Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (19 page)

And since I cannot sleep, I might as well write out a better account of today. Since my last was scribbled down in the few minutes I had between dressing and leaving for the ball.

Our carriage arrived in Brussels at around four o'clock this afternoon. Harriet of course had given our driver the address of the house her husband the colonel has engaged for her stay here--a very pretty townhouse on a street near the
Parc
that lies at the heart of the city. We had barely rolled up outside the door, though, when it burst open and a very stout woman in a white mob cap and apron came flying out. She is Madame Duvalle, the local woman whom Colonel Forster hired for a housekeeper, though we didn't know that at the time. She seized first Mrs. Metcalfe's hands, then Harriet's and Kitty's and mine, all the while pouring out a torrent of French. I speak French--and sufficiently well, I always thought--yet I could scarcely understand what she said.

But finally the meaning of the words became plain. The French--
the French devils
, Madame Duvalle called them--attacked an outpost held by our Prussian allies today. Reports of the outcome are still coming in--some say the French will be in Brussels by tomorrow noon if they are not checked, some hold that the Prussians drove them off. But in any case, Wellington's army would be moving out tomorrow to meet their attack.
And unless they can cut those French devils to pieces, what is to become of us? Napoleon's soldiers will trample us underfoot and kill us all
, was what Madame Duvalle said.

Even writing this, not even a day later, the next hour or two seems all jumbled and blurred together in my memory. We were all tired after the long journey, and it made the news--even all the people thronging the street, anxious to hear the latest reports that might come in--seem almost unreal. I know we came into the house, and Madame Duvalle, still alternating between expressions of fear and curses against Napoleon, served us little frosted cakes and blackberry cordial to drink.

Kitty and Harriet looked terrified. And even Mrs. Metcalfe--who had merely snorted something about hysterical females in the face of all Madame Duvalle's flood of alarms--looked grave, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

And then, somewhere about dinner time, Colonel Forster himself arrived back at the house.

Harriet jumped up with a little cry and ran to him when he came into the room, and he caught her against him. Colonel Forster is several years older than his wife--about Edward's age, I suppose. With curling, reddish-blond hair that is starting to recede a little from his high brow, and a square, strong-boned face. He held Harriet tightly a long moment, and then set her gently down.

"Thank God you are safely arrived," he said. "Though I wish to God you were anywhere but here."

He looked tired, with lines of strain bracketing the corners of his mouth. I don't think any of us really needed to ask him to know that the reports of a French attack were true. But Harriet did ask him what the latest reports were, and whether the army was really to march out tomorrow. And Colonel Forster said that the Duke of Wellington was keeping his plans very secret so as to prevent spies from bringing word back to the French. But that all his senior officers had been given orders to be ready to move out at a moment's notice.

Colonel Forster sat down on the couch, then, with one arm holding Harriet tightly against him. She looked as though she might cry as she clung to her husband's hand. Kitty, Mrs. Metcalfe and I all stood up to go--all wishing, without any words needing to be spoken, to give them as much time alone together as we could. I couldn't stop myself from asking, though, "Do you--" I had to swallow against the tightness in my throat. "Have you any idea of the whereabouts of Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam? He is one of the duke's aides-de-camp."

We were in a front room of the house, and I could see the street outside through the window: soldiers' red coats and white belts everywhere. Flemish drivers were working to load wagons, and horses were being harnessed to commissariat trains. I had no idea of how I might ever find Edward in all the confusion and uproar.

Colonel Forster had closed his eyes as he rested his cheek against his wife's hair. He looked up at me blankly an instant, then slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry. I have no idea. Though he might be at the Duchess of Richmond's tonight. She is holding a ball." A faint smile gathered at the edges of his mouth. "Too grand an affair for a commoner like myself to have been issued an invitation, of course. But all of our more aristocratic officers have been invited to attend. Wellington himself is planning to be there, or so I heard."

"A ball?" It was my turn to look completely blank. This seemed like one more piece of unreality in this utterly unreal day. "On the eve of battle?"

