‘Last year—in England!’ Lucy replied, covering her face with her hands.
‘Then all these months—!’ Judith ejaculated. ‘Good God, how is this possible?’
‘It is true. I am aware of what your feelings must be, but oh, if you knew how bitterly I have been punished, you would pity me!’
‘I do not know what to say! It is not for me to reproach you! But what can have prompted you to commit such an act of folly? Why this long secrecy? I am utterly at a loss!’
‘Ah, you are not acquainted with my grandfather!’ said Barbara. ‘The secrecy is easily explained. What, however, passes my comprehension is how the devil you persuaded George into marriage!’
‘He loves me!’ Lucy said, rearing up her head.
‘He must indeed do so. Odd! I should not have thought you the girl to catch his fancy.’
‘Oh, Bab, pray hush!’ besought Judith.
‘Nonsense! If Miss Devenish—I beg pardon!—if Lady George has become my sister the sooner she grows accustomed to the language I use the better it will be. So George was afraid to confess the whole to my grandfather, was he?’
‘Yes. I cannot tell you all, but you must not blame him! Mine was the fault. I allowed myself to be swept off my feet. The marriage took place in Sussex. George was in the expectation of gaining his promotion—’
‘Ah, I begin to understand you! My grandfather was to have given him the purchase money, eh? Instead he was obliged to spend in hushing up the Carroway affair, and was disinclined to assist George further.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Everything went awry! That scandal—but all that is over now! Indeed, indeed, George loves me, and there can be no more such affairs!’
‘My poor innocent! But continue!’
‘He said we must wait. His circumstances were awkward: there were debts; and I was unhappily aware of my uncle’s dislike of him. I feared nothing but anger could be met with in that quarter. My uncle thinks him a spendthrift, and that, in his eyes, outweighs every consideration of birth or title. To have declared our marriage would have meant George’s ruin. But the misery of my position, the necessity of deceiving my uncle and my aunt, the wretchedness of stolen meetings with George—all these led to lowness of spirits in me, and in him the natural irritation of a man tied in such a way to one who—’ Her utterance was choked by sobs; she overcame them, and continued: ‘Misunderstandings, even quarrels, arose between us. I began to believe that he regretted a union entered into so wrongly. When my uncle and aunt decided to come to Brussels in January, I accompanied them willingly, feeling that nothing could be worse than the life I was then leading. But the separation seemed to draw us closer together! When George arrived in this country all the love which I thought had waned seemed in an instant to reanimate towards me! He would have declared our marriage then: it was I who insisted on the secret still being kept! Think me what you will! I deserve your censure, but my courage failed. Situated as I was, in the midst of this restricted society, believed by all to be a single woman, I could not face the scandal that such a declaration would have caused! I was even afraid to
be seen in his company lest anyone should suspect an attachment to exist between us. All the old wretchedness returned! George—oh, only to tease me into yielding!—began to devote himself to other and more beautiful females. I have come near to putting an end to my existence, even! Then the war broke out. I saw George at the Duchess’s ball. Every misunderstanding seemed to vanish, but we had so little time together! He was forced to leave me: had it not been for Colonel Audley’s promising to send me word if he could, I must have become demented!’
‘Then Charles knew?’ Judith exclaimed.
‘Yes! On the very night that his engagement was put an end to he found me in great distress, and persuaded me to confide in him. His nature, so frank and upright, must have revolted from the duplicity of mine, but he uttered no word of blame. His sympathy for my situation, the awkwardness of which he understood immediately, his kindness—I cannot speak of it! I had engaged his silence as the price of my confidence. His promise was given, and implicitly kept.’
‘Good God!’ said Judith blankly. She raised her eyes from Lucy’s face, and looked at Barbara. She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘Oh, Bab, the fools we have been!’
‘Yes! And the wretch Charles has been! Infamous!’ Barbara walked up to the sofa, and laid her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Dry your tears! Your marriage is in the best tradition of my family, I assure you.’
Lucy clasped her hand. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’
‘What the devil has my forgiveness to do with it? You have not injured me. I wish you extremely happy.’
‘How kind you are! I do not deserve to be happy!’
‘You are very unlikely to be,’ said Barbara, somewhat dryly. ‘George will make you a damnable husband.’
‘Oh no, no! If only he is not killed!’ Lucy shuddered.
It was some time before she could regain her composure, and nearly an hour before she left the house. Worth had ordered the horses to be put to, and undertook to escort her to her uncle’s lodgings. Judith and Barbara found themselves alone at last.
‘Well!’ Barbara said. ‘You will allow that at least I never contracted a secret marriage!’
‘I have never been so deceived in anyone in my life!’ Judith replied, in a shocked tone.
Twenty-One
Colonel Audley reached the village of Waterloo a few minutes before midnight. The road through the Forest of Soignes, though roughly paved down the centre, was in a bad state, the heavy rainfall having turned the uncobbled portions on either side of the pavé into bogs which in places were impassable. Wagons and tilt cars were some of them deeply embedded in mud, and some overturned after coming into collision with the Belgian cavalry in their flight earlier in the day. In the darkness it was necessary for a horseman to pick his way carefully. The contents of the wagons in some cases strewed the road; here and there a cart, with two of its wheels in the air, lay across the pavé; and several horses which had fallen in one of the mad rushes for safety had been shot, and now sprawled in the mud at the sides of the chaussée. The rain dripped ceaselessly from the leaves of the beech trees; the moonlight was obscured by heavy clouds; and only by the glimmer of lantern slung on the wagons lining the road was it possible to discern the way.
At Waterloo, lights burned in many of the cottage windows, for there was not a dwelling-place in the village, or in any of the hamlets nearby, which did not house a general and his staff, or senior officers who had been fortunate enough to secure a bed or a mattress under cover. The tiny inn owned by Veuve Bedonghien, opposite the church, was occupied by the Duke, and here the Colonel dismounted. A figure loomed up to meet him. ‘Is it yourself, sir?’ his groom enquired anxiously, holding up a lantern. ‘Eh, if that’s not his lordship’s Rufus!’