an inner voice lectured him, or you’ve been overdoing things. Just keep out of her way and you’ll get over it.
‘Right.’ He grounded the empty bottle with a thump. ‘The Literary Institute it is.’
The eminently respectable Institute was where the gentlemen of the British community retreated daily to use the library, write their letters, read the London papers and argue about the best way to deal with Napoleon.
It was also a front for a gaming hell. How their sharp-nosed wives had not discovered this was a mystery to Hal. Men whom he knew were living in Brussels on the economic plan, necessitated by excessive gaming, could be found cheerfully losing hundreds of pounds a night, often to him. It just went to prove, he thought, handing his cloak, hat and sabre to the attendant, that men were incapable of reform, whatever women believed.
‘I’ll see you down there, just need to look something up,’ he called, turning into the library as they clattered off down the stairs into the candlelit fug of the gaming rooms. The Landed Gentry was on the shelves and he began to thumb through until he found Tresilian.
Here they were: her father David, younger brother of the present baronet. Hal cross-checked Sir Alfred Tresilian, Bt. A modest marriage, a quiverful of children, so presumably uncle had no great resources himself. David had married Amelia Henry, there were two children—Julia Claire and Phillip David—and he was marked as deceased 1810.
What had that achieved? Hal asked himself, as he walked into the card room and chose a table. Nothing, except to feed this ridiculous obsession.
Julia had been correct about her mother’s reaction to the Reverend Mr Smyth. After checking with the vicar of the English church in Brussels she pronounced him eminently suitable. ‘Not that we must put all our eggs in one basket,’ she warned Julia. ‘There is nothing wrong with meeting more eligible gentlemen.’
‘No, Mama,’ Julia agreed. She allowed herself the pleasure of a ride in Mr Smyth’s smart curricle and then, in the space of three days, was gratified by introductions to Mr Fordyce, the confidential secretary to Lord Ellsworth, a diplomat dealing with British relations for the new King of the Netherlands, and Colonel Williams, a widower in his forties with a fifteen-year-old daughter. She attended a small dance, a musicale and a charity luncheon.
At none of these events did she see Major Carlow, which was, of course, a relief. At frequent intervals she recalled the way she had spoken to him and his laughter as she had stalked off, and her cheeks burned afresh. Frequently she saw the blue uniform of the Light Dragoons amongst the scarlet and the green of other regiments and her heart would behave oddly for a beat: but it was never Hal.
She did see Major Fellowes at the musicale, and whispered to Lady Geraldine that the slimy dragon was there. Her ladyship kept her close and raised her eyeglass when she saw him watching. His retreat was highly gratifying.
Julia was becoming accustomed to her new life. In the course of one week her world had been turned on its head and she felt as she had after that glass of champagne: slightly dizzy and surprisingly confident. Mrs Tresilian, receiving every detail with great interest, was delighted.
On the last Saturday in May Julia got up early, dressed in one of her new gowns, picked at her breakfast and then fidgeted, waiting to be collected for an all-day picnic in the Fôret de Soignes.
It was the most talked-about event for weeks and now, as she looked out at a cloudless sky, she could hardly believe she was attending. Her gown was more than suitable, thank goodness. Madame Gervais, the elegant modiste that Mama had discovered in the Lower Town, had shown them the illustration in the Journal des Dames et des Modes.
‘The hat composed of white and lilac satin,’ Julia had translated from the French. ‘Ornamented with bows of ribbon and a cluster of flowers. Robe de satin lilas…lilac satin—I suppose I had better have muslin—trimmed entirely round the bosom and at the bottom with a large quilling of blonde lace. Gloves, pale tan, shoes of lilac kid.’ She studied the drawing. ‘I like the way the hat brim turns up and the detail of the sleeve.’
And now she was tying the thick, smooth ribbons under her chin while Mama fluffed up the sleeves and the specially dyed lilac kid slippers peeped out from under the blonde lace—not quite as lavishly applied as in the illustration, but a positive snip at three shillings and six pence the yard. Would Major Carlow think this gown a model of chaste simplicity? But he was unlikely to be at something as staid as a picnic, she supposed.
‘Now, be sure not sit down on the ground until the blankets are spread,’ Mrs Tresilian fussed. ‘I do not know what it is about picnics, but the most tidy young ladies always come back looking complete romps.’ She frowned. ‘And I worry a little about it being in the woods—do not go wandering off alone, dearest, or with a gentleman, even Mr Smyth.’
‘Why not?’ Phillip enquired. He was watching all this early morning prinking with close attention. ‘What’s in the woods?’
‘Er…wolves,’ Julia explained, earning a chuckle from her mother and sending Phillip off on a new game of Hunt the Wolf that the landlady’s kittens found highly entertaining.
Lady Geraldine’s barouche arrived on the stroke of nine. Mr Masters had gratified his wife by accompanying her, and they had already taken up Miss Marriott, a picture in lemon muslin and scalloped lace with a cottager hat trimmed with artificial primroses.
Felicity chattered; Julia simply sat drinking it all in. Around them, the cream of Brussels Society streamed out through the Namur Gate on the road south through the forest to Ixcelles and its lake, the site of the picnic. Mr Smyth waved from his curricle, a friend beside him. She saw groups of officers on horseback and numerous carriages like their own. This was going to be a picnic on an epic scale and someone had organised it with military precision.
‘Miss Tresilian?’ Mr Masters was looking at her in concern. ‘Are you chilled? You shivered.’
‘No, sir, thank you. I am not cold. A goose just walked over my grave,’ she said with a smile. It would not do to spoil everyone else’s enjoyment with foolish premonitions. But the sight of all those brave scarlet coats, the sound of masculine laughter and shouts, the clatter of hooves and the rumble of wheels reminded her vividly of why all these men were here. Soon, within weeks perhaps, troops would be streaming south out of this gate, down towards the French border. Towards war.
But no-one spoke of it in so many words. Not of the death and destruction to come, only of the politics, the tactics, as though they all just happened to be gathered in Brussels as an extension of the Congress in Vienna. And the balls and the parties must go on and everyone must pretend—on the surface at least—that the storm was not coming.
Her nerves were still jumping when they reached the picnic site on a rise of ground overlooking the lake. Tents had been set out for refreshments, for sitting in the shade, for the ladies to retire to. The band of the 52nd Foot played by kind permission of its colonel. It was, Lady Geraldine remarked, as though a Hyde Park review had been dropped into the midst of a garden party.
Mr Smyth was there to help her down from the barouche, Colonel Williams strolled past with his daughter and stopped to talk, his eyes appreciative when he looked at her, and then both gentlemen were cut out by Mr Fordyce who swept her off to the breakfast tent with the aplomb of the seasoned diplomat.
It was all very glamorous and rather unreal. Her gloomy visions of battles evaporated in the face of sunshine and tables with floral arrangements and Charles Fordyce fetching her hot chocolate and tiny pastries.
Only
