An Infamous Army (28 page)

"Well, I am sorry you have the headache, Harry. Shall you mind if I dine from home? If you would like me to stay with you?"

"Oh no! I shall be better tomorrow, I daresay, but my head aches too much to make me pleasant company tonight. Go out, by all means. I am only sorry to be such a stupid creature!"

So Peregrine had sailed forth to call for Barbara, and had spent an entertaining evening with her in one of the cafes beyond the ramparts.

Had Colonel Audley been able to see them he must have acquitted Barbara of any desire to flirt, but he could scarcely have been pleased with the result of her sisterly behaviour. When she chose to treat a man en camarade, she was at her most enchanting. She had not the smallest intention of captivating Peregrine, but her candid way of looking at him, her rippling laugh, her boyish speech, and her sense of fun charmed him irresistibly. He was not in love with her, but he had never in his life encountered so dazzling a creature.

Barbara said frankly at the outset: "This is capital! I shall pretend you are my young brother. I, if you please, am your elder sister - though I fear I am not quite like Lady Worth."

Peregrine did not think that she was in the least like Judith, except in being able to talk sensibly of horses. He soon found himself describing his yacht to her: discovered that she also was fond of sailing; and from that moment became her slave. Sailing, riding, cocking. prizefighting: they talked of them all. No squeamish nonsense about Lady Bab! Why, it was like talking to man, only much more exciting.

It was all quite innocent, but as ill-luck would have is they were seen by some people who were driving back to Brussels from Nivelles, and in less time than might have been thought possible the news that Sir Peregrine was Bab's latest victim was not only current but had reached Harriet's ears.

She was thunderstruck, and, in her nervous condition, easily convinced that the woman whom she detested ever since the fatal expedition to Hougoumont was stealing from her Peregrine's affections. No doubt he was tired of such a dull, ailing wife: she did not blame him - or, at any rate, not very much but no words were bad enough to describe Barbara's wicked malice.

She carried the story to Judith, casting herself upon her bosom and sobbing out her woes. Judith heard her with incredulity. She insisted upon her calming herself, obliged her to drink a glass of wine, and to sit down on the sofa, and said with brisk good sense: "I don't believe a word of it! What has Perry to say for himself?"

Oh, Harriet might be a fool, but she was not such a fool as to attack Perry with his infidelity!

"Infidelity!" said Judith. "Stuff and nonsense! What a piece of work about nothing! I daresay he may admire Barbara who does not? But as for the rest of it why, Harriet, it is the merest irritation of nerves! If you take my advice you'll think no more of it!"

"How can you be so heartless?" wept Harriet. "I might have guessed this would happen! I mistrusted her from the start. Perry is tired of me, and she has stolen him from me."

"I have a great affection for Perry," responded Judith tartly, "but I doubt very much his having the power to engage Lady Barbara's interest. Depend upon it, you are making a mountain out of a molehill."

"Oh no! I have been so poorly of late that I have had no spirits to go into society, and so he has looks elsewhere for amusement. I see it all!"

"Well, Harriet, if he had looked elsewhere it would not be surprising. You know how much I have always deprecated your giving way to lowness as you do. If you have a particle of sense you will abandon your sofa and your everlasting hartshorn, give up maudling your inside with tea, and go about a little, and forget your delicate situation. There! That is plain speaking, but good advice. Dry your tears, and do not waste another thought on the matter. You must have forgotten that Lady Barbara is betrothed to Charles. How could she possibly flirt with Perry?"

"There is nothing too base for that creature to do:" Harriet said, roused to a ferocity surprising in one ordinarily so gentle. "I pity Charles Audley! He may be deceived, but I am not."

"That must be considered an advantage. With your eyes open to a possible danger you may act with tact and prudence."

"It is very easy for you to talk in that careless way. Your husband has not been stealing away from you to flirt with a fast, unprincipled female!"

"Come! This is much better," said Judith, with a smile. "If flirtation is all you have to worry about, there can be no occasion for such heat. Lady Bab flirts with everyone, but I believe it to be no more than a fashionable diversion, signifying precisely nothing."

Harriet burst into tears, and while Judith was endeavouring to give her thoughts a more cheerful direction, Colonel Audley strolled into the room with his nephew on his shoulder. He stopped dead on the threshold when he saw what lay before him, hastily begged pardon, and retreated with all a man's horror of becoming mixed up in a scene of feminine vapours. But before he could make good his escape Judith had called to him to stay.

"Charles, for goodness' sake come here and tell Harriet what a goose she is!"

"Oh!" gasped the afflicted lady. "He must not know!"

"Fiddle!" said Judith. "If the tale is all over town, as you say it is, he will know soon enough. Charles, Harriet has taken a notion into her head that Perry has fallen in love with Lady Barbara, and has been seen pining with her in the suburbs. Now, is there one word of truth in it?"

"I hope he has not fallen in love with her, but it is quite true that they dined together in the suburbs," replied the Colonel. He set his nephew down, and sent him back to his nurse with a friendly pat. "Off with you, monkey! I am afraid you must blame me, Lady Taverner: it was entirely my fault."

"Oh no, no!"

"On the contrary, it is oh yes, yes!" he said, smiling.," The case was, that Bab took a fancy into her head to dine by the roadside at one of those cafes outside the Porte de Namur. I could not escort her, and so Perry became my deputy. That is the whole truth in nutshell."

"I knew there must be some very ordinary explanation," exclaimed Judith. "Now, Harriet, you can be satisfied, I hope. If Charles sees no harm I am sure you need not."

But Harriet was far from being satisfied. If the affa:had been innocent, why had Perry kept it a secret?

