Scarlet Shadows

by Elizabeth Darrell

  “Dear God in heaven!” whispered Hugo. He sank slowly down on one knee to turn his brother’s face around. The pale eyes stared at him in sightless accusation, the proud features cursed him with their marble stillness, the once bright hair frosted with gray spoke to him of a light now snuffed.

  “Charles…dear God, no! Not like this,” pleaded Hugo on a breath.

  Nearly thirty years flew before his eyes as he held that head in his hands so that it would not rest in the dust. Two boys playing soldiers in the nursery, or hide-and-seek in the shrubbery, the bright golden hair of one betraying him to the smaller one. A youth and a small boy meeting eagerly in the school holidays, catching up on those things dearest to each other’s hearts and racing across the paddock to show off new horses. A young man and a youth — the former arriving in all the splendor of a cornet’s uniform that somehow made him more than mortal and earned the other’s total envy and adulation. Two young men, laughing and vital, a captain and a cornet, shaking hands and clapping each other on the back in that bond of brotherhood and comradeship that stands all tests. Two mature officers in a loved and familiar room, one with a black band over his eyes and the other describing his happiness…

  He put his hand over Charles’s eyes and closed them forever. Then he put a hand over his own. He stayed there a long time, until there was a movement behind him as the blanket was pushed aside. He raised his head in a daze. Victoria stood there in a sprigged cotton dress and a chip-straw bonnet, distraught and clutching her skirt. It seemed to Hugo that she had ceased to breathe. He got to his feet a shocked and grieving man, unable to accept the truth.

  “We have done this,” he said hoarsely. “We robbed him of everything that was his by right. We broke his pride and betrayed his trust. I would have remained blinded forever rather than set eyes on you. I wish never to see you again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lieutenant-Colonel the Honorable Charles Reginald Stanford, commanding officer of the Hussars, was buried with full military honors at the Crimea on September 1, 1855, after his tragic death in a shooting accident.

  That was how the world was notified of the events of that last day in August. It was spoken of in the French and English camps for no more than a day. Death came as regularly as breakfast in the Crimea, and officers were notorious for playing with their pistols as a means of passing the time. Several had shot off their toes, one had put a hole in his forearm, yet another had wounded his brother as they sat admiring the decoration on the handle of the weapon.

  By September 2 the incident was forgotten in a greater excitement, as spies gave evidence of an imminent attack by the Russians. The regiments stood to their arms. The British cavalry formed up in the plain beyond Kadikoi every day at 2:00 A.M. to counter any attempt to descend on Balaclava and remained there until it appeared an attack would not be launched that day. Meanwhile, on the 5th, the allies began a tremendous and earsplitting bombardment of Sebastopol, noting with some satisfaction that the bridge of boats leading from the port was never empty of Russian citizens, who appeared to be evacuating the town.

  Amid the frantic and deadly preparations, Victoria carried out the sad duties of a widow with an air of desperation, as if she dared not leave herself nothing to do. Her friends rallied to her, but Hugo came nowhere near. Since that moment of death he had behaved as if she were not there. At the graveside he had stood like a lead soldier from a nursery toy box until he had stepped forward to lay Charles’s sword on the coffin as a symbol of honor. His face had been gray; he knew there had been nothing honorable about his brother’s death. After the earth had been tossed onto the crude coffin, he had walked away, never acknowledging the widow.

  Over the past three years Victoria had faced so many of life’s challenges and found the courage or compassion to live through them, but now her reserves had run out. She was a creature without purpose, a slender stem with no root, in need of the support she had given to so many in their despair. The one person who could provide it had turned against her. Never had she felt more lost and alone. In life Charles had kept them apart; in death he had made them strangers.

  Since she was unable to stay in the cavalry camp, the best that could be done for her was a room in the quarters occupied by the nurses and Sisters of Mercy at Balaclava General Hospital, until the emergency was over and a passage could be arranged. Two nuns moved in together to allow the bereaved lady privacy, but Victoria found their attempts at Christian comfort only increased her plight.

