Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (18 page)

And it is true. I don't think I would care, not now.

Last spring, George Wickham went so far as to come to Pemberley in an attempt to blackmail my brother. Wickham
could
damage my reputation by spreading the story of our near elopement. Even though nothing more untoward than a single kiss ever occurred. And my brother would have paid to stop Wickham's doing it--but I told him he mustn't. I refuse to live my whole life in fear of what Wickham may choose to say. And Edward already knows the whole truth of the affair in any case.

Even being in Ramsgate yesterday--which was where Wickham instigated his courtship of me--didn't so much bring it all back as make me feel more than ever as though all that were part of entirely another life from the one I have now.

I have to stop writing. Mrs. Metcalfe has been talking to the captain, and apparently there is a chance of some of the crew rowing us to shore; she has just come over to tell me she'll need my help in dragging Kitty and Harriet from their berths.

Monday 12 June 1815

We are in Ostend at last. I was too exhausted to write anything when we finally found our beds last night. So it is morning now. Late morning, to judge by the angle of the sun streaming in through my window, though there is no clock in my room and I have not yet been downstairs.

We are staying in the home of Mrs. Pamela Elliott, the wife of General Elliott, who commands the garrison here.

Mrs. Elliott is an older woman, grey-haired and pink-cheeked and sensible-looking. Though I think she must have been quite pretty when she was young. She and the general never had children of their own, so she makes it a habit to befriend and take an interest in the younger people who come into her acquaintance. Mrs. Elliott also happens to be a second cousin of Harriet's on her mother's side. And it was arranged between Mrs. Elliott and Harriet before we set sail from England that we should come to the Elliotts' home when we arrived.

We were rowed to shore from the packet boat last night. Which is why the cover of this book is now slightly damp; the splash of the oars and the occasional swell of a wave would come over the side of the boat and soak our luggage. We wound up on a stretch of sandy beach just before midnight, surrounded by all our bags. And Mrs. Metcalfe asked--well, I suppose commanded would be strictly speaking more accurate--the sailors who had rowed us in to take us on to the town.

And so here we are, at General and Mrs. Elliott's.

And I had better go downstairs now, since Kitty has just come in to inform me that Mrs. Elliott is holding a ball tonight, and we ought to help her prepare.

Tuesday 13 June 1815

Poor Kitty. I would never have believed it was possible to be so completely sorry for someone and so completely exasperated with them at the same time. But I am with her right now.

It is two o'clock in the morning, and I am sitting up in bed in the room Mrs. Elliott assigned to me for our stay. It is a very pretty room, though the furniture is all very much in the French style and so heavily gilded it's dazzling even by the light of the single candle by my bed.

This morning, when Kitty told me, was the first I had heard about the ball that General and Mrs. Elliott were to hold tonight. But Mrs. Elliott had apparently been planning it for weeks, and had written Mrs. Forster that if we should arrive on or before the twelfth of June, we should be able to attend. In all honesty, a ball was the absolute last thing I wanted to even think of after our journey. And--though I realise that I sound like the drooping heroine of a melodrama all over again--all I have wanted from the moment I left Pemberley has been to reach Brussels and Edward as quickly as possible.

It is not just gothic heroine fancies. There's a kind of strung-up tension about the whole city of Ostend--the whole countryside around here. We went out in the late morning to walk around the city a little while. And it's beautiful. Cobbled streets and houses of coloured bricks. And breathtaking cathedrals, built of grey stone, with impossibly high spires and windows of coloured glass. But all the while we were walking, children--little street urchins--were crowding around us and simultaneously begging for pennies and cursing Napoleon and the French.
Success to the English, and destruction to the French
, was what they called out over and over again. And in the few shops we went into--a sweet shop, a lace-maker's, and a book stall--the owners said almost exactly the same. Everyone was full of war-talk. Fiercely eager to tell us of how Napoleon was hated here for his taxes and for having conscripted all the fine young men to die in his cursed army.

But the ball:

Unlike me, Kitty had heard about it from Mrs. Forster before we set sail and had been looking forward to it ever since.

Greatly looking forward to it; back aboard the packet ship when I went in to help Mrs. Metcalfe with getting Harriet and Kitty up onto deck and into the rowboat, Kitty had groaned and pulled the blankets over her head at first. And then she sat bolt upright and asked me what day it was. And when I told her it was the eleventh of June, she dragged herself up and shook Harriet and said that they had to go or they'd not be at Mrs. Elliott's before the twelfth.

I remember at the time thinking it was strange--though everything was in such confusion what with rounding up our bags and paying the ship's captain that there was no chance to ask her to explain. And then yesterday--Kitty spent the entire day debating and changing her mind over what she should wear and worrying that the spots the sea-water had left around the hem of her gown--pale-lavender silk with an overskirt of deeper purple sarsnet--would show.

And now I know why: Lord Henry Carmichael was among those in attendance here tonight.

I was sitting off to one side of the dancing with Mrs. Metcalfe--who had donned for the ball the most incredible turban of silk and gold lace--when I saw Lord Carmichael come in. He was with a large party of other guests--three other gentleman and four ladies. And one of the ladies--an exquisitely pretty woman with four ostrich plumes in her red hair and a very low-cut gown of emerald chiffon spangled with gold and pearls--was clinging to his arm. I recognised Lord Carmichael. And felt a lurch of dismay, because Kitty saw him at the same time and started straight for him.

I'm
not
Kitty's mother. I'm not even responsible for her behaviour on this journey. But I still felt I ought to do something to try and stop her coming to any worse harm than she already had.

