ANOTHER GUEST
The ball cannot go on, can it? Didn’t the Duke know the French
were so near? If he did, how could he let us run risks so coolly?
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE [to partner]
A deep concern weights those responsible
Who gather in the alcove. Wellington
Affects a cheerfulness in outward port,
But cannot rout his real anxiety!
[The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND goes to her husband.]
DUCHESS
Ought I to stop the ball? It hardly seems right to let it continue
if all be true.
RICHMOND
I have put that very question to Wellington, my dear. He says that
we need not hurry off the guests. The men have to assemble some
time before the officers, who can stay on here a little longer
without inconvenience; and he would prefer that they should, not to
create a panic in the city, where the friends and spies of Napoléon
are all agog for some such thing, which they would instantly
communicate to him to take advantage of.
DUCHESS
Is it safe to stay on? Should we not be thinking about getting the
children away?
RICHMOND
There’s no hurry at all, even if Bonaparte were really sure to
enter. But he’s never going to set foot in Brussels—don’t you
imagine it for a moment.
DUCHESS [anxiously]
I hope not. But I wish we had never brought them here!
RICHMOND
It is too late, my dear, to wish that now. Don’t be flurried; make
the people go on dancing.
[The DUCHESS returns to her guests. The DUKE rejoins WELLINGTON,
BRUNSWICK, MÜFFLING, and the PRINCE OF ORANGE in the alcove.]
WELLINGTON
We need not be astride till five o’clock
If all the men are marshalled well ahead.
The Brussels citizens must not suppose
They stand in serious peril... He, I think,
Directs his main attack mistakenly;
It should gave been through Mons, not Charleroi.
MÜFFLING
The Austrian armies, and the Russian too,
Will show nowhere in this. The thing that’s done,
Be it a historied feat or nine days’ fizz,
Will be done long before they join us here.