Band of Angel (50 page)

So Catherine told her: about Cavendish and her cut finger, and being taken to his room, and (stammering and blushing) about the strange episodes when he rubbed himself and seemed to have a fit (Barnsie had snorted at this) and about going with him to Constantinople. While she talked, Barnsie’s eyes had grown rounder and bluer and she’d even started to smile and ask all kind of irrelevant questions about Constantinople and Dr. Cavendish. She seemed, to Catherine’s chagrin, generally more excited than upset.

“Well, that’s men the world over for you” was her first reaction.

“But Barnsie, I feel like his prisoner. He can come and go here as he pleases, don’t you understand that? There’s nothing I can do about it. Look, I think I should just go back to Mrs. Clark and tell her everything.”

“Tell her what, love?” Barnsie’s face was discouraging.

“About him, and how he is with me, and about that day and how he tricked me into going.”

“You didn’t have to go, love, did you? You could have screamed or shouted or told someone.” And anyway, she went on, they would never listen to her—it would be her word against his and his would win. That was the way of the world and that was what happened between gentlemen and servants the length and breadth of England.

Catherine had a sudden clear memory of a morning when a maid had been dismissed at her grandmother’s house in the Lleyn. The red-eyed girl had been allowed to help grandmother with her last job—the taking down of the damask winter curtains and the putting up of the white muslin summer ones—and was then sent packing. She and Eliza had watched her small figure carrying its few possessions disappear like a dot down the drive. They’d been confused about why the girl had had to go so quickly, but trusted their grandmother, who was always thrillingly right about such things.

“Mrs. Clark says I’m to show my rags to her every month,” she said blushing.

“Oh, now that
is
rubbish!” Finally Barnsie was indignant. “As if we haven’t got enough blood around here for thousands of jam rags—but it’s no more than many a servant girl back home has to do every month, my pet.”

“I dream about killing him, Barnsie. He was so disgusting and it hurt so much and he kept telling me I really wanted him.”

“Oh, they all say that, and yes, it does take a bit of time to start liking it” was Barnsie’s unsatisfactory reply. Catherine simply couldn’t believe how calmly she was taking this.

Barnsie then asked her if she thought she was pregnant, and if she thought she was, to come to her and she would tell her what to do.

“If I am, I will kill him, Barnsie. I hate him so much—he’s always snooping and waiting.”

And then she’d started coughing and couldn’t talk anymore, and Barnsie had made her bed around her and squeezed her hand and advised her to try not to think too much, and that she would talk to Sam who might think of a solution for her.

* * *

Sam came to see her the next day. He was wearing his funny old fur hat, and he looked so angry and embarrassed that she knew at once that he knew.

“Barnsie told you, didn’t she?” she said.

“I’ve heard one or two rumors on the grapevine.” He took off his cap and grimaced sadly, as though she’d just announced a death.

“Sam,” she said after a silence, “what would you do if you were me?”

“Go home,” he said instantly, “sham sick. Well, you are that already, so get sicker and go home. Please go home.”

“I can’t do that,” she said softly. “Not that.”

“Plenty of men do it, Catherine, and I can’t say as I blame them now. They shoot their hands or their feet off, some—beg your pardon, miss—put sand in their todgers, so it looks like they’ve got whatsaname.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.” It was Sam’s turn to look embarrassed. “Problems down there.”

“Do you have any other ideas, Sam?”

“None really,” he said. “You could stay here and let him ruin your life, it makes my blood boil to think of that, or I suppose,” he smiled bleakly, “you could always get a transfer to the Crimea—they’re gasping for doctors and nurses out there.”

“They are?” She sat up so quickly in bed it made her cough again.

“It was a joke, Catherine,” he said when she’d finished, “a silly joke. It’s the worst place in the world out there.”

“Who do you ask to go?”

“Oh my God!” he moaned, “Barnsie will kill me for this. I’d rather die than see a nice girl like you out there, even this place is better, trust me.”

“But you don’t understand, Sam, it’s where I want to be.”

“Look,” he said desperately, “if you’re doing it to try and get away from him, you won’t. He’s been there before—he was at the front line there for weeks, which is probably part of the reason why he’s half cracked, and he could go again any time he liked—they’re
even more desperate for doctors than they are for nurses, and a man like him doesn’t easily give up.”

