Page 45 of The Lady's Companion
“No wonder! Did he yank you out of bed?” Lady Bushnell asked as she arranged the letters, some right side up, some not.
Susan felt her face grow warm. “It’s a good thing I don’t sleep in just a chemise.”
“Or less!” Lady Bushnell said, joining the fun. “I have an idea. My daughter and I used to read together in bed.” She made a move to pull back the coverlet.
“The we shall, too, is that is your wish,” Susan declared, “but first a lamp.” She brought the lamps from the desk and dressing table and put them on Lady Bushnell’s nightstand. “Very good.” She added more coal to the fire, then climbed in bed with Lady Bushnell, wondering what David Wiggins would think if he could see them. And where are you, David? she asked herself. Please hurry with the doctor.
The widow lay still, her eyes closed, exhausted by the double exertion of speech and confession. She opened them when Susan slid into bed beside her, then closed her eyes again.
Susan looked at the letters, righting the upside-down ones, reading the salutations. “These are mainly letters to your daughter?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, this batch,” the widow said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. “For a while, she lived in a convent school in Lisbon. There are some letters from my husband, when he served inIndia with Wellington and I was left to chafe in Calcutta with a baby while he took to the field. Charles was born in India.”
“I would like to travel someday,” Susan said.
“No, you wouldn’t, my dear,” said the widow, amused. “You’ll be a wonderful homebody.”
Susan smiled, and pulled out another letter. “And here is one from your son.” She squinted at the date and title. “Louisiana? My goodness.”
“Wretched place, wretched battle,” Lady Bushnell muttered. “Trust Americans to hide behind cotton bales! Can you imagine?” She sighed, and shook her head. “Don’t read that one. I think that too little cannot be said about the Battle of New Orleans.” She make a dismissing gesture. “I want to hear of Spain.”
“Very well, my lady,” Susan said, tucking the letter from Louisiana at the bottom of the pile. “Here is one. ‘Retreat from Burgos, somewhere west and south of Salamanca, November, 1812,’” she read.
“That one, yes, that one. “Lady Bushnell murmured.
Susan moved the lamp closer to the letter, cleared her throat and began. “’My darling Lizzie, how happy I am that you are well and safe in Lisbon, even if you are not intrigued by Pythagoras and profess that Latin is a humbug and you cannot tell verbs from objects.’” Susan looked at Lady Bushnell. “I gather she was in school then?”
The widow nodded, a slight smile on her face. “And loathing every moment of it! After the third time she ran away to join us on campaign, Edward relented and let her stay. Please continue.”
Amused, Susan read on. “’We have been retreating and retreating. For all that Hookey says that a good general knows when to retreat and to dare to do it, I am heartily weary of it. Such a sad business. we leave so much behind to lighten theload. We endure everlasting hardtack, acorns mashed, boiled, sautéed and stewed, and endless pork barely cooked enough to stop the squeal. The rains put out the fire before anything is well done.’”
Susan looked up from the page. “Acorns?”
“They taste surprisingly like roasted chestnuts. Read on.”
“’We have blown each bridge we cross, the last one a Roman structure at Valladolid. Think how that would have bothered your grandfather, Latin scholar that he was.’”
“Not Lady Elizabeth, however,” Susan said to Lady Bushnell.
“No. That child was only happy in the saddle,” the widow said, her features more relaxed now. “Excuse me, Susan, but Edward once wondered if we could have conceived her on horseback. I told him he was dreaming, of course! But she was a daughter of the regiment. If only our son Charles…” she began, then stopped.
Susan thought of the bailiff’s remarks about young Lord Bushnell, Lizzie’s brother. So Lizzie had a heart for combat and Charles did not? she reflected, looking at the letter again and finding her place.
“Here’s where I stopped, Lady Bushnell. ‘It is wine country. Between Burgos and Salamanca we have passed any number of vats full of the harvest. Finally, one dragoon could stand it no more. He fired his pistol into a vat. Others did the same. You should have seen the men break ranks and line up at the bullet holes like pigs to teats! Your father brought me a drink from his hat.’”
“It was so good that I happily overlooked the fragrance of hair tonic,” Lady Bushnell remembered, her voice dreamy now. “I wanted more, and Sergeant Wiggins gave me half of his. In a tin cup,” she added, chuckling. “He always had a good sense of what was proper.”
Susan turned over the letter and continued. “’I will send this from Salamanca, if it is possible. Do study harder, my love, andtry not to chafe the nuns so much. Love and kisses, Mama.’”
“I sent it on with Wellington’s dispatches from Salamanca,” Lady Bushnell explained, her voice more energetic now, as if she gathered strength from the old letters.
She struggled to sit up, and Susan fluffed the pillows behind her. “Then we started the worst part of the journey, Susan. The French were everywhere, trying to beat us to Ciudad Rodrigo and the border. Look for that letter. I believe it is dated December 10, 1812.”
Susan shuffled through the letters. “Here it is. ‘Dearest Lizzie, It is mud all day and all night. We sleep in it, the men march in it, we drink it. We are hounded by chasseurs, who cause such trouble in the rear. We were cut off yesterday and forced to hide in the woods until dark. Corporal Frasier even gave me a loaded pistol. We moved faster after that, stopping for nothing. Sergeant Wiggins’ woman was in labor then, and we dared not halt. I think I will hear her in my sleep, moaning and screaming in that springless baggage cart.’”
Susan put down the letter, her mind and heart in turmoil. I was seventeen years old that winter, she thought, living warm and safe and still hopeful of a come out. My biggest worry was whether I would get a blue dress or a pink one for Christmas.
“What happened?” she asked, not caring if Lady Bushnell heard the ragged edge to her voice.
