“If the poor soul thought anything at all it was the same as everyone else. She feared him and she disliked him in equal measure I’d say. But then he could be charming as well as curt. He had his dark little ways—the villagers learnt to keep a particular eye on their young daughters when he was about—but he could also make a grand gesture. I believe that it was my connection with the family that persuaded him to employ me, so I’m grateful for that, although he couldn’t stand the sight of me and would never so much as let me change the sheets on his bed when he was sick.”
“What happened to the Fairbrothers in the end?”
“Well now, that was something I never quite got to the bottom of. Before Max would take up his commission in the army he did an odd sort of deal with his father: that he would forgo any entitlement to the estate if the wretched cottages down by the river were demolished and the families found a home elsewhere, but until that happened he would not go near his regiment. So my poor cousins the Fairbrothers lived in a brand-new place in the village, and though they hadn’t the wits to thrive, at least they had some comfort. None of the family is living now.”
A number of officers’ wives overtook us on horseback, followed by the redoubtable Mrs. Seacole, who rode alone, her face framed by a flapping sunbonnet and her mule laden with panniers. Our conversation was at an end, because as we drew nearer the battlefield the din of musket fire and artillery was bone-shaking even though we learnt from returning ambulance wagons that the fighting was already in its dying gasps, and that the Russians were on the brink of a crushing defeat.
We gathered on a hilltop behind a throng of British onlookers, just above reserve squadrons of English and French cavalry in perfect formation though their horses were wild-eyed and straining forward. To our left French and Sardinian troops were lined up waiting for the signal to attack and others were streaming down the hillside. In the valley there was chaos under clouds of smoke, a churning mass of bodies, the clash of bayonets, and the pounding of cannon balls fired from the great guns positioned above.
Though the River Tchernaya was narrow and shallow it flowed between steep little banks upon which the soldiers floundered. Along the hillside to our right ran an aqueduct raised several feet above the ground to carry water from a reservoir in the hills to Sebastopol Harbor. Bodies were piled up along its perpendicular sides, felled by enemy gunfire as they attempted to cross. Within ten minutes of our arrival, wave upon wave of Russians had fallen as the French and Sardinians chased them across the river and up the hillsides.
I had already learnt that in a war everything looks better from a distance. This scene, a riot of blues, browns, and reds, was from the same ideal of battle as when my heart had thumped for joy at the sight of the march-past of troops before Buckingham Palace. From my lofty height even the clambering of Russian soldiers on the sides of the aqueduct resembled the antics of children in a party game. The allies had waited for the Russians to reach halfway up the valley-sides before chasing them back under blistering fire, leaving heaps of brown-coated bodies as if the retreating army was a carelessly packed bale shedding straw. At one point I saw a line of half a dozen Russians bowled over by a single cannon ball.
After an hour the remains of the Russian army had retreated to their encampment on the heights and a quiet fell over the battlefield, punctuated from time to time by the odd burst of fire. I half expected everyone to get up, shake themselves down, and walk away, but no, the fallen men stayed fallen and gradually, from all sides, a stream of soldiers, officers, doctors, and orderlies moved doggedly forward and started work among the dead and wounded.
I followed Nora across parched, tussocky grass. The field was still smoking and from time to time a crack of rifle fire was followed by a howl of pain. A nearby French orderly cursed the retreating Russians, who were known to shoot indiscriminately both at wounded enemy soldiers and the fatigue parties who went out to carry them from the field, but the threat meant nothing to me. I was too absorbed by the thousands of dead men, their atrocious wounds, the riverbanks draped with bodies, the stained waters of the Tchernaya, and my own inadequacy, as we began our search for the living. Some had fallen as if frozen in time with their arms flung out and their expressions fixed in surprise or excitement, others had curled up to die, hands over their faces. While some had stomachs, legs, arms, even heads missing altogether, others appeared untouched. They were all so fleshy, so recently scythed down, so far beyond my experience in their sudden shift from life to death that I felt light and helpless as a feather in the wind.
When a living man called out to me I knelt to give him a sip of water. His head was too heavy to support in my hand, so I rested it on my lap and it was only then that I realized from the color of his bloody uniform that this was a Russian. His foreignness repulsed me, the coarseness of his features and skin, his black, cropped hair, beaky nose, scabby beard, the fact that though his head was pillowed by my thigh, he and I had not a single thing in common, not even a word. But then he raised his hand and took a loose lock of my hair between his finger and thumb. His skin was ingrained with dirt and the thumbnail discolored by a bruise, yet he held the strand softly and rubbed it to and fro, as if to polish it. Then he looked up, gave me a misty smile, and tried to speak.
