“I am giving them back a little of their pride.”
Bitter pain pierced him through at the soft, almost caressing, concern, and he blurted out, “You should be cossetting and succoring our son, not these gutterlings.”
Very still suddenly, she fixed him with a long gaze. “You forget we have both lost the one thing we wanted above all else in this life.”
He did not trust himself to reply to such a comment. If they had been alone in a room it would have been different. She went on. “As you say, I have no choice, but will you agree to a compromise? Jack Markham has taken a turn for the worse, and I really should not leave Letty alone at such a time. If you allow me to stay with her, I give my word to return to Balaclava when Captain Porchester puts in at Scutari next.”
He leaned back in his chair, tired and swept by the feeling of hopelessness he had experienced of late. Not yet forty-two, he felt the burden of years weighing on him as if he were gray and bowed. The sword cut in his arm was now only a scar, but his foot felt the raw air in its bones, and he had a slight drag on that leg. Balaclava was not much short of hell at the moment, from what he had heard, and he had no regiment of which to be second-in-command. The mere thirty who had survived the charge had no horses to ride and were probably down with fever or frostbite by now. Would the situation be any easier in the company of a woman who hated him?
“Stay here, if you must, Victoria,” he told her tonelessly. “I cannot see that it matters where you are.”
*
With Letty so preoccupied with Jack, Victoria found herself alone with Zarina in the daily task of meeting the wounded, and, despite the bitter winter weather that had now reached them, she continued to bring what little relief she could to the men. One day the red-haired doctor appeared before her with a cup of soup and said, “You never give up, do you? Drink this or you will be joining those poor devils.”
She shook her head. “I would rather you offered it to one of your patients.”
He began to shout at her above the wind. “If we all did that, no one would survive. The medical staff would be too ill to tend the patients.” He took her arm and guided her up the slope. “If you are not selfish enough to drink it before their eyes, stay up here for a while.”
Reluctantly she sipped the hot broth, and he surprised her by breaking into a grin. “Did you know you are acquiring a certain fame? We hear nothing from new arrivals but praise for ‘the lady with the sad eyes.’ They have even heard of you before they get here. Those who have recovered and returned to Balaclava give out the news to those on their way down.”
“Some do recover, then?”
He sobered. “That was before winter hit them up there. I have never known anything like this in all my years as a doctor, and I hope to God I never experience it again.”
She felt suddenly depressed. “I am doing so little.”
He took the empty cup from her fingers. “If everyone in England did a fraction of what you do, I should not be needed here much longer.” He gave another grin. “You are still an inveterate meddler, my dear madam, but I have no intention of stopping you.”
He strode away, and Victoria felt warmed by his words. It was a long time since anyone had smiled at her like that. Picking her way back down the slope, she took up her pad and pencil to write down addresses for her letters and went among those waiting to be carried in. The first man was a Scot, and she always found it difficult to understand what they said. Bending low, she concentrated on the unfamiliar accent, writing what she hoped was the correct street name and assuring him the letter would go off to his mother that evening.
“God bless you, ma’am,” said the man in the way most did, and she moved on. This one was full of bravado for her benefit, and she was in the midst of conversation with him when a hand caught at her skirt. Glancing around, she saw a figure lying a few feet away.
“I will be there in a moment,” she said, then caught sight of a captain’s insignia on the Hussar-blue sleeve and felt the blood drain from her. A step, and she was beside him, scarcely daring to look down at the man he could not be.
His chest was bound with vile bandages, the left sleeve of his jacket was cut away to reveal more bloody rags, the lower part of his face was covered with a matted brown beard, and running downward from above his left eye across his cheek was a deep puckered scar, crimson and raw, that hid his expression. But the blue-green eyes gazing at her were unmistakable.
The notepad fell from her hands; the pages were caught by the wind and tossed like autumn leaves all around her as she sank down beside him. Her fingers reached out to touch his stiff hair, his eyelids, then to trace the outline of his split left cheek with a trembling caress that came to rest on his mouth. He put up a hand to hers and she caught it up in agony to lay it against her wet face.
“Where did you go?” she whispered. “The world has been so cold without you.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Turkish navvies listened dumfounded to the English lady’s sudden inexplicable reversal of opinion, for it now appeared she was telling them they must on no account take that certain soldier into the hospital. Ever since she had begun her daily visits she had harangued them into getting the men into the hospital. One gave it as his opinion that the madness that sent an unveiled Christian female to do the work she had been undertaking had eventually taken possession of her completely and jabbed a finger in the direction of the hospital to which she was heading in a frenzy.
He was partially right. Victoria was possessed by something akin to madness, for nothing and nobody was going to take Hugo from her into that hospital. Her driving urge had been to save just one man, give Hugo a life for a life. Now she had a man to save. She could give Hugo his own life, and the only way it could be done was by keeping him out of the dreaded Barrack Hospital.
Reaching the doors, she brushed aside the orderly who would have prevented her entry and stepped into the corridor. It was only her state of single-minded frenzy that allowed her to walk about in this place blinded to its horrors. On either side of the corridor laymen without bedding or coverings of any sort, crammed closely together so that one could not turn without touching another and covered with lice that swarmed over the walls and floor.
