The Rose of Sebastopol (26 page)

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Authors: Katharine McMahon

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Historical

BOOK: The Rose of Sebastopol
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Seven
March 6, 1855 Balaklava
 
My dear Mariella,
I am in the midst of arguments with the authorities here, who wish to send me home. I have developed what they are calling a pulmonary infection and they insist that my health is in great danger. I argue that everyone is sick and I am certainly no sicker than most, less sick than many. Scurvy, cholera, dysentery, frost-bite, hypothermia, these are the ills that affect us all in some measure. But a pulmonary infection is just a grand name for a cold and at home I would not even take to bed with anything so trivial. So I’m hoping they will see sense and let me stay.
I have found that I prefer to be outside, whatever the weather. In fact I hate the hospital hut and can’t breathe within its musty walls. I have been issued with a sheepskin coat which reaches the floor and when I am tightly belted in, and wearing your cap and gloves, not a bit of this slushy wind can reach me.
Last week the weather was so much improved that the men held a race meeting on a bit of flat ground well within sight of the Russian defenses. They could have been picked off by sharp-shooters one by one as they mounted their horses. As if the war isn’t dangerous enough they have to hurl themselves into a foolish race. For fun, is it? I went up to one of the captains, Stukeley, a relation of your aunt’s by marriage, as I realized when I recognized the name. I said: “ You know, we are almost related. I am to marry your stepmother’s niece. I beg you therefore to have a care for your own neck, and those of your men.”
He was on horseback, a great chestnut beast, healthier-looking than most of the poor nags who have survived the winter, though scarred about the flank and neck. Anyway this Stukeley grinned down at me, through a very black beard, and I saw that there was fire in his eyes, a kind of fanatic enjoyment of the race that was driving him so hard I would never reach him. “You’re Dr. Henry Thewell, ain’t you? What’s that you say about my stepmother?”
“Her niece is Miss Mariella Lingwood, whom I am to marry.”
“Is that so? Mariella Lingwood. My stepmother and stepsister, Rosa, went to stay with the Lingwoods when my father died. Did you ever meet them there? ”
“I did. But that’s hardly the point. The point is I want you to stop these races. You risk breaking yet more limbs . . .”
“If you ever get back, send Rosa my love. Tell her I was thinking of her. And thanks for the warning, Doctor. You’re a good man. I’ve heard all about you.” He grinned at me again, kicked his spurs, and was gone. I saw him later flying across the plain ahead of a dozen or so others, yelling at the top of his voice.
So there you have it. Everybody is intent on killing either each other or themselves. Nobody listens to me.
The odd thing is that this topsy-turvy world of war has become more real to me than any other. England, the well-paved London streets, the prospect of a comfortable bed, all these have shrunk to almost nothing. In my mind ’s eye I see you at The Elms, Mariella, and your cousin, running towards me round the side of the house, as through the wrong end of a telescope. Very small, very clear.
Dear girl. Are you really still waiting for me?
Henry
Eight
LONDON, 1855
 
 
 
W
hen Rosa stopped writing
we weren’t unduly alarmed at first. The post from the Crimea was so erratic that people wrote to the papers protesting how in our modern times of steamships and telegraphs it was disgraceful that families had to wait up to a month for news. But as the days passed and still no letter came we grew anxious. Mother wrote to everyone we could think of, including the English ambassador in Turkey, the War Office, Miss Nightingale, then every point of contact in the Crimea from Lord Raglan to Captain Max Stukeley. We even disobeyed Rosa’s instructions and wrote to Henry that she was perhaps nursing in Balaklava, and could he look out for her.
In the end Father discovered that Miss Stanley was back in London and at once paid her a call, but only managed to speak to her brother, an archdeacon, who gave a brief, mournful interview during which he said that Miss Stanley was too ill to speak.
Three days later a letter arrived written in a quavering female hand.
 
