The Waltzing Widow (20 page)
The valet's eyes bulged. He swallowed convulsively as he watched his master coolly inspect the priming of the pistols before thrusting them deep in the overcoat pockets.
The viscount felt his servant's gaze on him and he glanced round at the valet's appalled expression. His eyes grew cold. “Pray do not permit me to keep you from your task, Vincent,'’ he said softly.
The valet started nervously, then hurried to pull the remaining items of the viscount's attire from the wardrobe. He cast a frightened glance after his master, who calmly went out of the bedroom.
The viscount crossed the private parlor and rapped sharply at his wife's bedroom door. There was a frightened gasp, then silence, from the other side of the door. Viscount Catlin ground out an expletive. “It is hardly credible that the French would be so courteous as to knock, my dear,” he said bitingly.
The door flew open and the viscountess fell into his arms. “Victor! Thank God it is really you!"
He set her back on her feet. “Have done, my dear. I came to inquire whether you have finished with your packing,” he said.
"Yes. At least ... I am not certain,” the viscountess said, completely distracted.
"Pray inquire of your maid, then. I shall await you in the parlor."
Viscount Catlin waited impatiently for his household to assemble. When they did so, his wife and her maid carrying portmanteaus and the valet bringing up the rear with the rest of the baggage, the viscount cautioned them all to stay close behind him. He led the way downstairs and the party was crossing the entry when the hotelier caught sight of them. Immediately the man garnered from their manner of dress and the baggage they carried that they were leaving. The hotelier hurried over, speaking agitatedly. “Ah, my lord! You too are going away. I am much saddened at the loss of your company, but ... My lord! My lord, your bill!"
Without so much as pausing, the viscount reached into his coat pocket and tossed a tied leather bag at the hotelier's face. The man flinched and the bag fell to the wooden floor with the unmistakable sound of silver. The viscountess gasped and swung startled eyes to her husband's face. “Victor, you have given him too much!” He was unheeding, but swept to the door of the hotel, the others hurrying to keep up with him.
The situation in the courtyard had not changed. Viscount Catlin viewed the scene with a faintly contemptuous expression. Then he plunged into the melee to make his way over to the coachman he had earlier spied. He stared at the man on the carriage box. “I wish to depart immediately for Antwerp,'’ he said, his voice rising clearly above the frantic and furious clamor all around.
The coachman shook his head rapidly. “Non, my lord. I do not take my animals out in such a panic. Not this day or any other. It would be madness to set out in this. I will not do it. I do not lose my animals,
non."
The viscount smiled, a mere parting of his thin lips. His pale blue eyes were cold. “I do not give you a choice, my man."
With many gesticulations, the coachman called upon all the saints and angels in heaven to witness that he would not set out—"Non, not to save the Prince of Orange himself!” he declared.
The viscount withdrew from his pocket one of the loaded pistols. He cocked it, and the click was amazingly clear even in the tumult about them. “I am perfectly capable of handling the team myself,” he said in a hard voice.
The coachman looked at the silver-haired gentleman, at his lean wolfish face and cold, cold eyes. He shivered, crossing himself hastily. The Français were one kind of devil, and this Anglais another. “It shall be as you wish, my lord,” he said hoarsely. He was a practical man. One dealt with the devil at one's door before wasting a thought on the one who was still to come.
Viscount Catlin allowed a thin smile to flit across his lips.
"Very good. We depart immediately,” he said. The baggage was made secure and he told the valet and the maid to enter the carriage. He started to hand up the viscountess, but she hung back with a perturbed expression. “What is it, my dear?” the viscount asked irascibly.
"Victor, should we not procure a second coach?” she asked, plucking at his sleeve. “This one will be rather too crowded with the servants, do you not think?"
Viscount Catlin barked a laugh. “My dear lady, you must steel yourself. I fear that the French have scuttled any chance of traveling in our usual style."
"Really, it is most inconvenient,” Viscountess Catlin complained, getting into the carriage. The viscount gave a short order to the driver before swinging up into the carriage and shutting the door. The carriage started with a jerk and then raided out of the courtyard of the hotel.
