"Really, Bab!" he protested.
"Now, don't be shocked! It would never do for George to marry her. He won't, of course. He depends too much upon my grandfather, and wouldn't dare. She may be perfectly ladylike, but her connection with that horrid little Cit of an uncle makes her quite Ineligible. My grandfather was himself held to have married beneath him, but that does not make him Indulgent towards any mesalliance we might wish to make! He is pleased, by the way, with my engagement. I have had letters from him and my grandmother by today's post. You never told me you had written to him, Charles!"
"Of course I wrote to him. Have we his blessing?"
"Decidedly! You are unexceptionable. He did not suppose me to have so much good sense. My grandmother, who is quite the most delightful creature imaginable, writes that she is in doubt of her felicitations being still acceptable by the time they reach me. You observe, Charles, you have broken all records!" She gathered up the reins, and signed to her tiger to jump up behind. "There seems to be nothing to stay for: I shall go. Who is invited to this dinner at Uxbridge's?"
"All commanding cavalry officers, and of course the foreign visitors."
"Ah, a horrid male party! You will enjoy it excessively, I daresay, get abominably foxed, and come reeling back to Brussels with the dawn."
"Well! You have drawn no rose-coloured picture of-my character, at all events! There can be no disillusionment for you to fear!"
"No, none for me," she said.
He saw that she was ready to give her horses the office to start, but detained her. "Do you mean to drive alone? Is not Harry with you?"
"Certainly I mean to drive alone. Harry is not here."
"Don't tell me there are no young gentlemen eager for the chance to escort you?"
"I have sometimes a strong liking for my owrr company," she replied. "But as for being alone, pray observe Matthew, my tiger."
"Let someone ride back with you, Bab."
"Are you afraid I may be molested by the brutal soldiery? I don't fear it!"
"You might well meet with unpleasantness. Is not Vidal here?"
"Yes, driving with Gussie. You will not expect me to curb my horses to keep pace with a sober barouche. I shall spring 'em, you know."
He stepped back. She said saucily: "Retiring again. Charles? You're the wisest man of my acquaintance. Goodbye! Don't be anxious: I am a famous whip."
She began to make her way out of the ranks of carriages; the Colonel mounted his horse again, and rode off to his brother's curricle. He saluted Judith, but without attending to what she had to say of the review, addressed Worth. "Julian, be a good fellow, will you, and follow Bab? She's alone, and I don't care for her to be driving all the distance without an escort. You need not so proclaim yourself, by the way, but I should be glad if you would keep her in sight."
"Certainly," said Worth.
"Thank you: I knew I might depend on you."
He raised two fingers to his hat, and rode off. Judith said: "Well, if she's alone it must be for the first time. Poor Charles! I daresay she has done it simply to vex him."
"Very possibly," Worth agreed. "There is a bad streak in the Alastairs."
"Yes. Lord George, in particular, is not at all the thing. I am so disturbed to see him making Lucy the object of his attentions! It was most marked last night: he danced with her three times."
"She did not appear to mind."
"You are wrong: I saw her look distressed when he came up to her the third time. She is not the girl to have her head turned by a handsome Life Guardsman."
"She is singular, then," he said in his driest tone.
Chapter Thirteen
May had worn itself out; and looking back over four weeks of pleasure seeking, Judith could not feel that there had been unalloyed gaiety. She was aware of tension; she had herself been carried into the swirl. No one could foretell what the future held; but everyone knew that these weeks might be the last of happiness. Except when news crept through of movement on the frontier, war was not much talked of. Talking of it could not stop its coming; it was better to put the thought of it behind one, and to be merry while the sun still shone.
But Judith had good sense to guide her, nor was she any longer a single beauty with scores of admirers clamouring for her favours. If she grew tired, she could rest; but Barbara, it seemed, could not rest, and appeared not to wish even to draw breath. She was beginning to look a little haggard; that she took laudanum was an open secret. What caprice it was that drove her on Judith could not imagine. The very fact of her being betrothed to Charles should have made it possible for her to have lived more quietly; she ought not to want to be for ever at parties. When he could he accompanied her, but he had very little leisure for picnics, or for spending days at the races. Often he came off duty looking so tired that it put his sister-in-law out of all patience to find him bent on attending some ball or reception. He denied that he felt tired, and the harassed little frown between his eyes would vanish as he laughed at her solicitude. She was not deceived; she could have shaken Barbara for her selfishness.
But Charles, keeping pace with his betrothed, never allowed a hint of languor to appear in his face or manner. Once Barbara said to him: "Is it wrong of me not to give up the parties and all the fun? I love it so! And when I am married I shall have to be so sober!"
"No, no, never think that!" he said quickly.
"Gussie says it must be so."
"It shall not be so! Don't listen to Augusta, I beg of you! Do you think I have not known from the start how little she likes our engagement?"
"Gussie!" she said scornfully. "I never listened to her my life!"
But even though she scoffed at Augusta she did listen to her, with an unconscious ear.
"Make the most of your freedom, my dear," said Augusta. "You won't have the chance when you've married your staff officer. Will you miss your court, do you think? Shall you mind not being crowded round at every ball you go to? And oh, Bab, do you mean to wear a matronly cap, and bear your Charles a quiverful of stout children? How I shall laugh to see you!"
No, one did not set any store by what Gussie said, but nevertheless those barbs found their mark. Gallant young gentlemen, too, would cry imploringly: "Oh, don't turn into a sober matron, Bab! Only conceive of world without Bad Bab to set everyone by the ears!"
They all drew the same picture of her, grown grave and thinking not of her conquests but of her household perhaps being obliged to languish in some dull garrison town, with nothing to do but visit other officers' wives and be civil to Charles.
She would see herself like that, and would thrust the picture behind her, and hurry away to be gay while she could. When Charles was with her, the picture faded. for Charles swore he wanted no such wife. Yet some sobriety Charles did want. There had been an incident in May which he had not laughed at. Some of the officers of Lord Edward Somerset's brigade had given one of the moonlight picnics of which the old-fashioned people so much disapproved. Lord George had been at the root of it; he had engaged Miss Devenish to go to it with his sister, laying his careless command upon Barbara to bring the chit with her. The wonder was that Miss Devenish had liked to go, but she did go, and had managed to get lost with Lord George in a coppice for over an hour. It was no concern of Barbara's. "Good God, Charles, if a chaperon had been wanted I was not the one to choose for the part! Everyone contrived to lose themselves. Why, I had the most absurd half hour myself, with an engaging child from George's regiment on one side of me and Captain Clayton of the Blues on the other."
"It sounds safe and rather stupid," he said. "But Miss Devenish's prolonged absence with George has caused a little talk. I can't but blame you, Bab. You should not nave allowed it."