All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (7 page)

‘I confess to a degree of reluctance to leave the regiment,’ he said after a pause, feeling that this did not yet commit him to a decision.

FitzWilliam seemed delighted. ‘That sentiment does you the greatest credit. However, it need not be for long. I will want my best officers with us when we take the field next year, indeed I shall. The whole business should not take much more than six months. MacAndrews and any others may rejoin us in good time.’

Pringle was sceptical, and perhaps FitzWilliam sensed his doubts.

‘It would do no harm to have experience of detached duties. In two years you will be eligible for your majority, will you not?’ The colonel had obviously checked the records. He was correct, although without the funds to purchase it was unlikely that Pringle would be promoted so soon. ‘On another matter, an absence from the country may prove prudent.’

‘Sir?’

‘This business of calling out Garland. An over-officious JP was inclined to investigate the matter. Thankfully word reached a cousin of mine who let me know, and together we were able to persuade the fellow not to make an issue of it.’

‘I am most grateful, and regret putting you to the trouble.’

FitzWilliam brushed aside the thanks and the regret. ‘These meetings are always unfortunate, but sometimes cannot be avoided – especially when a lady’s honour is at the root of the business. From what I understand your motives were good, and it is a pity that the wretched fellow did not act more sensibly and avoid the matter in the first place. Still, it is no doubt too much to expect a cavalryman to be anything less than a fool.’ The colonel chuckled to himself. ‘Halfwits to a man, in my experience. It is to be hoped his new bride is clever, or we must worry for any children.’ Pringle was unsure from the colonel’s expression whether the last comment was meant to be barbed and to imply calculation on the part of Williams’ sister. If so, then the man was more shrewd than he had hitherto realised. Billy Pringle knew that he was being outmanoeuvred.

‘However,’ FitzWilliam continued, ‘it is a particular shame that you were the challenger. I do not want my officers to win a reputation for seeking out duels. A posting to Spain is not a reproof, indeed it is not. You are ideal for the job in hand and it will be of advantage to you in the future, but it will do no harm to get you away from the battalion and the country for a short while. It is not an order, of course.’

‘Of course not, sir,’ said Pringle, ‘and of course I shall be happy to go in the circumstances.’

‘Splendid, absolutely splendid,’ said the colonel, and offered him a cigar.

W
illiams turned the corner and almost bumped into Mrs MacAndrews.

‘Be careful, you clumsy ox!’ The lady spoke loudly and with a flash of temper so that her words were almost shouted. ‘Mind where you tread,’ she added more calmly, and then broke into a smile. Esther MacAndrews was tall, dark-haired and remained an exceedingly handsome woman although well past her fortieth year. She had terrified Williams and most of the other subalterns from their first meeting, and even though in his case deep affection had long since surpassed the terror, it did not remove it altogether. He recoiled, stammering apologies.

‘Why, it is Mr Williams. I had quite forgot that you were back with the regiment, or otherwise I would have expected to be run down!’ Williams coloured, much to her satisfaction. Esther MacAndrews stepped back. ‘I wonder if you remember Jane?’ she asked maliciously, for she was fond of the lieutenant and knew of his regard for her daughter.

Williams had last seen Miss MacAndrews on board another ship when the fleet sailed from Corunna. Before that he had rescued her when she was left behind during the army’s retreat, and together they had escaped through the mountains, alone for a while and then with an ever growing group of stragglers. Williams and this ragtag band had held a bridge against a French column before they rejoined the army. He had seen the girl in snow and rain, weary and filthy with travel, had watched her and the soldiers’ wives doing their best to comfort wounded, sick and dying men, her dress stained with their blood and pus. He had also seen her naked, drenched by the cold river, and had held her close to keep her warm so that she did not die. There was another time – an all-too-brief moment – when he had held her in his arms and felt her lips pressed against his. That was a better memory than their last conversation, when she angrily rejected his proposal of marriage. Ever since then he had picked over the en-counter in his mind, trying to understand where he had gone wrong and find the source of her rage.

