counsel you to give up the scheme. I can have no expectation of my words weighing with you, but I cannot suppose you to be equally indifferent to my brother's wishes. He must dislike this scheme excessively."

"Indeed! Are you his envoy, Lady Worth?"

Judith was obliged to deny it. She was spared having to listen to the mocking rejoinder, which, she was sure, hovered on the tip of Barbara's tongue, by Colonel Audley's coming up to them at that moment. He stepped between them, offering each an arm, and having glanced at both their faces, said: "I conclude that I have interrupted a duel. My guess is that Judith has been preaching propriety, and Bab announcing herself a confirmed rake."

"I have certainly been preaching propriety," replied Judith. "It sounds odious, and I fear Lady Barbara has found it so."

"No! Confoundedly boring!" said Barbara. "I am informed, Charles, that you will dislike my picnic scheme excessively. Shall you?"

"Good God no! Go, by all means, if you wish to and can stand the gossip."

"I am quite accustomed to it," she said indifferently.

Judith felt so much indignation at the lack of feeling shown by this remark that she drew her hand away from the Colonel's arm, and dropped behind to walk with her brother. This left Miss Devenish to the Count's escort, an arrangement which continued until Barbara left the party. The Count then requested the honour of being allowed to conduct her home; Colonel Audley, who was obliged to call at Headquarters, made no objection, and Miss Devenish found herself once more in the company of Sir Peregrine, Lady Worth and Colonel Audley walking ahead of them.

After a few moments, Judith said in a vexed tone: "You will surely not permit her to behave with such impropriety!"

"I see no impropriety," he replied.

"To be alone with that man the whole day!"

"An indiscretion, certainly."

She walked on beside him in silence for some way, but presently said: "Why do you permit it?"

"I have no power to stop her even if I would."

"Even if you would? What can you mean?"

"She must be the only judge of her own actions. I won't become a mentor."

"Charles, how nonsensical! Do you mean to let yourself be ridden over roughshod?"

" Neither to be ridden over nor to ride roughshod," he answered. "To manage my own affairs in my own way, however."

" I beg your pardon," she said, in a mortified voice.

He pressed her hand, but after a slight pause began to talk of something else. She attempted no further discussion with him on the subject of the picnic, but to Worth, later, spoke her mind with great freedom. He listened calmly to all she had to say, but when she demanded to know his opinion, replied that he thought the intervention to have been ill-judged.

"I had no notion of vexing her! I tried only to advise her."

"You made a great mistake in doing so. Advice is seldom palatable."

"I think she is perfectly heartless!"

"I hope you may be found to be wrong."

"And, what is more, she is a flirt. I am sure there can be nothing more odious!" She paused, but as Worth showed no sign of wishing to avail himself of the opportunity of answering her, continued: "Nothing could be more unfortunate than such an entanglement! I wonder you can sit there so placidly while Charles goes the quickest way to work to ruin his life! She has nothing to recommend her. She has not even the advantages of fortune; she is wild to a fault; indulges every extravagant folly; and in general shows such a want of delicacy that it quite sinks my spirits to think of Charles forming such a connection!" She again paused, and as Worth remained silent, said: "Well? Can you find anything to admire in her, beyond a beautiful face and a well-turned ankle?"

"Certainly," he replied. "She has a great deal of natural quickness, and although her vivacity often betrays her into unbecoming behaviour, I believe she wants neither sense nor feeling."

"You will tell me next that you are pleased with the engagement!"

"On the contrary, I am sorry for it. But depend upon it, a man of thirty-five is capable of judging for himself what will best suit him."

"Oh, Julian, I know she will make him unhappy!"

"I think it extremely probable," he replied. "But as neither of us has the power to prevent such a contingency we should be extremely foolish to interfere in the matter."

She sighed, and picked up her embroidery. After a period of reflection, she said in a mollified tone: "I don't wish to be censorious, and I must say she is extremely kind to little Julian."