  Over and over again she suffered the guilt of not realizing the extent of Charles’s need of her that morning, of not seeing that he was as ill as any of the men she had gone out to tend. Every time she closed her eyes she saw him again, hollow-eyed and haunted by the thought of another winter. Hour after hour she struggled to see the light through the darkness of Hugo’s words.

  Suicide was dishonorable. It offended against Christian principles and marked a man as a coward. That a man like Charles could contemplate taking his own life was beyond acceptance. The truth still would not penetrate the blanket of unreality wrapped around her, and she knew Hugo had come to terms with it only because he held himself responsible and saw her as the cause. Is he right? she prayed. Dear Lord, are we to blame?

  In her strange room, surrounded by nuns and several of the high-born ladies who had always held aloof from her, Victoria tried desperately to face her future and found she could not. The little town of Balaclava reminded her sharply of the short time she had lived there with Letty last October, and she longed for her friend’s support now. For the first time she realized the vulnerability of a woman alone.

  The officers were kindness itself. Major Mackintosh had packed all Charles’s belongings into boxes and sent them down to her new quarters. Lord Dovedale had seen to the sale of the horses and equipment, and Captain Codrington had dealt with the letters of condolence that came pouring in. If he noticed that a great many of those from private soldiers were promoted more by Victoria’s past kindness than any sadness at the passing of her husband, he did not say so. Like all her friends, the youthful captain was solicitous to a point beyond friendship, but their sincere, and sometimes shy affection highlighted Hugo’s renunciation and shut her further within herself.

  Byron Porchester called on her several times and made no secret at his distress over her grief. Kind though he was, she turned down his offers to be of service. Although he was perfectly proper, she felt that too much dependence on the sea captain now might lead to embarrassment later, and she did not wish to hurt him.

  The days seemed endless, the nights longer, and such was her state of mind that when, on September 8, the Allied forces launched their final mammoth attack on the Russian outer defenses, she cast aside convention and the good opinion of others to return to Major Prescott’s hospital. When one of the high-born ladies made a pointed comment, Victoria retorted that her husband was safely in the hands of the Lord, but the wounded and dying still had need of help.

  How right her words were to prove only became plain as the sun went down on that day. The French force had stormed their objective at midday and captured it with great élan, but the British had been beaten back with devastating losses. Yet another blundered battle fought in chaos by untried lads who soon lost heart and discipline when all around them began to fall in great bloody piles.

  Seizing their opportunity, the Russians, who had retreated before the French, rushed across to reinforce their comrades and caught the unfortunate troops, trapping them in a bottleneck.

  The ladders they had carried into battle to scale the walls of the fortifications were broken and useless, so the retreating redcoats were obliged to hurl themselves from the walls to escape, and it was not long before the Russians found their way to the spot to bayonet them as they came down. Within minutes, the ditch below was full of bodies, the dead pouring down onto the wounded and burying them, while the living trampled over them in their frenzied efforts to return to the comparative safety of the t
renches. The surviving officers remained until last, in a vain attempt to take the position by sheer audacity, but they eventually fell or were taken prisoner. The British commander-in-chief was obliged to report to his French counterpart that his attack was a failure and to swallow the bitter fact that his allies had carried off a brilliant assault in a matter of minutes and had the tricolor fluttering above their prize.

  Victoria worked hard in the hospital all day and, as she saw the long line of ambulance wagons winding their way up toward the camps, breathed a prayer of thanks that the cavalry had been employed only to provide a cordon around the area. She knew they hated the duty, but mounted troops could not be used to attack fortified walls, although she had heard Lord Dovedale suggest it would not surprise him to be ordered to charge the town of Sebastopol, since the entire campaign had been fought on absurd lines.

  Before it grew dark, Major Prescott insisted that Victoria should return to Balaclava. Reluctantly she agreed to allowing a sergeant to accompany her back.

