Chapter 7: 7. In which Mrs. Fitzwilliam's military career is g...
The two weeks they spent in Hampshire ended, in Elizabeth’s opinion, far too soon.
“Some conspiracy of clockmakers?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam, as they strolled along the part of the beach considered the Matlock estate.
Elizabeth turned over a shell with the tip of her parasol, wondering if she ought to send it to Mary, in the hopes that natural philosophy might be interesting enough to replace theology in the curio cabinet that was Mary’s head. “Oh certainly. A cabal with the calendar-makers.”
“Crimes with the chronometers?”
“A crisis of... the... oh blast.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Crisis for Chronos, perhaps? I shall give that one to you.”
“Very generous!”
“What is mine is yours, according to the book of Common Prayer and the Hardwicke Act of 1754,” he replied, kissing her cheek. “But I am afraid we must go back to London— I have to reassure a collection of bureaucrats that my arms are still attached, and, as soon as that is accomplished, I am very certain it is thence on to Spithead, and from there, Lisbon. We shall have some time to outfit you, though there is one part of your kit that must be gotten here.”
Elizabeth mistrusted this, and groaned dramatically when he lead her to the stables. “Oh Richard, must you make me ride through Portugal?”
“Yes,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, cheerfully. “Spain too. Come now Lizzy, you shall like this horse. His name is Lord Orville."
"I deeply regret ever telling you my favorite book is Evelina."
"This gelding is as gallant as his namesake, and behaves with just as much propriety.”
Elizabeth tried to think of the best way to protest this expense of this; their first married argument had been over the cost of handsome diamond set Colonel Fitzwilliam had given her as a bridal gift the morning after their marriage. It had not been much of an argument— she had protested, teasingly enough to keep the sting out of it, that she had brought so little to the marriage she felt awkward about having something so expensive after the generous marriage settlement, and he had pointed out that if this was the case she would need a diamond set— and as it really was beautiful, Elizabeth ceded the moral high ground with less reluctance than she felt she ought to feel.
“I know that look, Lizzy, but I really think I have behaved with great frugality. Lord Orville was the intermediate horse between pony and hunter for my youngest sister, and is now the mount offered to any young lady who did not bring her own. I have been given permission to take him and any bridle and sidesaddle in the stables. He shall cost only his feed.”
For a horse, Elizabeth liked Lord Orville well enough. He was phlegmatic bay gelding uninterested in doing much more than walking very sedately after the horse in front of him, or being curried. “He seems docile.”
“He is a comfortably middle-aged fellow, well beyond the frights and passions of youth.”
“He is not easily spooked?”
“He is a horse; of course he is easily spooked.”
“You are not making me feel better, Richard.”
“Here’s something that will: Lady Catherine and Anne have gone back to Kent, your parents and sisters to Hertfordshire, and the Darcys to Derbyshire. Only my siblings will be in London.”
This did make her feel much better.
***
In all, they spent a further week in London, before the order came for Colonel Fitzwilliam to gather up all the junior officers who had finished training their companies, and all the companies themselves, and march the four to five days to Spithead. Elizabeth, outfitted at more expense than she thought proper (she could tell already that though she and the colonel would rarely quarrel, when they did, it would always be about money), found herself the object of considerable fascination to the men officially under her husband’s command... and the women who traveled unofficially with them. Several of the captains were married, and brought with them their wives and children, as did the more trusted NCOs. The wife of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s batman even asked to wait upon her, and, being a hairdresser’s daughter, proved more skilled than any of Longbourn’s parlormaids.
“Really,” said Elizabeth, as they went down to dinner with the other officers before embarking, “I have never been so well attended! I seem to be someone of considerable importance now.”
“You are, my dear. I cannot offer you much—” Elizabeth snorted at that “—but I can at least offer you the highest status of any woman within the regiment.”
“Oh Lord, am I a leader of fashion?”
“If you chuse to be, I daresay you are. You are already greatly popular in the mess— officers and ladies alike.”
“There are more ladies than I expected.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam looked faintly embarrassed. “Technically there are only six wives per regiment allowed, but the actual number depends a great deal on the leniency of the commanding officer—”
Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Oh Richard! Sybil warned me you gave in too easily.”
It seemed Colonel Fitzwilliam had always been a soft touch when his officers applied to him for permission to marry, or to bring their wives and children with them. His own marriage had only strengthened that impulse, which made Elizabeth popular with these ladies before she joined them. And, as Elizabeth proposed mostly to ride, and therefore not to take a space in the wagons, and, moreover, to hold balls when their quarters allowed for it, she was welcomed with alacrity.
She had not much in common with these ladies, except her circumstances; however, half of them were from outside of England and discussion of their travels and home cultures made conversation easy. On the voyage to Lisbon, she had the great fortune of falling into company with Mrs. Beatrice Kirke. Her husband was the colonel of the — Foot, which, for reasons still unclear to Elizabeth, was more frequently sent into battle with Colonel Fitzwilliam’s troops than any other; Colonel Fitzwilliam had therefore undertaken to convey this lady to her husband’s posting.
Mrs. Kirke had followed the drum in some way or other since she was born under a gun carriage in Jamaica, to a captain of artillery and a local heiress of that country, and was the same age as Charlotte Collins. This difference in age and experience made Mrs. Kirke seem at first slightly intimidating, for she had a native’s understanding of the culture into which Elizabeth had been transplanted, but this soon passed. She was kind as Elizabeth, normally an excellent and graceful walker, careened over the ship’s deck, unable to in any way correct for ground that would tilt in opposite directions every few seconds; and winked when, at dinner, Elizabeth forgot she must hold her plate in place, and accidentally sent it zooming down the table.
“You shall get used to it, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said Mrs. Kirke, catching the plate, and passing it back at the next roll of the ship on the waves. “Fortunately it is only a week’s sailing from Spithead to Lisbon.”
“Have you made the journey many times?”
