‘Disagreeable!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is a damnable piece of work!’ He checked himself, and continued in a more moderate tone: ‘I beg your pardon, but you will agree that I have reason to feel this strongly. Is Peregrine with Bab now?’
‘I do not know, but I judge it to be very probable.’ She saw him compress his lips, and added: ‘I think if you were to speak to Lady Barbara—’
‘I shall speak to Barbara in good time, but my present business is with Peregrine.’
She could not help feeling a little alarmed. He spoke in a grim voice which she had never heard before, and when she stole a glance at his face there was nothing in its expression to reassure her. She said falteringly: ‘You will do what is right, I am sure.’
He glanced down at her, and seeing how anxiously she was looking at him, said with a faint smile, but with a touch of impatience: ‘My dear Judith, do you suppose I am going to run Peregrine through, or what?’
She lowered her eyes in a little confusion. ‘Oh! of course not! What an absurd notion! But what do you mean to do?’
‘Put an end to this nauseating business,’ he replied.
‘Oh, if you could! Such affairs may so easily lead to disaster!’
‘Very easily.’
She sighed, and said rather doubtfully: ‘Do you think that it will answer? I would have spoke to Perry myself, only that I feared to do more harm than good. When he gets these headstrong fits the least hint of opposition seems to make him worse. I begged Worth to intervene, but he declined doing it, and I daresay he was right.’
‘Worth!’ he said. ‘No, it is not for him to speak to Peregrine. I am the one who is concerned in this, and what I have to say to Peregrine I can assure you he will pay heed to!’ He glanced at the clock over the fireplace, and added: ‘I am going to call at his house now. Don’t look so anxious, there is not the least need.’
She stretched out her hand to him. ‘If I look anxious it is on your account. Dear Charles, I am so sorry this should have happened! Don’t let it vex you: it was all mischief, nothing else!’
He grasped her hand for a moment, and said in a low voice: ‘Unpleasant mischief! It is the fault of that wretched up-bringing! Sometimes I fear—But the heart is unspoiled. Try to believe that: I know it.’
She could only press his fingers understandingly. He held her hand an instant longer, then, with a brief smile, let it go and walked out of the room.
Peregrine was not to be found at his house, but Colonel Audley sent up his card to Lady Taverner, and was presently admitted into her salon.
She received him with evident agitation. She looked frightened, and greeted him with nervous breathlessness, trying to seem at ease, but failing miserably.
He shook hands with her, and put her out of her agony of uncertainty by coming straight to the point. ‘Lady Taverner, we are old friends,’ he said in his pleasant way. ‘You need not be afraid to trust me, and I need not, I know, fear to be frank with you. I have come about this nonsensical affair of Peregrine’s. Shall we sit down and talk it over sensibly together?’
She said faintly: ‘Oh! How can I—You—I do not know how to—’
‘You will agree that I am concerned in it as much as you are,’ he said. ‘Judith has been telling me the whole. What a tangle it is! And all arising out of my stupidity in allowing Peregrine to be my deputy that evening! Can you forgive me?’
She sank down upon the sofa, averting her face. ‘I am sure you never dreamed—Judith says it is my own fault, that I brought it on myself by my folly!’
‘I think the hardest thing of all is to be wise in our dealings with the people we love,’ he said. ‘I know I have found it so.’
She ventured to turn her head towards him. ‘Perhaps I was a fool. Judith will have told you that I was rude and ill-bred. It is true! I do not know what can have possessed me, only when she came up to me, so beautiful, and—oh, I cannot explain! I am sorry: this is very uncomfortable for you!’
Her utterance became choked by tears; she groped for her handkerchief among the sofa cushions, and was startled by finding a large one put into her hand. Her drenched eyes flew upwards to the Colonel’s face; a sound between a sob and a laugh escaped her, and she said unsteadily: ‘Thank you! You are very obliging! Oh dear, how can you be so—so—I am sure I don’t know why I am laughing when my heart is broken!’
Colonel Audley watched her dry her cheeks, and said: ‘But your heart isn’t broken.’
