“I’m sure it’s the very best place to retrieve it.” Manvell felt a surge of pity for his friend. He had never realized till this moment just how Lord John’s honour had been trampled and destroyed.
“So tomorrow’s become rather important to me,” Lord John said. “Because tomorrow I can take my honour back by fighting well.” He smiled as if to soften the overdramatic words. “But to do it I’ll need a sword, and my spare blade is in Brussels. I suppose you don’t have one you could lend me?”
“With pleasure.”
Lord John stared into the drenching twilight. “I wish it was over. The rain, I mean,” he added hurriedly.
“I think it’s slackening.”
Lightning flickered in the west, followed a few seconds later by thunder that crashed across the far sky like the passage of a cannon-ball. Laughter and singing sounded from a house further up the street, temporarily drowning the ominous and repetitive scraping noise of a stone putting an edge onto a sword. A dog howled in protest at the thunder and a horse whinnied from the stables behind the Earl of Uxbridge’s billet.
Lord John turned back into the house. He could retrieve his honour and he could retrieve Jane by becoming a hero. Tomorrow.
CHAPTER 12
Captain Harry Price, commander of the first company of the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, climbed onto a makeshift platform constructed from spare ammunition boxes. In front of him, standing in the rain-soaked field, were forty or fifty infantry officers who had assembled from the various battalions bivouacked nearby. The last light was draining in the west, while the rain had slackened to a drizzle.
“Are we ready, gentlemen?* Price called.
“Get on with it!”
Price, enjoying himself, bowed to the hecklers, then took the first article from Colour Sergeant Major Huckfield. It was a silver-cased watch that Harry Price held high into the last vestiges of the light. “A watch, gentlemen, property of the late Major Micklewhite! The item is only very slightly blood-stained, gentlemen, so a good cleaning will have it ticking in no time. I offer you a very fine fob watch, gentlemen, made by Mastersons of Exeter.”
“Never heard of them!” a voice shouted.
“Your ignorance is of no interest to us. Mastersons are a very old and reputable firm. My father always swore by his Mastersons watch and he was never late for a rogering in his life. Do I hear a pound for Major Micklewhite’s ticker?”
“A shilling!”
“Now, come along! Major Micklewhite left a widow and three sweet-natured children. You wouldn’t want your wives and little ones left derelict because some thieving bastards weren’t generous! Let me hear a pound!”
“A florin!”
“This isn’t a dolly-shop, gentlemen! A pound? Who’ll offer me a pound?”
No one would. In the end Micklewhite’s watch fetched six shillings, while the dead Major’s signet ring went for one shilling. A fine silver cup that had belonged to Captain Carline went for a pound, while the top price went for Carline’s sword that fetched a full ten guineas. Harry Price had to auction sixty-two articles, all the property of those officers of the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers who had been killed by the French cavalry at Quatre Bras. The prices were low because the French had caused a glut on the market by killing so many officers; at least four other auctions had already taken place this evening, but this night’s glut, Harry Price thought, would be as nothing compared to tomorrow night’s supply of goods.
“A pair of Captain Carline’s spurs, gentlemen! Gold if I’m not mistaken.” That claim was greeted by jeers of derision. “Do I hear a pound?”
“Sixpence.”
“You’re a miserable bloody lot. How would you feel if it was your belongings I was giving away for tuppence? Let us be generous, gentlemen! Think of the widows!”
“Carline wasn’t married!” a lieutenant shouted.
“A guinea for his whore, then! I want some Christian generosity, gentlemen!”
,I’ll give you a guinea for his whore, but sixpence for his spurs!”
Micklewhite’s effects made eight pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence. Captain Carline’s belongings fetched a good deal more, though all the items had been knocked down at bargain prices. Harry Price, who had always wanted to look like a cavalry officer, bought the spurs himself for ninepence. He also bought Carline’s fur-edged pelisse; an elegantly impractical garment that high fashion imposed on wealthy officers. A pelisse was a short jacket that was worn from one shoulder like a cloak, and Harry Price took immense satisfaction in draping Carline’s expensively braided foible about his own shabby red coat.