‘Good day, Miss MacAndrews,’ he said, raising his hat, and then, remembering his manners, turned back to the mother. ‘Good day, Mrs MacAndrews, my sincere apologies. I really was not looking where I was going …’

‘No, you were not,’ said Esther. ‘You are almost as clumsy as my husband.’ As usual when amused or angered, her Carolina accent became more pronounced. Aware that his attention had shifted, she went on with exaggerated seriousness. ‘He has been known to trample everything in his path, crushing flowers, dogs and maidens too beneath his clumping feet.’

Williams looked confused, and for the first time he saw that Miss MacAndrews was also taken aback and appeared to be struggling for words. He knew that he was staring and that this was rude. Jane was beautiful in a way that struck him almost physically, whether she was in elegant finery at a ball or tramping through the mountains in a torn and dirtied dress, or pulled from the water like a half-drowned rat. Today she wore a white muslin dress with a pale blue pelisse over it to keep out the cold, and although much shorter than her mother she carried off the high waist of current fashion through the excellence of her figure and movements. As usual, a few curls of red hair peeked from beneath her bonnet, this tiny hint of imperfection only adding to her startling good looks. Her skin was fair, her eyes a rich blue-grey, and then she flashed those neat white teeth and gave him that wide, generous smile.

‘Good day, Mr Williams,’ Miss MacAndrews said, bobbing down in a slight curtsy.

They stared at each other for a while.

‘Well, isn’t this nice,’ said Esther, realising that the conversation needed some assistance. ‘Now, Mr Williams, you must tell Dobson to come and visit his grandson, now that we have returned from Scotland. He is a fine, healthy lad and is growing by the day.’ During the retreat to Corunna Dobson’s pregnant daughter Jenny had fled from the army and fallen in with Williams and Jane. They – well, if Williams were honest, he must admit chiefly Jane – had helped her give birth to a son, and then cared for the child when the mother fled again, abandoning the unwanted baby. Jane had grown very fond of young Jacob, and at the end of the retreat her mother was equally entranced. The decision already made before he was consulted, Major MacAndrews had gracefully offered to raise the boy.

‘I am most delighted to hear that, and shall certainly tell Lance Sergeant Dobson at the first opportunity.’

‘Lance sergeant? Ah yes, I was glad to hear of his promotion. That will please his wife, and the major always says he is the most wonderful fellow as long as he is sober.’ Since joining her husband last year, Esther MacAndrews had come to know the life of the battalion very well, taking a particular interest in the followers.

‘Yes, he is an excellent soldier.’ Williams paused, raising his hat once again to the mother. ‘Now, ma’am, with your permission.’ He turned to Jane. ‘Miss MacAndrews, I wondered whether you might do me the honour of accompanying me on a short walk?’

‘Certainly,’ said Mrs MacAndrews, speaking with such firmness that she answered both the question addressed to her and the one to her daughter as well. ‘I need to make sure that young Jacob has been washed and fed, and then sort out our things after the return from Scotland.’ She darted a mischievous look at Williams, and then spoke to her daughter. ‘Do not be too long, Jane. I expect that Colonel FitzWilliam will want to pay his respects now that we are back. Good day to you, Mr Williams, I am most pleased to see you again.’

Williams led the girl along the path beside the river. They stopped several times to greet groups of officers and others promenading with their wives. At first they said little. He asked about her health, the recent trip to Scotland to visit her father’s sister and the baby’s welfare. The answers, save to the questions about the latter, were brief in the extreme and interspersed with formal comments on the growing inclemency of the weather. Each time they met someone it was almost a relief, saving them from so stilted and awkward a conversation. In company with others, the pair of them spoke naturally. When they walked on, both immediately became ill at ease once again. Williams had never known the girl to act in this way. In the past, it had only ever been he who was shy and clumsy when they met. It was not as if they did not know each other well. Cut off for more than two weeks during the winter’s campaign, they had seen each other’s true nature and spoken of things that neither had ever talked about with anyone else. He had longed so much to see her for some ten months, imagining reunions, but never anything like this.

Suddenly it all seemed so absurd, and Williams threw his head back and laughed out loud.

‘I do not understand,’ said Jane, peering up at him and frowning. She looked so earnest that Williams found himself unable to stop laughing, prompting a flash of anger. ‘Mr Williams, have you quite lost your wits!’ Miss MacAndrews stared at him, and then began to chuckle herself. ‘I really do not understand,’ she said again.