“Oh aye, twice a year since the French first invaded Spain,” said she, cheerfully serving herself more of the savory. “Three times this year; my sister in Portsmouth had her first child and I was determined to annoy her through her confinement.”
Elizabeth, who could not manage anything more than hardtack and Madeira, managed a weak smile. “I suppose you must be a very good sailor now.”
“And an excellent campaigner,” agreed Mrs. Kirke, smiling. “Stick with me, Mrs. Fitz, I’ll show you the lay of the land!”
She did, with a great deal of good humor. Elizabeth was glad to have something to occupy her, other than a mild but persistent seasickness, and thought herself rather a good student. Thanks to Mrs. Kirke, she knew to put cotton wadding in her ears when the ship’s canons were at practice; learnt how to reload an officer’s pistol without dropping the ball or setting herself on fire; managed to saddle her own horse; and stepped off the gangplank to Lisbon on shaky legs, but on her own power.
“There, Mrs. Fitz,” said Mrs. Kirke. “Nicely done! Luckily you married into the army, not the Navy; you shall be on land the rest of the time, less we sail on the Burno.”
“Is that a possibility?” asked Elizabeth, feeling already faintly ill at the prospect.
Mrs. Kirke laughed. “Possibly; it depends on how far we must go. But my husband’s regiment, and yours, tends not to be sent to the front; we secure what has been held, or we lay seige.”
“Why is that?”
“It is partly because no commanding officer wants to explain to the Earl of Matlock why his son was killed in action, and partly because Colonel Fitzwilliam and Colonel Kirke do not, like some officers I shall not name, insist upon the glory of constant action. But they both have the patience and the right temperament for it! They insisted all their officers carry Spanish phrasebooks with them, which has helped a treat with provisions— another reason they are best left at the back, securing the supply lines. You are as safe as you can be, while on the Peninsula.”
Elizabeth wrote as much to her father, and to her mother and sisters, before realizing how long at her pen she would be if she wrote to each one of them, every time she was safely arrived somewhere or other.
“Richard?” she called across their billeted room.
“Yes, my dear?” asked he, from the large central table, over which he had spread a large quantity of maps, letters, and other bits of ephemera.
“How often do you write to your relations?”
“Not as often as Lady Catherine thinks I should.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Your sisters I mean.”
“Ah. In that I am aided by distance. I write to each of them once a month, and of the London contingent, write to all three in rotation. Darcy is the only one I write to every week. If you can keep yourself to only a few letters, I will have no difficulty adding them to the dispatch packet.”
“Even if I write to Jane and my father both?”
“Even if you write them daily.” He held up a letter, frowned at it, and considered once again the map before him.
Too curious to keep to the window seat where she had balanced her writing desk of her knees, Elizabeth came forward to rest her arms on the back of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s chair, and her chin in the top of his head. She scanned the map. “Have we a difficult march before us?”
“No,” said he, glancing up at her and smiling. “We shall get you used to marching well before adding the additional complication of enemy attack. And I am glad you have found a friend already in Mrs. Kirke; I was worried you might be lonely.”
“I miss Jane, but we have been apart before,” said Elizabeth. ‘But never for so long a stretch,’ she thought, but did not say aloud. “Before you return to the threat of Napoleon, I am afraid I must ask you about a threat left back in England— I warned my father about Mr. Wickham but he was not inclined to take me seriously. And I had not the time in the past month to try again and make him hear me.”
“My fault there,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “You said Mr. Wickham was an ensign in the —shire milita, did you not?”
“Yes?”
“What is the name of the colonel of the regiment?”
“Forster.”
“I can write to him, if you like. A warning, colonel to colonel, ought to limit what damage Mr. Wickham can do. Did you warn your sisters?”
“I warned Jane.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam considered this. “Jane strikes me as a sensible sort of woman; I have no doubt she will manage to limit the effect Mr. Wickham can have on your sisters. She will not fail you.” He reached up to pull affectionately on one of her curls. “I am sorry Lizzy. I know it is my fault you cannot keep an eye on them.”
“I could as easily blame myself,” she replied. “You did not fling me unconscious onto a boat headed to Lisbon.”
“A ship,” he corrected her, not for the first time. “Or a frigate. But will you advise me on what this Colonel Forster will take seriously as a warning? I do not like to make public Georgiana’s near scrape.”
Elizabeth considered this. “Are you at liberty to air his petitioning Darcy for the living?”
“I am not sure Darcy would like the whole to be common knowledge.” Colonel Fitzwilliam considered this a moment and reached for pen, paper, and ink pot. “I can speak to his time at university, and to his conduct towards Miss Crawford. I hope that will be enough. Let me write the salutation, then let me know how I should convey the rest.” He said aloud, as he wrote, “Dear Colonel Forster, I write to you in some concern about an ensign my wife, the former Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, tells me has bought a commission in your ranks. It seemed to only right and proper to dash off a note to you about your recruit, as I hope you would do for me, should you have knowledge about a gentleman proposing to purchase a commission in my own battalion.”
Elizabeth had been taking a slow, thoughtful turn about the room and said, “Mr. Wickham has but the appearance of goodness; he was sent down from university for interfering with the maidservants, and lately tried to fix his interest with a friend of my sister-in-law’s, in so ungentlemanly a manner he distressed the lady—” Elizabeth could not help a smile; she could not imagine Miss Crawford distressed by anything “—considerably.”
“I shall allow the exaggeration, since it is amusing. Continue.”
“Had she been less guarded, I do not doubt his behavior would have thoroughly outraged propriety. It would behoove you to keep a wary eye on this gentleman, should you wish the reputation of your officers to remain unbesmirched.”
“Very good— I have the honor to be your obedient servant, the Honorable Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, —th Foot, Lisbon, Portugal. Would you be so kind as to write the direction?”
Elizabeth did, and had the later felicity of seeing a letter addressed to her husband, sent from Meryton. Weary and saddlesore as she was, she scooped this letter from the pile Colonel Fitzwilliam’s aide-de-campe had dumped onto a camp table and passed it up to her husband, still ahorse. “Here, Richard, this will cheer you!”
