Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (26 page)

Tuesday 4 July 1815

Ruth returned to Brussels from Antwerp today. Lady Denby and her daughter are making a tour of the field of battle. The battlefield at Waterloo is already famous; visitors go by the wagon- and carriage-full to collect whatever souvenirs they can find--swords, helmets, Bibles or letters dropped from the pockets of soldiers. The native residents of the village are apparently turning a brisk profit by charging admission to see the bed where Wellington slept on the night before the battle, the bloodstained bedding on which Lord Uxbridge's leg was amputated.

But Ruth chose not to visit the site, and to call on me instead.

She looks pale and tired--though I suppose we all do, after these last weeks of strain. And she turned paler still when I told her that Giles Tomalin was right there in the house, just one room away from the sitting room where we were speaking together.

I suppose I told her more bluntly than I intended. But I was too tired to find a way of breaking the news gently; I can't even remember the last night where I slept more than a few hours. And Mrs. Metcalfe told me this morning that she is increasingly worried for Lord Tomalin. He still barely eats or drinks anything, and only lies silently on his pallet all day.

I didn't quite tell Ruth all that. But I did say that he was taking the injuries he had got in battle very hard, and that perhaps she might be able to help him, somehow--because so far none of us had been able to reach him.

All the colour seemed to bleach out of Ruth's face, even to her lips, and her eyes went to the door of the front parlour, where I had told her Giles' pallet lay. But she shook her head. "No." Her throat contracted as she swallowed, but she tried to speak with her usual brisk calm. "What was between us is now just ... just history, and ancient history at that. I am sorry to hear of his being wounded, of course. But I am sure it would do him no good at all if I were to see him."

I let it go. Because of course Lord Tomalin told me yesterday that he has no desire whatever to see Ruth, either. And there seemed a limit to how much I could reasonably meddle in their private affairs.

Ruth asked me, then, how Edward did.

"He's--" I began. But I hadn't the chance to say more, because Edward himself came into the room then.

He is much stronger, now, and able to come downstairs. In the last two days he has--doggedly and grimly--begun to memorise his way about the house. So many steps down the stairs, so many steps to the door of the sitting and dining rooms. He even sits and talks with the other wounded men, sometimes.

This morning he stood in the doorway, frowning a little. The hesitation in his steps, the way his head turned from side to side as he tried to listen for clues to what his eyes can no longer see--it all made me want to run to him and put my arms about him. Except that I knew he would gently but firmly put me aside.

"Georgiana?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm here." I did get up--but only to cross and lightly take his hand in mine. "And Ruth is here, as well. You remember Ruth Granger, from back at Pemberley?"

"Of course." Edward took Ruth's hand. She greeted him--and said how very sorry she was to hear about his eyes.

Edward smiled--or at least his mouth curved upwards--and he said, "I got out with my life, which is more than many poor devils did. I can't complain."

Which sounds all right--as though Edward is accepting of his condition enough to please even Mrs. Metcalfe.

And yet ... and yet it is all
wrong
.

Edward is not sullen or angry or withdrawn like Giles Tomalin. In a way, I wish he were--because at least I would know he was letting himself show something, feel
some
natural emotion.

Ruth left soon after that. Her eyes strayed again to the parlour door. But she did not mention Lord Tomalin's name, or even mention the possibility of seeing him.

Wednesday 5 July 1815

Kitty came in a short while ago. I have barely spoken to her these past days--I think she has spoken very little to anyone since the news came about Captain Ayres. But this morning just after Madame Duvalle had taken away my breakfast tray, Kitty knocked on the door of my room.

Her eyes have a bruised look, and her face is still bleak and hard. She took a single jerky step into the room and then said, "I'm leaving Brussels. I wanted to let you know."

"You're ... leaving?" The abrupt announcement caught me completely by surprise. It sounds strange, but I have not even considered the question of leaving this city. I suppose I have not been able to look ahead that far.

