Page 27 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer (The Marlow Family #7)

Having watched him from the door until he turned the corner at the end of the street, Ellen ran back upstairs, scared and hollow inside, and threw herself onto the bed, then turned, her arms cradling her stomach, and she prayed as she cried, whispering the words aloud.

‘Protect him. Save him. Bring him home. Bring him back to me…’ Tears rolled onto her cheeks and dripped onto the mattress as she lay there enfolding the child she thought was inside her in her arms.

* * *

The call of a bugle woke her, the familiar sound that had woken her each day the regiment had marched towards Brussels.

A loud piercing sound rang ominously through the streets outside.

She rose, she had not undressed, she still wore the precious ball gown Paul bought for her.

She must have fallen asleep as she cried.

The sound summoned the military men, rise from your bed and report for duty .

She looked through the window as another bugle call rang out.

Leaning her shoulder against the edge of the window, she watched the street, listening out to the calls. She could not imagine that any soldier was still abed, the news had raced through Brussels like wildfire last night, sweeping into every street and alley. No one came from the houses around her.

She returned to the bed, lying on top of the covers, curled on her side, looking at the stars in the night sky beyond the window and hugging the child in her stomach with both arms.

At a little after three o’clock, when it was still dark, she heard the beat of a drum.

She hurried to the window. It was another sound she had become so used to on their journey here.

It paced the men’s steps. There were the brighter sounds of tin whistles too.

The sounds grew louder, coming closer. She heard their steps on the dusty street long before she could see the soldiers.

Many men came marching along the street, rifles clutched in their hands and balanced on their shoulders. Windows opened along the street, it seemed that everyone in every house was at their window.

‘Good luck!’

‘God bless you!’ people shouted from the windows.

More men marched past, a long stream, it was not one regiment but many.

Some women hung out of their windows in their nightdresses, waving and blowing kisses at the men below.

A soldier looked up in her direction, and his gaze caught Ellen’s through the glass.

She heard Paul’s voice; Let me remember your smile as I leave.

This soldier was younger than Paul, he looked younger than her, and she saw fear in his eyes.

She lifted her hand and waved, smiling for his sake, mouthing silently, Good luck .

He smiled, then looked away as he marched on with his rifle on his shoulder.

She opened the window as the men kept coming, shouting out, ‘May God bless you.’

Some people had hurriedly dressed and were now lining the edges of the street. She did not go down.

When the last man walked past, it was almost an hour after the first had passed.

Her heart bled like an open wound and her stomach churned with a bilious feeling as she shut the window.

But she was resolute, she would not fail her husband.

Misery would not help the army win the battle.

Paul had told her she was strong, she was.

She would change and go for a walk in the park.

A walk would make her feel better, and if she was outside, knowing Paul was outside somewhere, she would feel closer to him.

‘Jennifer!’ she shouted for the maid.

It was at one o’clock in the afternoon that she heard the first cannons firing. Deep, heavy, booming sounds which rumbled over the city.

When Ellen had walked through the streets to the park earlier with Jennifer, she had seen some people packing their belongings onto carts to leave the city.

She thought it was desertion, leaving behind the men they had cheered only hours before.

But now, as they walked, seeking to buy something for their evening meal, the exodus had swelled, and just like the moment when the news had come of Napoleon’s parade through Paris and people had known a battle would come, there was now at least one cart being loaded in every street. It was cowardice.

They purchased freshly baked bread and milk, and eggs and cheese that would last a week or so, and bacon; Paul liked the thinly sliced mutton when it was fried in a pan. The increasingly loud sounds of the cannons, shaking the sky like thunder, chased them quickly back to the house.

At the house, Ellen found her sewing, as did Jennifer, and they sat in the small parlour.

The sound of one cannon firing resonated through the window, so loud it rattled the glass in the frame.

Jennifer looked at the window, her expression anxious.

The next boom shook the window too.

It became constant, the sound rumbling like a persistent thunderstorm.