Wagons filled with wounded began to arrive, and the melancholy spectacle increased the general despondency. The streets were filled with the most pitiable sights. Numbers of wounded who were able to walk wandered upon every road, their bloodstained clothes and pale, haggard countenances giving testimony of the sufferings they had sustained.
The leaden skies wept misting rain as the wounded sprawled helter-skelter along the sidewalks where they had dropped from loss of blood and exhaustion, and numerous were the sorrowful groups standing round the dead bodies of those who had died of their wounds on the way home.
From their drawing-room window Lady Mary and Abigail witnessed a Belgian soldier dying at the door of his own home, surrounded by his relatives, who wept brokenheartedly over him. It was a moment too private and too painful for the public walkway, and with one accord they left the window, greatly affected.
Lady Mary's eyes glittered with tears, but her expression was one of settled determination. “I know that we had planned to go to the church to scrape lint for bandages, Abigail, but if you think that you can stand it, I believe we must do what we can to minister as best we might to those poor wretched men outside in our own street,” she said.
"Oh, indeed, Mama!” Abigail exclaimed, her eyes shining with both dread and excitement.
"We can do little for their wounds, but at least we may ease their distress with something to drink or even perhaps to eat,” Lady Mary said. She pulled on the bell rope, and to the footman who answered the summons she gave swift orders. The kitchen was galvanized into preparing soup and weak tea while Lady Mary and Abigail went upstairs to change into pelisses and bonnets that would help protect them from the rain.
When the soup and tea urns were ready. Lady Mary and Abigail left the town house to begin their small effort. The soldiers were parched beyond endurance, having not had any nourishment since they had marched out of Brussels, and were exceedingly grateful for the sips that they received.
Lady Mary and Abigail were not the only ones engaged on such errands of mercy. Others directed their servants to carry those sprawled on the pavement into their homes. Still others offered blankets and pillows to those not yet housed.
But for some, even such meager assistance came too late.
"It is so utterly horrible,” Abigail said, tears coursing down her face as a man died in her mother's arms. She watched as Lady Mary gently laid the man down on the pavement and brushed her fingers over his eyes to close the lids. There was a smear of bright blood on her mother's skirt, and Abigail shuddered. “Mama, how can you bear it so calmly?"
Lady Mary drew a steadying breath, not quite as unaffected as her daughter thought her. “It is a trick of the mind, Abigail. To give any one of these poor sufferers access to your feelings, is to allow yourself to be unmanned for the performance of your duty. It is less painful to look upon the whole than to contemplate even one of these men. Abigail, you must learn this truth quickly, for I fear that this is but the beginning of the monstrous consequences,” she said quietly, rising to her feet. She looked compassionately at her daughter, but she did not touch her. She was aware of the horror that Abigail would feel to be touched by hands that had just left a dead man's face.
Without a word, Abigail moved on to the next man and Lady Mary followed her. They labored without ceasing until the soup and tea were gone, whereupon they returned to the town house to replenish their supply.
They had already seen some of their servants moving up and down the street also doing what little they could, and so they were unsurprised to find that the town house was very nearly deserted. However, the housekeeper caught them by surprise when she rushed up to Lady Mary and threw out her hands in agitated appeal for understanding. “Madame! My nephew—he is wounded, he has nowhere else to go, no one to care for him but me—"
Lady Mary held up her hand to slow the woman's swift tumble of words. “Slowly, Berthe, I pray you.” The housekeeper was encouraged to tell her story, still disjointed and with great distress, but at last the ladies understood that she had without authority brought her nephew into the house and put him in an empty bedroom and that at that very moment a physician was expected.
"Of course it is all right, Berthe! I would not have had you do anything else,'’ Lady Mary said warmly. Struck by a thought, she asked, “You did say that a physician is coming, did you not?” Assured that this was so, she smiled suddenly. “Very good indeed, Berthe. We shall have a few more patients for the doctor to look at, I think."
"Madame?” Berthe said, not understanding. But as Lady Mary outlined what she wanted, she nodded in voluble appreciation.
"Oui,
madame. It shall be attended to at once."
As the housekeeper went to seek reinforcements to carry out Lady Mary's wishes, Abigail regarded her mother with a dubious expression. “Are you certain it is truly what you wish, Mama? We have only let the place, after all."
