Page 69 of The Lady's Companion
“It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he replied. “Not by half.”
“Waterloo?” she murmured.
He kissed the top of her head. “Oh, no, Suzie, no. The worst sight in my whole life was your face on the stairs when I said those rude things.”
“But everyone knows how dreadful Waterloo was!”
He took her arm and started down the slope with her. “It was just a battle—granted, a huge ordeal—but still just a battle. I did my job, got my pay, and even a medal, too. But you’re my wife, and absolutely bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He kissed her muddy hand. “The two don’t compare.”
She could only sigh and stare at him. “David.”
“That’s it?” he asked after a longish pause.
“Yes. I can’t think of anything else to say.”
They moved slowly down the slope. She stopped at the bottom and looked back at the wheat. “Will you plow it under and try again next year?”
He gazed at the destruction, his lips pursed, nodding to himself. “I have a better idea, Suzie. I’m going to leave it alone, and see what happens.”
“David, it’s dead!”
He turned her around and started her toward the manor again. “Since I swiped that handful of wheat from the granary at La Haye Sainte, I’ve been tinkering with it, adding strains of strong wheat from around here, and from Yorkshire and Kent. Let’s see how sturdy it is. Call this my ultimate experiment, if you want.”
“It might come back?” she asked, then looked over her shoulder in amazement.
Amused, he pointed toward the manor. “Let’s give it time, Suzie. Like us.”
She tried not to spend too much time looking at the wheat throughout the month of July, but without much success. She moved the desk in Lady Bushnell’s room so she wasn’t facing the window anymore, and that helped, but evenings found her looking, even though her devotion to that battered field amused the bailiff.
“I think you’re more worried than I am,” he said one night when they were in bed, drowsy from a day of summer work.
She backed herself more firmly into his slack embrace and tugged his arm over her. “Since you don’t seem to consider this one of your major decisions to worry about—I will remind you of that conversation—then someone must!”
“Silly,” he said, idly massaging her breast, then resting his cheek on top of hers. “Then here’s a matter of major importance for you: I’m feeling a huge urge to give you my best efforts rightnow.”
“I can tell,” she said mildly. “Well, if you refuse to worry, then I suppose I should humor a lunatic.”
She did, of course, with the greatest of pleasure. When he slept beside her, warm and heavy, she thought about Lady Bushnell. Each day took them closer to the end of the reminiscence, and each day saw her grow weaker, but continue to soldier on.
Susan kissed David’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around him as he stirred and muttered something. Lady Bushnell knows the end is near, she thought. The widow had said as much to David only the day before as the two of them sat beside her bed as she dictated her story to Susan. They had finished the last battle on Spanish soil, and were beginning the march through the Pyrenees that would lead to death and the end of the colonel’s story. Susan could see how the ordeal exhausted her, but when the woman refused to quit, Susan pleaded a headache. I’m not lying, either, she thought. I don’t feel so good myself.
“Let’s stop now, Lady Bushnell, for I am tired, even if you are not,” she murmured.
“Very well, Susan,” the widow said. “You can get my powders now.”
Susan did as she was bid, but stood still by the bureau, glass in hand, when the widow motioned her bailiff closer. He sat on her bed then, his hands on either side of her in a gesture so intimate that Susan felt tears in her eyes. Oh, Lady B, are you father and mother to both of us? I have not been much of a lady’s companion, but you have been a parent to me... and my husband.
The widow put her hand on David’s cheek, while Susan swallowed the lump in her throat. “My dear sergeant,” she began, her voice so weary. “I will not pester you about Waterloo anymore.”
“I wish I could have obliged you, my dear.”
She patted his cheek. “I know.” She turned her head slightly for a glance that took in Susan, too. “I must accept the fact that I could not go everywhere my dear army went.”
In the week that followed, they were diverted momentarily by a letter from Aunt Louisa, thanking Lady Bushnell for sending three hundred pounds to keep her wretched brother from Newgate, and assuring them that it would never happen again.
“Until the next time,” Susan said when she folded the letter. “Oh, my lady, thank you for saving him.”
Lady Bushnell nodded. “You must deal with him next time, Susan, you and your husband, and I fear it will not be easy.” She patted Susan’s hand, her eyes wistful. “I hope you will learn, in time, to forgive him for ... for not meeting your expectations.” She sighed. “Few of us do, I fear.”