It did not.
He read the letter frowningly, his horse restive beneath him.
“What does he write?”
“Nothing that fills me with confidence,” said he, tossing the letter to her, before dismounting. “Tell me what you think. I cannot like it.”
To the honorable Colonel Fitzwilliam,
My dear sir, what a signal honor to receive a letter from you, and allow me to present my heartiest congratulations and best wishes for your conjugal felicity. If you are half so happy with Mrs. Fitzwilliam as I am with Mrs. Forster, it is bliss indeed. Let me assure you that it is better to take an indulgent line with ladies, as you have done, and may this letter assure her that you have done as bid. Mr. Wickham’s youthful indiscretions do not greatly concern me— ladies always make men out to be rakes if they so much as smile at a parlormaid, and boys, you know, will be boys— and I think you may assure your wife that the rigors of service will knock any silliness out of Mr. Wickham. It may perhaps assure her more to know that the regiment shall be summering in Brighton and away from her charming young sisters. I have the honor to be
Yr obt servant,
Colonel John Forster
“ I cannot believe he so misinterpreted your letter,” cried Elizabeth, pulling down the flap of the tent, so they could speak in private.
“Rigors of service,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, disgusted, lighting the lamp. “Oh yes, very rigorous! Summering in Brighton. As if walking the beach in front of the Prince Regent’s pavilion is as difficult as marching through the Portuguese mountains to Salamanca! How they must suffer! What deprivations they must endure! I daresay they occasionally get their boots a little wet. Medals should be awarded and songs written about their noble sacrifices for king and country.”
“I greatly appreciated being told you were an indulgent husband,” said Elizabeth, “for condescending to pat me on the head when I am silly and frightened of boys being boys.”
“I cannot think his marriage very happy.”
“Oh happy, I am sure, but not in the least sensible. His wife of.. let me think, six months? Is but sixteen years old. The same age as Lydia, in fact. He is fifty, or thereabouts.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam grimaced. “I hate to have anyone think our marriage is in any way similar.”
“At the respective ages of twenty-one and twenty-nine—"
"Thirty next month."
"Still, I do not think we are in in any way comparable. I signed my statement denying all impediments to our marriage with a perfectly clear conscience. The only doubt I had was if impediment ought to be capitalized.”
He cracked a smile at this, and, after removing his sword, sank with a sigh into his camp chair. “Good God. The Army bias against the militias is not without foundation. We often say if a man is not gentleman enough for the army, he goes into the militia. I cannot believe Colonel Forster so stupid.”
“Really? I can, and very well.”
“Was there some incident in Meryton that caused you to think so?”
Elizabeth pulled out her hat pin and took off her hat. “No; I speak in generalities, not particulars. You are a man; you do not know how much men devalue the feelings of women.” She laughed suddenly. “Did you know— though I do not know why you would, because I never told you— that I first loved you when you told me my anger at your cousin was justified?”
“Really?” He unhooked his gorget and dropped it on top of his traveling writing desk with a groan. “What advice can that provide to our future children? ‘Son, always be honest about the stupidity of your relations. Your mother first loved me because I agreed your Uncle Darcy was being an idiot.’ Can you not pick some more gallant action of mine?”
“Shan’t,” said Elizabeth, through a mouthful of hairpins. “It will keep you honest.”
“Oh Lizzy, please?”
She was occupied in hunting through her saddlebags for her hairbrush and hummed her disagreement.
“Do not make me beg, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
She pointed her hairbrush at him until she could remove the hairpins from her mouth with her free hand. “I shall tell you what I will tell any daughter, ‘My dear, I knew I loved your father when he respected my feelings instead of dismissing them. Never marry a man who does not do so.’”
Colonel Fitzwilliam extended a hand to her; Elizabeth, her spirits rising, cheekily deposited her hairbrush in it. He laughed. “Putting me to work after so long a ride today? You are a harsh taskmaster.
“Yes, for Mrs. Pattinson is attending Mrs. Kirke, who is washing her hair. It is apparently a very long and involved process.” She dragged over another camp chair and laughed at Colonel Fitzwilliam’s clumsy attempts at wielding a hairbrush. When he had last got some notion of what to do, she asked, “I suppose nothing more can be done about Mr. Wickham?”
“I am at a loss as to what else might be,” he admitted. “I suppose I can write to Darcy that I was not successful in warning Colonel Forster, and you could write Jane, but Wickham is momentarily beyond our immediate control. And we have more pressing business. We’ve a quicker march than anticipated. We must meet up with the rest of the brigade before July in order to support an attack.”
“Oh what fun,” said Elizabeth, glumly.
Colonel Fitzwilliam tugged lightly on a lock of her hair. “You are almost a proficient horsewoman now, Mrs. Fitzwilliam; do not look so dismayed. And, you know, our division is to be posted on the ridge above Salamanca. You shall have a very good view of what the brigadier-general has assured me shall be a pivotal battle of the whole campaign. I daresay your father will answer that letter.”
***
Elizabeth had not known, or rather, had read about how large armies were, but had failed to conceptualize so vast a number. She had written a dull letter to Mary about how her husband’s regiment of nearly six hundred men and officers was but one of five other regiments, in the second of three brigades making up the 7th Infantry Division, but the vast scope of it was something beyond understanding.
“It’s far different from the city,” said Mrs. Kirke, as they approached the camp of the 7th Division. “There people can be tucked away. Not so much here. But then again, our notion of war is still lining men up in neat formations and moving them at each other. There’s a fine geometry to it all.”
“What do you do during a battle?” asked Elizabeth, carefully reining in her horse, so that she could observe the maneuvers on the plane before her.
“Observe. Sometimes while cutting and rolling bandages, and making sticking plasters. Do you know your regimental surgeon yet?”
“No, should I?”