“What?” I whispered. “How can I help you?”
His lips again formed a word and I put my face nearer his. “What are you saying?”
A French ambulance party was approaching; they were upon us, had plucked him up by his knees and armpits, so that he gave a howl of pain, dropped him onto a stretcher, and carried him away down to the river, where he would lie among other enemy wounded.
I stayed where they had left me and wrapped the same lock of hair round my finger. I swear that the word he had spoken was
Rosa
.
Nora was a few feet away kneeling over a French soldier as she raised his arm, supported it against her bosom, and applied a neat bandage to a gaping wound in his wrist. Despite his lack of understanding she was chatting away to him and I could well imagine the mix of encouragement and instruction as she fixed him with her stern eye. Then she stood up and summoned a stretcher-bearer, pressed her hand to the small of her back, and braced her shoulders for the next casualty.
We learnt later that more than eight thousand Russians fell during that battle, nearly two thousand French, and a hundred or so Sardinians. Many considered that the allies should have pursued the Russians while they were in retreat and thereby gained a more conclusive victory but as it was we all returned to the camp.
The next day I braved Mrs. Shaw Stewart’s office and asked if I might be allowed to work in the hospital. She was at her desk, writing what looked like an immense report, and she stared at me in disbelief. “Have you any experience as a nurse? Then what you ask is absurd. I have enough to do responding to memos from Dr. Hall about the ones who are already there without yet another untrained lady drifting about causing havoc. You would have no idea how to behave.”
“I only ask to act as a kind of orderly or...”
“If I’d thought that all this time your intention had been to worm your way into the hospital I’d never have let you stay.”
“But I was at the battlefield yesterday...”
“Who gave you permission?”
“I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t think...”
“Exactly so. You are not a nurse, Miss Lingwood. You have no idea of the discipline required. Our reputation as nurses in these military hospitals is sufficiently fragile that we cannot risk any more scandal. There is no question of your working on the wards and I wonder you should ask.”
Seven
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July 20, 1855
Stukeley Hall (of all places)
Derbyshire
Dear Mariella,
Well, I was very glad to receive your letter and hear that Nora is improving and you are able to be useful. Not everyone would be, in those circumstances. Father is a little more reconciled than he was, all the more because we are getting invited to some very grand places on account of you and the war.
Ruth has been told to send you all the embroidery silks and needles you asked for.
We have received another letter from Henry, who says he is well, though I must say his handwriting is not all it should be. Nor does the content, dwelling as it does almost exclusively on Rosa’s disappearance, suggest an altogether healthy mind. I would be more concerned for you, Mariella, had it not been for the coolness of your last letter, particularly in relation to Henry. Your father and I have discussed this matter at length and decided, as a first step, that I should write to Dr. Lyall, asking him to give us a candid account of Henry’s health. We are very sad—it would not be an exaggeration to say that you and Henry are constantly on my mind—that it seems so many years of study, not to say all your hopes, should have come to this sorry end. But that is war and I trust you are bearing up.
So it seems that the next wedding after all is not to be yours but Isabella’s. The Dulwich house upon which she and Mr. Shackleton have taken out a lease is small but Father has looked it over and says the plumbing is modern and the roof sound. Isabella has plans to hold what she calls Crimean drawing rooms. Amongst our friends nobody talks of anything else but Rosa’s disappearance and the fact that you have followed her. We have heard rumors from returning officers that Rosa may have gone out on a limb (I use Mrs. Hardcastle’s expression), which Isabella says would not be unlike Rosa. She surprises me sometimes by her fortitude in this respect. Everyone is relieved that Miss Nightingale seems to have come through the crisis in her health and she is always mentioned in our prayers, after the queen.
We have heard news of an allied defeat and we cannot understand this as all the word from the
Illustrated London News
and
The Times
has been that the allied forces are much the stronger and the Russians are on their knees in the city of Sebastopol. Your father, as you well know, is a great supporter of Palmerston but even he has begun to doubt.
Meanwhile here we have a hot summer and last week there were two deaths at the home due to the heat, I cannot help thinking, one heart failure, the other some stomach disorder, possibly typhus, though I hate to write that word and hope it was some other malady. The doctor was undecided.