Lady Mary brushed aside such a consideration."I do not think that the owner himself would do less than to offer the sanctuary of his home to his fellow countrymen, especially when it does not appear that the weather will improve anytime soon. Come, Abigail, let us put off our bonnets and change out of these soiled and damp pelisses. There is much to be done if we are to turn this place into a house for the wounded,” she said, only half in jest.
The ladies did not have far to look for patients. Close to their own door were several wounded. Lady Mary had the footmen carry four soldiers into the garden house. Berthe's nephew occupied one of the spare rooms, and so they were able to bivouac only three more wounded men in the other spare rooms.
When the wounded had been settled comfortably and had been seen by a physician, Lady Mary and Abigail settled in the drawing room. They were exhausted by their exertions and had been promised an early tea by Berthe to warm them.
Scarcely had Lady Mary and Abigail seated themselves when the butler showed in Viscount and Viscountess Catlin. Lady Mary received her parents without reserve, alarmed by the strange and early hour of their visit. But when she saw that they were dressed for travel, she suddenly knew why they had come.
Abigail was less perceptive, and she felt only gladness to see her grandparents. She ran to them with outstretched hands. “Grandpapa! Grandmama, how happy I am to see you."
Viscountess Catlin wrapped her arms tightly about the girl. “Ah, my sweet dear little Abigail,” she said, tears starting to her eyes.
Lady Mary greeted her father with more restraint. “It is good to see you, as always, my lord. You have chosen an odd hour to call, and an odder attire,” she said, sweeping her hand at her father's mode of dress.
The viscount laughed shortly. “You've wit enough to see, Mary. Yes, your mother and I are leaving Brussels. The rumors are alarming. I will not take the chance of remaining until it is too late to escape Bonaparte's triumphant arrival."
Viscountess Catlin turned to her daughter. “We are leaving for Antwerp at once."
"Leaving?” exclaimed Abigail. She looked from one to the other of her grandparents. Her fingers tightened on her grandmother's hand. “Oh, Grandmama!"
The viscountess patted her granddaughter's arm. “Yes, my dear. I am made too fearful by these dreadful rumors. It is all too much for me. I want to be safe in my own dear England."
Viscount Catlin stared somberly at his daughter, “Mary, I want you and Abigail well away from this place also. I want you to come back with us to London."
Though Lady Mary was pale, her composure remained intact. She hardly needed a moment to reflect before she answered. “I am truly sorry, sir. I cannot do as you wish. Until I know for certain what happens to William, I intend to remain her in Brussels."
"Mary! Even you cannot be such a fool!'’ Viscountess Catlin exclaimed, her voice cracking with astonishment. She began to admonish her daughter with a rapidity that bordered on hysteria.
The viscount threw up his hand to silence his wife's torrent of scolding. “A moment, my dear.” His hard eyes studied his daughter's face. “You mean that you will not do as I wish, isn't that it, Mary?"
Lady Mary sighed. She steeled herself for the usual tide of wrath that her defiance had always provoked. “Our past differences have nothing to do with my decision, sir. I hope that you can understand my reason, which is simply as I have already stated to you,” she said quietly.
Again the viscountess exclaimed. But Viscount Catlin silenced her, much to his wife's unwelcome surprise. “You have always been a stubborn and difficult young woman, Mary. At times you remind me most forcibly of myself,” he said with a rare flash of humor. He nodded in reluctant acceptance. “Very well, Mary. I honor your decision. I trust that you will not come to bitterly regret it."
The viscountess's cheeks became suffused with bright patches of angry color. She demanded shrilly, “What are you saying, husband? Have you gone completely mad as well?"
Viscount Catlin spoke with a hint of coldness. “Not at all, my dear. I am merely respecting our daughter's right to exercise her own judgment and to choose her own fate."
Lady Mary's smile wavered. She was completely taken aback by her father's unexpected understanding. “Thank you, Papa."
The viscount smiled also, but it was a mere showing of the teeth and no warmth reached his eyes. “Pray do not thank me quite so soon, my lady. I demand that same right be granted to your own daughter and that you do not presume to speak for her. Abigail, too, must make her own choice in this."