Colonel Forster's lips twisted slightly. "The event is one of long standing. And I believe Wellington was heard to say by one of his staff that it would stiffen public morale if he and his officers were seen there tonight--seen to behave as though utterly unconcerned by the threat of war barely ten miles away."

We left Colonel Forster and Harriet alone then, and went upstairs to the rooms we had been assigned. Mine--the room I am writing in now--is small but comfortable, with a fireplace of tulip-painted tiles and a pink satin coverlet on the bed. I sat down on the edge of the bed, vaguely aware of a maidservant coming in with a ewer of hot water for washing, shaking the wrinkles out of my gowns and hanging them in a carved wooden wardrobe. I suppose I thanked her, because she curtsied and went out. And I got up and went down the passage to Kitty's room.

Kitty's door was still partly ajar; when I looked in, she was sitting in a chair by her own fireplace, her fingers crumpling and twisting a lace-edged handkerchief over and over again. She looked up when I came in. But before she could say anything, I said, "I want to go to the Duchess of Richmond's."

Kitty's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open slightly. "The Duchess of Richmond's ball? But how can you? You've not been invited. Are you even acquainted with her?"

"I am. Or slightly acquainted, at least. I met her in London during my first Season."

Which was true. The Duchess of Richmond is a dragon of the London society scene. She's--

I was trying to think of a more polite way of putting this. But I am too tired--and there is another call to arms sounding even now in the street outside. Besides, this is only my own diary. So I will say that the Duchess of Richmond is considered by all who know her to be arrogant, overbearing, snobbish, acid-tempered--and utterly ruthless in her determination to find rich husbands for her seven daughters. I lived in London for two years and never met a single person who truly liked her.

After I met the Duchess for the first time, I heard that she considered me very stupid and shy, and in no way to be compared to her own Georgiana--her daughter, I mean, who has the same name I do. I could just imagine what opinion she would have of Kitty and me when she saw us arriving at her grand ball, uninvited, unescorted, and unannounced.

But I did not say any of that to Kitty. I only said, "Do you want to see Captain Ayres?"

"John? I haven't--I mean, I don't--" Kitty's cheeks flushed, then drained of all colour, leaving her face icy-pale once more. "We didn't decide on anything that night in Ostend. Only that we hoped to see each other again here in Brussels. I'm not at all sure--"

"He is to march off to war tomorrow, Kitty. Do you want to see him before he goes?"

Kitty locked her hands together. She gave a small, shaky nod. "Yes. I want to see him."

"Then come with me to the ball."

Kitty hesitated, but nodded. "All right. When ought we to leave?"

I think Mrs. Metcalfe would have gone with us--she nearly insisted on it, on the grounds that her presence would make our attendance at the ball more respectable. But she looked tired by the journey and the ill-news of war--though I was very sure she would never have admitted it. And besides, Colonel Forster had left the house again after spending a bare hour with his wife, and Harriet needed the comfort of Mrs. Metcalfe's presence more than Kitty and I needed a chaperone. Which was what I told Mrs. Metcalfe--and she reluctantly agreed.

I should have expected the Duchess to have engaged the ballroom of one of the city's grand hotels for her ball. But it was held in a long, low out building--a kind of annex--to the villa the Duke and Duchess of Richmond had engaged for their stay in Brussels. The villa had once belonged to a coach-maker, and the building had been used by him to store his coaches--or so I heard one of the other guests say.

The Duke and Duchess's villa was all the way across the city--they live in the lower part of town--and it took nearly two hours for our carriage to arrive there. The streets were crowded with soldiers and supply wagons--and of course all the other carriages driving towards the Duchess's ball.

We did finally arrive at the villa sometime around ten o'clock. And our fears of being turned away were unfounded. Or at least irrelevant. Calls of reveille were already being sounded, and the streets echoed with the sounds of marching as the soldiers left their billets to assemble at the Palace Royale. Officers, too, were leaving the ball to make ready for marching out tomorrow. Which meant that all Kitty and I had to do to get in was slip past the confusion of farewells and leave-takings at the door.

