"Why? Is he afraid of me, or only of Boney?"
"Both, I daresay. I have no notion of staying here if Bonaparte does march on Brussels, as they all say he will. And if I go you must also."
Barbara shed her sea-green wrap and got into bed. The light of the candles beside her had the effect of making her eyes and hair glow vividly. "Don't think it! I shall stay. A war will be exciting. I like that!"
"You can scarcely remain alone in Brussels!"
Barbara snuggled down among a superfluity of pillows. "Who lives will see!"
"I should not care to do so in your situation."
A gleam shot into the half-closed eyes; they looked sideways at Augusta. "Dearest Gussie! So respectable!" Barbara murmured.
Chapter Three
Lady Worth walked into her breakfast-parlour on the morning of April 5th, to find that she was not, as she had supposed, the first to enter it. A cocked hat had been tossed on to a chair, and a gentleman in the white net pantaloons and blue frock-coat of a staff officer was sitting on the floor, busily engaged in making paper boats for Lord Temperley. Lord Temperley was standing beside him, a stern frown on his countenance betokening the rapt interest of a young gentleman just two years old.
"Well!" cried Judith.
The staff officer looked quickly up, and jumped to his feet. He was a man in the mid-thirties, with smiling grey eyes, and a mobile, well-shaped mouth.
Lady Worth seized him by both hands. "My dear Charles! of all the delightful surprises! But when did you arrive? How pleased I am to see you! Have you breakfasted? Where is your baggage?"
Colonel Audley responded to this welcome by putting an arm round his sister-in-law's waist and kissing her cheek. "No need to ask you how you do: you look famous! I got in last night, too late to knock you up.
"How can you be so absurd? Don't tell me you put up at an hotel!"
"No, at the Duke's."
"He is here too? Really in Brussels at last?"
"Why certainly! We are all of us here - the Duke, Fremantle, young Lennox, and your humble servant." A tug at his sash recalled his attention to his nephew.
"Sir! I beg pardon! The boat - of course!"
The boat was soon finished, and put into his lordship's fat little hand. Prompted by his Mama, he uttered a laconic word of thanks, and was borne off by his nurse.
Colonel Audley readjusted his sash. "I must tell you that I find my nephew improved out of all recognition, Judith. When I last had the pleasure of meeting him, he covered me with confusion by bursting into a howl of dismay. But nothing could have been more gentlemanlike than his reception of me today."
She smiled. "I hope it may be true. He is not always so, I confess. To my mind he is excessively like his father in his dislike of strangers. Worth, of course, would have you believe quite otherwise. Sit down, and let me give you some coffee. Have you seen Worth yet?"
"Not a sign of him. Tell me all the news! What has been happening here? How do you go on?"
"But my dear Charles, I have no news! It is to you that we look for that. Don't you know that for weeks past we have been positively hanging upon your arrival, eagerly searching your wretchedly brief letters for the least grain of interesting intelligence?"
He looked surprised, and a little amused. "What in the world would you have me tell you? I had thought the deliberations of the Congress were pretty well known."
"Charles!" said her ladyship, in a despairing voice, "you have been at the very hub of the world, surrounded by Emperors and Statesmen, and you ask me what I would have you tell me!"
"Oh, I can tell you a deal about the Emperors," offered the Colonel. "Alexander, now, is - let us say - a trifle difficult."
He was interrupted. "Tell me immediately what you have been doing!" commanded Judith. "Dancing," he replied.
"Dancing!"
"And dining."
"You are most provoking. Are you pledged to secrecy? If so, of course I won't ask you any awkward questions."
"Not in the least," said the Colonel cheerfully. "Life —Vienna was one long ball. I have been devoting a neat part of my time to the quadrille. L'Ete, la Poule, : grande ronde - I have all the steps, I assure you."
"You must be a very odd sort of an aide-de-camp!" I:le remarked. "Does not the Duke object?"
"Object?" said the Colonel. "Of course not! He likes William Lennox would tell you that the excellence of pas de zephyr is the only thing that has more than once saved him from reprimand."
"But seriously, Charles -?"
"On my honour!"
She was quite dumbfounded by this unexpected light cast upon the proceedings at Vienna, but before she could express her astonishment her husband came into the room, and the subject was forgotten in the greeting between the brothers, and the exchange of questions.
"You have been travelling fast," the Earl said, as he presently took his seat at the table. "Stuart spoke of the Duke's still being in Vienna only the other day."
"Yes, shockingly fast. We even had to stop for lard to grease the wheels. But with such a shriek going up for the Beau from here, what did you expect?" said the Colonel, with a twinkle. "Anyone would imagine Boney to be only a day's march off from the noise you have been making."
The Earl smiled, but merely said: "Are you rejoining the Regiment, or do you remain on the Staff?"
"Oh, all of us old hands remain, except perhaps March, who will probably stay with the Prince of Orange. Lennox goes back to his regiment, of course. He is only a youngster, and the Beau wants his old officers with him. What about my horses, Worth? You had my letter?"
"Yes, and wrote immediately to England. Jackson has procured you three good hunters, and there is a bay mare I bought for you last week."
"Good!" said the Colonel. "I shall probably get forage allowance for four horses. Tell me how you have been going on here! Who's this fellow, Hudson Lowe, who knows all there is to be known about handling armies?"
"Oh, you've seen him already, have you? I suppose Vou know he is your Quartermaster-General? Whether he will deal with the Duke is a question yet to be decided."
"My dear fellow, it was decided within five minutes of his presenting himself this morning," said the Colonel, passing his cup and saucer to Lady Worth. "I left him instructing the Beau, and talking about his experience. Old Hookey was stiff as a poker, and glaring at him, with one of his crashing snubs just ripe to be delivered. I slipped away. Fremantle's on duty, poor devil."
"Crashing snubs? Is the Duke a bad-tempered man?" enquired Judith. "That must be a sad blow to us all."
"Oh no, I wouldn't call him bad-tempered!" replied the Colonel. "He gets peevish, you know - a trifle crusty, when things don't go just as he wishes. I wish they may get Murray back from America in time to take this fellow Lowe's place: we can't have him putting old hookey out every day of the week: comes too hard on the wretched staff."
Judith gave him back his cup and saucer. "But, Charles, this is shocking! You depict a cross, querulous person, and we have been expecting a demi-god."
"Demi-god! Well, so he is, the instant he goes into action," said the Colonel. He drank his coffee, and said, 'Who is here, Worth? Any troops arrived yet from England?"
"Very few. We have really only the remains of Graham's detachment still, the same that Orange has had under his command the whole winter. There are the 1st Guards, the Coldstream, and the 3rd Scots; all 2nd battalions. The 52nd is here, a part of the 95th - but you must know the regiments as well as I do! There's no English cavalry at all, only that of the German Legion."