Mrs. Kirke smiled at her. “Only if you don’t wish to fret yourself to death during an action you cannot observe. I shall give a dinner for you and Colonel Fitzwilliam as thanks for getting me safe through Portugal. I don’t see why I shouldn’t invite your surgeon; he and our regimental surgeon are friends, and our regimental surgeon has two daughters. We shall be an even number at table.”
The regimental surgeon turned out to be no less a person than Mrs. Kirke’s brother, one Colonel Robinson, which explained the unusual level of favor he found with his regimental officer, and the role he not just allowed but allotted to Mrs. Kirke. His daughters were more good-humored than clever, and had only an indomitable spirit in common with their aunt, but Elizabeth tried to make herself agreeable, and they responded in kind.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s regimental surgeon, Colonel Dunne, was a cheerful eccentric, who scrupled not to say that he could easily find some stillroom tasks if Mrs. Fitzwilliam feared idleness, and that he had often envied Colonel Robinson all his usual helpers. With Jane running the household, the stillroom at Longborn had been Elizabeth's domain. She had never much minded this, since it gave her excuses to be out of doors collecting flowers and barks, but had never before felt glad of her allotted chores.
She was successful in convincing some of the foreign-born ladies to assist, but less so with the English women. They had found allies amongst the more fashionable First Battalion of the 7th Division and now felt at liberty to murmur over their tea cups that they found it odd she must so often be doing and, further, how very strange it was that the soulmate of an earl’s son should never have danced at Almack’s or visited St. James’s court. Despite her attempts to bring the conversation back to the realities of the Spanish campaign, they kept on their theme. What, she had never been to the opera? They had heard she was fond of music. She had never attended a party of the Prince Regent’s at Brighton, or a picnic al fresco in Richmond? But they heard she loved nature!
Elizabeth kept her temper as best she could, but, having been shewn some measure of deference from them before arriving in Portugal, she found their cattiness provoking in the extreme. Never before had she entered into Mr. Darcy’s feelings about her rudeness at Huntsford.
‘Good God,’ thought she, as she set down her teacup, ‘who would have thought I'd have the same feelings as Mr. Darcy?’
But it seemed to her good to borrow some of the tactics adopted from her in-laws. Mr.Darcy’s cold stares would not do; but some of Marjorie's false innocence might.
“I am sorry to hear you miss London so very much indeed,” said Elizabeth, wide-eyed. “Perhaps I should mention it to my husband? I am sure space could be made for you on the wagon that will convey back the men injured enough for medical leave.”
They saw their error; Elizabeth put her hand on the forearm of the ringleader and continued on, in the same tone of sympathetic (and synthetic) sweetness, “No, no, you must allow me to get you back to London. It is my fault you are presently here, instead of in England. My husband told me that only six ladies were technically allowed to follow each regiment, and I so protested at the unfairness of this he at last admitted it was a rule he would have no problem bending. But I consulted only my own feelings in this matter, and thought, ‘I should so hate to be apart from my soulmate; all ladies must feel as I do.’ But I see I spoke in error—”
The ladies were hasty in their refusals.
Elizabeth had retreated away from a show of temper by the time Colonel Fitzwilliam’s aide-de-campe found her in order to deliver her mail, but was very soon provoked again. She had received a laconic letter from her father complaining that all his daughters seemed to wish to leave him. Now she was gone off to Spain, Jane traveled in the Lake Country with the Gardiners, and Lydia was invited to Brighton by Mrs. Forster.
“Richard, my father writes that Colonel Forester’s wife wishes to take my silliest sister as her companion,” said Elizabeth, dashing at once into their tent. “Her particular friend, rather. I am dismayed to find such a post exists.”
“I daresay it does, in the militia,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, smiling at her in his shaving mirror. “They are ramshackle enough for it, giving billets to civilians. I suppose one might even find such behavior in the regulars, depending on the judgment of the colonel of the regiment.”
“Just to think,” she lamented, “had you been a sillier man, I could have had Mrs. Collins with me.”
“In an active war zone?”
“Would you not prefer that to Mr. Collins on one side and Lady Catherine on the other?”
“That is so good a point I cannot refute it. I shall fudge the orders at once, and demand Mrs. Collins come to Spain. I hope she enjoys very long walks— in fact, marches.”
“I am not serious,” said she, laughing, “I wished only to be sure this new scheme of Lydia’s was as ridiculous as it seemed.”
He returned his attention to razor and mirror. “It is less ridiculous for it being the militia. By definition they do not leave England's shores. There is no question of scarcity of supply or quarters, or any real danger.”
“You do not think the French will really reach England?”
“Consider these two points, my dear: one, the only time the French got close to reaching Ireland's shores— not even ours— in was in the ‘90s, and the French managed to get lost in a fog and overshoot their target by several hundred miles. Two, with Spain in open rebellion and the Russians burning their cities rather than giving them up, the French cannot look far past the continent. I think it in the highest degree unlikely any militia will see active duty. But still, your youngest sister is just sixteen, is she not?”
“Yes, she got her soul mark only this past January.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam toweled off his face. “I know your influence is limited, but I would not advise your parents not to let her go.” He paused and said, after a minute, “I still regret letting Georgiana go to Ramsgate with insufficient chaperonage. Her spirits are still so affected. She was never lively before, but now....”
“I think,” said Elizabeth, considering the idea, “there could be no harm in my writing that you had cause to write to Colonel Forster on military business and found him wanting.”
“You may quote me in saying I find his judgement suspect.”
“Thank you, I shall. Their departure is in three weeks; my letter shall return in one. If my father responds, which I think is unlikely, I shall not reach him again before Lydia is off in Brighton.” Elizabeth mulled over this idea. “I shall have to remind Jane of the cost of Lydia’s bad behavior. I hate to do it, but Jane can be firm when she is convinced she is in the right.”
“I think that wise; one must never go to battle without reinforcement.”
The letters to her father and Jane were speedily dispatched. To Mary she appealed for wisdom on the folly of pleasure jaunts, to Kitty she hinted at the unfairness of such a scheme, to her aunt Gardiner she complained of the impropriety of Colonel Forster’s response. This seemed not quite enough of a force against Lydia’s obstinacy, so Elizabeth spent an entire morning crafting a very careful letter to her mother, a letter she considered a masterstroke in having proximity on a page supply links that otherwise did not exist:
Dear Mama,
I was alarmed to hear talk of Lydia going to Brighton with Mrs. Forster. A regiment in summer campaign is a very different affair from a winter quartering, as I can now well attest. There are times when I feel unequal to its rigors; I cannot think Lydia, who is but sixteen, and has never had my enthusiasm for long walks, can manage.
I have had a letter from Col. Fitzwilliam’s ward, Miss Darcy, who writes that she and her brother mean to summer with the Bingleys.
Col. Fitzwilliam thinks we cannot leave Spain until November, at the earliest. I do not really regret anything but the idea Jane could be married before I return. She would feel it exceedingly if even one of her sisters were absent; two would probably send her into a steep decline.
She added some trivial gossip of the camp, that she and Lady Greville, whose husband mismanaged the First Brigade, were once again at odds; that she and Mrs. Kirke had by now a surfeit of medieval ruins; that Colonel Fotheringay’s wife Saanvi was expecting, and closed with her love, and a hint that when she was in England, and once more had access to her pin money, she might do something for Mary and Lydia.
***
After the initial period of adjustment, Elizabeth found herself wildly happy on the march, in the company of the (foreign-born) ladies of the division, in the scrambling parties up the mountains, and in the dusty explorations of what medieval buildings and sites survived the wars. Salamanca she had passed on a hill by the medical tent inattentively rolling bandages with some of the other officers’ wives, and getting up frequently to observe the battle below. Even with her rudimentary understanding of military tactics she had been impressed with Wellington's command. Colonel Dunne also, under the pressure of so hot an action, had allowed her to treat some of the lesser wounds of the soldiers, that required no unseemly baring of limbs before a lady, and could be fixed with bandages or sticking plasters. The assistant surgeons were not very pleased by this, as it struck dangerously close to the new French method of triage, and they held any French medical technique to be unpatriotic in the extreme. They had always treated men as they came, no matter the severity of the injury. Why should they follow the French method of sorting out men based on whose injuries were worse? But they could not very well go against the wishes of two colonels and a colonel’s wife; they grumbled but gave in.
The siege of Burgos Elizabeth found tedious, but less so than being snowed in at Longbourne. She picked up the habit of writing long, witty letters to everyone she knew, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s relations included.
To Elizabeth's surprise, Georgiana sent letters about as often as Jane. Georgiana’s letters were careful and full of stock phrases from letter writing manuals. When these failed her, she relied on, “my brother says,” or “my brother thinks” to fill up the page. Elizabeth often joked that, by extension, Mr. Darcy was her most faithful correspondent.
Lydia sent a letter every day for two weeks when she was denied her trip to Brighton, until Elizabeth, exasperated, wrote back that in two or three years time, she would sponsor Lydia to China, in order to find her soulmate. This caused more trouble than it was worth. Kitty and Mary both wrote to complain, her mother wrote to ask why she could not send Lydia immediately, and was so much a stranger to logic she could not understand why her suggestions on how to arrange and finance this were physically impossible. This drove Elizabeth to give up on writing as frequently, and to instead brave the rain and mud to visit the small villages around Burgos to purchase enough Spanish lace to send to all her female relations, in lieu of letters. Mrs. Kirke was of an equally active disposition and was her frequent accomplice on these expeditions. Elizabeth was somewhat surprised at how heartily both colonels supported their endeavors until she realized just how frightened the populace— particularly the women— were of having so many soldiers so close at hand. The visits of two colonel’s wives with awkward Spanish did a certain amount of good; their interest in and purchase of the handiwork of the village women significantly more. It was a pity, Mrs. Kirke often said, that everyone’s pay was four months in arrears. They would have bought the goodwill of every parish around Burgos if they had the coin for it.
When they were not entertaining themselves, there were the modified society entertainments put on wherever two or more English ladies and gentlemen were gathered together: dinners, balls, and card parties. The locations, be they tents or local homes commandeered by the British Army as billets, perhaps provided a more picaresque setting, but Elizabeth was amused to see how little they varied from the entertainments of Hertfordshire. Lady Grenville even supplied all the smiling malice of Miss Bingley. Elizabeth took great pleasure in despising her, and phrasing insults so prettily, this lady often accepted them as compliments.
To call the dinners “dinners,” however, was to be generous to the point of falsehood. Neither Spain nor Portugal could give itself over to farming while being so frequent a battlefield; there were no attempts at removes of courses; to have meat enough for all to have a portion was a triumph. The siege was bad on both sides of the walls of Burgos. Though she consoled herself in the knowledge that she ate much better and more regularly than the common soldiers, Elizabeth thought often and longingly of the table her mother kept at Longbourn.
‘ Dining during a siege is very different from the full tables and four and twenty families of Meryton,’ Elizabeth had written to her father, ‘ but at least there is the same ratio of sense to folly.’
The Major General of the 7th Division was one such case. No one respected the Major General, least of all the competent colonels of regiments, all of whom had been in the Peninsula since ‘08 and had generally earned each promotion in the ranks. They all had good reason to despise their commander: he did not know how to march.
On Elizabeth's first retreat (from Burgos back to Portugal), the Major General decided not to follow the route ordered by the Viscount of Wellington because it was too wet, took another, could not find the bridge, and, in his bewilderment, decided just to wait on the bank instead of finding an alternate route... thus causing the entire division of nearly six thousand men to go missing. The incandescent fury amongst the colonels was hilarious to behold. Elizabeth had seen Colonel Fitzwilliam angry before, but was delighted to see that when he lost his temper, he was not, like some men, mean or violent or sulky or loud. He was unguardedly sarcastic.
“Welcome to the army, where if they find a man too useless even for the militia they make him a major general,” he griped, when Elizabeth, appointed a scout by the ladies’ wagon, had ridden up to where the colonel and the other senior officers of the second brigade had clustered on a ridge, to better observe the mass of confused men lined up on the bank.
Colonel Kirke, whose regiment marched behind Colonel Fitzwilliam, rode up then saying, “Fitzwilliam, why aren't we going forward?”
“Incompetence,” replied he.
“Major incompetence?” asked Elizabeth. “Or general?”
“Both,” replied her husband. “Of course he would pick a route with no bridge. The road was too wet? How about a river crossing with no bridge? That is not in the least wet.”
“And he has... just decided to do nothing now there is no bridge,” said Colonel Kirke, with furrowed brow and bewildered aspect.
“The total absence of bridge is too much for him,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “There should be a bridge, but there is not. What a shock! We must go over this curious absence of bridge for the rest of the day in order to really understand it. For God’s sake, does he want the French to catch up and attack us?”
“He might,” said Colonel Kirke, dryly. “For after all, we nearly missed Salamanca thanks to his navigational skills. He must want his share of glory, same as any other division commander.”
“Do you think he consults maps?” asked the colonel of heavy infantry.
“I don't think he knows what they are,” replied the colonel of the light infantry. “He's managed to be in Spain this long without picking up a word of the language.”
“That is not true,’” replied the colonel of heavy infantry. “He knows ‘siesta.’ He appears to be taking one now.”
The colonel of the Portuguese division came galloping back from his conference with the first division’s colonels and managed to convey, through eloquent hand gestures and less eloquent English, that Wellington was approaching. The complete absence of six thousand men and officers could not be ignored.
Wellington and several aides-de-campe rode up to them on the ridge, splattering mud and curses in equal measure.
“Colonels,” said Wellington, inclining his head.
They all bowed from the saddle, a trick Elizabeth admired and had no idea how to imitate.
“Might I inquire just what you are doing?”
The colonels looked at each other and the eldest officer, the colonel of the light infantry, replied, “Comparing orders, sir.”
“Ah. And what discrepancies have you gentlemen found?”
The colonel of the light infantry cleared his throat significantly before saying, “It is not my place to critique either set of orders, sir.”
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said General Wellington, turning towards her. “I had expected to next see you in a ballroom in Lisbon. Might I inquire what you are instead doing on this ridge?”
Elizabeth felt vaguely self-conscious. It was easy to be witty on indifferent subjects, for a quarter hour in a ballroom; to be deft enough to give information on insubordination and mismanagement without being insubordinate herself, or having it seem her husband was questioning orders from a superior officer, struck her as absurdly difficult. She gestured at the scene below to gain time, when inspiration struck. “Admiring the view, sir. It is picturesque in the extreme.”
“If you mean the foreground of full of perplexed cattle,” said His Grace, casting a critical eye at the milling troops below, “you are not far wrong, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
“That, sir, and the requisite ruined bridge. A composition more fastidious than correct, but we poor subjects in the second distance cannot question how the painter chose to set us down. We can only remain as we are and look about in perplexity, hoping a master will come and fix any errors in placement.”
Wellington caught all the inferences of this and groaned. “Good God,” said he. “This is an infamous army!” He gave several swift orders to his aides-de-campe before tipping his bicorn to Elizabeth. “I thank you for the lecture in the picturesque, Mrs. Fitzwilliam; it is become sadly rare to find anyone with any wit about ‘em and you are full up with it.”
All six riders remaining on the ridge watched with interest as Wellington galloped to the Major General and said absolutely nothing. He merely pointed.
(“You did not say anything, sir?” Elizabeth later asked, when they were all safely in the expected ballroom in Lisbon.
“My dear Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” replied he, “what really could be said?”)
The great mass of men below began sluggishly to shift, to order itself, to regroup and redirect. The aides-de-campe spread out and chivied on each company, like gleaming red and gold bulldogs.
“Good old hook nose,” said the Portuguese colonel, with satisfaction.
“Er, best not to repeat that phrase in General Wellesley’s hearing, sir,” said Colonel Kirke.
“I must echo Colonel Kirke’s advice,” agreed Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But I commend your grasp of idiom, Colonel Algarve.” He turned to wink at Elizabeth, saying, “Well done, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I thought I had married the wittiest person of my acquaintance, but it is a pleasant thing to have the Viscount of Wellington confirm it.”
“My blushes, Colonel Fitzwilliam!”
“Careful as you go, madame,” said the colonel of heavy infantry. “We have wasted a great deal of time, and I daresay we shall be much harried by the French cavalry tomorrow.”
“Wellington is come, I cannot think we are in such dire straits as that,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. Colonel Kirke nodded.
The colonel of heavy infantry shook his head. “That hardly matters, the time has still been lost. He shall set us to match in the right direction, but those Frenchies are devilish fast, and they know the countryside.”
“They have to,” said the Portuguese colonel, spitting out a wad of tobacco. “They live off it.”
“And it is impossible to disguise the march of an entire division; they shall catch up with us. Tell the ladies not to separate from each other, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth did so, but as they were not harried that evening, or the day after, she began to think Colonel Fitzwilliam had the right of it; Wellington had corrected their division in time. But, that evening, when there was a break in the rain, the baggage train came under attack. Elizabeth had been riding before the bulk of the wagons, side by side with Mrs. Kirke, and found herself wishing that she had not so trusted in her steed’s phlegmatic temperament and instead learnt to keep a better seat. Even poor Lord Orville could not fail to be startled by the suddenness and nearness of the mass of horses and guns and for some minutes, as Elizabeth more-or-less jumped from her horse and scrambled to get away from its mad rolls upon the ground, she was quite convinced that her horse was dead, and she was more anxious at the expense of replacing him than about the French troops attacking.
“Lizzy!” called Mrs. Kirke, anxiously.
“Here!” Elizabeth gasped out.
“Shelter in the wagons!”
This seemed good advice. She had to run quite a ways, and through a great deal of mud, to find one that was not being shot at, but she at last leapt onto one that was surrounded by redcoats and that people were taking care not to hit.
Elizabeth realized why very quickly.
She was surrounded by barrels of gunpowder.
There were two thoughts that fought through the morass of fear and confusion: one, the supply wagons were now separated from each other, and worse of all, the bulk of the regiment ahead of them; and, two, that she was hiding in a powder wagon while enemy troops were firing. Elizabeth felt very keenly her bad luck in having been separated from Mrs. Kirke, who had probably had cause to hide in numerous powder wagons during her long career in the army.
As Elizabeth was roughly six months a colonel’s wife she had little experience upon which she could fall; indeed, she became rather vexed that her wrist should ever read ‘Fitzwilliam.’ If it were not for him, she might be sitting at home in Longbourne, listening to Lydia and Kitty argue and Mary murder Mozart at the instrument—
“Marriage to Colonel Fitzwilliam brought me that benefit, at least,” said Elizabeth, to herself. “But what is to be done now?”
It was vital to her to escape the powder wagon before any kind of shot sparked it, and killed her. The danger was very real; the driver and his team of four horses had already cut and run.
Before she could decide on the fittest course of action, she heard the cessation of gunshots, and someone calling out in French. No officers seemed to be by this part of the supply train; Elizabeth heard the redcoats all murmur their confusion in English. She leapt down quickly from the wagon, and endeavoring to put as much space between herself and the powder barrels as possible, ran up nearly against a line of British foot soldiers. The captains had drilled the men into forming empty squares so often the men had unthinkingly formed one, around the last two powder wagons of the train, several upset mules carrying flour, and a wagon filled with meat from all the cattle slaughtered before the retreat.
The quartermaster's wife, hiding behind this last, made a frantic gesture at Elizabeth to come hide with her; Elizabeth was nearly by her side when the French officer, recognizing the expensive cut and cloth of Elizabeth’s riding habit, called out, “Madame, I beg you will instruct your husband to surrender these mules and these wagons! We shall let you go along your way if you do.”
“How generous,” Elizabeth muttered, but now everyone was looking at her and she could not run. With reluctance, she walked away from the quartermaster’s wife and stood before the beef wagon, near the driver’s seat, six feet and two redcoats away from the French. She looked over the line of shakos at the French officer. He was not much older than her, and looked very tired and rather thin. The men behind him were not in much better condition.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had mentioned the French had been having trouble supplying troops in both Russia and Spain; Elisabeth was somewhat surprised to see how true this was and briefly considered turning over the wagon behind her. Then she realized the officer was looking hungrily at the powder wagons, rather than at any of the stores.
“Sir, I am sorry but I cannot hear you,” said Elizabeth, in her clumsy schoolroom French. She spoke quite loudly, so she might be heard over the panicked squeals of the horses and donkeys. “What do you want?”
“We wish for you to surrender these supplies, madame...?”
“Fitzwilliam,” Elizabeth supplied.
The French officer looked puzzled at this name. Elizabeth tried to recall any French words with ‘tz’ in them, and said uncertainly, “My husband is not here.”
The officer said, “Ah, your husband is Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
Though Elizabeth reminded herself that it only stood to reason that a French officer would know the names of the commanding officers of the battalions sent against his own, her first thought was ‘Oh God, they have fought him already.’
The officer said, “We have had the pleasure of meeting Colonel Fitzwilliam already, have we not, Lieutenant?”
The thin, mousy lieutenant beside the first officer looked momentarily confused before saying, “Ah, the colonel at the head of the column. Yes, captain, we fought with him already.”
“You shot him off his horse, I seem to recall.”
“Indeed, I did, captain.”
For a moment, Elizabeth thought she might faint, or burst into tears, but she did neither. She merely asked, very woodenly, “Indeed, sir, where was this?”
“Up the road, madame,” said the captain, sorrowfully. “It was a pity to shoot him, but we are soldiers; we must kill each other or betray the sacred trust our governments have placed upon us.”
The thought then occurred to Elizabeth: ‘Surely, if Richard were dead, I would know? We are soulmates, that must imply a bond beyond the traditional.’ It seemed to her a very good idea indeed to test this. If the captain were lying, and had never actually met Colonel Fitzwilliam, much less fought with him, he would agree to anything Elizabeth said about Colonel Fitzwilliam-- especially if it were a lie said as if it were true. A missing limb seemed plausible enough.
She therefore asked, in a trembling voice, “Did he die...?” The adverb escaped her. “Brave? He was always brave. He did not cry out when they cut his arm off at Salamanca.”
“Indeed, madame,” the captain hastened to assured her. “He died in a manner both honorable and courageous.”
His lieutenant agreed, "Indeed, madam, he fought as if he had both his arms."
This was the most plausible thing either French officer had said, for, as Colonel Fitzwilliam had all his limbs, he certainly fought as if he still had possession of all of them.
‘Thank God,’ thought Elizabeth, putting a hand over her mouth, to hide a very inappropriate smile. She nearly laughed with relief but had to turn away and pretend to be having hysterics instead.
“I am sorry,” said the captain, kindly, “this news is a shock.”
Elizabeth was not a very good actress, but she was a spirited one, and talented at improvisation; she had lost her gloves somewhere, and let the captain see the ‘Fitzwilliam’ on her wrist as mounted the driver’s seat of the wagon and reached for the lantern hanging there.
The captain began to look uncertain as to his course.
‘Good,’ thought Elizabeth. She had not liked that he had underestimated her, or that he had lied about her husband, and she was always, spitefully provoked into retaliation when someone tried to intimidate her.
She quite unnecessarily said, “Colonel Fitzwilliam was my soulmate, you know.”