We did come in time to see the last of the dancing by a group of soldiers from one of the Scottish regiments--sergeants from the Gordon Highlanders, I think. And it was--I'm not sure I can find words to do the performance justice. Especially not now, tonight. But if anything could have made me forget the coming battle just for a little while, it would have been the Scottish soldiers marching slowly into the ballroom while their pipers played a haunting, melancholy, lilting song. And then the way they danced, bowing and leaping in their kilts and plaids--I had never seen anything like it before.

Just as the dancing was finished and the last mournful notes of the pipes dying away, I heard Kitty's and my names being called and turned to find Captain Ayres threading his way towards us through the crowd. My heart leapt--because if Captain Ayres was there at the ball, it seemed at least possible that Edward might be, as well. But before I could even open my mouth to ask, Captain Ayres shook his head.

"Miss Darcy. Miss Bennet." He bowed to each of us, and took Kitty's hand before saying, "I'm sorry to tell you, Miss Darcy, that Colonel Fitzwilliam has been sent to Vivorde with a message from Lord Uxbridge to Colonel Taylor of the 10th Hussars."

I can--vaguely--remember Edward telling me once that Lord Uxbridge commands the cavalry, but little more than that; he never wished to speak very much about the army or even the other officers he knew. But now I wish I had
forced
him to tell me as much as he could: names, ranks, records of service, everything. Not, I suppose, that it would really be of very much use even if I did have all that knowledge at the ready now.

But as it is, all I really know of Lord Uxbridge is that he scandalously seduced the Duke of Wellington's sister-in-law into leaving her husband, and that as a result his wife--formerly Wellington's brother's wife--is not socially received.

I would have left the ball immediately, if I'd had only my own wishes to consult. But of course I couldn't leave Kitty there on her own and without the carriage to convey her back to the Forsters'. And it would have been cruel even to try to make her leave the ball while Captain Ayres was still there.

Captain Ayres would have tried to serve as escort to both of us--he was very gallant and kind. But I wanted to let him and Kitty have as much time together as they could, so after a few minutes I made an excuse about wanting to visit the ladies' retiring room and slipped away, off into the crowds.

It is strange: my memories of the ball now seem to be all in fragments, with me walking through them like a ghost, unseen and unnoticed by anyone around me. Which isn't quite true. I know a few of the younger officers were in their cups enough to ask me to dance, though without having been properly introduced. And I even did dance with one of them, because he was so young--he looked barely seventeen. He was a little drunk on the Duchess's champagne and more than nervous about what he was to face tomorrow. He kept patting my hand and saying I needn't worry, our British boys would give Old Boney what for. And looking absolutely terrified all the while.

But for the rest, I spoke to no one, just wandered around the edges of the long, candlelit room--and fought a losing battle to keep from thinking of Edward.

It's stupid--I know it's stupid. But all throughout the day, I had had a strange, superstitious feeling that if only I could
see
Edward--even just once before he left--it would somehow guarantee his safe return.

I saw the Duke of Wellington and some of his staff officers come in sometime around midnight, I think. I had never seen him in person before--it was startling to be in the presence of a man who truly has grown into something of a legend. The only man capable of beating Napoleon, or so the newspapers and rumours always say.

The duke has lean, proud, aristocratic features. Handsome, in a very austere way. I could imagine him being charming when he chose. But tonight he looked as though his mind were far away and racing behind the careful social manners with which he greeted those guests he knew.

Once I happened to be standing nearby, and overheard someone ask whether the rumours were true, and Napoleon really had commenced his attack. And the Duke of Wellington looked very grave and said that yes, it was quite true, and the army would march out tomorrow. And then a young man in a staff officer's uniform came in with a message for him--bad news, I think it must have been, because Wellington's face turned grimmer still, and he turned and asked the Duke of Richmond whether he had a good map on the premises.

I think it was soon after that that Kitty and Captain Ayres found me. Captain Ayres was leaving the ball. Nearly all the officers were, as word spread that our Prussian allies had suffered worse casualties at the hands of the French than had previously been supposed.