The Danbury Scandals (31 page)

‘Is he beaten?’

The man
shrugged and Maryanne looked up at the anxious faces. ‘I think he is making a
stand,’ she said. ‘His aide said not to worry.’

‘What aide?’ A
woman suddenly appeared on the cobbles beside her and grabbed her arm. ‘Which
aide? Who was it? Tell me, I must know.’

Maryanne turned
towards the speaker, who was dressed in an Empire gown of blue silk with velvet
ribbon threaded through the high waist. Matching loops of ribbon and a long
plume decorated the crown of her high-brimmed bonnet. She made Maryanne
conscious of her own disreputable appearance, which did not make her feel any
better about facing her. ‘It was Lord Brandon, Caroline,’ she said.

Caroline stared
at her. ‘Maryanne! It can’t be.’

‘Oh, but it is.
Your husband spoke to me yesterday. He bade me tell you he was safe and in good
spirits.’

‘Thank God.
Tell me, how did he look? He wasn’t wounded, was he? You would tell me if he
were?’

‘No, he wasn’t
wounded, and he looked well, just as if he were going to a ball.’

Caroline
giggled suddenly as relief swept through her. ‘We were at a ball when the alarm
was sounded. He rushed off without even changing. We hardly had time to say
goodbye. Oh, you don’t know how relieved I am.’ She paused. ‘But how did you
come to see him?’

Maryanne took
Madame
Saint-Pierre’s hand, drawing her forward to introduce her, then added, ‘We were
on our way to Antwerp to find a passage to England.’

‘I am afraid
you won’t be able to do that,’ Caroline said. ‘The commandant will not issue
any passports. He says that running away will demonstrate a lack of faith in
our troops and set a bad example to the locals. Some did try to go by barge,
but those were all requisitioned to carry the wounded. I would not leave
Richard in any event.’

All the time
they had been talking the sound of gunfire had been increasing and could not be
ignored. Somewhere to the south a terrible battle was taking place, a battle in
which men of both sides were dying. Maryanne’s thoughts were with Adam. Was he
out there, fighting with Napoleon? She felt weary beyond anything she had felt
before.

‘Excuse me, I
must find somewhere for us to stay. We are both excessively tired,’ she said.

‘Oh, you must
stay with me,’ Caroline said unexpectedly. ‘I have plenty of room and I shall
be glad of your company.’ She set herself between the two women and took an arm
of each. ‘Come along. We will wait together.’

Maryanne could
hardly contain her surprise. ‘I would not want to inconvenience you.’

‘Inconvenience!
After you have brought me the best piece of news I have had in two long days of
waiting. Come along. You shall have baths and clean clothes and then we shall
sit down and have a comfortable cose.’

There were, of
course, no horses and, therefore, no carriages, so they walked to the Rue du
Damier.

‘Did you say
the Duke was making a stand?’ Caroline asked when Maryanne and Eleanor had
bathed and changed their clothes and rejoined her in her drawing-room.

‘It would seem
so. His lordship said they were waiting for the Prussians to come up with them
and then they would stand and fight.’

‘But the
Prussians have been defeated,’ Caroline wailed. ‘They have fallen back miles.
For two days now we have had only bad news. Deserters and wounded coming back
into the city with the most dreadful tales. A whole regiment of Brunswickers
galloped back through the city and rode north as if the hounds of hell were
after them.’

‘His lordship
seemed very confident, Caroline, and the Duke was so calm, you would think he
was out for an afternoon’s gentle exercise.’

‘If anything
happens to Richard...’ Her voice faded.

Maryanne hardly
knew how to reassure her because her own fears ran along the same lines.
Caroline had been unexpectedly friendly and hospitable, but what would she
think if she knew Adam was with the enemy? To speak of him would raise all the
old enmity, all the old accusations, and Maryanne was too tired and weak to
indulge in a private battle in the middle of a conflict which was putting an
end to so many thousands of young lives.

It was getting
late and still the guns boomed, still they heard the refugees and wounded
trudging in, and still they waited. Maryanne persuaded Eleanor to retire, and
kept vigil with Caroline, who darted to the window whenever she heard the clop
of hooves on the
pave
.