  The roads were so familiar after a year, as were the camps filled with uniformed men going about various duties. The smell of horses, of meat boiling, of latrines, of the sweet grass, the tang of the sea, the cool freshness of evening, would she ever forget them? Would she ever be happy among petticoats and embroidery, drawing rooms and vinaigrettes, sedate strolls in the sunshine and women like Charity Verewood? Would she ever fit into a life where bugles did not wake her and the thud of hooves above the shout of men’s voices accompanied her breakfast?

  She had become part of the regiment and was unable to break away from it. With growing sadness she journeyed down to Balaclava past the camps that housed depressed, dispirited men, sharing their inglorious day and their trepidation of the morrow when they must renew their attack. She asked herself what must be their inner thoughts and feelings as the night hours ticked away, and she knew she would have no patience with drawing-room beaux. And when some fresh-faced squire tried to impress her with how he had galloped at a fence during the hunt, she would think of glittering rows galloping at cannon. Long after peace came she would remember those shuffling creatures on the beach at Scutari and the ragged bearded men with staring eyes who had lived through the winter and greeted her when she arrived back. She would remember how an army had died through neglect and stupidity, and it would be impossible to hold her tongue on the subject. She would want to tell the truth of it when she returned — how the defenders of their island had been sent off to do their honorable duty with no more regard once they left Britain’s shores than a cargo of animals would have been given. They would not want to hear, but she would insist on their hearing it.

  On her arrival in England Lord Blythe would expect his heir’s widow to make her home at Wychbourne. That great house with all its corridors and precious contents would not compare with a tent on a spring morning; the elegant dinner table would seem pretentious after an ammunition box; the green acres would leave her lonely for the sight of white pyramids, horse lines and scarlet and blue uniforms.

  They reached Balaclava, and Victoria turned to the sergeant. He had respected her silence during the journey. He had a face burned brown by the sun, clear green eyes, and a mouse-colored mustache. He looked to be a simple honest man of around thirty. His scarlet jacket had faded to pink.

  “How long have you been in the Crimea, Sergeant?”

  “Same time you have, ma’am. They might call us both ‘old soldiers,’ I suppose.” He smiled gently.

  “May God bless you tomorrow,” she said with a lump in her throat and went inside quickly.

  Deep in thought, she sat on a chair and looked from her window at the smoke hanging still in a great pall over Sebastopol. The sergeant had confirmed her own thoughts — she was too much of a military wife to desert it now. For a wild moment she wished she were a trooper’s widow who could marry another right away, but she was a lady who must observe the conventions. The answer lay in that wish, however. Marriage to another military officer was her solution — someone a little younger than Charles and with a more yielding nature. A gentle, understanding man would have a good wife in her, for she would devote herself to him and his career, traveling with him wherever he went.

  Affection could be between them, for he would surely make no worse demand of her body than Charles had done.

  Her spirits dropped. No doubt she had all the qualities required to be a campaigning wife, but it had been hurtfully apparent that breathless, round-eyed admiration from dainty, delicate, helpless creatures was what appealed to the officers who now looked upon her as a friend but no more. Slowly she walked across to the mirror to stare at the woman she had become. Nearing twenty-one now, the echo of her experience could be plainly seen in too thin tanned features that were dominated by dark eyes that had lost all luster, and her hair that had once bounced in glossy curls added to her severe look with its present drab coils.

  As she stared, another face peeped over her shoulder — a young, beautiful girl who saw in her myriad reflections the truth of a love destined never to die. She turned away and put her back to the mirror. The vision did not fade, so she put up her hands to cover her eyes. It was as futile a gesture as the other, and the numbness following Charles’s death vanished completely as she broke into a paroxysm of sobbing for her lost love. Without Hugo she would have no future.

