May had worn itself out; and looking back over four weeks of pleasure seeking, Judith could not feel that there had been unalloyed gaiety. She was aware of tension; she had herself been carried into the swirl. No one could foretell what the future held; but everyone knew that these weeks might be the last of happiness. Except when news crept through of movement on the frontier, war was not much talked of. Talking of it could not stop its coming; it was better to put the thought of it behind one, and to be merry while the sun still shone.
But Judith had good sense to guide her, nor was she any longer a single beauty with scores of admirers clamouring for her favours. If she grew tired, she could rest; but Barbara, it seemed, could not rest, and appeared not to wish even to draw breath. She was beginning to look a little haggard; that she took laudanum was an open secret. What caprice it was that drove her on Judith could not imagine. The very fact of her being betrothed to Charles should have made it possible for her to have lived more quietly; she ought not to want to be for ever at parties. When he could he accompanied her, but he had very little leisure for picnics, or for spending days at the races. Often he came off duty looking so tired that it put his sister-in-law out of all patience to find him bent on attending some ball or reception. He denied that he felt tired, and the harassed little frown between his eyes would vanish as he laughed at her solicitude. She was not deceived; she could have shaken Barbara for her selfishness.
But Charles, keeping pace with his betrothed, never allowed a hint of languor to appear in his face or manner. Once Barbara said to him: "Is it wrong of me not to give up the parties and all the fun? I love it so! And when I am married I shall have to be so sober!"
"No, no, never think that!" he said quickly.
"Gussie says it must be so."
"It shall not be so! Don't listen to Augusta, I beg of you! Do you think I have not known from the start how little she likes our engagement?"
"Gussie!" she said scornfully. "I never listened to her my life!"
But even though she scoffed at Augusta she did listen to her, with an unconscious ear.
"Make the most of your freedom, my dear," said Augusta. "You won't have the chance when you've married your staff officer. Will you miss your court, do you think? Shall you mind not being crowded round at every ball you go to? And oh, Bab, do you mean to wear a matronly cap, and bear your Charles a quiverful of stout children? How I shall laugh to see you!"
No, one did not set any store by what Gussie said, but nevertheless those barbs found their mark. Gallant young gentlemen, too, would cry imploringly: "Oh, don't turn into a sober matron, Bab! Only conceive of world without Bad Bab to set everyone by the ears!"
They all drew the same picture of her, grown grave and thinking not of her conquests but of her household perhaps being obliged to languish in some dull garrison town, with nothing to do but visit other officers' wives and be civil to Charles.
She would see herself like that, and would thrust the picture behind her, and hurry away to be gay while she could. When Charles was with her, the picture faded. for Charles swore he wanted no such wife. Yet some sobriety Charles did want. There had been an incident in May which he had not laughed at. Some of the officers of Lord Edward Somerset's brigade had given one of the moonlight picnics of which the old-fashioned people so much disapproved. Lord George had been at the root of it; he had engaged Miss Devenish to go to it with his sister, laying his careless command upon Barbara to bring the chit with her. The wonder was that Miss Devenish had liked to go, but she did go, and had managed to get lost with Lord George in a coppice for over an hour. It was no concern of Barbara's. "Good God, Charles, if a chaperon had been wanted I was not the one to choose for the part! Everyone contrived to lose themselves. Why, I had the most absurd half hour myself, with an engaging child from George's regiment on one side of me and Captain Clayton of the Blues on the other."
"It sounds safe and rather stupid," he said. "But Miss Devenish's prolonged absence with George has caused a little talk. I can't but blame you, Bab. You should not nave allowed it."
"My dear Charles, I suppose her to know her own business. The truth is that you are like your sister, and disapprove of moonlight picnics."
He was silent. She thought he looked displeased, and said with a light laugh: "Do you wish me to give up such frivolous amusements?"
"I shan't ask you to give them up, Bab."
"Do you think I would not?"
"I don't know," he replied. "I only know that if you did so at my request it would be against your will. If you did not care to go without me, well that would be different."
Her eyes danced; she looked half roguish, half rueful, and murmured coaxingly: "Oh, confound you, Charles, you make me seem the veriest wretch! Don't look so gravely at me! I swear I would rather stay at home with you than go to the most romantic of picnics. But when -you can't be with me, what the devil am I to do?"
She peeped at him under her lashes; he was obliged to laugh, even though there was very little laughter in his heart.
Judith, when she heard of the famous picnic, was aghast. She could not understand how Mrs Fisher could have permitted her niece to take part in such an expedition. The reason was not far to seek: Mrs Fisher was dreaming of bridals. Young people, she said, often behaved foolishly, and indeed she had scolded Lucy for her thoughtlessness, but she dared say there was no harm done, after all.
