by Lynn Morris
His eyes brightened. “You would? You mean, play with me, not just watch me play with them?”
“Of course I want to play, it wouldn’t be nearly so much fun just watching you.” She opened the wooden box with the specially designed slots that held the lead soldiers. “Oh, my, there are a lot of them, aren’t there? We could have a battle, couldn’t we?”
Promptly Alexander said, “I’ll be the English, and you be the French. You have to lose. Where can we have the battle?”
“I have an idea for a battlefield,” Mirabella said with sudden inspiration. Then she hesitated, looking Alexander up and down. He was wearing what was called a “skeleton suit,” a short coat with long sleeves, buttoned onto high-waisted trousers. It was olive green, with a white shirt underneath. She knew that if Alexander got dirty Clara would be extremely vexed. Then recklessly she thought, However can you raise a high-spirited boy like Alex and never let him get dirty? It’s absurd. Perhaps it won’t show too much on the olive green.
“Come along, I’ll show you.” Mirabella led him to one of the waist-high potting benches. It held a wide shallow wooden box filled with rich soil. Pulling up two high stools, she said, “I think we should make this into a battlefield. We can pile the dirt up to make ramparts, and ditches, and I have some thin wooden stakes we can break up to make fences.”
“Oh, yes, do let’s!” He waved a stubby hand around. “Can we have trees on the battlefield, too? Like in here?”
“I think I can do that. But first, here, let’s roll up your sleeves, since we’re going to be digging in dirt.”
“Mamma doesn’t like it when I get dirty,” he said cheerfully. “Does your mamma get upset when you get dirty?”
Mirabella said, “As a matter of fact she does. So I’m going to put on an apron, and I shall roll up my sleeves, too.”
They got very busy landscaping their battlefield, with the promised ramparts, trenches, fences, and even trees. Mirabella callously cut several small twig-ends of an orange tree, and stuck them in the ground. They made very credible trees.
Mirabella allowed Alexander to apportion out the soldiers. He did so, carefully considering whether each one was French or English. All forty of them were finely made, carefully detailed, and meticulously painted. Slowly, one by one, the British and French forces took their places on the field. Alex did at least allow Mirabella to arrange her own company of twenty men.
“These are all redcoats,” Alex grumbled. “I wish I had some soldiers that have green jackets like Captain Rosbo’s.” Alex rarely mispronounced words, and when he did, Clara strictly corrected him, insisting that she wasn’t going to allow him to “baby-babble.” But Mirabella had no such inclination, so she merely smiled.
“Yes, Captain Rosbo’s regimentals are handsome. But this is a fine set of toy soldiers, Alex, and you should be grateful to have them.”
“I know, Pappa says I have lots of things that other boys don’t,” he said meekly. “I do like my toy soldiers. When I grow up I want to be a soldier. Like Captain Rosbo, and wear green with silver buttons instead of red. I don’t want to be a lord.”
As Philip, the heir to the Marquess of Camarden, was entitled to his secondary title, Earl of Reynes, so Alexander, as the heir’s heir, was entitled to the third title, Baron Tirel. Although these were courtesy titles, it still meant that Alexander was Lord Tirel.
“I’m afraid you have no choice about being a lord,” Mirabella said with amusement. “But lords can be soldiers, too.”
“They can? That’s jolly. Now let’s have the battle. I’m going to attack you!”
Of course the English beat the French resoundingly, and then Alex decided he was going to be the French and Mirabella might be the English. He fought hard, but he still lost, as he insisted. They rearranged their soldiers and their battlefield and fought another two battles, with the inevitable outcome.
Alex looked up and around the conservatory. The sky was still a solid leaden dull gray, and when the fiercest gusts of wind blew, the rain slanted almost horizonally against the glassed north wall. He said, “This time the armies have to fight in the rain. It’s storming. Make a storm, Aunt Tirel, please? Please?”
Mirabella couldn’t deny Alexander anything, so she proceeded to make a storm.
