II
And in Brussels they danced, danced late into the night. No one was to know that within the next three days the destinies of the whole world would be changed by the hand of God.
And how to hide from timid eyes the sense of this oncoming destiny? how to stop for a few brief hours the flow of women's tears?
The ball should have been postponed—Her Grace of Richmond was willing that it should be so. How could men and women dance, flirt and make merry while Death was already reckoning the heavy toll of brave young lives which she would demand on the morrow? But who knows England who has not seen her at the hour of danger?
Put off the ball? why! perish the thought! The timid townsfolk of Brussels or the ladies of the French royalist party who were in great numbers in the city might think there was something amiss. What was amiss? some gallant young men would go on the morrow and conquer or die for England's honour! there's nothing amiss in that! Why put off the ball? The girls would be disappointed—they who like to dance—why should they be deprived of partners, just because some of them would lie dead on the battlefield to-morrow?
Open your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow.
The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar.
Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid.
The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends.
And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when—at ten o'clock—by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work—to horse or march—to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille—squares to face the enemy—advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss.