Chapter Fifteen #3
“It’s about ten miles,” Marcus said. “The weather is looking to be fine, so I thought we could ride there, send the carriage on with Tomas, and meet up with him at the next stop after Waterloo. What do you think?”
“Ride there, on horseback?” Tessa exclaimed. “That would be delightful. So much better than being cooped up in a stuffy carriage.”
Marcus smiled. She was very easy to please. “Then I will hire some horses.”
The following morning after breakfast, a groom arrived at their inn leading two rather fine horses. To Tessa’s surprise, one, a dainty-looking gray, part-Arab mare, wore a side-saddle.
Marcus shrugged. “As soon as they heard one of the riders would be a lady, the stables insisted on this. They seemed rather proud to have it. I hope you don’t mind. I know you wanted to ride astride, but the mare is trained for sidesaddle.”
She laughed. “I don’t mind. I’m just happy to be out in the open air and riding. And she looks very sweet.” She offered her mare a sugar lump on her palm and the mare lipped it delicately. “Beautiful manners too,” Tessa added.
Their belongings loaded into the carriage, Tomas headed off with it, and Marcus tossed Tessa up into her sidesaddle.
Once out of the city, they enjoyed a refreshing fast gallop, but after that they took things fairly slowly, enjoying the scenery—at least that’s what Tessa seemed to be doing, stopping every so-often to admire this little cottage or that orchard, though he could see nothing remarkable about them at all.
She took delight in all kinds of small things.
She was putting off the moment they arrived at the battlefield, Marcus decided. He didn’t blame her. It was bound to stir up memories of her brother, Louis. Still, it was what she’d wanted.
They slowed their horses as they entered the village of Plancenoit, and as they passed the church he noticed the cemetery wall was pocked with holes. Musket balls, Marcus decided, hoping Tessa hadn’t realized it.
“There was fighting here, wasn’t there?” she said.
“Yes.” They rode on in somber silence. In Brussels he had acquired a pamphlet that had been prepared for English tourists wishing to visit the site of the great battle, and was able to direct her attention to some of the sights.
Marcus led them straight through the village of Waterloo without stopping, Tessa glanced at him with a puzzled expression. “I thought this was where the battle was.”
“No, Waterloo was the village where Wellington wrote his final report from, and that’s how the battle got its name, but the actual fighting was further along.”
As they passed close to the village of Braine-l’Alleud, Marcus pointed to the church of Saint-étienne. “See that church? They used that as a field hospital to treat the wounded.”
She nodded, but said nothing. He glanced at her. Her eyes had sheened with unshed tears.
Next was the building that had become the hospital at Mont-Saint-Jean.
When he pointed it out, she gave him a troubled look. “I don’t even know whether Louis was wounded or killed outright. Only that he went to war and never came home.”
Marcus frowned. “You never received a letter?” Her brother was an officer after all. Surely someone would have sent an official notification.
She shook her head. “Edgar might have, but if he did, he never told me. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here. The only thing I know for certain is that Louis was at the battle of Waterloo. And never came home.”
Marcus clenched his teeth and hoped the captain of the ship had decided to throw Blaxland overboard after all.
Finally, the main part of the former battlefield lay before them, a wide sward of gently rolling green grass, dotted with little white daisies and tiny wildflowers. Marcus gave a quiet sigh of relief. Nothing here too obviously distressing.
He pointed to a large elm tree. “I think that tree might have been where Wellington’s command post was.”
“Do you mind if we walk for a bit?” Tessa asked, and without waiting for his response, she slipped off her mount, looped the long skirt of her riding habit over her arm and began to walk slowly across the field, scanning the ground before her, as if looking for something.
Wildflowers perhaps? Or maybe just grieving for her brother.
He left her to it, not wanting to break in on her reverie and private grief.
He strolled on, leading the horses, deep into the pamphlet guide.
Names of places he had only heard of, or read in English newspapers had now become unsettlingly real to him.
Hougoumont, La Haie Sainte, Plancenoit, La Belle Alliance, Papelotte, the Chemin d’Ohain, the ridge on the Mont-Saint-Jean.
Just names to him before; now they carried a weight of emotion, and not just for Tessa’s sake.
He’d avidly followed the various reports of the battle at the time, consumed with anxiety for his brother, Gabriel, and his friends, and to some extent, his half-brother Harry from whom he was estranged.
He hadn’t realized how much detail he’d absorbed.
It was hard to imagine this peaceful green scene churned up with blood and mud and the horrific sounds of battle, and men and horses screaming and the constant shattering sound of gun and cannon fire. His own brothers had fought here.
Not that they’d ever spoken of it.
It seemed to him that most soldiers—men who had known war—real war—rarely talked about what they had seen and done. Not to him, anyway.
Raised voices caused him to look up and turning, he saw Tessa had been surrounded by a small group of men and boys he had seen earlier, loitering in the distance. They clustered around her, jabbering at her in a mix of French, Flemish and broken English.