You will be wondering what I am doing here in Derbyshire. The fact is Horatio Stukeley is also to be married in September and he wrote that if Isabella wishes to claim any of her remaining possessions from the house then now is the time because it is all to be remodeled inside. Isabella was of course eager to recover her few sticks of furniture, as she termed them, to help furnish the Dulwich house, though when we went up to the attics at Stukeley it seemed to me that she had retained some very good furniture from our father’s house in Bakewell that I remember from childhood and can’t think how I wasn’t offered them at the time. Of course I am the younger sister and as I recall after his funeral we went home and walked through the old rooms and she said take anything, dearest, but my tears were falling so fast I could hardly see. At any rate there is a very pretty writing desk with a stand on top for ink and pens, and a sewing cabinet with three little drawers, which I used to arrange for Mother, setting all the cotton reels in order of color and tidying the needle book, which I think you would have loved, but Isabella says both these are cherished items of her own and ideal for the new house. She never sews, as you know, and there was some tension between us when I said you ought to have the sewing cabinet, which has lain dusty all these years in the attic at Stukeley.
The woman (girl) Horatio is to wed is called Georgiana Stokes-Lacey (actually I believe that we must call her “the Honorable”) and her family owns a great deal of land and property including an iron foundry and cutlery factory in Sheffield. The family is therefore prospering at present, from the war, I gather. She is only a younger daughter, with thin hair and a round face, but nonetheless.
Horatio Stukeley is taller than I remember, already quite bald like his father and with very large hands. I never found him easy to talk to. Incidentally, here at Stukeley the younger brother Max’s portrait is hung prominently above the stairs, and a letter from his general praising his courage under fire at Inkerman is displayed underneath. Apparently there was hope of further promotion but that has been dashed by news of an injury. We have no details but Isabella assures me Max is not the type to die, they have all worried about him needlessly before. Georgiana alludes often to the prospect of his return. Her fascination with his brother might give me cause for concern, were I Horatio. The fact that Max is now injured seems to make him even more interesting to Georgiana. I am sorry that he is hurt—I was very taken with him when he called at Fosse House last year, and for your sake I wish he was still in the Crimea. I used to reassure myself that at least there was someone approaching a family member out there who might watch over you.
We have been given bedrooms on the second floor as so much of the first is to be rearranged for the Hon. Georgiana, though no work has begun as yet. Isabella is sorry not to have her old bedroom but my memories of Stukeley are not so joyful that I would care to be accommodated in the same chamber as when we last were here.
I’ve noticed that since her engagement to Mr. Shackleton, who is very deferential to her wishes, Isabella has become more critical of Sir Matthew. Certainly when we visited here that summer I wondered at her choice. I never liked Stukeley, as you doubtless realized. I’ve never known time to hang so heavily on my hands, though I was pleased that a friendship had sprung up between you and Rosa. I missed you, sometimes, as I remember, because I was never sure where you might be.
I shall be glad to leave. The house is in a state of great upheaval. The Hon. G. enlisted our help in clearing the library, which she wishes to make into a sitting room because she says it commands the best view of the lawns. But tonight, before dinner, Horatio came in and found us emptying the shelves and said he did not remember giving permission for any such thing to happen. We were all very uncomfortable, because he went inside and shut the door behind him and was even heard to lock it. During dinner he and Georgiana didn’t speak to each other at all. An unpromising start, one way and another, I pity them both.
But then at home Mrs. Hardcastle and I are scarcely on speaking terms either and she now attends a different church, though I’m told by Mr. Shackleton that she finds the service very high. I’m afraid she has not forgiven Isabella for marrying Mr. Shackleton. He after all is worth four thousand a year while Isabella has next to nothing. I miss Mrs. Hardcastle and without her sponsorship the second Governesses’ Home cannot go ahead. Your father is less generous than he used to be. He is sad without you, Mariella, even though your trip to the Crimea has been good for his business in terms of connections. So the house is very quiet and soon even Isabella will be gone. I do not think the governesses require all my time and I am going to cast about for a new cause. Rosa’s acquaintance, Barbara Leigh Smith, came with me as promised to the home and it was wonderful how invigorated we all felt looking ahead to a time when girls might one day have a full and varied curriculum to follow in their schools. Some of the poor governesses became quite animated when they remembered their old pupils. Although Isabella will never stay in the room with Miss Leigh Smith due to what she calls the shadow cast by her doubtful birth, Barbara and I get along very well. This has been an unusually hot summer, as I said. The garden is parched. When we are back at Fosse House we shall begin work on Isabella’s trousseau, though it will be a sad business without your help. She is to wear gardenias in her hat.
We hear that hot weather has brought the cholera back to the camps. I rely on Nora to ensure you only drink clean water. It is very late, but too close to sleep. There is nearly a full moon and I can see down into the Italian Garden where you and Rosa used to play.
If I were to write that I missed you, you should not take it as a matter of reproach,
Maria Lingwood (your mother)