“Who do you think I should approach first: Mrs. Clark or Miss Nightingale?”

“Catherine, did you listen to a word I said?”

“Yes. But I’m not just doing it to get away from him.” She looked at him to see if Barnsie had told him about Deio, too, but he just looked old and scared.

She glanced around her to see where they’d put her shoes and her dress. “Sam,” she said, “can you help me stand up? I really do feel so much better.”

“No,” he said, putting on his cap, “you’re not going anywhere until you’ve got rid of that cough,” he said. “Oh, I wish I’d never come here.”

“Don’t be sorry, Sam,” she said. “You’ve saved my life.”

She went to Mrs. Clark a week later and put in her request.

“Well, yes, as it so happens, they are dreadfully short of nurses out there,” said Mrs. Clark, unable to conceal the look of relief in her eyes, “and Lord Raglan has asked Miss Nightingale for volunteers. A girl like you might do very well there.”

And perhaps some of Cavendish’s rumors had flown in Miss Nightingale’s direction, too, for later that day she was summoned to her office. She had expected an explosion of rage, but Miss Nightingale had opened the door with a small, almost sly, smile.

They sat down together beside her small charcoal fire.

“Is there any truth in this rumor that you wish to volunteer for the Balaclava Hospital?” she said in the gentlest of voices.

“There is, ma’am.”

“Are you well enough?”

“Quite well now, thank you, Miss Nightingale.”

“Do you realize how dangerous and how hard it is over there?” Miss Nightingale gave her one of her penetrating looks. “I shan’t be there to look after you.”

“I’ve been told, ma’am.” Silence fell between them. All they
could hear was the wind outside and the soft sighing of the fire. Miss Nightingale looked at her.

“I don’t know what to say about this, Catherine. You are so young, and yet I suppose you have proved yourself here.” She couldn’t help it, she glowed at this. “I am very torn.” Unusually, she seemed to be vacillating. “Do you care about the good reputation of our nurses here?” she asked suddenly.

“I do, Miss Nightingale.”

“Because it’s important for you to remember that you have been part of one big and happy family here. And families do not talk to other people about what goes wrong in them, or when we have done wrong.”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Catherine said. She was prepared to explain that Cavendish had said she had her permission, but Miss Nightingale graciously swept this aside.

“I was making a general point,” she said. “Even when we do wrong things, our families don’t lightly let us down.” She’d said this in a low, tremulous, sincere voice. “And besides, I admire you for volunteering—it will show them my nurses have pluck as well as usefulness on their side.”

How confusing it all was. Everything done with mirrors and so much unspoken, unexplained. But then Miss N fiddled with some papers on her desk, and said, “If you go to the Crimea, you’ll go with a group of new nurses under the leadership of a Miss Mary Stanley. I shall be frank with you Miss Carreg,” and here a note of steel in the flowing honey of Miss N’s voice, “had I been consulted about Miss Stanley and her nurses, which I wasn’t, they would all have been sent home: they are not properly trained and quite unsuitable.”

She’d said that, without in any way wanting to make a spy of her, she thought it would be helpful if Catherine kept an eye on them. She’d be coming to Balaclava in early spring, and “perhaps you and I could have a walk and talk then.” She added that she was anxious that all they had struggled and fought for should not be undone by a group of bleeding hearts and amateurs. Had she made herself clear? She had, quite surprisingly so, and Mrs. Clark, fearful of her position, must have kept her mouth shut. Cavendish’s name had not been mentioned at all.

“It’s going to be . . .” Miss Nightingale had hesitated and chosen her words carefully, “more testing than you can possibly imagine in Balaclava. You may want a day or two to make up your mind.”

“I have made up my mind, ma’am. I want to go.”

“Take this then, it’s your wages.” She had given her an envelope with thirty-six pounds of back pay in it and smiled at her so warmly that, for one strange and awkward moment, Catherine thought she might even kiss her.

“Good-bye, Miss Nightingale”—she bent her head, surprised to find her own eyes filled with tears—“I have so much to thank you for.” And this was true, for she knew that whatever harsh thoughts she had had about her, nobody could deny she was extraordinary, and that without her ruthless efficiency, this world felt far more dangerous.