Kitty gave a short nod. "Yes. Some friends of Harriet's are travelling back to England. A brother and sister--Mr. and Miss Edgerton. They leave at the end of the week. And they've said I may accompany them."

"At the end of the week," I said. And then I rubbed my eyes. "I'm sorry, I am usually capable of doing more than simply repeating back what someone else has said." I swallowed and then said, "I can understand your wanting to get away from here. But all the same, I ... I wish you would stay."

I suppose I have not written very much about Kitty--about what it was like before we learned Captain Ayres had been killed, I mean. But all through those days of the battle, all during the times we were caring for the wounded, Kitty and I were together, trying to make jests of our fears and make each other smile. She was so good with the injured soldiers, too--as good as she was at caring for her nephews.

This morning, though, her mouth twisted and a flash of feeling broke the icy composure of her face. "I suppose you think I ought to stay here? Keep changing bandages and picking maggots out of wounds? Being as nice and sweet and giving as you?"

"I'm not--" I started to say.

"No,
I'm
not." Kitty cut me off. "I'm not nice or sweet or good, remember? I'm the girl who kisses scoundrels in the middle of Christmas parties and breaks off engagements to decent if boring men. And I am leaving Brussels. The day after tomorrow."

Her voice had flattened and hardened. But her eyes looked wounded, raw with pain. I touched her arm. "Kitty," I started. But she jerked her hand away.

"Stop! Don't touch me--don't say anything to me. Don't you understand that I
hate
you right now?"

"You hate me?"

"Yes!" Kitty's hands were balled into fists at her sides. "Edward came back to you. And John never will!"

The words seemed to ignite something hot and sour as acid in my chest.

Last night, I heard Edward walking the floor again. And I did try going to his room--I couldn't stop myself. I have not been pushing him--just as Sergeant Kelly advised. But last night I said, "Edward, you know it would be ... it would be only natural for you to be angry, grieved at the loss of your sight."

Edward's face went as blank and stony as a marble statues and he said, with an edge of weariness in his tone, "I'm fine. I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

I think the worst--almost the worst--of these last days is how
careful
I always feel I have to be with Edward. As though I am treading on eggshells, afraid every moment that I am going to say the wrong thing, something that will upset him or drive him even further away. But after a moment's hesitation, I said, "I could stay. I could read something to you, if you'd--"

"For God's sake, just go!" Edward spoke with sudden violence. But the next moment, all anger, all emotion whatever was gone from his tone. Though his muscles were still rigid with tension. "I'm sorry. But just ... I would rather be by myself for now. Please."

I left. I did not know what else to do. But somehow Kitty's words--however sorry I truly am for her--cracked the tight hold I had been keeping on my control. "That is true, I didn't lose Edward in the battle," I flashed back. "Instead I get to sit by, helpless, while he slips further and further away from me by slow degrees every day!"

And then I stopped, snatched my bonnet off the dressing table and yanked it on.

Kitty blinked at me in surprise. "Where are you going?"

"To see if I cannot accomplish at least
some
good today."

I found the address Ruth had given me of the place Lady Denby had taken in town. It was just a few streets away from the Forsters' house. And Ruth was in, supervising the packing of her employer's things for their return to England in another week's time.

She was wrapping some fine-stemmed crystal glasses in tissue paper when I burst in and seized her by the arm. "You are coming with me," I informed her.

Ruth stared at me. "Georgiana, what on earth--"

I did not stop, though. "You are coming back to the Forsters' house with me. And you are going to see Lord Tomalin, if I have to drag you into his presence."

Ruth started to protest, but I talked over her. "If I can spend day after day, beating my head against the brick wall of trying to reach Edward, you can at least make one small attempt to reach Giles Tomalin--before he manages to will himself into an early grave."

Ruth shook her head, her face blanching. "He must have a wife by now--or some woman, at least, waiting for him to come home to her."

"There is no one. I asked, when he was first conscious. He said there is no one at all in his life whom he even wishes to write to."