The back garden door opened to a dismal sight. Giles came in, his top hat streaming water, his greatcoat soaked and dripping. Taking off his hat, he drained the slopping brim. Then he took off his greatcoat and shook it. Huge drops of water sprayed all around him. “Hullo,” he said cheerfully. “Wet day, ain’t it? Still, I suppose I’m not making any more of a mess than we did last Saturday.” He stopped and stared at Mirabella and Alexander. “I say, what’s all this about? You’ve planted toy soldiers, you’re watering them, and are now going to grow some new ones?”
He was viewing the extraordinary sight of Alex sitting on a stool, his hands covered in mud up to his elbows, a litter of soldiers and trees and fences wallowing around the mud-filled wooden box. Mirabella was on her knees on her stool, holding a watering can high above and sprinkling down great drops of water.
“Hello, Giles, gracious, you’re soaked,” Mirabella observed. “No, silly, can’t you see? There’s a battle going on, and there’s a big storm.”
“The English are winning. They have to,” Alex explained to Giles. “Aunt Mirabella has to do the storm, so I have to be both the French and the English, but the French don’t care if they lose.”
“I like your war philosophy, my lord,” Giles said, coming to stand over the battlefield.
“What’s phosphy?”
“That your Frenchmen don’t mind losing, and the English always win.” He gazed at Alex with amusement, and then looked Mirabella up and down. “You and Alex are a little, um, shall we say, disheveled?”
Mirabella looked down at her apron and Alex’s suit, which were both liberally spattered with mud, and their filthy hands. Shrugging, she said, “War is a dirty business.”
“Yes, so I see. So much so that you have a streak of mud on your cheek and a blob in your hair, and Alex has mud in and about his left ear.”
“Oh dear,” Mirabella moaned, climbing down from her stool. “Alex, perhaps we’d better get cleaned up before Nurse comes to get you for luncheon.”
“But I want to play soldiers some more,” he said plaintively. “Nurse is nice, but she just knits and watches me play. Nobody’s ever played with me except you, Aunt Mirabella.”
Mirabella and Giles exchanged rueful glances. “Can you resist that?” Mirabella asked.
“Not for the world. Alex, let’s say we let your Aunt Mirabella get the mud out of your ear, and wash your hands, and I’ll get us a new battlefield that’s not quite so stormy. Then we’ll split up your soldiers, and you can be the English, and I’ll be the Prussians, and together we’ll wallop the French.”
Alex considered this, then nodded. “Can I be the Ninety-Fif regimen? Like Captain Rosbo? And pretend I have green uniforms?”
“You certainly can, I’m sure Captain Rosbo would approve.”
The war lasted another hour, after which Nurse came to fetch Alexander for luncheon and a nap. Nurse Bignell was warm, motherly, and easygoing, and obviously adored Alex. She was precisely the opposite of the type of nurse Mirabella would have thought Clara would engage to take care of her son. Nurse clucked reprovingly when she saw the state of Alex’s suit, but she merely said, “Welladay, m’lor, we’ll be having to get you all scrubbed up this very minute, won’t we? Come along now.” Alex protested, but weakly. He was looking a little tired.
Mirabella and Giles went to wash their hands at the washbasin, for now Giles, too, had battle stains. Mirabella took off her apron and rolled down her sleeves. “I’m all mud-spattered, too. But it was well worth it. I’m going to go find a footman and order some tea. Will you join me?”
“I’d like that, thank you. But before you do—will you allow me?” He stepped close and gently pulled on a thick tendril of Mirabe
lla’s hair. “You got most of it, but one blob is stubbornly hanging on.” After much patient threading of her hair through his dampened fingers, he finally got the last speck of mud out. “Sorry, I fear I’ve completely annihilated that fetching curl. Shall I call Colette to make repairs?” Giles asked mischievously.
“Certainly not, I’m already dreading what she’s going to say when she sees my sleeves. Excuse me for a moment.” She left and returned quickly. “Tea is on the way. Let’s sit down before we clean up the battlefield, shall we? I’m always amazed at how weary one can get after playing with a three-year-old for only two hours. And Alex goes full bore like that all day, every day. No wonder Nurse doesn’t play with him, it’s a wonder she can stay conscious.”