Before she left, the nurses had a party for her. Nancy Porter turned her cap back to front, and sang
I had a dream, a happy dream
, and Barnsie, who’d been tearful all day, gave her a lucky button for a present. Emma Fagg laid out a few scraps of cheese and some brandy on a towel on an upturned packing case.

Later in the evening, when they were in their beds, Barnsie, her voice muffled by the towel she wore over her face to keep the rats away, said she hoped that lightning would come and strike the bald head of that bastard Cavendish for sending her away.

“It’s not just him, Barnsie. I must go now—you know my other reasons, please try not to cry.”

She was only slightly comforted when Catherine had promised that, if she got back to England before Barnsie, she would look for her children.

“If I find them, I’m going to tell them what a fine mother they have.”

“I’d come with you, Catherine, if it wasn’t for them.” Barnsie tore off her rat-towel; her face in that half light was full of pain.

“And Sam. Don’t forget Sam.”

But Barnsie was squeaking and sniffing, and finally blew her nose. Then, in a moist whisper, she said, “Here! Take a goosey at this,”
and pulled from her gown a piece of string with a cheap tin ring on it.

“It’s a puzzle ring. It stands for the puzzle of life. Sam gave it to me.”

Even with her red eyes, Barnsie looked coy, and suddenly much younger. “Silly old things at our age, but why not?”

“Barnsie,” she said, “he is a prize; I’m so happy for you.”

Barnsie told her not to laugh, but he’d found a cupboard under the stairs where they could meet; it was very snug, with rags in it for a bed. She said she’d never been so happy before and that Sam had said when they got back to London he’d look after her and the children and they could get the little one out of hospital.

“It’s a beautiful ring, Barnsie. You deserve something beautiful.”

“I don’t think deserve comes into it,” Barnsie had said with a naughty look. “He can be ever so imperious you know.”

Then they hugged each other, and Barnsie said, “I hope you find your young man there; you love him don’t you,” and she hadn’t been able to speak for hearing it put so nakedly.

Barnsie gave her a new handkerchief and a Christmas pudding (heaven knows where she’d got that from), which Catherine promised to eat when she got to Balaclava. Barnsie was convinced there was no food there.

She went out to the Crimea on a transport ship called the
Melbourne
with three other nurses and a Sellonite nun recently arrived from England. Three thousand men were boarded that morning, most dressed in rags and looking half dead. Sam told her they’d been declared well and were being sent back to their regiments to be shot at again.

Down belowdecks she could hear music, the clear sorrowing notes of a flute, and occasional gruff shouts. The ship was preparing to pull out, bells and foghorns were sounding. The two new nurses, Elsa Pruitt and Jane Hibbert, joined her on deck. They had recently arrived from England and their pale faces, poking like terrified field mice from beneath gray bonnets, made her feel as if she was very much older than she had been when she arrived.

The ship was ready to leave; gray water slapped against the prow and a brisk, fruity wind got up. She turned her back to her new companions, too full of emotion to speak.

This had been the most bizarre and mournful period of her life. So many miles traveled, so many tears shed, such passionate friendships, so much loss. (The thought of leaving Lizzie, up on the hill in her unmarked grave, had been almost unbearable.) She turned and looked for the last time at the Barrack Hospital, gaunt and terrifying in its skein of mist.
I shall never forget you
she promised Lizzie and Barnsie and all the rest. They’d all met in a situation of utmost horror and pain—the brave young men, and the hopeless cases—and yet they’d laughed and told stories, and forgiven one another their small transgressions. So much of what it meant to be human had survived against all odds. She had to believe this: to try every day to put the darkness behind her. What happened with Cavendish must not win, but stay buried, like a room that, for sanity’s sake, must stay locked, but it would take constant vigilance.

Barnsie was on the shore, propped up by Sam, waving her handkerchief. He’d taken her aside before she left and made one last, impassioned plea for her to stop this madness. He’d told her that, whatever she might have heard to the contrary, this war was proving one of the worst cock-ups in England’s history. He said she would see sights in Balaclava that would make Scutari look like a Sunday picnic; that the whole place was a powder keg waiting for a match.