Except I needn't have worried. Not about Lord Carmichael trifling with Kitty's affections, at any rate.

I had excused myself to Mrs. Metcalfe and gone after Kitty, so that despite the music and the crowds of people all around I was near enough to hear the exchange between her and Lord Carmichael. She put out her hands and said, "Henry! How utterly enchanting to see you again!"

And Lord Carmichael gave her a completely blank look through his gold- and jewel-encrusted quizzing glass and said, "I beg your pardon. You seem to have the advantage of me. Have we been introduced?"

I was behind Kitty and could not see her face. But before she could reply, Lord Carmichael had been hailed by someone further into the ballroom and moved off, the red-haired lady still clinging to his arm. I took a step forward and touched Kitty on the shoulder.

She had rouged her cheeks again; when she turned around I could see that all the natural colour had drained from her face and the paint stood out on each cheek in two garish stains. She looked as though she were on the verge of tears, too--so I caught hold of her hand and pulled her with me into a little curtained-off alcove at the rear of the ballroom.

There was a courting couple there already--a plump girl dressed in curry-coloured satin and young man in a black superfine coat and very tight pantaloons. They gave us--or me, rather--indignant looks, but pushed past us and rejoined the ballroom when it was clear Kitty and I meant to stay. Once they had gone, I pushed Kitty onto the stiff brocade cushions that formed a kind of bench around the alcove's rear wall. It was like moving a wooden doll--she went wherever I directed her, her movements jerky and stiff. And when I wasn't trying to get her to move she came to a total standstill, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

When I had sat down next to her on the bench, though, Kitty turned her head to look at me, her eyes still swimming with tears. "He doesn't remember me." Her voice was choked. "He had not the smallest idea of who I was."

"I know. I heard." I didn't even think Lord Carmichael had been guilty of deliberate cruelty, or that he had merely pretended not to know Kitty's name.

He might have flirted with Kitty shamelessly at Christmas time. But now, six months later, he quite simply had no memory whatever of the girl whose reputation he had nearly ruined. "I know it is not much help to you," I added, "but I am truly sorry."

"I thought--" Kitty's breath caught on a sob, but she clenched her hands and blinked hard, staring at the tasselled curtain in front of us. When she spoke, the words tumbled out in a rush. "I didn't tell anyone--not even Harriet--but that was the whole reason I came on this journey. To see Henry again. Harriet didn't know the full story of everything that happened between us at Pemberley. I only mentioned to her once that I knew him. And so she told me, just in passing, that she had had a letter from Mrs. Elliott mentioning that Lord Henry Carmichael was staying in Ostend with some friends. Harriet only thought I might be interested to hear news of an--" Kitty's voice choked up again. "An acquaintance. But I thought if I could just get to Ostend myself--see Henry in person. I thought now that I'm not engaged to John anymore, perhaps--"

Kitty broke off with a sharp gasp as the curtain that separated us from the ballroom was lifted aside. I would have expected another couple. But it was a dark-haired young man wearing the dress of an army officer: red embroidered coat with gold frogging and epaulettes, tall black Hessian boots. Kitty's eyes went wide at the sight of him and she lost what little colour in her face she'd regained.

The man bowed. "Kit--" he checked himself. "Miss Bennet. I saw you come in here, and thought you appeared ... distressed. May I be of service in any way?"

Kitty only stared at him, her hand at her throat, and the man turned to me and bowed again. "I apologise for the intrusion. I know we have never been introduced. But I think you must be Miss Bennet's sister-in-law, Miss Darcy?"

Kitty at last came back to life. A red flush of colour suffused her face and she stammered, "I--Georgiana, I'm sorry. This is--I mean, allow me to present John. Captain John Ayres."

I couldn't blame Kitty for being shocked. If the scene had been part of a novel I was reading, I would have said Captain Ayres' sudden appearance at the precise moment Kitty spoke of him was too great a coincidence to be believed. I gave him my hand, though, and he took it and said, "Your servant, ma'am." And then he straightened and gave me quick flash of a smile. He was not handsome, exactly--his face was too thin and his jaw a little too square. But I liked him at once. His expression was easy and friendly, and his dark eyes were both intelligent and very kind, with crinkles of humour around the corners.

I returned the greeting. And then I felt my heart lurch, and without meaning to, I tightened my fingers around his. Because I had realised that as an army officer, Captain Ayres might have news of Edward.

He shook his head when I asked him, though, and said that he has not seen Edward since he joined General Wellington's staff.

After Captain Ayres had given us the latest news--of which there is really none, save that Napoleon continues to gather troops across the border--he turned to me with another of his quick, ready smiles. "I believe--if you'll permit me--I can look after Miss Bennet from here." He turned to Kitty. "Would you do me the honour of allowing me to escort you in to supper?"

They were together all the rest of the night. Captain Ayres never said anything, and his behaviour was throughout that of a friend rather than a lover--but he was very gentle with Kitty, and careful of her in a way that made me think he might have overheard the exchange between Kitty and Lord Carmichael, too.

Thursday 15 June 1815

I have only a few moments to write this, and my hands are shaking so much that I've already upset the inkwell twice.

We arrived in Brussels this afternoon. And the fighting is expected to begin tomorrow. The war has truly begun.

Later ...

I am so tired. My eyes ache as though they've had salt shaken into them. But sleep is impossible tonight. Literally impossible, since the streets outside are full of confusion and noise: shouts and snatches of army song, marching feet and the creak of wagon wheels. And every so often the air is split by a roll of drums and a bugle call to arms.

The army is assembling; they're to march out at dawn.