She flinched from their importunities, and Marcus hurried to intervene.
“Get them away,” Tessa pleaded. “It’s hideous. They are selling people’s bones! That’s some poor boy’s fingerbone!”
“Souvenirs, madam, monsieur,” the men insisted, holding out their ‘wares’— a jumble of white bones, teeth, pieces of shrapnel, musket balls, and bits of lead, brass, bronze and rusted iron.
He saw several brass buttons with the Imperial eagle grasping scattered thunderbolts, presumably from a French uniform and pieces of fabric bearing British regimental insignia. It was a grotesque collection.
Cursing himself for not paying closer attention, Marcus chased them off with a mixture of French and English and some threatening gestures.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, pulling her close. She was shaking.
“Y, yes. I’m all right,” she stammered, leaning into him “I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.”
After a few moments she recovered and they walked on a little, their horses trailing behind them, cropping occasionally at the grass. “Why would they imagine I’d want to buy such gruesome things?” She shuddered.
“People do, I’m afraid,” he said gently. “It’s nasty, I know, but I suppose it’s one way to make a living.”
She shuddered again. “That could have been L-L-Louis’s finger bone.” And tears spilled from her eyes. “S-s-sorry,” she began, trying to scrub the tears away, but he just drew her into his arms and held her. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Let it out.”
His soft words released a torrent of tears. He held her for a long time, until the raw sobs slowed and juddery breaths took their place. Eventually she stepped away. “I’m sorry,” she began again.
“Don’t be. I think you needed it.” He handed her a handkerchief. She took it, wiping her eyes and staring at him as if bemused. After a few minutes, calmer but still a little shaky, she tucked her arm in his and resumed her slow examination of the ground.
“Those horrid men are still hovering, aren't they?” she said.
Marcus glanced back and nodded. “To be fair, the way you’ve been examining the ground, they probably think you’re looking for some kind of souvenir.”
She looked up at him in dismay. “But I’m not! Of course I’m not!”
“What were you looking for then? Wildflowers?”
“No, somewhere to plant these.” She pulled a small bag from the pocket she’d had made in her riding habit and tipped the contents onto her palm.
Marcus frowned. “Acorns? And. . . bulbs?”
She nodded. “English acorns and bluebells. I was looking for a good place to plant them. Somewhere where they won’t be dug up by farmers—or horrid scavengers.
” She continued scanning their surroundings, and explained, “When he was a boy, Louis loved to climb into the biggest of the oak trees at Ferndale. He’d sit there for hours, just thinking and dreaming and listening to the birds chattering.
And he used to pick a big bunch of bluebells every spring and give them to my mother. ”
She paused and glanced up at Marcus. “That was before I was born, of course. NannyJune told me about it. Mama loved bluebells too. So I want Louis to have a little piece of England, here in this foreign field where he died.”
“I see. It’s a nice idea.” He glanced around. “What about over there, where there seems to be a natural border between fields? Less likely to be ploughed.”
Yes.” She headed over there, then glanced back at the souvenir sellers, who were watching her avidly. “I suppose they’ll imagine I’ve found some horrid souvenir. I don’t want these dug up.” She thought for a minute. “Pretend I am relieving myself, will you? They won’t want to dig that up.”
Her back to the observers, she squatted down, spreading her skirts carefully, and Marcus, quietly amused by her practicality, drew the horses closer and tried to look as if he was protecting his lady’s modesty.
She drew out a small trowel, dug a hole in the ground and placed an acorn in it, then covered it over. Then she made a small ditch and surrounded the acorn with half a dozen bluebell bulbs. She filled in the holes and stood, pressing down the dirt. “We brought water, didn’t we?” she asked.
Marcus pulled a flask of water from his saddle bag and handed it over.
“Now, move out of the way,” she said. “I want them to see this.” She proceeded to wash her hands, being careful to ensure the water fell on the disturbed earth, giving the acorns and bulbs a start in life.
She dried her hands and as she handed the bottle back, gave him a mischievous smile. “They won’t want to disturb that now.”
Twice more she found a place to plant an acorn and some bluebells.
The men were still watching. “They’ll be suspicious now,” Marcus commented.
“No, they’ll think I have a weak English bladder.”
He laughed and she slipped her arm through his, smiling up at him.
“Thank you for this. You don’t know how much it means to me.
I’ve never had a grave to leave flowers on—Edgar wouldn’t even organize a proper funeral service for him—so planting a tree or two and some bluebells in his memory has been immensely comforting. ”
Not to mention the outpouring of grief that had briefly overwhelmed her. He bent, cupped her chin and kissed her. “I’m glad. Now, have you finished here?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’ve done what I came for.” She glanced across to where the men with the gruesome ‘souvenirs’ had approached several other visitors. “I don’t want to spend another minute in this unhappy place.”
“Very well.” He tossed her into her sidesaddle, mounted his horse and side by side they headed south.