Vanity Fair - Page 269/573

Jos thought of all these things, and trembled. So did all the rest of

Brussels--where people felt that the fight of the day before was but

the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent. One of the

armies opposed to the Emperor was scattered to the winds already. The

few English that could be brought to resist him would perish at their

posts, and the conqueror would pass over their bodies into the city.

Woe be to those whom he found there! Addresses were prepared, public

functionaries assembled and debated secretly, apartments were got

ready, and tricoloured banners and triumphal emblems manufactured, to

welcome the arrival of His Majesty the Emperor and King.

The emigration still continued, and wherever families could find means

of departure, they fled. When Jos, on the afternoon of the 17th of

June, went to Rebecca's hotel, he found that the great Bareacres'

carriage had at length rolled away from the porte-cochere. The Earl

had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of Mrs. Crawley, and

was rolling on the road to Ghent. Louis the Desired was getting ready

his portmanteau in that city, too. It seemed as if Misfortune was

never tired of worrying into motion that unwieldy exile.

Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite, and that

his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into requisition. His

agonies were very severe all this day. As long as there was an English

army between Brussels and Napoleon, there was no need of immediate

flight; but he had his horses brought from their distant stables, to

the stables in the court-yard of the hotel where he lived; so that they

might be under his own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduction.

Isidor watched the stable-door constantly, and had the horses saddled,

to be ready for the start. He longed intensely for that event.

After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did not care to come

near her dear Amelia. She clipped the bouquet which George had brought

her, and gave fresh water to the flowers, and read over the letter

which he had sent her. "Poor wretch," she said, twirling round the

little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her with

this!--and it is for a thing like this that she must break her heart,

forsooth--for a man who is stupid--a coxcomb--and who does not care for

her. My poor good Rawdon is worth ten of this creature." And then she

fell to thinking what she should do if--if anything happened to poor

good Rawdon, and what a great piece of luck it was that he had left his

horses behind.

In the course of this day too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw not without anger

the Bareacres party drive off, bethought her of the precaution which

the Countess had taken, and did a little needlework for her own

advantage; she stitched away the major part of her trinkets, bills, and

bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was ready for any

event--to fly if she thought fit, or to stay and welcome the conqueror,

were he Englishman or Frenchman. And I am not sure that she did not

dream that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la Marechale, while

Rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making his bivouac under the rain at

Mount Saint John, was thinking, with all the force of his heart, about

the little wife whom he had left behind him.