‘Sit down,
Caroline,’ she said for the third time. ‘It will not bring him any quicker.’

Caroline
subsided into a chair. ‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘I was such a conceited
fool before I realised I loved Richard. Do you remember I said I would not
marry for love? Oh, no, I wanted money and a title, wardrobes full of gowns and
shoes, carriages and horses, everything that is not worth a pin when it comes
down to it. I derided you for wanting to fall in love. And then I did exactly
that. Richard has only a minor title and little wealth but he is a good man,
the best. I cannot eat or sleep for thinking I might lose him. Can you
understand that?’

‘Yes, of
course.’

‘Adam?’

Maryanne
smiled. ‘Who else? He is my husband.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I do not know.
He told me to go back to England if there was trouble. I have been trying to do
that.’

‘You are very
brave, Maryanne. I don’t know if I could have done what you did. The scandal
after you left was prodigious. I thought it would never die down. If it had not
been for Richard, I do not think I could have borne it.’

Maryanne
smiled; London and London Society seemed so far away, another world, an
ostentatious, shallow, unimportant world. ‘Is there a warrant out for our
arrest?’ she asked.

Caroline
laughed. ‘No, Mark said while you stayed in France he would do nothing, but...’
She jumped up and went to the window as a horseman came galloping through the
street, shouting. ‘Listen,’ she said.

‘
Victoire!
’
The shout was clear now. ‘
Victoire
! Boney is routed!’

Caroline rushed
out to question the rider, but he had gone by the time she reached the street.
She returned indoors. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘He will be home soon.’

‘Amen,’
Maryanne said fervently.

They sat
together until dawn, and although carts full of wounded rumbled back to the
dressing stations and officers, relieved of their duties, rode back to their
loved ones, Richard was not among them. By six o’clock Caroline was desperate.
‘I’m going to find him,’ she said suddenly.

‘How?’ Maryanne
had been dozing from sheer exhaustion.

‘The officers
who came back had horses; I’ll borrow one for each of us. You will come with
me, won’t you?’

‘Where?’
Maryanne asked.

‘To the
battlefield.’

There was no
dissuading her, and Maryanne, conscious of the charge Lord Brandon had put on
her, would not let her go alone. They left a note for Madame Saint-Pierre, who
was still asleep, and set off on horses which were already exhausted. The only
advantage of that, Maryanne decided, was that they were easy to handle.

They rode
silently, each with her own thoughts, each trying to stifle the fear of what
they might find. It mattered little which side the men fought on; she and Caroline
had something in common-their concern for their husbands. Among the forest
trees, the remnants of an army had returned to their camp fires to eat and
drink and talk, but, most of all, to sleep. Caroline did not expect to find
Richard among their number, and they rode on, past the inn and the little
chapel at Waterloo and on to the crossroads where Maryanne and Eleanor had left
the button man. The scene was worse than either of them could ever have
imagined.

Dead and dying
men and horses littered the fields, along with broken guns, uptilted limbers,
wood, shreds of uniform, plumes. The whole area stank of gunpowder, blood and
death. Dreadful sounds of muted groans seemed to issue from the earth itself.
Some of the wounded had dragged themselves to the edge of the road, others lay
propped against trees, waiting to be carried off to the surgeon. Orderlies with
stretchers were running to and fro, loading them into carts. Women darted in
and out among them, looking for their men, crying their names. Some who had
found them lay sprawled across their bodies, sobbing out their grief; others
stoically went from one motionless form to another, searching with growing
desperation.

The battlefield
covered several miles from the chateau of Hougoumont in the south-east to
Papelotte over on their left, and they had no idea where to start looking.

‘Have you seen
Lord Brandon?’ Caroline cried, dismounting and dashing up to a stretcher-bearer
who was tying off the stump of an arm, before putting its owner on to a
stretcher.

‘Who?’

‘Lord Brandon.
He was with the Duke, one of his aides.’

