The Rose of Sebastopol (17 page)

When it was time for him to leave, Henry kissed each lady’s hand. To Rosa he said: “Miss Barr, allow me,” and lifting one of her curls, he picked out the little white flower that had fallen there and handed it solemnly to her.

I went with him to the door, where he gripped my hand in both of his. Then he held me in his arms and stroked my hair. My face nestled in the warm space beneath his chin, my ear was pressed against his collar, and all the pain in my heart was soothed away. We laughed as he released me at last then pulled me back against him one last time.

T
he day after the hospital episode
Aunt Isabella was too ill to get up and the doctor was called again. He told us that she had suffered a severe relapse causing irregular heart-beat and a possibly fatal weakness in her limbs. The only hope was bed rest and vigilant nursing, night and day. Apparently to someone of her delicate constitution the threat of cholera was almost as prostrating as the disease itself.

We took it in turns to watch over our patient so that Nora, the Irish nurse, could have time off to sleep or take the air. She and I rarely spoke, because she made me uncomfortable with her smell of stale bed-sheets, her pale, watchful eyes, and an air of thinking a great deal more than she was saying. Her position as Aunt’s special nurse gave her a different status from the other servants, and I wasn’t sure how I should behave towards her. Mother deferred to her almost as much as to the doctor, while Rosa treated her more as a relative than an employee. Sometimes they even had tea together.

“After all, I’ve known Nora for eight years,” she said. “Often she was the only friend I had at Stukeley.”

“Friend? ”

“Certainly. She has been very good to me. And more than loyal to our family even though she has no cause to be, the opposite, in fact. You can have no idea how much we all relied on her. And I respect her as a professional nurse, which is what I want to be after all.”

One afternoon Rosa took this Nora McCormack on an outing to see the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, leaving me alone in the sick room, where I sat in the window, initialing a pile of towels, hardly daring to snip a loose end for fear of disturbing my aunt. The sliver of daylight from the partially drawn curtains gave the room an air of gloomy withdrawal, whereas I had always thought this bedroom, with its crimson paper and overstuffed armchairs, the most elegant in the house. When my patient asked for water I leapt to my feet, fearful of getting something wrong. I supported her hot back so she could drink, made minute adjustments to the window in order to admit just a little more air, and bathed her face with lavender water.

“You have a gentle touch,” she sighed. “Sometimes Rosa is too impatient and splashes me. A little lower, dear. Cool my throat.”

I hadn’t seen such quantities of skin before or had any reason to handle another person’s body. When my knuckles brushed her breast as I raised her on the pillows I came closer to her than I had to any other human being except Rosa.

I hated the sick room. Aunt commented on every sound in the house and every movement I made. There was always something to be done: a fly was causing irritation ... She fancied a little barley water... Could I say when she might expect the doctor to call? ... Perhaps I might read some Tennyson, if it wasn’t too much trouble . . . At Stukeley there was always a supply of iced water but in London it was probably more difficult to obtain... Where was Rosa?

“She’ll be in at suppertime, I’m sure. She’s taken Nora on a little outing.”

“Then where is my sister? ”

“Mother has gone to call on Mrs. Hardcastle.”

“But what if I should be worse? Oh, I feel so ill and alone.”

“I am here.”

She turned her head on the pillow. “I’ll try to sleep until Rosa gets back. It’s dreadfully hot. I can’t help thinking of my room in Stukeley where it was always so cool . . . If you were to fan me for a few minutes, Mariella, I might doze off again.”

We couldn’t even go to Broadstairs that summer because Aunt Isabella was too sick to be moved and we thought it unkind to leave her and Rosa alone at Fosse House. In any case, thanks to Henry, Father was engaged with a new committee called the Consolidated Commission for Sewers, which was planning a healthier, more modern drainage system for London. Meanwhile Mother was beside herself with worry over the home, because two more disasters had put back its opening still further. The first was that nobody in their right mind would encourage frail old ladies to move in together during a season of cholera. The second was that the installation of new gas pipes had revealed another problem; one of the ancient sewers under the house was leaking, so more money had to be raised for repairs.

To make up for the missed holiday, Rosa and I went on outings to the new Battersea Park, to the Palace of Westminster, and to the British Museum. One day she even persuaded me to take her to Highgate and show her The Elms.

“I must see where you are to live, so that I can fix you there in my mind.”

“But nothing’s actually been said. I’m not . . .”

“Nonetheless, I want to go because whatever happens, that house is important to you.”

Rosa and I made the trip through London by omnibus and on foot, despite the sultry weather. We found the gates ajar though there was no sign of any activity in the house or drive. I thought it would be indelicate to go in when Henry wasn’t there but Rosa marched straight up to the front door and rang the bell.

Nobody answered so she took several steps back and admired the frontage. “It’s much grander than I’d expected. Six bedrooms, you say. Goodness, Mariella. Can we look at the garden? What wonderful trees. Well, now I see why it’s called The Elms. Yes, you have my formal stamp of approval. I think this is an entirely suitable house for my lovely cousin.”

“Rosa, we shouldn’t go any further. It’s almost trespassing.”