Harriet emerged from his handkerchief to say with a good deal of indignation: ‘I don’t see how you can know whether my heart is broken or not!’
‘Of course I can know, for I know mine is not.’
This seemed unanswerable. Harriet could only look helplessly at him, and wait for more.
He smiled at her, and took his handkerchief back. ‘Crying won’t mend matters. I rely on you to help me in this business.’
The idea was so novel that she blinked at him in surprise. ‘How can I?’
‘By behaving like the sensible woman I know you to be. Confess! didn’t you mishandle Peregrine shockingly?’
‘Yes, perhaps I did, but how could he be so faithless? I thought he loved me!’
‘So he does. But he is very young. In general, a boy goes through a number of calf loves before he marries, but in your case it was different. I expect you were his first love.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Harriet.
‘Well, that was charming,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Only, you see, this was bound to happen.’
‘Bound to happen?’
‘Yes, certainly. You have not been very well; he has been left to his own devices, and in circumstances where it would have been wonderful indeed if, at twenty-three, he had kept his head. This life we are all leading in Brussels is ruinous. Are you not conscious of it?’
‘Oh yes, a thousand times yes! I wish I were safely at home!’
‘I am glad to hear you say so, for that is what, if you will let me, I am going to advise you to do. Go home, and forget all this.’
‘He won’t go home!’
‘Yes, he will. Only you mustn’t reproach him just yet. Later, if you like, and still want to, but not now. He will be very much ashamed of himself presently, and wonder how he can have been such a fool.’
‘How can you know all this?’
He smiled. ‘I have been twenty-three myself. Of course I know. You may believe me when I tell you that this doesn’t signify. No, I know you cannot quite see how that may be true, but I pledge you my word it is.’
She sighed. ‘How kind you are! You make me feel such a goose! How shall I prevail upon Perry to take me home? What shall I say to him?’
‘Nothing. I am going to have a talk with him, and I think you will find him only too ready to take you home.’ He rose, and took out his card case, and, extracting a card, wrote something on the back of it with a pencil picked up from Harriet’s escritoire. ‘I’ll leave this with your butler,’ he said. ‘It is just to inform Peregrine that I am coming to call on him after dinner tonight. You need not mention that you have seen me.’
‘Oh no! But he is sure to be going out,’ she said mournfully.
‘Don’t worry! He won’t go out,’ replied the Colonel.
She looked doubtful, but it seemed that the Colonel knew what he was talking about, for Peregrine, the card with its curt message in his waistcoat pocket, retired after dinner to his study on the ground floor. Dinner had been an uncomfortable meal. When the servants were in the room a civil interchange of conversation had to be maintained; when they left it, Harriet sat with downcast eyes and a heavy heart, while Peregrine, making a pretence of eating what had been put before him, wondered what Colonel Audley was going to say to him, and what he was to reply.
The Colonel, who had dined at the Duke’s table, did not arrive until after nine o’clock, and by that time Peregrine had reached a state of acute discomfort. When the knock at last fell on the front door, he got up out of his chair and nervously straighten
ed his cravat. When the Colonel was shown into the room, he was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, looking rather pale and feeling a trifle sick.
One glance at his visitor’s face was enough to confirm his worst fears. This was going to be an extremely unpleasant interview. He wondered whether Audley would insist on satisfaction. He was not a coward, but the knowledge of having behaved very shabbily towards Audley set him at a disadvantage, and made him hope very much that the affair was not going to culminate in a meeting outside the ramparts in the chill dawn.
He tried, from sheer nervousness, to carry the thing off with a high hand, advancing with a smile, and saying with as much heartiness as he could muster: ‘Well, Charles! How do you do?’
The Colonel ignored both the greeting and the outstretched hand. He laid his hat and gloves down on the table, saying in a voice that reminded Peregrine unpleasantly of Worth’s: ‘What I have to say to you, Peregrine, will not take me long. I imagine you have a pretty fair notion why I am here.’
‘I—’ Peregrine stopped, and then said defiantly: ‘I suppose I have. Well, say it, then!’
