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! 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!"
Chapter 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 verything 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 at 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 sending any more general officers. "I have no objection; on the contrary, I wish for Cole and Picton to command divisions," wrote his lordship, with every intention of seeming gracious. "I shall be very happy to have Kempt and Pack, and will do the best I can for them…" Quite an affable despatch, this one, much more conciliatory than the one that was on its way to Lord Bathurst. His lordship was not getting the artillery he had demanded; instead of 150 pieces he was to have only eighty-four, including German artillery. He considered his demand to have been excessively small, and he told Bathurst so. "You will see by reference to Prince Hardenberg's return of the Prussian Army that they take into the field nearly 80 batteries, manned by 10,000 artillery. Their batteries are of eight guns each, so that they will have 600 pieces. They do not take this number for show or amusement," continued his lordship sardonically, "and although it is impossible to grant my demand, I hope it will be admitted to be small."
But in spite of the querulous tone of his despatches to London he was not so ill-pleased, after all. He might complain that in England they were doing nothing, and where unable to send him anything, but before April was out he was writing quite cheerfully to Hardinge, English Commissioner to the Prussians, that he was getting on in strength, and had now 60,000 men in their shoes, of whom at least 10,000 were cavalry.
He was glad when Prince Blucher arrived at the Prussian Headquarters. He liked old Marshal "Forwards", but he wished he would not write to him in German.
But Blucher, with his dozen words of English, and his execrable French, was a better man to deal with than his chief-of-staff. A jealous fellow, Gneisenau. always making difficulties and suspecting him of duplicity.
However, that was a minor annoyance; on the whole, his lordship was satisfied with his Prussian allies. though the circumstance of their being continually at loggerheads with King William gave him a good deal of trouble. Poor old Blucher was quite lacking in polish: nor could he be made to realise the value of tact in dealing with a fellow like King William. He was for ever omitting to make just those courteous gestures which would have cost him so little and soothed the King's dignity so much. Rather a difficult yoke-fellow, Blucher, apt to get the bit between his teeth, and, unfortunately, imbued with such a dislike of the French that he could not be brought to tolerate even the Royalists among them. But he was not afraid of meeting Bonaparte in the field, and he was a likeable old man, with his fierce, rosy face and fine white whiskers, his spluttering enthusiasm, and his beaming smile.
His lordship was much more comfortable at Headquarters now, for he had got his military secretary back, and Sir Colin Campbell too. His lordship was fond of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who had lately married his niece, and had so become his nephew by marriage. Lord Fitzroy exactly suited him; for he did what he was told, never committing the appalling offence of setting up ideas of his own and acting on them. His lordship detested independently-minded subordinates. It was not the business of his officers to think for themselves. "Have my orders for whatever you do!" he said. It was an inflexible rule; nothing made him angrier than to have it broken.
Lord Fitzroy never broke it. He could be trusted to obey every order punctiliously. He got through an amazing amount of work, too, often in the most unsuitable surroundings, and always with a quiet competence that seemed to make little of the mass of correspondence on his hands. He was not one of those troublesome officers, either, who were for ever wanting to go home on leave to attend to urgent private affairs which his lordship was convinced could be quite as well settled by correspondence. Nor had he ever discovered (just when he was most needed) that the climate in Spain disagreed with his constitution. You could always be sure of Fitzroy.