Do not ask me of the whereabouts of dear Miss Barr, who was heroic in her efforts to nurse the sick, even against all the odds. She chose to leave us and go to Balaklava of her own free will. It was nothing to do with me. Lord Raglan asked for some nurses to be sent to the heart of the war at Balaklava, and she pleaded to go. I cannot see you, I am too ill. I suffer a great deal.
I am your obedient servant in Christ,
Mary Stanley
We told ourselves that no news was good news, and that knowing Rosa she would be in the midst of some extraordinary adventure but anxiety made my sewing coarse and erratic; I couldn’t be bothered to keep the reverse side of my embroidery as immaculate as the front; and the criss-crossing of loose ends frustrated me so much that I once slashed an entire afternoon’s work to pieces with Aunt Eppie’s little scissors. I didn’t care if my hair needed washing or my gloves mending and when I went with Mother to the Governesses’ Home I found the smell of ancient bodies so oppressive I had to wait outside in the carriage.
Father was so concerned about my low spirits that one afternoon he made time to drive me across London to The Elms but the trip was unfortunate because the gates were locked and he had forgotten the key. I peered through the bars at the blank windows and noticed that clumps of daffodils had sprouted on the lawn and some were already brown. When we arrived back at Fosse House, Featherbridge told us that Lady Stukeley was serving tea to a gentleman in the drawing room.
In the months since Christmas Isabella had altered her mourning by degrees so that now cascades of lace spilt from her throat and wrists, and jewels (those she had saved from Horatio Stukeley’s clutches) sparkled on her fingers and breast. A further lace creation was perched atop her softly coiled hair which, released from her widow’s cap, was revealed to be a tender shade of gray-blond, and her complexion was powder-soft and pink. She looked matronly and genial, her plump bosom ripe with promise.
She introduced the gentleman, Mr. Shackleton, as a distant relative of Mr. Hardcastle’s. “Mr. Shackleton and I discovered at once,” she said, smiling guilelessly from her nest of shawls and pillows, “that we share an interest in nature.” Today, in response to her supposed nostalgia for the abundant specimens of flora and fauna on her Derbyshire estate, Shackleton had rushed round to show her part of his moth collection, twelve creatures in all, pinned inside a glass frame.
The visitor was so short that when he got up to shake my hand the top of his head was level with my nose, and so small and bony that his frock coat would have fit me. His ginger beard stuck out like the blade of a spade. As soon as was politely possible he sat beside Isabella again, leant close to her shoulder, and allowed his hand to stray near her breast as he pointed out the markings on what he insisted was a particularly handsome cinnabar moth.
I noted that Isabella had ordered the best tea service, and this shameless appropriation of Mother’s treasured porcelain was the last straw. “Is there a letter from Rosa yet?” I asked.
Sure enough her lip quivered and her eyes filled. Mr. Shackleton took the cup from her shaking fingers. “No letter. None from Rosa. Oh, Mr. Shackleton forgive me. I don’t know how I shall carry on.”
Nine
O
n the morning of May
2
,
Featherbridge brought me a letter on his salver. The envelope was addressed in an unknown hand, post-marked in Italy a week ago. I took it upstairs to my room, closed the door, and sat down at the dressing table.
Of course I knew that the letter could only bring bad news, I would have been a fool to expect anything else. Throughout that winter, wherever we went, bad news hung in the air like miasma. Everyone was afraid of catching it. When I glimpsed my face in the mirror I saw that I was deathly pale.
The first sheet of paper, which enfolded all the others, was written by a stranger.
 
House of Signora Critelli
Via Del Monte,
Narni
April 24, 1855
 
Miss Lingwood,
I am writing to give you the sad news that Dr. Thewell is critically ill at present. He arrived here in a state of collapse, and though somewhat improved, his health is certainly precarious. A colleague, knowing that I am here in Italy and something of a specialist in these types of cases, wrote to me asking if I would undertake the care of him.
I found the enclosed letter, addressed to you, in his belongings with the other fragments. Under the circumstances I assumed that you would wish to know where he is and have therefore taken it upon myself to write.
Be assured that I will continue to give my patient every attention.
My apologies for what must seem to you a strange and troubling intervention,
Your servant,
Dr. R. Lyall
 
Next, a crumpled envelope with no stamp, addressed to me in Henry’s writing.
 
April
 
My dear Mariella,
I find myself on another ship, on calm seas.
This was not my decision. I was bundled aboard and carried away almost without my noticing. It feels all wrong to be on the Mediterranean rather than the Black Sea, far away from the war.
Why is the Black Sea called Black, when I have seen it gray, green, blue, and brown but never black? Pirates, I was told, there was always the fear of pirates in the old days.
As I write, a little cohort of troops under Canrobert’s Hill is digging another trench to accommodate the night’s dead and a surgeon at the Castle Hospital is hacking off the foot of a man caught by a Russian bullet. And I lie under a blue-and-white-striped awning on this ship full of wealthy officers invalided out of the war, and sightseers and businessmen returning home. I watch a loose strip of canvas swing in the breeze. There is one cloud, very steady and quite flat underneath, on the horizon.
A colleague of mine recommended Italy and that is where the boat is taking me. He has arranged for me to be met by an English doctor who will reserve my accommodation. I will send you my change of address.
Henry Thewell
 
By the way, I saw Rosa. Your cousin Rosa.
Very strange affair. Shocking, in fact. It was a while ago now, when I was still allowed to work in the trenches. Perhaps I mentioned it in a previous letter. I can’t remember. One morning, at dawn, I went forward as usual, after heavy firing from the Russian batteries. A more furious cannonade than we had been used to for days. I suspect because the cold had lost its grip Russian hands were more nimble at loading the rifles. Same with us.
During an armistice we rush forward to pick up the wounded. We mingle with the Russians, sorting the bodies. Two for you, one for me. A man writhes. I stoop down. He is Russian. He has only lost an arm. He could live. I wave to the Russian orderlies and they come and pluck him off the field.
I move on. The day is very wet—a steady drizzle is falling. I see something bright hanging over one of our wounded men. It is a woman’s light-colored hair. She is wearing a soldier’s greatcoat, and most of her hair is bound up in a blue knitted scarf which she has also wound round her neck. She is crouched over the body of a soldier whose head lies in a pool of blood and tissue. His eyes are fixed on her face. She must see that he won’t live but she takes his hand and strokes it. Then she becomes aware of me and raises her head. It is your cousin Rosa. Of all people. I can’t work out what she is doing there. It can’t be true. No. Perhaps she is some kind of fantasy or mirage. The rain dashes into her face. She looks thin and her nose is red, because it’s so cold. Her hands, which are bare, have chilblains. Two of her fingertips are completely yellow. She should take more care of herself. She really should. If the weather was a degree or so colder she’ d be in danger from frost-bite.
“Dr. Henry Thewell,” she says very slowly, as if the name comes to her a little at a time. Then she shakes her head. “ Your services are not required here.”
We both look down at the boy, who has that abstracted look of the dying. Rosa bends her face close to his. I hear her murmur words of comfort.
Then someone yells my name. I’m wanted twenty yards away, where perhaps there is hope for a wounded man, if I can get there soon enough. I move on.
When I look for her again, she is gone.

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