Gaining control of himself, Williams at last found a voice. ‘I do beg your pardon, but I believe that is the very first time that I have ever had the advantage of you in conversation,’ he said.

‘Guffawing like a donkey scarcely counts as conversation in most circles.’

‘Well, you know me to struggle in society. But please do forgive me. I have waited so long to see you again, and then have proved dreadful company.’

Jane smiled. ‘It is well mannered, if insincere, of you to take all the blame when it should be shared evenly. It is very good to see you.’ He thrilled at that. ‘We were so worried when your ship vanished in the storm and did not arrive in England.’

Williams would have preferred another pronoun, but the sentiment was so obviously genuine that he was able to take pleasure in that. ‘It was a ghastly time. We nearly sank and …’ He hesitated briefly. ‘I was so afraid that something had happened and that I had lost you. It was not until the end of March that Major Wickham told me that you were safe, and I do not think that I have ever before known such relief. I had been so afraid that for a moment I almost liked that blackguard.’ A thought struck him, and he became awkward again. ‘I am sorry, I had no wish to insult your friend.’

‘Mr Wickham is no friend of mine.’ There was a hard edge in the girl’s voice. Williams guessed that Wickham had done his best to seduce Jane, and was pleased to hear such hostility.

‘That I am glad to hear.’

‘But let us leave so unpleasant a subject. Tell me something of your adventures.’ The coldness stayed in her voice, and Williams guessed at the cause. During the last months someone who was with him in Spain had written letters back to friends in the regiment at home. Apart from other news, there was much about him, with wild stories of amorous misadventures. Williams was painted as an unrelenting and unsuccessful pursuer of women, as a ridiculous Lothario chasing a Spanish aristocrat, a Portuguese courtesan and even some of the soldiers’ wives. Major Wickham had laughingly told them of some of these stories, courtesy of his wife. Williams was not sure whether Lydia Wickham was the recipient of the letters. An inveterate gossip, she may simply have been the keenest to spread such tales.

‘The fighting was hard,’ he began slowly, ‘but somehow I doubt that is your chief interest. Miss MacAndrews, I am aware that a good deal has been said about me. I had hoped that you were the one person who did not need my assurance that there is no truth in any of it.’

She stared at him, her eyes large and vivid, and it was a while before she spoke. ‘Well, I would not have minded if there was just a little truth in the stories. Not much, you understand, but just a very small amount.’

‘You still hanker for a Jones, I fancy, a hero imperfect in just the right ways.’

Jane’s lips parted in a grin. ‘Well, there is something to be said for a Welsh name.’

‘For that sentiment I am grateful, and though it may not be in all the right ways, I can boast of many imperfections.’ The mood was now so much easier, almost as if they had not been apart for so long, but there was one difficult subject he had to broach. ‘Your mother spoke of Lieutenant Colonel FitzWilliam being likely to pay his compliments.’

‘Now it is your turn to doubt,’ said Jane sharply, ‘but then I suppose I cannot with justice resent that. The colonel is a fine and kind man. I believe that he likes me and has displayed signs of that partiality. There is no more to it than that, as yet.’

It was not quite full reassurance, but was at least encouraging. ‘He seems a good man,’ said Williams, who always tried to be fair. Silence returned for a good five minutes as they walked to the end of the path and turned around to return.

‘Where do we stand, Mr Williams?’ It was Jane who broke the silence at last, and the suddenness of the question shocked him. ‘And if you tell me that we stand on the riverbank, then I shall do my best to fling you into it, small though I am!’

‘Where we stand is that I asked you to marry me and you refused.’

‘A precise, if somewhat blunt answer.’

There seemed to be no more. Jane’s eyes were dancing with amusement. ‘My feelings are unchanged,’ he went on. ‘I love you, and that is all there is to it.’

‘Blunt now becomes positively brutal. This must be how the French feel when facing you!’

Williams struggled for balance, a sense so familiar from encounters with Miss MacAndrews. ‘How would you like things to stand?’ he asked, and saw from her face that this was the right response.