Page 70 of The Lady's Companion
“I don’t know that I can forgive him,” Susan said honestly.
“In time, my dear, in time,” the widow whispered, then closed her eyes, weary even of conversation.
It was a week of almost superhuman effort for Lady Bushnell. The widow dictated only in short sentences, her hand pressed to her chest most of the time, as if to block out continual pain. She called David sergeant now, and through her own grief, Susan was not sure that she even knew him as bailiff anymore.
“I cannot bear it,” she told her husband on the stairs as they went up after dinner to sit with her.
“You must, of course, Suzie,” he murmured, his arm around her. “I was so busy with the barley harvest today, I forgot to ask you at dinner: Is she almost done with the reminiscence?”
“We finished it this afternoon, David. It’s over now.” She began to cry.
He sat with her on the stairs, his arms around her until she could dry her eyes, square her shoulders, and march into the room with him.
To her surprise, Lady Bushnell was sitting in her chair by thewindow, the mound of letters in her lap, and the green case with the Waterloo medal on top.
“I’m tired of this room,” she announced, and to Susan’s relief, her voice sounded strong again. “Sergeant, I want you to take me out to that slope. Susan, you go ask Tom the cowman to take the chair. Sergeant, you can carry me.” As she smiled at him, the years seemed to tumble from her shoulders. “I remember that you carried me once, didn’t you? After Bussaco, when the river was high?”
“I did.”
Susan didn’t dare look at him. She knew that voice.
They did as she ordered, Tom carrying the chair and putting it where David quietly directed. Tom nodded to the widow and hurried back down the slope, shaking his head. The bailiff set Lady Bushnell in the chair, still clutching her precious letters and the medal case.
She was silent as she looked over the Waterloo wheat, watching it dance in the early evening breeze. It had returned, as its planter had predicted, battered but whole, the grain heads heavy now with the fruit of summer. Here and there were bare patches where the pounding had been too great, but the rest of the field stood and waved its own challenge to the elements.
“You were right about the wheat,” Lady Bushnell said, reaching up her hand for the bailiff to hold it “You are not always right, though. I ask one thing more of you, Sergeant Wiggins.”
“Pues, le pídame, dama,” he said, surprisingly, in his bad Peninsula Spanish.
She flashed him a smile that stripped away more years, until Susan had to turn away to keep her heart from cracking in two. Lady Bushnell, I love you so much, she thought. You are the bravest of the brave.
“Was I wrong to send Charlie to the regiment? Was he a coward at Waterloo? Be truthful now, you rascal, I beg of you.”
Susan bowed her head and looked away from the wheat to the field beyond, where the sun was starting to set. Please, David, do the right thing, she petitioned in silence.
“Yes, you were wrong. He was a coward and unfit to command us at Waterloo,” David said, his voice low and wrenched out of his body by the roots. “A lesser engagement he could have handled, but not Waterloo. We stayed alive because of Colonel March.”
“And you?”
“And me. And the other sergeants who didn’t make it out.”
It was a lot to digest, and Susan was not surprised at the silence from the chair. She turned around and leaned against David’s back. “Thank you a thousand times,” she murmured against his shirt. When she felt him tense, she knew Lady Bushnell was struggling to speak. She closed her eyes and listened with her heart.
“Do you think Charlie will understand that I only did what I thought was best?” she asked, in a voice destroyed with grief. “He was born into a family of warriors, so he had to be one, too. The times demanded it. Didn’t they, sergeant?”
“Sí, dama.”
“But tell me please, was he shot by his own? I have heard it rumored, no matter how you’ve tried to protect me. I must know all, Sergeant.”
“No, my lady. He died in battle. He was not shot by his own.” Lady Bushnell sighed then, a great sound of relief. “Thank God for that.” Her voice changed then, taking on authority. “Very well, Sergeant, I wish you and your wife would leave me alone here until the sun goes down. Go away for a while.” She managed a chuckle. “Susan, you should have brought a blanket with you. I have seen from my window what you and the sergeant do, when the mood was on you, and you thought I was sleeping!”
Susan laughed, took her husband’s hand, and kissed it. “Thatonly encourages him. Come, Sergeant, let’s leave yourdamaalone for a time.”
He nodded, and released the widow’s hand. He kissed her on the cheek, pausing there a moment until she chuckled. “Sergeant, don’t you dare cry. I’ll lose all faith in the regular army, if you do! Kiss me, Susan.”
She did, determined not to cry.
“You weren’t much of a lady’s companion,” the woman murmured, her hand against Susan’s cheek. “You’ll never be a pianist, and I’m not sure modem novels are for me.”