Ruth began, "But Georgiana, he won't want--"

I stopped her, though, looking directly into her eyes. "Ruth, can you honestly tell me that if you go back to England without seeing Lord Tomalin, you won't regret it? That you won't spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if only you had?"

Ruth was silent a moment, looking at me, her lips pressed into a tight line. But then she let out her breath and gave a quick, shaky nod of assent.

Ruth was silent all the time we were walking back to the Forsters' house, her eyes fixed straight ahead and her hands clasped and twisting themselves together in front of her. She looked as we approached the door to the parlour more as though she were being taken to face a firing squad than a wounded young man. And when we first came through the door, I thought I was going to regret ever having meddled at all.

All our other wounded soldiers have gone, now. The parlour was empty save for Giles Tomalin, lying on his pallet on the floor, his arms clasped behind his head, his eyes focused dully on the ceiling. He was at least dressed and shaved. At Mrs. Metcalfe and the surgeon's combined insistence, he has been forced into bathing and getting up to practice propelling himself twice about the room on crutches every day. But his face bore more than ever the smouldering, tethered-hawk look, and when he saw me come in with Ruth, he started convulsively upright, his expression darkening into fury.

"Get her out of here! I don't need her damned pity-visit."

Ruth had gone very still at the sight of him, her face turning ivory-pale once again. But at that she stiffened. "You think I came here out of
pity
?" Two bright spots of colour appeared in her cheeks and her fingers clenched. "Very well then. If the sight of me is so repugnant to you, I'll go."

She turned and started blindly for the door. But not before I had seen her lips tremble and her eyes flood with angry tears.

Giles must have seen it, too, because he swore under his breath and heaved himself up off the pallet, reaching for his crutches. "Ruth, wait--"

Ruth didn't stop or turn, and Giles swore again as he propelled himself on his crutches after her. "Dammit, Ruth, will you stop a moment? I can't keep up with you this way."

Ruth did turn, then. Her jaw was clenched, fighting the tears that still brimmed in her eyes. "Well?"

Giles drew in his breath; his chest was heaving with the effort of movement made after so many weeks of illness. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, gentler. "I am sorry. I'm a swine. But not yet such a pig that I want to make you cry."

Ruth's mouth trembled, and her stiff shoulders sagged as she shook her head. "I would not blame you if you did--after what I did to you, eight years ago."

Giles' lips twisted in a brief, wry smile. "Yes, well. I ought to have ridden straight back to Derbyshire the instant I got your letter and shaken some sense into you. I would have--had I not been such a stiff-necked, proud young idiot." He stopped and then lowered his voice, looking at Ruth very intently. "I have regretted not trying to see you again every day for the last eight years."

Ruth looked at him. And then the tears in her eyes brimmed over, spilling down her cheeks as she said, unsteadily, "I have, too."

I backed out of the room, then, leaving them alone--though I don't think either of them so much as noticed I was there. I was sitting in the morning room--staring at a blank page that
ought
to turn into a long-overdue letter to Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam--when Ruth came in.

Her face was still tear-stained, but she was smiling and her eyes shone. I always thought that an exaggerated figure of speech--but Ruth's whole face seemed to fairly glow with happiness.

"I am going to resign my position with Lady Denby," she said. "But then I will be back directly. And we are going to be married. At once. As soon as we can find a clergyman or priest here in Brussels to do it." And then she laughed--a younger, freer laugh than I had ever heard from her. "I suppose that is shockingly sudden. But we've neither of us any family to object. Giles' parents are dead, now, and of course there is no one for me, either. And we neither of us want to waste any more time than we already have."

I hugged her, and gave her my most sincere congratulations. And Ruth showed me the ring Giles had given her--his signet ring, emblazoned with his family crest. "He said he would get me another--one that is the proper size for my finger--as soon as may be," she said. "But that he wanted something concrete to mark this, otherwise he might start to imagine that today had all been a dream." Ruth sobered a little, then, as she turned the ring round and round between her fingers. "I know he still has a long journey of recovery ahead of him. And that it won't always be as ... as easy as it was today. But--"