‘Well, and what will you do?’ inquired John, with rather a melancholy smile. ‘Oh, sir, I am persuaded you cannot be so unfeeling as to stand in my way! It’s all I care about, to be a soldier, like Harry and Tom! You must let me go!’
‘Yes,’ said John, sighing. ‘I suppose I must.’
For the next month, the newspapers reported day by day Napoleon’s leisurely progress towards Paris. When Marshal Ney went over to him, there were gloomy headshakes, and a great deal of talk about treachery. On 20th March, Napoleon entered Paris, Louis XVIII having packed up his court in a hurry and fled over the border to Ghent. The British army began to collect in Belgium still under the generalship of the young Prince of Orange: a circumstance which made Juana most indignant. She said it was a very good thing he had dear John Colborne to guide him, for he knew nothing more about war than how to behave as Wellington’s ADC.
It might have been expected that with Napoleon in power again the English visitors in Brussels would have gone home, but hardly any of them did so. Far otherwise, in fact: it was said that all the packets were crowded with rich idlers on their way to Belgium, all anxious to see something of the brewing war.
With the news of the signing of the peace treaty with America, Juana every day expected Harry to arrive in England. Nothing, however, was heard of him, and when she reflected that between the assault on New Orleans and the signing of the treaty there had very likely been more fighting in America, she began to dread hearing that he had been killed. The prolonged silence affected her nerves so badly that it was noticed that any sudden noise would make her start violently, while a knock on the front-door drove the colour from her cheeks, and brought on one of her distressing fits of breathlessness. Anna told Eleanor that she wondered how such a nervous little thing could ever have braved the dangers of campaigning.
March, a month of alarums and excursions, passed without news from Harry. It passed also without bringing tidings of the Duke of Wellington’s return from Vienna. Really, everyone said, he ought to be with the army! No one could feel the least degree of safety while he was absent, Just supposing Napoleon were to strike our forces while he was still at that stupid Congress! It was nonsense to say that Napoleon was not ready to strike: he was probably planning some shattering coup, while the Allies continued to dillydally, and to haggle over subsidies. Nothing had ever been so ill-managed from start to finish! What with Wellington in Vienna, and many of his Peninsular veterans in America, it would be wonderful if Napoleon did not succeed in winning back everything he had lost.
On 5th April, however, the Duke arrived in Brussels, and even confirmed pessimists began to feel that all was not yet lost. But Harry’s Uncle Davie said gloomily that depend upon it, we should make wretched work of this campaign, for he had heard from a friend of his, who had had it from a man who had been in Belgium, that our army there was composed for the most part of quite raw troops. Moreover, the Dutch-Belgian soldiers were said to be a disaffected lot, and Blücher’s Prussians were at loggerheads with them already.
‘All will go well now that the Duke is with the army,’ said Juana confidently. ‘Ah, my dear, I wish you may be right!’ said Uncle Davie, shaking his head. ‘But everything has been so bungled! I said from the start they should never have let Bonaparte go to Elba; and I always knew how this wretched American war would end! It won’t surprise me, if we learn of a fresh disaster from that quarter!’
‘Oh, do not say so!’ Juana exclaimed.
‘I think it very ominous, very ominous indeed,’ said Uncle Davie, ignoring frantic signs made to him by his nieces, ‘that nothing has been heard of Lambert since that last dispatch that told of the embarkation of the troops after the disaster at New Orleans. Here we are, in the middle of April, and still Harry has not come home! Mark my words, there is something behind which we don’t know about!’
‘Do you think that indeed?’ Juana said, fixing her eyes upon his face. ‘I hope I am not lacking in the proper respect which I owe to my uncle,’ said Betsy roundly, ‘but I declare I never heard such nonsense in my life. If you take my advice, Jenny, you will not pay the least attention!’
But Uncle Davie’s tactless words had only expressed the fear which Juana carried everywhere with her; and although she forced herself to smile at Betsy, it was plain that to do so was an effort.
The sisters became quite worried over her loss of colour, and of spirits, and of appetite. Nothing seemed to do her any good! Nothing, John Smith said, appealed to by his daughters to prescribe for poor Jenny, would do her any good until Harry came back to her. ‘Such devotion,’ said Eleanor, with a deep sigh, ‘is a lesson to us all! Do you know, papa, when she goes with us to Church, and I see her gazing before her, with such a look in her eyes, and her hands clasped so tightly over her heart, it affects me so that I am sure I do not know how I keep from bursting into tears!’
Juana went with the sisters to Church every Sunday, and afterwards for a sedate walk with them. On a Sunday, late in April, the sun was so bright, and the sky so clear, that even prudent Mary thought they might venture a little farther than usual without running any risk of being caught in a shower of rain. They were strolling along, with William and Sam to bear them company, when they suddenly perceived the gardener’s boy, a new servant, running towards them, and waving to attract their attention.
They hastened their steps to meet him, wondering what he could want, and were astonished to find that he seemed to be labouring under a strong sense of excitement. William asked him rather sharply if anything were amiss, and got the mysterious reply that he did not know, only that Master desired the Misses Smith to return directly to the house. ‘Good God, is my father ill?’ cried Eleanor.
No, Master was very well, but there was a strange gentleman arrived at the Falcon Inn in a post-chaise-and-four, who had sent for him. ‘And Master said as I must go to find the young ladies and to tell them quietly as how he wanted them to come home at once.’ ‘Oh!’ said Anna thoughtlessly. ‘Can it be that someone has brought us news of Harry?’ Juana gave a queer little sigh, and fainted.
‘Anna, how could you?’ exclaimed Eleanor, dropping down on to her knees beside Juana. Capable Betsy was already slapping Juana’s death-like cheeks, and while the two brothers, quite distracted, were still trying to think where they could most quickly procure some water, she recovered consciousness.
‘Mi Enrique. Esta muerto! El no vendra nunca, nunca!’ ‘Dearest Jenny! Dearest sister! See, it is your own Eleanor!’
‘Oh!’ Juana pressed a hand to her head. ‘I am sorry-un acto de locura!-but someone said-oh, how dreadful of me to behave so! Please give me your arm, for I am quite well, I assure you! We must go home instantly!’
‘Are you sure you are able to walk?’ Mary asked. ‘Sam can run back and fetch the carriage, you know.’
‘No, no, I cannot wait! Someone has come with news of Enrique!’
Since the others were almost as anxious as she to reach home, they did not try to dissuade her, but set off at once for St Mary’s Street. When the house came in sight, Juana let go of William’s arm, and ran ahead. The gate was standing open; as Juana reached it, a figure there was no mistaking came out of the house. ‘Mi esposo, mi esposo!’ sobbed Juana, and flung herself into Harry’s arms.
3
He had meant it all for the best, of course. So afraid had he been of startling Juana, that he had stopped his chaise at the Falcon, and had sent privately to call his father to him. How could he have foreseen that that stupid lout of a boy would blurt out his message in such a way?
‘Oh!’ said Eleanor playfully, ‘I do not know which was the greater goose, you or Papa! As though it could hurt Juana to see you, whom she has been daily, nay, hourly, expecting! Such a fright as you gave us all! We have been in a fever of anxiety, fearing you might be dead, or badly wounded!’