Judith blamed Barbara for the whole, and wondered how long Charles would bear with her capriciousness.
"I have always felt a little sorry for Bab Alastair," said the Duchess of Richmond once, in her quiet way. "Her mama died when Harry was born, and that is a very sad thing for a girl, you know. I am afraid the late Lord Vidal was rather dissolute, and Bab grew up without that refining influence which her mama must have exercised. She has never been in the way of being checked, and was unfortunate in being made a pet of by her papa."
"Oh!" exclaimed Judith. "Could that have done harm to a daughter's character?"
"The melancholy truth was, my dear, that Lord Vidal's principles were not high, and he did not scruple to instil into Bab his own cynical notions. You will not repeat it, but Lord Vidal's household was apt to include females of whose very existence young girls should be unaware."
"But her grandparents!"
"Oh yes, but, you see, Lord Vidal was not always upon terms with his father," said her Grace. "And the Duchess was not of an age to dance attendance upon a flighty granddaughter. She was most distressed at that wretched marriage, I know. There can never have been a more shocking business! Childe was a man whose reputation, whose whole manner of life - but I am talking of the dead, and indeed have said too much already."
"I am glad you have told me as much; it may help me to be patient. I own, I cannot like Barbara."
"I am sorry for it. Yet she is not heartless, as so many people say. I could tell you of a hundred generous actions. She is accounted perfectly selfish, but I have been a good deal touched by her kindness to my boy during his long, painful convalescence. I believe no one aware how often she has forgone some pleasure party merely to sit with poor William for a little while, quite taking him out of himself."
"Ah, that was kind indeed! You are right: it warms one's heart towards her to hear of such conduct. How does poor William go on? He has not left his room?"
"Oh no! It must be weeks yet before he will be able stand upon his feet. It was a dreadful accident — he was thrown in such a way! But I don't care to think of it and can only thank God he has been spared to me." Nothing more was said of Barbara, but the conversation remained in Judith's memory. She was able to meet Barbara with more cordiality, and even to pardon some of her wildness; and for a little while could almost hope that she might make Charles happy. The incident of the moonlight picnic, however, bought back all the old disgust; she could hardly forgive Barbara for having lent herself to what she believed to have been nothing less than a trap laid for Lucy Devenish.
Lucy's own distress was evident. She looked so pale and wretched that Judith began to fear that her affections had been seriously engaged. Lord George was as brazen as might have been expected. He had made Lucy the subject of the latest scandal, but when taxed with it by his elder brother, would do nothing but laugh.
"I wish you will consider me!" complained Vidal.
"Consider you? Why the devil should I?" demanded George.
"It is no very pleasant thing for me, I can tell you, to have my brother pointed out as a rake and a libertine on the one hand, and my sister on the other as -"
"Keep your damned tongue off Bab, unless you want your teeth knocked down your throat, Vidal!" said George, looking ugly.
"Pray do not bring your ringside manners into my drawing-room, George," said Augusta sharply. "I find your championing of Bab more than a little absurd, let me tell you!"
He turned, looking down at her from his great height with an expression of mocking indifference. "You do. do you? And what the devil do you think I care for your opinion?"
"Thank you, I am well aware of your habit of disregarding everyone's opinion but your own. However, Bab's conduct has nothing to do with your folly in entangling yourself with that Devenish chit. Depend upon it, her uncle is merely awaiting his opportunity to force you into marrying her. I know what men of his stamp are like, if you do not."
"Oho, do you really, Gussie? Where did you come by your knowledge, I should like to know?"
She replied coldly: "Laugh, if you choose, but do not look to me for help when you find yourself trapped. I suppose you have thought how you will break the news to your grandfather. I don't envy you that task!"
He flushed, seemed about to retort, and then turned on his heel and walked away.
Whatever Mr Fisher's plans might be, Miss Devenish at least did not appear to be desirous of encouraging George's attentions. Judith was a witness of a decided rebuff to his lordship, and could only be glad of it, although she felt sorry for the pain it seemed to cause Lucy. Lucy's wan looks began to make Judith feel anxious, and she even cast about in her mind for some eligible young man to take Lord George's place in the girl's affections.
At the review of the cavalry, she thought she had found a gentleman, who might answer the purpose, but before she could put into execution her amiable plan of inviting him and Lucy to dine one evening her anxieties were diverted in quite another direction.
Sir Peregrine, either from a slight feeling of guilt or from mere thoughtlessness, did not inform his Harriet of his assignation in the suburbs. Upon his return to Brussels he had found Harriet far from well, and quite in the dumps. He bounced in, ready to recount all the days happenings, but she had the headache, was sipping hartshorn and water, and announced her intention of going to bed and having her dinner sent up to her on a tray.
"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!"