“Why? Even if you don’t actually have a ring on your finger Henry is a close relative isn’t he? Of course we’re entitled to be here. But it’s so hot. Let’s sit down for a while and imagine what your married life will be like.”

She spread her shawl under an elm and we leant against the trunk. The dining room had double casement doors opening onto the terrace, and with a rapidly beating heart I saw myself on the other side, flinging them open so that Henry and I could take a walk together, arm in arm. And in the winter the conservatory would be an ideal place to work on sunny mornings, provided it was adequately heated.

“Mother received a letter from Stepfather’s solicitor yesterday,” said Rosa. She had closed her eyes, her head had fallen back, and her hands rested in her lap, giving her an air of unusual resignation. “Now Max has gone to fight in the Russian War, Sir Matthew’s affairs have been settled. I didn’t like the tone of the letter at all. It’s as if Max has been written off, somehow.”

“Max will come back safely, I’m sure.”

“But anyway, it makes no difference. One way or another Horatio wants Mother and me out of his life for good, so he has made us an annuity each—two hundred pounds for her, one hundred for me.”

“That doesn’t sound very much.”

“Exactly what Mama says but I think it’s more than enough and I hope that by Christmas we will be in our own house. Your father told me that it’s possible to rent a very nice villa in Putney or Wandsworth for seventy pounds a year.”

“But you can’t leave us. How will you manage to look after your mother by yourself?”

“I’ll still be able to employ Nora. Mariella, I
must
take this step. The longer I stay at Fosse House, the harder it will be to leave.”

“We don’t want you to go, Rosa.”

“Soon you’ll marry Henry. Look how this house is waiting for you. I couldn’t go on living at Fosse House without you, I’d miss you too much. In any case, we can’t impose any longer on your family.”

“It seems a terrible prospect for you. How will you bear it?”

“I wanted to be a nurse. Well, I can. Mother is my patient, my vocation.” Her voice was too bright and she jumped up, gave me her hand, and hauled me to my feet. “Come on, do you think we’ll be able to see anything if we peer through the windows? I especially want to have a glimpse of the scullery, you can tell a great deal about an establish—” and she darted away round the side of the house.

I followed more slowly but as I reached the corner I heard her laughter, then a male voice, Henry’s, and there they were, face to face as if they had actually collided. He was gripping her elbows to help her regain balance, and was so startled that for several moments he could do nothing but stare and shake his head.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried, “you must think we are intruding.”

Now that he’d recovered he greeted us more light-heartedly than I’d ever known him and offered each of us his arm like a shy boy. “It is wonderful to find you here. What a coincidence—it so happens I had arranged to meet the architect at half past three, otherwise I would never have visited in the middle of the day. I am so used to coming alone that I have lost all pleasure in the place. Now I shall be able to share it with you.”

He ushered us into the porch, unlocked the door, and stood back to let us in. Immediately the house enclosed us with its smell of new paint and trapped air. We walked from one room to another admiring the proportions, the polish on the wooden floors, and the light flooding through the casement windows. But my pleasure was marred by my consciousness of Rosa’s pain, though she was as full of question and comment as ever. This, after all, was my future. How bleak hers must seem by comparison.

As we were about to climb the stairs she said: “Do you know, I’m so hot I think I’ll wait outside under the trees. You go on.” She backed away and disappeared through the open front door.

Henry’s foot was already on the fourth stair but now he hesitated. “Perhaps it is late. The architect will be here any minute.” He seemed hurt, and as we went back outside to join Rosa I hoped she hadn’t offended him by her abrupt change of mood. But perhaps, despite my initial disappointment, it was a relief not to have visited those impossibly private upstairs rooms again with Henry, knowing that she was outside.

A few minutes later the architect arrived and I insisted we leave at once. Henry, though very courteous, seemed abstracted and I again blushed with embarrassment that he had come upon us so unexpectedly. If only he and I had been formally engaged, all would have been well.

His final words, however, were reassuring. “I hope to see you both very soon, at the lecture. I cannot tell you, Mariella, Miss Barr, what a pleasure it was to find you here. Now, I think, this house has become a home in my eyes.” As we reached the gates and looked back he was still in the porch. Rosa waved and he made a slight gesture in reply.

T
he cholera epidemic delayed Henry’s lecture—
entitled “Death or Clean Hands?”—until the end of August. When we finally received an invitation to the Willis’s Rooms, Saint James’, Father insisted how wise he’d been to buy a carriage which would transport us quickly and comfortably across London late in the evening. Even though his starched evening collar made an angry red mark on his throat he was too impressed by the occasion to complain.

Mother volunteered to stay at home with Isabella, who would hate to be left alone with just Nora. It was no hardship, Mother said, because knowing Henry’s bluntness the contents of his lecture were bound to be distasteful and she relied on us to report back anything that might apply to the management of the Governesses’ Home. But actually I knew that she would have given a great deal to attend the lecture. Her capacity for self-sacrifice, I realized, was far superior to my own.

Rosa was ready in ten minutes. Her black silk gave her the austere beauty of a stained-glass saint as she lay among the pillows of my bed and watched me dress. I was to wear my ice-blue evening gown, cut low to reveal a risky quantity of neck and shoulder.