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.