An Infamous Army

by Georgette Heyer

"But Charles, if you would only see her!"

"Do you imagine that I am going to crawl to your sister, begging to be taken on the strength again?"

Harry sighed. "No. No, of course you wouldn't do that."

"You say that she is going to marry Lavisse. If that is so, there is no possibility of our engagement's being renewed. In any case - No! it will not do. I have been brought to realise that, and upon reflection I think you must realise it too."

"It's such a damned shame!" Harry burst out. "I don't want Lavisse for a brother-in-law! I never liked any of the others half as well as you!"

He sounded so disconsolate that in a mood less bleak the Colonel must have been amused. His spirits were too much oppressed, however, for him to be able to bear such a discussion with equanimity. He was glad when Harry at last took himself off.

Harry's artless disclosures left a painful impression: an unacknowledged hope had lingered in the Colonel's mind that Barbara's encouragement of Lavisse might have been the outcome merely of pique. But Harry's words seemed to show that she was indeed serious. Her family looked upon the match as certain; Colonel Audley was forced to recall the many occasions during their engagement when she had seemed to feel a decided partiality for the Count. He had believed her tireless flirtations to be only the expression of a certain volatility of mind, which stronger ties of affection would put an end to. It had not been so. The mischief of her upbringing, the hardening effect of a distasteful marriage, had vitiated a character of whose underlying worth he could still entertain no doubt. That the heart was unspoiled, he was sure: could he but have possessed himself of it he was persuaded all would have been different. Her conduct had convinced him that he had failed, and although, even through the anger that had welled up in him at their last meeting, he had been conscious of an almost overpowering impulse to keep her upon any terms, a deeper instinct had held him silent.

He had passed since then through every phase of doubt, sometimes driven so nearly mad by the desire to hold her in his arms that he had fallen asleep at night with the fixed intention of imploring her to let everything be as it had been before their quarrel, only to wake in the morning to a realization of the impossibility of building happiness upon such foundations. Arguments clashed, and nagged in his brain. He blamed himself for lack of tact, for having been too easy, for having been too harsh. Sometimes he was sure that he had handled her wrongly from the start; then profounder knowledge would possess him, and he would recognise with regret the folly of all such arguments. There could be no question of tact or mishandling where the affections were engaged. He came back wearily to the only thing he knew to be certain: that since the love she had felt for him had been a light emotion, as fleeting as her smile, nothing but misery could attend their marriage.

After prolonged strife the mind becomes a Iittle numb, repeating dully the old arguments, but ceasing to attach a meaning to them. It was so with Colonel Audley. His brain continued to revolve every argument. but he seemed no longer capable of drawing any conclusions from them. He could neither convince himself that the rift was final nor comfort himself with the hope of renewing the engagement. He was aware. chiefly, of an immense lassitude, but beneath it, and underlying his every word and thought, was a pain that had turned from a sharp agony into an ache which was always present, yet often ignored, because familiarty had inured him to it.

The unfortunate circumstance of his being obliged to remain in Brussels, where he must not only see Barbara. continually but was forced to live under the eyes of scores of people whom he knew to be watching him imposed a strain upon him that began very soon to appear in his face. Judith, obliged to respect his evident wish that the affair should be forgotten, was goaded to exclaiming to Worth: "I could even wish the war would break out, if only it would take Charles away from this place!"