  It was dark when Victoria became aware of her surroundings once more. Dragging herself to her feet, she lit the lamp. She was in the midst of attempting to arrange her hair in a more attractive style when one of the nuns came to tell her there was a man outside inquiring for her — a rough-looking man who looked as if he could easily become violent. His request would have been denied, except that he was in the uniform of the Hussars and might have some message for her.

  Full of apprehension, she snatched up a shawl and stepped out onto the wooden veranda of the building. There was a soldier standing at the end beneath a lamp and, as she drew near, Victoria slowed her steps. His uniform was in the most appalling state — as if he had taken part in today’s battle. His left trouser leg was missing and had been replaced by filthy bandages that stretched past his knee. The gold lacing on his jacket was torn and blackened by gun smoke; the fur busby was clotted with mud. His black mustache had merged into a flowing beard, yet, as changed as he was, Victoria knew him, and her hand went out to grip the rail.

  “Stokes!”

  He stepped forward quickly. “I’m sorry if I give you a fright, ma’am. I didn’t ought to be here, by rights, but…well, I had to come, somehow.” He peered closely at her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “I think I should like to sit down,” she said faintly. “Perhaps you would sit beside me on the steps for a moment.”

  He helped her settle on the wooden veranda, then lowered himself carefully to the boards several feet away from her. As she recovered a little from her shock, the full import of his appearance hit Victoria.

  “I am so sorry. You…you know your wife is no longer with me?”

  He nodded. “The captain jest told me.”

  “She searched for you every day among the wounded, but nobody had seen you and so many had just vanished that day after the smoke cleared. She would not have gone, except that everything pointed to your never returning. Please believe that.”

  “I know,” he said simply.

  “She would never have been happy as a servant in England, and it seemed almost providential that there should have been some of her own kind of people in Constantinople when she was feeling so bewildered.”

  There was a short silence between them. Then he said, “If I could’ve got word to her I would have done. All I remember of that day was riding toward them guns and thinking how crazy we all was to obey such a command. I never got as far as the guns. My mare fell and tossed me over her head. Next thing I recall I was being marched along inside high walls and not knowing who I was or what I was doing there.” A hand that was thin and sinewy scratched at his beard. “Time
I got my senses back it was too late to send notification to our people, and the Russians weren’t eager to put themselves out over a trooper.”

  Victoria leaned back against a post. “You have been a prisoner all this time in Sebastopol?”

  “Some were taken into Russia, but they let all us out jest before dark today. I went straight to Captain Esterly when they told me about the colonel.” He appeared awkward. “I know I shouldn’t have disturbed a lady in mourning, but I had the feeling you wouldn’t mind, ma’am. You’ve always been…well…different from other gentry — right from the start, you was. I’m real sorry about Colonel Stanford. This war takes men in all manner of ways, don’t it?”

  “Yes, Stokes. All manner of ways,” she echoed thoughtfully.

  They sat staring out across the bright starlit night toward the sea. “The captain has taken it real bad. Jessop says he sits in a trance all the time and snaps his head off if he’s disturbed. Isn’t there nothing you can do, ma’am?”

  Victoria did not find it strange that he should think she should be the one to comfort Hugo. He and Zarina had always known the truth. She made no attempt to be coy.

  “I only wish I could. Shock takes people in unusual ways, Stokes. As soon as you are fit enough to take over from Jessop I suggest that might be an excellent move. He has missed your friendship quite as much as your services, you know.”

  He made no direct answer to that. “So many are gone. I hardly recognize the old Hussars. Poor Mr. Markham, Mr. Edmunds, Colonel Rayne… I reckon the captain was lucky. I heard from the lads what you have done, ma’am, and I reckon you should get any medals that are handed out for this lot.”

  She smiled sadly. “Thank you, but Mrs. Stokes was quite as industrious as I at Scutari. Without her I do not know what I should have done. I felt I had lost more than a maid when she left so suddenly.” Thinking about the day Zarina had vanished brought something to mind, and she got to her feet. “A moment, if you please. I have something you might be glad to keep.”