An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

‘What, the Duchess of Richmond’s? Now, Audley, do I move in those exalted circles? Of course I’m not! However, several of ours are, so the honour of the regiment will be upheld. They tell me there’s going to be a war. A real guerra al cuchillo!’

‘Where do you get your information?’ retorted the Colonel.

‘Ah, we hear things, you know! Come along, out with it! What’s the latest from the frontier?’

‘Nada, nada, nada!’ said the Colonel.

‘Yes, you look as though there were nothing. All alike, you staff officers: close as oysters! My people have been singing Ahé Marmont all the afternoon.’

‘There’s been no news sent off later than nine this morning. Are your pack-saddles ready?’

Kincaid cocked an eyebrow. ‘More or less. They won’t be wanted before tomorrow, at all events, will they?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this, Johnny: if you’ve any preparations to make, I wouldn’t, if I were you, delay so long. Goodbye!’

Kincaid gave a low whistle. ‘That’s the way it is, is it? Thank you, I’ll see to it!’

Colonel Audley waved to him and strode on. When he reached Worth’s house he found that both Worth and Judith were in their rooms, dressing for the ball. He ran up the stairs to his own apartment, and began to strip off his clothes. He was standing before the mirror in his shirt and gleaming white net pantaloons, brushing his hair, when Worth presently walked in.

‘Hallo, Charles! So you go to the ball, do you? Is there any truth in the rumours that are running round the town?’

‘The Prussians were attacked this morning. That’s all we know. The Great Man’s inclined to think it a feint. He doesn’t think Boney will advance towards Charleroi: the roads are too bad. It’s more likely the real attack will be on our right centre. Throw me over my sash, there’s a good fellow!’

Worth gave it him, and watched him swathe the silken folds round his waist, so that the fringed ends fell gracefully down one thigh. The Colonel gave a last touch to the black stock about his neck, and struggled into his embroidered coat.

‘Are you dining with us?’

‘No, I dined early with the Duke. I don’t know when I shall get to the ball: we’ve orders to remain at Headquarters.’

‘That sounds as though something is in the wind.’

‘Oh, there is something in the wind,’ said the Colonel, flicking one hessian boot with his handkerchief. ‘God knows what, though! We’re expecting to hear from Mons at any moment.’

He picked up his gloves and cocked hat, charged Worth to make his excuses to Judith, and went back to the Rue Royale.

The Duke was in his dressing-room when, later in the evening, Baron Müffling came round to Headquarters with a despatch from Gneisenau, at Namur, but he called the Baron in to him immediately. The despatch confirmed the earlier tidings sent by Ziethen, and announced that Blücher was concentrating at Sombreffe, near the village of Ligny. General Gneisenau wanted to know what the Duke’s intentions were, but the Duke was still obstinately awaiting news from Mons. He stood by the table, in his shirt-sleeves, an odd contrast to the Prussian in his splendid dress-uniform, and said with a note of finality in his voice which the Baron had begun to know well: ‘It is impossible for me to resolve on a point of concentration till I shall have received the intelligence from Mons. When it arrives I will immediately advise you.’

There was nothing for Müffling to do but to withdraw. If he chafed at the delay, he gave no sign of it. He was aware of the Duke’s obsession that the attack would fall on his right, and though he did not share this belief he was wise enough to perceive that nothing would be gained by argument. He went back to his own quarters to make out his report to Blücher, keeping a courier at his door to be in r

eadiness to ride off as soon as he should have discovered the Duke’s intentions.

The long-awaited news from Mons came in soon after he left the Duke. There had been no further intelligence from Ziethen all day: what had occurred before Charleroi was still a matter for conjecture; and the despatch from Mons contained no tidings from Colonel Grant, but had been sent in by General Dörnberg, who reported that he had no enemy in front of him, but believed the entire French Army to be turned toward Charleroi.

It now seemed certain that a concerted move was being made upon Charleroi, but whether the town had fallen or was still in Prussian hands, how far the French had penetrated across the frontier, was still unknown. After a few minutes’ reflection, the Duke sent for De Lancey, and dictated his After-Orders. The dispositions of the Dutch-Belgic divisions at Nivelles was to remain unchanged; the 1st and 4th British Divisions were ordered to move on Braine-le-Comte and Enghien; Alten’s 3rd Division to move from Braine-le-Comte to Nivelles, and all other divisions to march on Mont St Jean.

The Duke gave his directions in his clear, concise way, finished his toilet, and, a little time before midnight, drove round to General Müffling’s quarters. Müffling had been watching the clock for the past hour, but he received the Duke without the least appearance of impatience.

‘Well! I’ve got news from Dörnberg,’ said his lordship briskly. ‘Orders for the concentration of my Army at Nivelles and Quatre-Bras are already despatched. Now, I’ll tell you what, Baron: you and I will go to the Duchess’s ball, and start for Quatre-Bras in the morning. You know all Bonaparte’s friends in this town will be on tiptoe. The well-intentioned will be pacified if we go, and it will stop our people from getting into a panic.’

The ball had been in progress for some time when the Duke’s party arrived in the Rue de la Blanchisserie. All the Belgian and Dutch notables were present; the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Brunswick, the British Ambassador, the foreign commissioners, the Earl of Uxbridge, Lord Hill, and such a host of generals with their aides-de-camp, fashionable young Guardsmen, and officers of cavalry regiments, that the lilac crapes and figured muslins were rendered insignificant by the scarlet and gold which so overpoweringly predominated. Jealous eyes dwelled from time to time on Barbara Childe, who, with what Lady Francis Webster almost tearfully described as fiendish cunning, had appeared midway through the evening in a gown of unrelieved white satin, veiled by silver net drapery à l’Ariane. Nobody else had had such forethought; indeed, complained Lady John Somerset, who but Bab Childe would have the audacity to wear a gown like a bridal robe at a ball? The puces swore faintly at the scarlet uniforms; the celestial blues and the pale greens died; but the white satin turned all the gold-encrusted magnificence into a background to set it off.

‘One comfort is that that head of hers positively shrieks at the uniforms!’ said a lady in a Spanish bodice and petticoat.

Barbara had come with the Vidals, but Lavisse was missing from her usual escort. None of the officers invited from General Perponcher’s division had put in an appearance, a circumstance which presently began to cause a little uneasiness. No one knew just what was happening on the frontier, but wild rumours had been current all day, and the news of the Army’s having been put in motion had begun to spread.

It was a very hot night, and the young people, overcoming the prudence of their elders, had had the windows opened in the ballroom. But hardly a breath of air stirred the long curtains, and young gentlemen in tight socks and high collars had begun to mop their brows and agonise over the possible wilting of the starched points of shirt-collars, so nattily protruding above the folds of their black cravats.

The ballroom formed a wing of its own to the left of the hall, and had an alcove at one end and a small ante-room at the other. It was prepared with a charming trellis pattern of roses and had several french windows on each side of it. It opened on to a passage that ran the length of the house, bisecting the hall in the middle. At the back of the hall, and immediately opposite the front door, was the entrance to the garden, with the dining-room on one side of it and two smaller apartments, one of which the Duke of Richmond used as a study, on the other. A fine staircase and a billiard-room flanked the front door. The Duke’s study was inhospitably closed, but every other room on the ground floor had been flung open. Candles burned everywhere; and banks of roses and lilies, anxiously sprinkled from time to time by the servants, overcame the hot smell of wax with their heavier scent.