‘I’m going to,’ said the Colonel grimly.
Peregrine squared his shoulders and set his teeth. At the end of three minutes he was bitterly regretting having invited the Colonel to speak his mind, and at the end of ten he would have been very glad if the ground had miraculously opened and swallowed him. The Colonel spoke with appalling fluency, and in the most biting of voices. What he said was so entirely unanswerable that after two stumbling attempts to defend himself Peregrine relapsed into silence, and listened with a white face to an exposition of his character which robbed him of every ounce of self-esteem.
When the Colonel at last stopped, Peregrine, who for some time had been standing by the window, with his back to him, cleared his throat, and said: ‘I am aware how my conduct must strike you. If you want satisfaction, of course I am ready to meet you.’
This handsome offer was not received quite as Peregrine had expected. ‘Don’t talk to me in that nonsensical fashion!’ said the Colonel scathingly. ‘Do you imagine that you’re a rival of mine?’
Peregrine winced, and muttered: ‘No. It isn’t—I didn’t—’
‘You are not,’ said the Colonel. ‘You are merely an unconditioned cub in need of kicking, and the only satisfaction I could enjoy would be to have you under me for just one month!’
Peregrine resumed his study of the window blinds. It seemed that Colonel Audley had not yet finished. He spoke of Harriet, and Peregrine flushed scarlet, and presently blurted out: ‘I know, I know! Oh, damn you, that will do! It’s all true—every word of it! But I couldn’t help it! I—’ He stopped, and sank into a chair by the table, and covered his face with his hands.
Audley said nothing, but walked over to the fireplace, and stood there, leaning his arms on the mantelpiece, and looking down at the fire irons.
After a few minutes, Peregrine raised his head, and said haltingly: ‘You think me a low, despicable fellow, and I daresay I am, but on my honour I never meant to—Oh, what’s the use of trying to explain?’
‘It is quite unnecessary.’
‘Yes, but you don’t understand! I never realised till it was too late, and even then I didn’t think—I mean, I knew it was you she cared for, only when I’m with her I forget everything else! She’s so beautiful, Audley!’
‘Yes,’ said the Colonel. ‘I understand all that. The remedy is not to see any more of her.’
‘But I shall see her! I must!’
‘Oh no, you must not! I imagine you do not expect her to elope with you?’
‘No, no! Good God, such an idea never—’
‘Very well then. The only thing you can do, Peregrine, since the sight of her is so disastrous, is to leave Brussels.’
A long silence fell. Peregrine said at last, in a dejected tone: ‘I suppose it is. But how can I? There’s Stuart’s ball tomorrow, and the Duke’s on the 7th, and—’
‘A civil note to Stuart will answer the purpose,’ replied the Colonel, with the tremor of a smile. ‘Your wife’s indisposition is sufficiently well known to provide you with a reasonable excuse. If you need more, you can inform your friends that the recent activities on the frontier have made you realise the propriety of conveying your family back to England.’
‘Yes, but—damn it, Charles, I won’t dash off at a moment’s notice like that!’
‘A packet leaves Ostend on Monday,’ said the Colonel. ‘You may easily settle your affairs here tomorrow, and be off to Ghent on Sunday. That will enable you to reach Ostend in good time on Monday.’
Peregrine looked at him. ‘You mean that I’m not to go to Stuart’s tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I ought at least to take my leave of Lady Barbara.’
‘I will convey your apologies to her.’
Another silence fell. Peregrine got up. ‘Very well. You are right, of course. I have been a fool. Only—you must know—how it is when she smiles at one. It—I never—oh, well!’
The Colonel walked over to the table, and picked up his hat and gloves. ‘Yes, I know. But don’t begin to think yourself in love with her, Perry. You’re not.’
‘No. Of course not,’ said Peregrine, trying to speak cheerfully.
The Colonel held out his hand. ‘I daresay I shan’t see you tomorrow, so I’ll say goodbye now.’