Hurrying through the first corridor, Victoria entered a high barren room where the stench brought a terrible faintness and nausea that checked her for a moment. Seeing a young nun moving about at the far end of the room, she went in, lifting her skirts above the layer of muck and filth that covered the floor, grimly concentrating on the woman in gray and seeing nothing of the skeletal men piling the sides of the wards — mere lumps of misery with no pillow but their boots to raise their heads above the overflowings from toilets unable to cope with several thousand more patients than they were meant to serve.
The nun was firm. Miss Nightingale was too busy to see anyone, and the doctors were working almost without sleep. The one with red hair was performing an operation at the moment. Mrs. Stanford must leave immediately. The nun was adamant, but Victoria was even more so. Brushing past, she left the religious woman holding her bandages and hurried through the doorway and up some steps to the upper floor. There, a ward similar to that she had left revealed the same pitiful story, but a small screen at the end of the room drew her in the confidence of finding someone in authority behind it.
Heedless of faint moans and voices calling for water, she went the length of the room until she stepped around the screen. There was no doctor, as she had imagined, but something so utterly terrifying it forced its way into her suspended awareness. Beside a rickety wooden table was a basket full of limbs, some with uniform sleeves still upon them or the worn remains of a boot. They stuck out at angles, just as they had been thrown, the fingers on one hand crooked as though beckoning to her.
Victoria uttered a shuddering cry before backing away, then turned and ran blindly through the filthy chilled room, knowing she must get away from the horror at the far end. At the top of the stair
s she ran into someone coming up and gave a small shriek before collapsing against him in relief.
The red-haired doctor led her swiftly down the stairs and through a ward to a side door that gave onto a courtyard. The yard housed the two outbuildings used as mortuaries, but there was only the smell, not the sight of death, here, and the mere fact of being outside again made Victoria try to steady herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks against her will.
“Sister Thomalia said you were wandering about by yourself. I hope the experience has cured your meddlesome tendencies,” he said savagely. “This is no place for females. I told you that long ago.”
“Please…do not use your wrath on me right now,” she begged. “I am in the greatest need of help and you are the only one to whom I can turn.”
A surprising change came over him. The rough aggressive manner dropped away, and a droop of weariness aged him in a flash. “There is hardly a soul on this damned stretch of land who does not need my help right now,” he told her in a tone filled with helplessness. “You have just been inside that place. It is not possible for a man to share himself between thousands, so it will not matter if I desert them in your cause for a short while. Please, calm yourself and tell me the reason for your distress.”
“Will you walk with me to the beach?” she asked thickly. “There is down there…a friend whom all believed killed in the battle of Balaclava. I cannot tell how ill he may be.” She put her hand on his arm to start walking beside her away from the hospital. “I do not ask you to tend him — only tell me his condition. It is my intention to move him to a hotel in Constantinople. Once there, I will engage a doctor to give him treatment for as long as there is hope…but nothing will induce me to let him enter here. He had just returned from the dead. I will not send him straight back.”
He cast her a resigned look. “If he has been sent here, we have orders to take him in.”
Fire flashed from her eyes. “Who will ever miss him, sir?”
Choosing not to answer that, he reached the spot where Zarina was standing guard over Hugo. He was covered with one of Victoria’s rugs against the severe weather. “Is this the man?”
Victoria nodded. “Only tell me he will not suffer a setback if I arrange transportation across the Bosporus.”
“My dear madam, if he still lives after the journey from Balaclava, a trip on a ferry will do him no harm.” He squatted down and pulled back the rug, then took scissors from his pocket to cut the bandages away from Hugo’s chest wound.
Victoria found her teeth chattering with the cold. Uncontrollable shivering took possession of her limbs. Zarina put her own shawl across her mistress’s shoulders. The girl looked ill enough herself, these days, and Victoria refused the attention in gentle tones.
The doctor stood up, shaking his head. “That chest wound is serious — very serious indeed. On top of that he has a touch of enteric fever and is suffering from the usual malnutrition.”
“And if he goes to Constantinople?” asked Victoria through stiff lips.
“He has a good chance of recovery” was the surprising answer. “A nutritious diet will build up his resistance to the fever, and once that dies down the wound will have a chance of healing. Good food, constant care and clean, warm surroundings are all he needs.”
“You have orders to take him in your charge,” Victoria reminded him.
His frankness gave her her answer. “If I do, he will die.”
She decided on equal frankness. “Have you any idea of trying to prevent my taking him with me?”
“Among thousands his absence will merely mean a few feet of extra space on the floor. He is an officer and will report himself fit when the time comes, I have no doubt. Take him, madam. I shall voice no objections.”
“Thank you.” It contained so much gratitude, that carelessly used phrase, but the doctor had one more thing to say before he left.
“You intend to devote yourself to this one man. What of your work here with all these poor wretches?”
She gazed at him long and helplessly. “Perhaps you are right. This is no place for a female…unless she is a Miss Nightingale.”