“I had not known, madame,” said the captain, beginning to be actively worried.
“My soulmate,” Elizabeth repeated, pretending to be fascinated with her wrist.
“Euuuuuuh,” said the captain. The men behind him were beginning to shift uneasily.
Elizabeth saw the men before her start to do the same thing. They greatly respected her, as the Colonel’s Wife, but they did not know her, or how she would act.
“I feel,” said Elizabeth, struggling with the conjugation, “I am died. I am dead? I am dead with him.”
“What—”
Elizabeth, lantern in hand, turned her back on him and winked at the quartermaster’s wife. This lady looked considerably puzzled before Elizabeth hopped down and began walking with grim aspect and quick step towards the powder wagons.
In Spanish more fluent than Elizabeth’s, the quartermaster’s wife cried out, “Run you fools, she means to blow up the powder wagons!” Then, in the same tone but in English she called, “Stand your positions, men, the colonel’s wife has a plan!”
The French captain began to really panic, but was held off by the British soldiers, and, unsupported by his own, who had begun to realize just what the English milady was about, had no recourse but to cry, “Madam, there is no need for this!”
Elizabeth wanted to mangle Horatio's line about being more an antique Roman than a Dane, to inform the captain she was more an ancient Egyptian than an Englishwoman, and if she was going to die, she was going to take as many people with her as possible. Alas, her French was insufficient for the task. She could only say, in throbbing accents, “I do not care if I die now, if I can take with me the men who murdered my husband!”
She was by now uncomfortably close to the first powder wagon and shot the quartermaster's wife a look of mute appeal.
This good lady rushed through the mules to Elizabeth, setting them all to braying. She cried out in Spanish, “The lady means it, you had better run!” She pretended to seize Elizabeth, as Elizabeth drew back her arm to throw the lantern, and helpfully added, “Oh God she is determined! I do not know how long I can hold her!”
The French foot soldiers had always known the English were mad, and at this new proof of it, lost no time in running away. The infantry obligingly fired on the retreating French, which provided at least some of the promised explosions. The quartermaster’s wife continued to shout in Spanish until the French were far distant, at which point she switched to English and said, “There now, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, they’re gone— and let me just... move you from the powder wagons and take the lantern— thank you.”
Elizabeth gave over the lantern at once, and was very glad to see the quartermaster’s wife carefully taking it back to the other wagon. Elizabeth had to sit down on the crosstrees of the nearest powder wagon from actual weakness.
“There, there, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said the quartermaster's wife, taking a seat beside her, and patting her shoulder. “It is over now and you showed yourself well. I think I caught some of that, but what did they say to you, that they believed you would blow up the wagon?”
“Yes, they did.”
The quartermaster’s wife gave this information to the nearest corporal, who was long at debating whether or not his men should stay all in formation, or if one should be sent ahead to report in to that squadron's lieutenant. Elizabeth would have preferred him to report into Colonel Fitzwilliam but did not think it right to so circumvent military order as to make the smallest, quickest private chosen for this mission speak to so august a personage as a Colonel.
The private being sent off to his lieutenant, the quartermaster's wife turned her attention back to Elizabeth. “I shall fetch you a dram of brandy and you shall be better presently. Just sit and breathe, madame.”
Elizabeth did so, and felt considerably better, especially as she soon heard a corporal tell his men, “Look sharp, there's an officer coming!”
She reasoned with herself that Colonel Fitzwilliam had duties greater than securing his regiment's powder wagons but as she watched horse and rider approach she realized it was him, and was so glad she nearly cried.
As soon as he saw her, he sprang off his horse and swept her up in his arms. “Lizzy, thank God!”
She was too frazzled to speak but accepted his embrace with very real relief.
The colonel pulled back and scanned her anxiously for any injury. Elizabeth did the same. He was muddy but uninjured; indeed, only the derangement of his uniform, a new dent in his metal gorget, and a rip on his sleeve spoke to his engagement in the recent attack. “Are you quite well? The French soldiers were shouting that a mad Englishwoman was threatening to blow up the powder wagons, and I thought—”
“You thought of me?” asked Elizabeth. “Oh darling! I’m flattered.”
The hands formerly resting on her shoulders now gripped them anxiously. “My dear, did you threaten to blow up the powder wagons?”
“Only two of them,” said Elizabeth. “This was a resistance motivated by spite rather than insanity. A French captain told me that his lieutenant had killed you. A very little probing proved this a lie, so I thought to offer up a more dramatic lie, that I was so deranged with grief I would blow up the powder wagons. I was very ably assisted in this by the quartermaster’s wife. I wish you will mention her in the dispatches.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam stared at her in mild disbelief. “Lizzy, you realize the French almost entirely abandoned their attack on my regiment because you threatened to set fire to enough powder to destroy the whole baggage train?”
“No,” said she thoughtfully. “I had no idea the wagons might cause that large of an explosion. I suppose in my inexperience I was a little too enthusiastic, but—”
The colonel was now helpless with laughter.
“I thought I was being very clever,” she said, in a mock injured tone.
“You were, my darling,” he managed to get out, kissing her forehead. “My God! You are not too shaken?”
“Oh no, the quartermaster’s wife gave me a little brandy de Jerez and I was quite fine. I have, however, lost my horse, gloves, and hat. Have you any notion where any of them might be?”
He waved absently at some of the men clustered about them to go back to their tasks, saying,”I think your gloves and hat are an honorable casualty of this skirmish, but Mrs. Kirke has your horse. I was very certain my heart stopped when I saw you were not on it.” Seeing that this distressed her, he changed the subject, and began brushing the crust of dried mud off the right side of her riding habit. “Lizzy, you are all over dirt. Did you fall off your horse?”
“Yes,” said she, and suddenly laughed.
“Amused you were finally right about being thrown from Lord Orville?”
“No,” she replied, “A gentlewoman of my acquaintance once accused me of looking quite savage for having muddy petticoats. I really do wonder what she would think of me now!”
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