The Loving Cup Read Online Free PDF Page B

said: 'For almost two weeks now I have been without up-to-date news. If the Armistice continues with Austria and the rest, it means that Wellington's Peninsular Army is the only one at present in the field against France.'
    'Exactly what many pe ople are thinking. As you say, there is little cause for self-satisfaction.'
    Silence fell between the men while the women chatted on. Even in this brief interchange there was something in George's turn of phrase or tone of voice that rubbed Geoffrey Charles the wrong way. George had always been a critic of Wellington; Wellington had very briefly occupied one of George's parliamentary seats and had left it without a thank you; George never forgot slights; Geoffrey Charles knew all this and knew also that George had always criticized the decision to send British troops to Portugal and Spain. . 'Well,' he said, uncrossing his long thin legs, 'I think we should go. It will take us a couple of hours, I suppose ... Amadora ...'
    'Go?' said Lady Harriet. 'Before you have been dined? I'll not bear it. Otherwise I shall suppose you have no fancy for your new step-mother.'
    'Oh, far from it, ma'am! The contrary! But when we reach our house we shall have much to do before dark -'
    'So you shall go with candles. I cannot conject what Amadora's mother would think if she learned that we had turned her away.' Harriet got up. 'Down, you blasted brutes; there is no occasion for excitement!' She glanced at her husband, who was trying not to glower. 'Dinner shall be early to accommodate them. But for half an hour first, Captain and Mrs Geoffrey Charles, you shall see my livestock.'
     
    II
     
    They dined with a modest lack of disaccord. Geoffrey Charles thought that on the whole his step-father had done well for himself, though he could not see Lady Harri et fitting into the compatible, but slightly subordinate role his own mother had filled. There would be ructions in plenty here. She was an attractive woman, more beautiful than pretty but not quite either. And young. Only a few years, he'd swear, older than himself. She had an eye for a young man, he could tell that. Would George be able to satisfy her, to keep her, to prevent her from straying? If she felt like it, there would surely be no stopping her. George looked older; lines were indented in his cheeks, his hair iron-grey, thinning.
    Present at the table too was Ursula, now a strapping girl of nearly fourteen, with a fat neck and thighs so sturdy that they made bulges in her s kirts; but none of it flabby, al l hard flesh, ready to stand her in good stead in life. Geoffrey Charles could scarcely believe that his own slender, delicate, patrician mother had borne her. And a girl of few words, curtsying awkwardly to Amadora, allowing her cheek to be brushed by Geoffrey Charles, but firmly intent on the main purpose of the hour: food.
    Valentine, George explained, was not yet come from Cambridge. He was expected next Wednesday, if he could be bothered to take the coach and did not squander his money in London. He had not been home at Easter at all, having spent the vacation with Lord Ridley, a new friend of his - said George smugly - in Norfolk. So his last visit was Christmas. When, Harriet volunteered, he had turned the house upside down. Then they had all been quite mad with delight at the news of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
    'Which should have ended in his fall,' said Geoffrey Charles. 'But he hypnotizes the French. They worship him so when he calls for more cadres to fill his decimated regiments, they come in their thousands: old men; boys of sixteen.'
    'Not always willingly, I'm told,' said Harriet. 'They have no choice. The levé e en masse in France is complete.'
    'Nothing of which detracts from Napoleon's greatness,' said George. 'He bestrides the world like no other man. Our own politicians, our own generals, the petty kings and emperors who oppose him, are pigmies by comparison.'
    'Perhaps you'd be surprised,' Geoffrey Charles said,