After a few seconds his uncompromising features broke into a warm understanding smile. “Yes…unless she is a Miss Nightingale.” He pointed to Hugo. “You must cover that chest wound with something. Your petticoat would do.” He turned and walked back to the Barrack Hospital.
*
Victoria had Hugo carried into her own room at the hotel, then sent a note to the British Embassy asking for the name and address of the best doctor in Constantinople. While she waited in a fever of impatience for the information, her hands were busily employed in washing his face and hands, covered with ingrained dirt. It horrified her to see lice crawling through his hair and beard and the red weals on his skin where they had bitten him mercilessly.
Just when the tears began to flow she was not aware, but as she cared for him with passionate tenderness she spoke of everything that had been locked inside her since she had seen the truth reflected in the Mirror Room. She spoke as a young girl to her first sweetheart, as a mistress to her lover, as a mature woman to the possessor of her soul. He heard none of it. The journey across the Bosporus and the subsequent carriage ride had left him unconscious.
The doctor who answered the summons was French, courteous, very competent and susceptible to feminine charms. Taking the situation immediately in hand, he sent out for a young Turkish youth he trusted implicitly, saying he could do nothing for le capitaine until he was cleaned. Victoria left and went to Letty’s room while Zarina took instructions down to the kitchens for invalid foods to be prepared.
With all this activity going on, it was hardly surprising that word reached the ear of the hotel proprietor, who presented his black-mustachioed countenance at the door of Letty’s room to inform Madame that he could not allow his hotel to be used as a hospital; he could not allow guests to be exposed to infection; he could not allow special food to be cooked in his kitchens. Five minutes later, he was bowing himself out, clutching the list of special dietary requirements specified by the doctor and assuring Victoria that she had only to ask and he would be delighted to afford any assistance she might require. Wiping his brow with a silk handkerchief, he bustled down the stairs muttering under his breath about Madame Stanford, who looked so tiny and restful, yet had just flown at him like a she-wolf with cubs. Her husband was a lord, she said. They knew all the lords in England. They knew the British Ambassador and the French Ambassador. One word in the ears of all their friends that Yashul Ahmed was a disobliging man and this hotel would immediately empty and remain that way. Yashul Ahmed would be ruined.
Letty returned to find Victoria sitting with her head in her hands, overwhelmed by what had happened, now she had nothing to do but wait. Cast down by her own worries over Jack, Letty joined her friend in an outburst of tears. They sat together, holding hands and finding comfort in each other’s presence until Victoria could speak the truth she hardly yet dared believe.
“He is in my room being attended by a doctor I have hired,” she said fervently, “and do not say I should not have done it, because I could not bear to let him out of my sight again — I could not.”
Letty hugged her and burst into tears again. “God is truly good, Victoria. I shall not entirely believe it until I see him with my own eyes.” She drew away and wiped her eyes. “My dear, I understand your actions — but do you think it is wise to take his health into your own hands?”
“He is in the hands of an excellent doctor, Letty. I knew his life would be forfeit the minute he crossed the threshold of that hospital…oh, I am sorry… I did not mean…”
“I know,” said Letty. “Jack is just suffering a setback at the moment. He is keeping cheerful, and this news will be like a tonic to him. I wish I could remove him here, but I doubt they would allow it.”
“Perhaps in another week or so,” suggested Victoria. “In the meantime, say I may share your room, for there is n
o other to be had that will allow me to be so near Hugo.”
“Naturally you will share my room.”
Victoria was quiet for a moment, then: “I have to offer you an apology.”
The brown-haired girl was surprised. “I have no notion why.”
“While we have been in Constantinople I believe I have behaved toward you with slight constraint on occasion. I beg your pardon. My own compassion has not stood the test. I am about to abandon my work for selfish motives.”
“I see,” said Letty, then smiled. “Victoria, why are you so afraid of emotion? When I first met you it was plain you were at your nerves’ end — hardly the picture of a happy bride — yet you gave no hint of the reason. After you lost your child you changed dramatically, yet not one word did you speak to me of the experience. Then again, it was perfectly clear when we arrived in Varna that your husband was no longer speaking to his brother, nor Hugo to you. I still cannot guess why. I have known from the first that you loved Hugo and have watched you bear it in silence. He has also suffered from it and found no relief.” She took her friend’s hands. “You are here until Captain Porchester returns. Can you not let yourself be the weak, gentle creature you were born to be? Can you not let yourself be a simple woman? Until that ship arrives can you not forget duty, sacrifice and longing…and just love him?”
The doctor knocked before leaving and said he had left the Turkish boy watching over the patient, who was growing feverish. Madame could go in, if she wished, but should do nothing to disturb him. In view of le capitaine’s illness he would call again that evening.
Both ladies went along immediately and stood looking down at Hugo, who was extremely restless. He looked human once more in a striped nightshirt brought in by the lad. His hair and beard had been trimmed and washed clean; the terrible smell that had clung to him had been replaced by antiseptic that seemed to drench the entire room; there were clean bandages around his chest and left shoulder; and the blueness of cold had left his lips.
Scarlet Shadows Page 37