‘As far as I
know all the Duke’s aides fell. It was a miracle he wasn’t hit himself.’

‘Oh, no! Where?
Tell me where,’ Caroline pleaded.

The man
shrugged. ‘Could be anywhere; you will just have to keep looking, or go back
and wait for news.’

Caroline would
not do that, and they tethered the horses and combed the field, hardening
themselves to the terrible sights they saw. They searched all morning, even
after the orderlies had left with the last of the wounded. ‘There aren’t any
more,’ they were told. ‘Those that are left are beyond help. We will come back
for them later.’

Maryanne was
only half aware of the last cart leaving, for she had come upon a sight which
had stopped her in her tracks. Three French soldiers lay, one on top of the
other, so that it was difficult to tell which limb belonged to which. One of
them had a wide grin on his face as if he had died laughing. It was all she
could do to control her heaving stomach, but she could not stop staring at him
with her mouth open because she had recognised the uniform of the French
Seventh Regiment. Did that mean Adam was dead? She did not want to believe it;
she could not believe it. She would know, deep in her heart, she would know,
wouldn’t she?

She turned away
at last and followed Caroline into another field, where the tall corn had been
flattened and would never be harvested. The picture was the same, and over at
the chateau of Hougoumont it was even worse. Thousands of men had died in the orchard
surrounding it; their bodies were piled everywhere.

Maryanne,
looking at the gruesome scene, put her hands to her stomach as she felt the
first faint movements of her child. In the midst of death there was life;
something sweet and new would come out of all this carnage. She took a deep
breath and followed Caroline, who had gone through the gate of the chateau and
was racing across to where a man lay propped against a wall.

‘Richard!’ she
shrieked, falling on her knees beside him. He still wore his dress uniform,
which was in tatters, and one of his dancing slippers; the other had
disappeared along with the foot which had been wearing it. His face was a
uniform grey and his eyes were shut. Caroline put her hand on his heart. ‘He’s
alive!’ she said, tears streaming down her face. ‘Maryanne, he is alive.’ She
looked up at Maryanne. ‘Oh, what are we to do? We need help, a stretcher, a
cart. Oh, why did they all have to leave? We must bind up that foot. I’ll do
it. You go and find help. Quickly! Quickly!’

Maryanne,
dashing off to obey, marvelled at the strength of character Caroline had found
to help her do what had to be done. That was what love did for you, she thought
wryly.

The road, when
she reached it, was empty, except for the button man’s wagon, with its tired
old horse clop-clopping along, as if driver and animal were both asleep. She
breathed a fervent prayer of thanks and stood waiting for it to come up to her.

Adam allowed
the horse to go at its own pace, too exhausted to think any more, yet too tired
to stop his thoughts from wandering. Pictures came and went in front of eyes
too deprived of sleep to focus properly. Maryanne,
Maman,
the father he
had never really known, the man who had taken his place and died so cruelly.
But his death, brutal as it had been, had been a quick one compared to the
suffering of these poor devils in the last three days. The stench of death
filled the air and unsteadied the horse. ‘Easy, old fellow, easy,’ he said.
‘Soon have you home and a bag of oats on your nose.’

He smiled
crookedly. Home. Where was home? Wherever Maryanne was. Pray God she was safe.
He could tell her now, all of it, from the beginning, from the day in 1810 when
he had run into a British patrol in the mists of Busaco to yesterday when he
had witnessed Napoleon leaving the scene of his defeat in his blue and gilt
carriage, escorted by a handful of his faithful Old Guard. He could tell her,
if he could find her. He knew she had not gone to England, so where was she?

The Duke of
Wellington must let him go now. He had done all that had been asked of him and,
like his chief, had come through unscathed. But it had been a close thing, too
close for comfort. Life with the Seventh had become untenable when one of the
men had challenged his identity, and he had decided that the time had come to
leave them. His usefulness there had been over in any case; Napoleon had
decided to march on Belgium. He had rejoined his commander-in-chief and spent
the time chasing from one battlefield to another with dispatches, watching the
French movements, infiltrating their ranks and listening to their gossip.