"What! did he forget to tell you?" said the Colonz:. exchanging a startled glance with his sister-in-law,"Stupid young rascal! I advise you to take him severely to task: he's a great deal too forgetful!"

It would not do. Harriet dried her tears, but a score of incidents had been recalled to her mind, and she could not convince herself that Peregrine had not from the outset been attracted by Barbara's wiles. The Colonel's presence made it impossible for her to say that it was all Barbara's fault, which she was sure it was, and so she was silent, allowing Judith to talk, but too busy with her own thoughts to lend more than half an ear to all the sensible things that were being said o her.

She presently went away, leaving Judith and Audley to look at one another in some consternation.

"My dear Charles, nothing could be more unfortunate!" Judith said, with a rueful laugh. "I acquit Lady Barbara of wishing to enslave poor Perry, but am afraid there may be a grain of truth in Harriet suspicions. It has sometimes seemed to me that Perry was a trifle smitten with Lady Barbara."

"Yes, I think he is," admitted the Colonel. "But really, Judith, I believe it to be Harriet's own fault!"

"Oh, undoubtedly, and so I have told her! It all arose out of that wretched expedition to Hougoumont! I wish I had not meddled!"

He looked at her with arrested expression in his eyes. he asked. "What occurred at Hougoumont to give rise to this piece of nonsense?"

The colour rushed into her face. Vexed with herself for having allowed such unguarded words to escape her, she said: "Oh, nothing, nothing! It was only that Hiarriet took a dislike to Lady Barbara!"

" Indeed! Why should she do that?"

She found herself unable to meet his gaze with composure, and turned away on the pretext of shaking the sofa cushions. "Oh! You know what a country mouse Harriet is! She has not been in the way of meeting fashionable people, and is easily shocked. Lady Barbara was in one of her capricious moods, and I daresay that may have set Harriet against her."

"You may as well tell me the truth, Judith. Did Bab's caprice lead her to flirt with Perry, or what?"

"No, certainly not. Perry was with us the whole time," she said involuntarily.

"Perry was with you! Where, then, was Bab?"

"She was with us too, of course. But Harriet and I drove in a barouche, the others rode. I only meant that Perry rode beside us, while Lady Barbara and the Count were not unnaturally tempted to leave the road for the Forest. I am sure they were not to be blamed for that: I should have liked to have done so myself."

"I see," he replied.

An uncomfortable silence fell; the Colonel was looking abstractedly out of the window, one hand fiddling with the blindcord. Judith felt herself impelled to say presently: "There was nothing more, I assure you. Do not be imagining anything foolish!"

He turned and smiled at her. "My dear Judith, you are looking quite anxious! There is really not the least cause, I promise you. As for this affair of Perry's, I shall speak to Bab."

"Don't if you had rather not!" she said. "I daresay this all nonsense."

"The scandal, if there is one, had better be scotched. however."

But Barbara, when she heard of Harriet's suspicions. exclaimed indignantly: "Oh, that's a great deal too bad: Of all the injustices in this wicked world! I treated him as I treat Harry - I did really, Charles!"

"I don't doubt it," he said. "The truth is, I suspect. that you were much more enchanting than you knew. Is Perry in danger of losing his heart to you, do you think?"

"I think he might be made to lose it," she replied candidly. "But what a fool his wife must be!"

"I believe she is in a delicate situation just at present."

"Oh, poor creature! Very well, I will make everything right with her. Then she may be comfortable again."

The occasion offered itself that same day. Walking in the Park with a party of friends, Barbara saw Lady Taverner approaching with her sister-in-law. She left her friends, and went forward to meet Harriet, holding a frilled parasol in one hand and extending the other in a friendly fashion. "I have been wanting to meet you, Lady Taverner," she said, with one of her swift smiles.

" I believe there is a nonsensical story current, and though I have no doubt of your laughing at it, I daresay it may have vexed you a little."

The hand was ignored. Lady Taverner turned scarlet and, with a glance of contempt, whisked round on her hwwl and walked away.

Judith, sensible of the generosity that had prompted Barbara to approach Harriet, stood rooted to the ground in dismay. What could possess Harriet to behave with such rudeness? The folly of it passed her comprehension; she could only gaze after her in amazement. The path was full of people; twenty or thirty pairs of eyes must have witnessed the snub. She said in a deeply mortified voice: "I beg your pardon! my sister-in-law is not quite herself. I do not know what she could be thinking of!"

She glanced at Barbara, and was not surprised to see her green eyes as hard as two bits of glass. A little colour had stolen into her cheeks; her lips were just parted over her clenched teeth. If ever anyone was in a rage she was in one now, thought Judith. She looked ripe for murder, and really one could not blame her.

"That," said Barbara, "was neither wise nor wellbred Lady Taverner. Convey my compliments to her, if you please, and inform her that I shall endeavour not to disappoint her very evident expectations."

"She is extremely foolish, and I beg you will not notice her rudeness!" said Judith. "No one regards what you so rightly call the nonsensical story which current."

"How simple of you to think so! The story must now be implicitly believed. By tomorrow I shall be credited with a sin I haven't committed, which touches my pride, you know. I always give the scandalmongers food for their gossip."

"To give them food in this case would be to behave-as foolishly as my sister-in-law," said Judith, trying to speak pleasantly.

"Oh, I have my reputation to consider!" Barbara retorted. "I make trouble wherever I go: haven't you been told so?"

"I have tried not to believe it."

"A mistake! I am quite as black as I am painted. I assure you. But I am keeping you from Lady Taverner. Go after her - and don't forget my message!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN