Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  Even as Louisa set his dinner on the table, he could tell that something was wrong. Her silence was that of rigid self-control, but he resisted the urge to ask. Instead, he tucked into a dumpling stew which boasted rather more vegetables than meat; but it was good and he was hungry, and he had no intention of letting it go to waste. There was baked apple with cinnamon for pudding, and he enjoyed that too, all the while thinking about his father, whose letter lay on the table before him. He looked forward to reading it, but knew it would have to wait a little while at least.

  ‘What is it, Louisa?’ he asked at last, pushing his empty plate away.

  From her chair by the fire, Louisa gave vent to frustration. ‘Well, apart from the fact that Mamma’s been quite cantankerous all day – positively hateful in fact – she had a letter this morning.’ Indicating his own missive on the table, she said: ‘It came with yours — from Dublin — from Robert. Don’t ask me what it said,’ she added defiantly, ‘because she wouldn’t let me see it.’

  The name stabbed at him. He looked away, not wanting her to see his face, while he told himself that this was only the beginning of something he had expected for a long time.

  ‘Postmarked Dublin, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you must expect to see him,’ he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘He’ll be here, sooner or later, you can depend on it.’

  Four

  Although he had slept tolerably well on the overnight packet, and ate a good breakfast before disembarking, the train journey from Liverpool was more tiring than he had imagined. By the time he arrived in York, Robert was white with exhaustion. Concentrating on finding a porter, and with his shoulder throbbing abominably, he did not notice Harris’s lanky form striding towards him. Unexpectedly, a familiar voice hailed greetings, large hands grasping his with painful enthusiasm.

  At once Harris took charge, leading the way to a waiting cab. With a sigh of relief Robert leaned back against sagging upholstery, letting his former servant stow the small trunk and leather bag. Amidst thuds and creaks the job was done, Harris climbed inside and the cab pulled out, its wheels protesting against sanded granite setts.

  Almost against his will, Robert looked out at the city which had haunted him, off and on, for years. Here, for a short while at least, he and Louisa had been truly happy. But that afternoon, against a dirty yellow sky and wet, dark, depressing streets, the stark smile of the city walls seemed fraught with menace, a bold and strangely potent reminder of old defiance not yet dead. Beside the road, at the foot of those massive ramparts, like loose and blackened teeth, the tombstones in the cholera ground made him shiver.

  ‘Without a city wall,’ he quoted, remembering the Easter hymn. ‘But wouldn’t you think, Harris, they’d move the poor devils? It looks like some gruesome medieval warning just as you leave the bloody station – heads on gateposts, that sort of thing. Hard to credit they were put there within living memory and not in the blasted Dark Ages.’ Getting no reply, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

  After a moment, he prompted: ‘So what do you make of these people, Harris? Don’t you find them obstinate and backward? Does living in a walled city give them archaic ideas?’

  Harris shifted uncomfortably. ‘Don’t know, sir. Can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it.’

  ‘You should, Harris, you should. I think you’ll find I’m right.’

  He winced in sudden pain as the cab jolted over tramlines; full of concern, Harris said with forced brightness, ‘We’ll soon be home, sir. The Missus has got you a room all ready, and a nice hot meal. Then you can get your head down for a couple of hours — do you the world of good.’

  There were more jolts, several of them, over Castle Mills Bridge; grim with anxiety, Harris uttered a few terse comments as he paid the fare, and such was the state of his other passenger that the cabbie forbore to reply. Leaving the man to unload the luggage, Harris ushered Robert through into the snug, where a cheerful fire was blazing; a moment later he was back from the bar with a glass and a bottle.

  ‘Here we are, sir, a drop of your favourite.’ Pouring a glassful, he pushed it across the table. ‘Get that down you and we’ll think about getting you up those stairs and to bed. You’ll feel more like eating later.’

  ‘Grief, Harris, are you intending to carry me?’ Robert muttered. ‘I don’t knock it back like that any more.’

  ‘All the better then — it should kill that pain all the quicker. Honest fair, sir, you shouldn’t be travelling in your state of health.’

  ‘That’s what my sister said.’

  ‘And she was right. Come on, sir, get that down.’

  ‘All right, Harris, all right! Good God, man, do you want to choke me?’

  ‘No, sir, I want to get you up them stairs.’

  Robert downed what was left in the glass and struggled to his feet. He caught a brief glimpse of Moira behind the bar, answering her anxious, fleeting smile before negotiating a steep and narrow staircase and a landing which sloped like the deck of a ship. He muttered something about being drunk again, and Harris laughed, saying it was the house which was drunk; a fitting condition, he supposed, for a pub.

  There was no need to fetch his luggage; Harris knew of old that the Captain slept in nothing more restricting than his skin. With the ease of long practice, he gently removed overcoat, jacket, waistcoat and boots, standing back while Robert unbuttoned his shirt and trousers and the long underwear Letty had insisted on for the sea voyage.

  ‘Feels like a blasted hair-shirt,’ he muttered as Harris peeled the fine wool from his shoulders, and smiled grimly at the sudden indrawn breath and low whistle which followed. ‘I know it’s not a pretty sight, but believe me, it looks worse than it is.’

  With an attempt at levity, he pointed to the long, jagged scars showing white against the tanned skin of his wrist and forearm. ‘Remember these? That old riding accident? You never believed that for a minute, did you, Harris?’ As his old servant smiled and shook his head, Robert pointed to a deep, crescent-shaped indentation above his right knee. ‘This one was before your time, though – a mess if ever I saw one. Got that at the same time as Tommy Fitzsimmons had his face cut open.’ With a long sigh, as he slid between cool clean sheets, he murmured: ‘I wonder how old Tommy’s going on? Haven’t heard from him in ages.’

  ‘He’ll be managing just fine, sir,’ Harris observed, straightening clothes and producing hangers from a curtained alcove beside the chimney breast.

  ‘No wardrobes as yet, sir,’ he apologized, explaining that fancy furniture had been low on their list of priorities. While building up the business, he and Moira had felt it fitting to concentrate their money on the public rooms. ‘But as you can see, we gave the place a thorough going-over when we moved in. Had a man paint the woodwork and hang new wallpaper. Still, we’ll get to proper furniture eventually.’

  ‘You’ve done wonders,’ Robert commented, glancing round at the pale yellow walls. The bedside table might be an old trunk with a cloth over, but it served a purpose, and the bed was comfortable. He had no complaints at all.

  ‘Well, sir, I’ll leave you to sleep. Dinner’s a hot-pot, and it’ll keep.’

  Drowsy already, Robert murmured: ‘Don’t let me sleep too long. I’ve a lot of things to do...’

  It was almost five o’clock when he sat down to eat his meal at a place set for him in the tiny snug. Refreshed by his sleep and reasonably free of pain, once he caught the aroma of that hearty mutton stew, Robert realized he was famished. Harris set a full plate before him, and, to wash it down, a pint of dark and creamy porter. It was the best he had tasted in years.

  Moira kept appearing briefly behind the serving-hatch, her cheery smile the only recognition of his rapidly clearing plate.

  ‘Help yourself to that when you’re ready, sir,’ Harris said as he returned with coffee and the same bottle of brandy he had produced earlier. ‘I’ll just pull myself a mug of ale.’

 
; A moment later the two men were seated comfortably by a well-stacked fire, exchanging the courtesies which had of necessity been cut short earlier. Glancing round, it was obvious to Robert that the years of rigorous military training had been allowed to slip not one iota; brassware and copper shone as though for a field day, the mahogany bar-counter gleamed, and the stained glass to either side of the serving-hatch sparkled its reflections of the fire. Complimenting his host on the quality of his beer, Robert ventured a comment that business must be good.

  With a deprecating smile Harris said it was improving all the time. The roughest faction, mainly itinerants rife in the area on cattle-market days, had been quickly discouraged. Since then they were gaining a better clientele of farmers in from the country, and a hard core of non-commissioned officers from the Cavalry Barracks.

  ‘We did have a few of the foot-soldiers,’ he added, ‘but the usual trouble started. I tried to be fair about it – taking no sides – but once it got round that I was ex-cavalry myself, the other johnnies stopped coming in.’

  Talk hovered for a while on the relative merits of army and civilian life. There were certain aspects of his former occupation that Harris missed, but not many, he said, and not enough to have bred regrets. The one thing he was sorry about was the fact that his old master had taken himself off to the Sudan alone.

  ‘Not that I could have gone anyway, sir, even if I’d still been with the colours — but I always thought, if there was anything, we’d sort of be in it together, if you know what I mean.’

  More deeply touched than he cared to admit, Robert looked down into his glass and smiled. ‘Yes, Harris,’ he murmured, ‘I do know what you mean. But you know,’ he added in a brighter tone, ‘you did come with me in a way. When I was stuck out there in the desert, scouting for Kitchener and wondering what ghastly mess my black-fellas were going to produce for supper, I thought of you, and the rabbit stews we used to plan! Where’s your rabbits now, Harris? I used to say to myself. Where’s those plump little game birds we used to buy at the poulterers on the Fulford Road?’

  Robert’s blue eyes twinkled with sudden humour, and Harris pulled a rueful face.

  ‘Still wish I’d been there, sir.’ His quiet sincerity left an uneasy silence in its wake, while the inevitable questions about what had happened at Omdurman hung awkwardly between them. Harris was strangely embarrassed; Robert less so, having already given versions of the truth to Letty and Molloy.

  Eventually, on neutral ground, Harris said: ‘The papers made quite a thing of that stupid charge – when they finally got hold of it. Made the 21st Lancers sound like conquering bloody heroes,’ he added, with more than a touch of derision. ‘But it sounded a bit of a cock-up to me, sir.’

  With raised eyebrows and a faint, quirky smile, Robert nodded. ‘I’m glad somebody could read between the lines,’ he said admiringly. ‘It’s all everybody else wants to talk about — the honour and glory bit.’ Shaking his head, he added, ‘Kitchener was so bloody furious he didn’t even report it in the press despatches.’

  In fact, Robert had heard from one of Kitchener’s own staff that it was only the press correspondents’ eagerness for a story which had made that abortive charge generally known: in their enthusiasm for the ‘victory’ at Omdurman, they had blown a fiasco into a colourful and glorious act of bravery. The bravery of those raw and untried troops was not in question, of course; wisdom and discipline, however, were different matters. It was not at all what the great man had intended; and in the aftermath of that fiasco, although the town of Omdurman was taken, their chief objective, which had been the capture of the Khalifa, was a failure. As far as Robert was aware, they were chasing him still.

  Thinking of the charge, he sadly shook his head. ‘What a waste,’ he murmured. ‘What a desperate waste it was. Of men and good horses, and — well, bravery. All for nothing.’

  ‘Why, sir?’

  With a short, mocking laugh, Robert said, ‘Well, I know it’s easy to be wise after the event, Harris, but they were all green as grass, virtually a scratch force, fresh out from England. They were told to head the Khalifa’s main force away from Omdurman — and I suppose a headlong charge seemed the most obvious way to do it. But apparently the order to charge was never given – the whole lot just set off, spontaneously. I suppose they just couldn’t wait, it was what they’d all left home for, the silly buggers.’

  Harris winced. ‘Carnage,’ he whispered.

  ‘Absolutely bloody right!’ Robert exclaimed. ‘And in the end, they had to dismount and use their carbines, which isn’t nearly so much fun as rushing headlong into the gallop! But by then,’ he added, sighing, ‘it was far too late to have any effect. The blasted Dervishes retreated, joined up again with their main force, and attacked the rest of us coming down behind the Lancers. Kitchener,’ he murmured dryly, ‘was not best pleased. And nor were we. We’d had a tough morning, without facing that little lot for a second time.’

  ‘Was that when you got the, er…?’

  ‘Scimitar across my shoulder? Yes, Harris, it was.’ With a wry smile, Robert drained his glass. ‘But that’s another story — for later. I really should be getting on my way.’

  ‘How’s Mr Darnley going on, sir? And His Serene Highness? He went out as well, didn’t he?’

  Robert laughed. ‘Oh, the Prince is doing very well – recommended for the D.S.O. no less!’

  Aware that he himself had been similarly recommended, Robert tried to shrug the subject aside, winced, and ended up laughing. ‘And Hugh Darnley,’ he added with amused envy, ‘came through the whole blasted show without so much as a scratch! Lord knows how. He’s still out there, of course – and loving every minute.’

  Just at that moment, Moira looked through the serving-hatch and announced that it was past six, the public bar was empty and she was going to make a pot of tea.

  As Harris opened a door in the screen which divided the two bars, Robert, with an abrupt change of subject, asked whether Moira had seen much of the Elliotts in recent weeks. The other man shifted uncomfortably, pursing his lips in the fashion Robert recognized as the precursor of an evasive answer. Biting back irritation, he reminded himself that their relationship had undergone considerable changes since the days when he could order a straight reply.

  ‘Not in recent weeks, no,’ Harris eventually admitted. ‘We get very busy, you see, sir, and can’t afford much help. Except for shopping the Missus doesn’t get out much at all.’

  ‘But she has seen Louisa?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she had a letter not long after Miss Louisa came back to York. And she went to see her a couple of times, that I do know. But Miss Louisa’s never been here, and I don’t know if she’s heard from her lately. I’ll ask if you like.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter. It’s recent news I’m in need of, Harris, not history.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the other man murmured, but his tone was somewhat aggrieved.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to bite your head off – it’s just that I have to see Mrs Elliott. From the sound of things, she’s not long for this world.’

  Harris was surprised: Moira too. ‘I haven’t heard from Miss Louisa for a long time,’ she confessed. ‘Perhaps that’s why.’

  Unreasonably irritated by that lack of persistence, Robert found himself thinking she should have kept in touch, if only as a link between himself and his children. After all Louisa had done for Moira, and all he, Robert, had done for Harris, he felt she might have tried a little harder. And now there was nothing for it but to go in like a stranger, knowing lamentably little of the situation.

  Using as his excuse the fiction that the Elliotts were expecting him, he said he had to leave. While Moira went up to fetch his outdoor clothes, Harris stepped out to find a cab.

  Some ten minutes later he returned, out of breath and coughing. ‘No wonder it’s like a grave in here,’ he commented when he could find his voice. ‘It’s brewing up like pea soup outside. Had to go across to the rank by the
cattle pens — there were only two, sir, and both drivers were in the City Arms. Anyway,’ he finished anxiously, ‘I got the least drunk of the two, so I hope you don’t end up in the river.’

  ‘I’ve not come all this way to end up in the river!’ Robert said. ‘I’ll get to Gillygate somehow, Harris, even if I have to walk.’

  ‘I’d not recommend that,’ Moira smiled, ‘the fog will poison you for sure.’

  They saw him into the cab, Harris giving the dark and almost formless bundle in the driving seat his instructions. The only answer he received was a ghastly, racking cough, but the old horse set off in what seemed the right direction, and Harris crossed his fingers as he waved them away.

  Five

  Fog, isolating, thick and sulphurous, took the city in its grip, slowing movement, muffling sound, furtively distorting every sense. The short distance between Fishergate and Clifford Street seemed to take an age, punctuated only by the cabbie’s cough and the slow, hesitant clopping of the horse’s hooves. Unsure how far they had covered, Robert leaned out and identified the Castle’s looming wall in the feeble glow of a street lamp; a few yards further and those hesitant hooves stopped altogether. He leaned forward again and saw the rising steps of the Police Station, although its entrance was obscured from sight. With an inward groan he consulted his watch, and five minutes later, having made no more than twenty yards’ progress, he decided to walk.

  The cabbie’s grumbles were quieted by a sudden shout and running feet; heedless of the fog, figures dashed blindly past Robert and up the steps, shouting something about an accident ahead. With a movement of blankets and shawls that could have been a shrug, the cabbie rasped out a curse and let his fare go. Robert set out to walk, guided by the long line of traffic backed up from the notorious few yards known as Nessgate Corner. There seven thoroughfares converged, and there the treachery of the fog had claimed its first victims of the night.