The entrance of the Colonel put an end to the conversation. He had been dining at the Duke's table, and seemed to be more concerned with the difficulties of the military situation than with Barbara's volatility. He sat down with a sigh of relief before the fire, and said: "Well! we depart (I need hardly say) at daybreak. It will be a relief to leave these Headquarters behind us. If his temper is to survive this campaign Old Hookey must have a respite from the letters they keep sending from the Horse Guards."

"Crusty, is he?" said Worth.

"Damned crusty. I don't blame him: I wouldn't be in his shoes for a thousand pounds. What is needed is good troops, and all we hear of is general officers. Added to that, the staff which has been employed here :s preposterous. One is for ever tumbling over deputy-assistants who are nothing more than subaltern officers, and no more fit for staff duty than your son would be. They are all being turned off, of course, but even so we shall have too many novices still left on the staff."

"If I know anything of the matter, you will have more - if Wellington pays any heed to the recommendations he will receive," remarked Worth.

"He don't, thank the lord! Though, between ourselves, some of those recommendations come from vcry exalted quarters." He stood up. "I am off to bed. Have you made up your mind whether you come along with us, or not, Worth?"

"Yes, as far as to Ghent. Where do you go from. there?"

"Oh, Tournay - Mons! All the fortifications. I shall be away for about a week, I suppose."

Both men had left the house when Judith came down to breakfast next morning. She sat down at the table. with only The British and Continental Herald to bear her company, and was engaged in perusing the columns of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, when the butler came in to announce the Lady Barbara Childe.

Judith looked up in surprise; she supposed Lade Barbara to be in the salon, but before she could speak - that tempestuous beauty had brushed past the butler into the room.

She was dressed in a walking costume, and carried a huge chinchilla muff. She looked pale, and her eyes seemed overbright to Judith. She glanced round the room, and said abruptly: "Charles! I want to see him!"

Judith rose, and came forward. "How do you do?" she said. "I am sorry, but my brother has already left for Ghent. I hope it is nothing urgent?"

Barbara exclaimed: "Oh, confound it! I wanted to see him! I overslept - it's those curst drops!"

Her petulance, the violence of the language she used, did nothing to advance her claims to Judith's kindness. "I am sorry. Pray will you not be seated?"

"Oh no! There's no use in my staying!" Barbara replied dejectedly. Her mouth drooped; her eyes were emptied of light; she stood swinging her muff, apparently lost in her own brooding thoughts. Suddenly she looked at Judith, and laughed. "Oh, heavens! what did I say? You are certainly offended!"

Judith at once disclaimed. Barbara said, with her air of disarming candour: "I am sorry! Only I did wish to see Charles before he left, and I am always cross when I don't get what I want."

"I hope it was not a matter of great importance."

"No. That is, I behaved odiously to him yesterday - oh, to you, too, but I don't care for that! Oh, the devil, now what have I said?"

She looked so rueful, yet had such an imp of mischief dancing behind her solemnity that Judith was obliged to laugh. "I wish you will sit down! Have you breakfasted?"

Barbara dropped into a chair. "No. I don't, you know." She sighed. "Life is using me very hardly today. You will say that is my own fault, but it is nevertheless monstrous that when I do mean to be good, to make amends, I must needs oversleep."

After a moment's hesitation, Judith said: "You refer, I recollect, to your picnic scheme?"

"Of course. I wanted to tell Charles I was only funning."

"You do not mean to go, then!"

"No."

"I am so glad! I was completely taken in, I confess."

"Oh no! I did mean to go - yesterday! But Gussie -" She broke off, grinding her teeth together.

"Your sister-in-law advised you against the scheme?"

"On the contrary!" said Barbara, with an angry little laugh.

"I don't think I quite understand?"

"I daresay you might not. She had the infernal impudence to approve of it. She will be a famous matchmaking mama for her daughters one of these days."