Peregrine gripped his hand. ‘Goodbye. You’re a damned good fellow, Charles, and I’m devilish sorry! I—I wish you very happy. She never thought of me, you know.’
‘Thank you! Very handsome of you,’ said the Colonel, with a smile. ‘My compliments to Lady Taverner, by the way. Don’t forget to make my excuses for not going up to take leave of her!’
‘No. I’ll tell her,’ said Peregrine, opening the door, and escorting him out into the hall. ‘Goodbye! Come safely through the war, won’t you?’
‘No fear of that! I always take good care of my skin!’ replied the Colonel, and raised his hand in a friendly salute, and ran down the steps into the street.
Peregrine went slowly upstairs to the salon. He had probably never been so unhappy in his life. Harriet was seated by the window, with some sewing in her hands. They looked at one another. Peregrine’s lip quivered. He did not know what to say to her, or how to reassure her when his own heart felt like lead in his chest. All that came into his head to say was her name, spoken in an uncertain voice.
She saw suddenly that he was looking ashamed and miserable. The cause receded in her mind; it was not forgotten, it would never, perhaps, be forgotten, but it became a thing of secondary importance before the more pressing need to comfort him. She perceived that he was no older than his own son, as much in need of her reassurance as that younger Perry, when he had been naughty, and was sorry. She got up, throwing her stitchery aside, and went to Peregrine, and put her arms round him. ‘Yes, Perry. It’s no matter. It doesn’t signify. I was silly.’
He clasped her to him; his head went down on her shoulder; he whispered: ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I don’t know what—’
‘Yes.’ She stoked his hair caressingly. The thought of Barbara no longer troubled her. A deeper grief, which she would never speak of, was the discovery that Peregrine was not a rock of strength for her to lean on, not a hero to be worshipped, but only a handsome, beloved boy who went swaggering bravely forth, but needed her to pick him up when he fell and hurt himself. She put the knowledge away from her. His abasement made her uncomfortable; even though she knew it to be make-believe he must be set on his pedestal again. She said: ‘Yes, we’ll go home. But how shall we settle our affairs here? Will it not take some time?’
He raised his head. ‘No, I’ll see to everything. You have only to pack your trunks. There is a packet leaving Ostend on Monday.’
‘This house! Our passages! How shall we manage?’
‘Don’t worry: I’ll do it all!’
He was climbing back on to the pedestal; they would not spea
k of this incident again; they would pretend, each one of them, that it had not happened. In the end, Peregrine would believe that it had not, and Harriet would pretend, even to herself, because there were some truths it was better not to face.
Judith, anxiously awaiting the result of the Colonel’s interview with his brother, could scarcely believe him when he told her curtly that the Taverners were leaving Brussels. She exclaimed: ‘You don’t mean it! I had not though it to be possible! What can you have said to constrain him?’
‘There was no other course to follow. He was fully sensible of it.’
He spoke rather harshly. She said in a pleading tone: ‘Do not be too angry with him, Charles! He is so young.’
‘You are mistaken: I am not angry with him. I am excessively sorry for him, poor devil!’
‘I am persuaded he will soon recover.’
‘Oh yes! But that one so near to me should have caused this unhappiness—’ He checked himself.
‘If it had not been Lady Barbara it would have been another, I daresay.’
He was silent, and she did not like to pursue the topic. Worth presently came in, followed by the butler with the tea tray, and Judith was glad to see the Colonel rouse himself from a mood of abstraction, and join with all his usual cheerfulness in the ordinary commonplace talk of every day.
He did not go out again that evening, nor, next morning, was his horse saddled for an early ride. The sky was overcast, and a thin rain was falling. It stopped later, and by noon the sun was shining, but a press of work at Headquarters kept the Colonel busy all the morning.
In the afternoon there was a review in the Allée Verte of the English, Scottish, and Hanoverian troops quartered in and about Brussels. These constituted the reserve of the Army, and included the 5th Division, destined for the command of Sir Thomas Picton. They were crack troops, and the crowd of onlookers, watching them march past, felt that with such men as these to defend them there could be no need for even the most timorous to fly for safety to the coast.