They brought back such conflicting accounts that it was soon seen that very little dependence could be placed on what they said. They had seen nothing; their only information came from peasants encountered on the road; all that was certain was that an action was being fought somewhere to the south of Brussels.
When Judith and Barbara reached home at five o'clock the cannonading was still audible. Everyone they met was asking the same questions: were the Allied troops separately engaged? Had they joined the Prussians? Where was the action being fought? Could the cavalry have reached the spot? Could the outlying divisions have come up? There could be no answer to such questions; none, in fact, was expected.
Worth was at home when the ladies came in. He had seen Barbara's trunks brought round from the Hotel de Belle Vue, and had installed her frightened maid in the house. He had driven out, afterwards, a little way down the Charleroi road, but, like everyone else, had been unable to procure any intelligence. The baggage wagons lined the chaussee for miles, he said, but none of the men in charge of them knew more than himself.
They sat down to dinner presently in the same state of anxious expectation. The sound of the guns seemed every moment to be growing more distinct. Judith found it impossible not to speculate upon the chance of defeat. The thought of her child, sleeping in his cot above stairs, made her dread the more acute. She should have sent him to England with Peregrine's children; her selfishness had made her keep them in Brussels; she had exposed him to a terrible danger.
She managed to check such useless reflections, and to join with an assumption of ease in the conversation Worth and Barbara were maintaining.
Some time after dinner, when the two ladies were seated alone in the salon, Worth having gone out to see whether any news had been received from the Army, a knock sounded on the front door, and in a few minutes they were astonished by the butler's announcing Colonel Canning.
Only one visitor could have been more welcome. Judith almost sprang out of her chair, and started forward to meet him. "Colonel Canning! Oh, how glad I am to see you!"
He shook her warmly by the hand. "I have only dropped in a for a few moments to tell you that Charley was well when I saw him last. I have been on a mission: to the French King, at Alost, and am on my way back now to Quatre-Bras."
"Quatre-Bras! Is that where the action is being fought? Oh, stay just for a few minutes! We have been without news the whole day, and the suspense is dreadful. Sit down: I will ring for the tea tray to be brought in directly. But have you dined?"
"Yes, yes, thank you! I dined at Greathed's, in the Park. Seeing me pass by his house, he very kindly called to me to come up and join him. Creevey was there too. I can't tell you much, you know. I was sent off just before 5.00, so I don't know how it has been going. However, by the time I left the Brunswickers and the Nassau contingent had arrived, and Van Merlen's Light Cavalry besides, so you may be sure everything is doing famously."