At least with thunder she could make a guess of how far away the lightning was by counting the seconds between the light and the sound.

There was no way to guess how far away the cannons were, or whose army the sounds were made by.

Ellen’s heartbeat hesitated a little each time as she worked on a new shirt for Paul. She refused to think of him fighting amid that cannon fire.

Another boom rattled Ellen’s nerves, along with the sheet of glass in its frame, and a quiet, frightened sound escaped Jennifer’s throat.

‘What are you sewing?’ Ellen began talking. They hardly ever shared a conversation, as Jennifer had made it clear, with short, stilted, answers, that she preferred it if Ellen did not try to talk with her. But today; they both needed to preoccupy their minds with something.

‘A new nightdress, ma’am.’

‘If you would like some lace for the cuffs, I have enough spare from the collar I replaced on my blue dress.’

‘That would be kind, thank you, ma’am.’

‘Shall I tell you about the Duchess of Richmond’s ball that the captain and I attended last night, would you like to hear about it?’

‘That would be nice, ma’am.’

‘The oddest thing,’ Ellen began, ‘was that it was not in the house…’ As she related tales of the room and the Highlanders, and the atmosphere when the news of Napolean’s attack came, she had a feeling the ball would still be talked about for a long while – certainly there would never be another like it.

At just before two o’clock, the cannon fire ceased as abruptly as it had begun, and an ominous quiet fell.

What was happening ? Ellen’s desire was to look through the window, but all she would see was the carts of the last cowards to leave the city. The ticks of the mantelpiece clock’s mechanism marked each second as she and Jennifer worked in silence, their conversation now dry.

When the clock chimed three times, she put aside her sewing and stood. ‘Let us go out for another walk.’

It was not for the sake of being outside this time; it was for the possibility of hearing any news.

After the earlier exodus, the streets were eerily empty.

Only one or two others walked along the dusty roads and cobbled pavements.

Ellen led the way to the park, and they walked all about it in silence, again, as Ellen could think of nothing to talk about.

She saw no one she would have the courage to ask if they knew what was happening.

It was different when they walked back towards their lodgings, though. The previously empty streets all now contained huddles of people, some moved from group to group, others knocked on doors, seemingly announcing something to the occupants.

This must be news… Ellen walked towards one man dressed in livery, who had knocked on a door and spoken to a woman then moved to knock on the next.

She stood in his path, so he had to face her. ‘Is there news?’ she asked.

‘The Allied army has been overcome. We are to leave the city. Everyone must leave.’ He walked around her, moving onto the next door.

She had no idea who he was or where he had come from. Or most importantly whether she should believe what he had said. So many thoughts fought for attention in her head as her heart kicked. Paul said she must leave if such a message came; he had made her promise – and yet… How can I go?

Some people in the street were turning and hurrying away in different directions, as the conversations of those that remained grew louder with agitation. They all discussed what to do.

‘We must get home,’ Ellen said to Jennifer.

When they reached their lodgings, Ellen returned to the parlour, but she could not sit and sew with so many thoughts spinning in her head, weighing up her choice – stay or go.

She went to the window and looked down on the street as Jennifer hovered by the parlour door.

People hurried past. Some doors were open, as people stood on their doorsteps with arms crossed and chins high, talking hurriedly to people in the street.

Others were rushing to somewhere, perhaps to hire carts or carriages, or horses.

What would be left after so many people had gone this morning?

She sat on the parlour’s wooden window seat and watched the street.

Some carts arrived, hand carts, some pulled by horses, then as items were taken from houses and loaded, people from other streets walked past, some with their belongings wrapped in bedding on their backs.

The numbers walking through the street increased slowly, until it was a crush of people running away from the city.

A carriage tried to pass through the crowd.

Some men sought to free the horses, presumably to steal them for their own escape.

The driver raised his whip and brought it down on the men.

The people she quietly watched from her window seat were panicking, pushing each other to force their way through as they tried to get out of the city.

She was waiting. She believed in Paul. She would not give up on him.