“He’s so bright, you know. With such an active mind, it takes a lot to keep him occupied. I must say your battlefield idea was brilliant. It shows that you’re bright, too.”
“Hardly, you know very well that it’s exactly the same way we used to play with your toy soldiers, only outside in the dirt,” Mirabella scoffed.
“But you thought of the storm, that was creative. If a little messy.”
“Speaking of the storm, what are you doing out in it? What a perfectly abysmal day to be out riding.”
Giles shrugged. “I prefer being outdoors, even on days like this. At least, for long enough to ride over to see you. Also, your conservatory is as close to the outdoors as an enclosed room can possibly be. I enjoy it, even when you make me help you with your flowers.”
“Which you are going to be obliged to do today. Last Saturday I neglected the flowers for the church shamefully, since you lured me into going fishing with you. This week all of the bouquets need to be replenished.”
Giles grumbled, “I don’t mind grubbing in the dirt, weeding and planting and potting and re-potting and re-re-potting with you. But I refuse to do flower arrangements. Men don’t do that.”
“I could teach you. You’re quite astute, you’d catch on quickly.”
“Thank you so much. I’ll put it on the list of things I wish to learn before I die. So that should put flower-arranging at about, mm, when I’m eighty-three.”
“I look forward to it.”
Two footmen came in, each bearing a wide silver tray. Regardless of the time of day, or whether one person or the entire family ordered tea, Madame Danton’s teas were always feasts. Aside from the tea tray, the second tray held dishes with four different kinds of scones, filbert, sultana, and lemon biscuits, and puff pastries filled with almond cream, and one dish held assorted dried fruits arranged in the shape of an ornate flower. Mirabella dismissed the footmen and poured while Giles began to help himself to the confections.
Mirabella asked, “So where is Captain Rosbo today? He didn’t want to ride out and get thoroughly drenched?”
“He said he’d had quite enough of slogging around in the mud in the last five years, and that I was a pure fool to do it without being under orders to do so. When I left he was in his sock feet, sitting in my favorite armchair before the fire, reading Lord Nelson’s memoirs.”
“Naval memoirs?” Mirabella said with surprise. “I would have thought he would read books about the army.”
“He says that reading about the life of seamen makes him feel better about being a soldier. I agree with that viewpoint wholeheartedly, although I can hardly imagine the life of either. Still, to be in foreign lands for years, fighting a war, seems to me to be preferable to being confined on a ship for years fighting a war. What a nightmare.”
“It’s a good thing our jolly tars don’t feel that way. If I understand it correctly, our navy is the prime reason that England is such a preeminent world power.”
Giles nodded approvingly. “You do understand correctly. If we didn’t have such a strong navy, we could hardly defend this tiny island from invasion. Also, we wouldn’t be able to transport our massive land army to those foreign lands to fight these wars that keep us preeminent. Of course that’s another topic altogether, as we’ve often discussed. Our history of almost continuous warfare. As you said, war is a dirty business.”
Mirabella was gratified that Giles was not the kind of man who thought that ladies should have no knowledge, or opinions, about anything besides ladylike pursuits. He always listened to her, and treated her with respect when they discussed serious topics.
“It is, but I don’t wrestle too much with fervently hoping that we soundly defeat Napoleon. He’s a tyrant and a bully, even to his own people. A toast: Confusion to Bonaparte!” Giles echoed it, and they clinked their teacups together.
Then Mirabella sobered and said, “Giles, I shouldn’t like to pry, or ask you to betray a confidence, but I can’t help but wonder about Lewin. Can you tell me what’s happened to him?”
Giles frowned down into his teacup. At length he said, “It’s not about betraying a confidence, Lewin is a soldier and the battles he’s been in are well documented. It’s simply that the last one, the Siege of Badajoz, was particularly brutal. It affected him deeply.”
“I can see that. I did read about Badajoz, and I remember that the casualties were disastrously high. Was that what made it so much worse?”
“Yes. Most battles are ghastly, but Badajoz was really horrific. Especially for men like Lewin. You see, he volunteered for the Forlorn Hope.”
“What—what is the Forlorn Hope?” Mirabella asked with a slight frisson of dread.
“When besieging a fixed fortification, the artillery pounds through the walls until there’s a breach. The first men to storm the breach are always volunteers, called the Forlorn Hope, because generally it’s a suicide mission.”
“But why on earth would anyone volunteer for such a thing?” Mirabella cried.
“Any man in the Forlorn Hope that manages to live usually receives a promotion, sometimes cash gifts, certainly the boundless respect of his fellow soldiers. Lewin did manage to come through the breach, although, as always, the casualties among the Forlorn Hope were astronomically high.”
Passionately Mirabella said, “But Giles, I still simply cannot understand it. Why would Lewin do such a thing? Surely he must know that with my father’s patronage, his career in the army is assured. There’s no sense at all in throwing his life away on suicide missions.” Lord Camarden had purchased Lewin’s commission in the army, and had made known his preference for him.
Gently Giles said, “Bella, you know better than that. Not all men are content to base their lives, and sense of honor, simply from their birthright, or from patronage. Lewin is a soldier, and he did what, in his eyes, was the right and honorable thing to do.”
Mirabella looked chastened. “Yes, I suppose I can understand that is why a soldier might do such a thing. I still have difficulty comprehending how he can do it. I know I could never, never have such courage.”
“You might, under the right circumstances. But I agree with you, I think it’s almost impossible for anyone who is not a soldier to completely understand how they can face battle. Lewin has told me some things about Badajoz, but he relates it in a sort of impersonal manner, as if he were reporting it.”
“Giles, that patch on his sleeve. He looked so distressed when Clara was asking him about it. Is it some special insignia from Badajoz?”
Giles nodded and looked grim. “It’s a very special insignia, a V and S surrounded by laurel leaves. It stands for Victorious Stormer. Lewin was exaggerating the other day when he said that many men were awarded it. There weren’t ‘many’ survivors of the Forlorn Hope. He said that Wellington wept when he saw the piles of bodies lying at the breach. Lewin didn’t even want to wear the Victorious Stormer badge, he said that all those who died didn’t get an insignia. I told him that the ones who lived should wear it proudly, to honor them.”
“Oh, Giles, this is so hard,” Mirabella said. “I do love Lewin so, I hate to see him suffering.”
Giles studied her, and then smiled. “Bella, don’t be so upset. Lewin is getting better, day by day. He�
�s healing. Being home, with his family and close friends, has comforted him and eased his mind. Yesterday he even made a joke about going to London for the Season. He’s said very little about it, you know, and I was beginning to wonder if it was the right thing, persuading him to come with me, or if I was imposing upon him. But yesterday we were talking about White’s, and I was telling him that I hardly ever go there any more, the gambling has gotten so outrageous that I find it a crashing bore. Lewin said that he had no use for the namby-pamby fops in the clubs anyway, he was looking forward to bashing someone at Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon, preferably one of the abovementioned namby-pamby fops, or perhaps two at the same time.”
Mirabella’s eyes lit up to a deep dazzling blue. “Oh my, our Lewin, such a bold warrior! I never would have suspected it in him when we were children. He was so much kinder and gentler than you.”
“Well, I’m the kindler, gentler one now. I told him that I might match fencing foibles with him at Angelo’s, but under no circumstance would I volunteer to be one of the thrashed namby-pambys.”
“Coward,” Mirabella teased.
“That’s what he said,” Giles said calmly, “and I don’t mind at all. John Jackson’s broken nose is hideous. I’m not going to take the chance that Lewin might deface my nose in such an infamous way, simply to allow him to let out his pent-up aggression. He must find some other nose.”
“I agree. You do have a good nose, it would be a shame for it to suddenly become repugnant.”
“You really think I have a good nose?” Giles asked with interest.
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m glad,” he said with pleasure. “I like your nose, also.”
“Thank you,” Mirabella said wryly. “Now, I think we’ve about exhausted that fascinating topic. Let’s do our battlefield cleanup, and then forge on to the flowers for church.”
