by Gill Paul
Chapter Forty-three
On the morning of her departure from Smyrna, Dorothea sat with Lucy under an awning in the garden, holding her hands. ‘We have not spoken of our argument about Charlie and the rift it caused between us. I am so sorry I interfered in the way I did. Please don’t let anything come between us like that again. If we argue, let us express our anger then clear the air – because we are family and we should always support each other.’
Lucy stared at the ground: ‘Perhaps you were right. Perhaps I was too hasty to wed …’
‘If you had not married, you would never have had your year of happiness with Charlie. We all know that life can be short. I believe that, had she been around, Mama would have encouraged you to seize your chance at love and it was wrong of me to try to prevent it by such underhanded methods.’
‘Charlie was not the man I thought he was,’ Lucy said quietly, her eyes focused on an ant that was attempting to push a large crumb over a crack in the paving stone.
Dorothea hesitated. ‘Yes, I know.’
Lucy looked up, surprised. ‘How did you know?’
Dorothea sighed. ‘His wooden box was among the possessions the women in the British camp gave me. It had been broken open and I read the contents. I’m so sorry, Lucy. Would you like to see it?’
She nodded, frowning. Dorothea fetched the box from her luggage and sat nearby while Lucy first of all gasped in astonishment at the pile of unopened envelopes then unfolded and read Charlie’s final letter. Tears came to her eyes but she didn’t weep. When she finished, she said, ‘If only he had told me these things while he was alive. Were it not for the war, I believe we could have been happy. Thank you for bringing this to me. And now, I will have some letters from you to read during your absence. I look forward to it, even if the news is a year out of date.’
‘I will return in April,’ Dorothea promised. ‘Write if you need me sooner and I will come on the first boat.’
When they embraced, it was in a spirit of absolution of past hurts, of real and imagined wrongs. Lucy sobbed as Dorothea’s coach pulled away from the house, but inside she knew they were closer than ever and it was the kind of closeness that should, with any luck, last a lifetime.
Dorothea felt strangely nervous and girlish about seeing Gordon again. She checked her appearance several times in a hand mirror and tucked stray hairs inside her bonnet. They had arranged to meet at the British Embassy, in whose gardens she had strolled the previous December when she first arrived in Constantinople. The ambassador, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, was so delighted to hear of the marriage of one of the British army’s top surgeons with one of its nurses that he and his wife had offered to let them stay in the embassy and hold their wedding ceremony in a state room with a view over the Bosphorus. Dorothea’s carriage driver rang the bell and she was ushered in through a grand hall and upstairs to a drawing room, where Gordon sat conversing with a well-dressed woman. He jumped to his feet as Dorothea entered the room and uttered a gasp of pure delight. No one had ever seemed so pleased to see her before and she glowed with happiness as he rushed across the room to greet her. He was taller than she remembered, and more handsome now he had shaved the whiskers that he had of necessity grown in Balaklava. She liked the soft burr of his Scottish accent and the smell of his tweed jacket; she liked the set of his newly exposed chin.
‘Dorothea, may I introduce Lady Stratford de Redcliffe, the ambassador’s wife? She has kindly agreed to help with the arrangements for our wedding. In fact, I think she has appointed herself official overseer of our nuptials.’
Dorothea shook hands and murmured her thanks.
‘My dear, we must find you a suitable dress – I know just the place. And flowers; we must have flowers. I believe Mr Crawford has already purchased a ring but we still need to talk about the wedding supper. We will make a little party of it.’
‘You are most kind,’ Dorothea said, feeling overwhelmed. It seemed she was in good hands.
She and Gordon were shown to their respective rooms, and before she retired to rest from the journey he handed her two letters that had been delivered to Balaklava in her absence. She sat on the bed to read them. The first was a rambling note from her father, excited that a Mr Livingstone was attempting to travel across the centre of Africa, although he did not remember to ask after her or her sister. She smiled: it was good to know that he still loved his explorers. The second was a rather longer letter from Adelaide Cresswell, which Dorothea read with mounting emotion.
Adelaide wrote that she had received a very curt reply from the Harvington family when she got in touch offering her condolences on Charlie’s death. ‘I had hoped they might forgive him after death, and was disappointed they had not.’ And then she explained to Dorothea the history of the estrangement: ‘Charlie made the impetuous decision to take his seven-year-old sister riding on his cavalry horse. There was a terrible accident when they attempted to jump a gate and the girl perished. His father threw Charlie out of the house, disowning him, and my husband Bill encountered him as he arrived back at his army quarters, intent on taking his own life. It took all Bill’s powers of persuasion over the next weeks and months to talk him out of it, so deeply did he feel his guilt in the tragedy.’
Adelaide wrote that she felt terribly sad for Charlie. She had known and liked his character, she could see how he could have made such a dreadful error of judgement, but felt everyone should be allowed a second chance. She wrote: ‘One of my own siblings was a daredevil and could easily have turned wild if my mother had not kept a firm rein on him. It is my belief that parents bear a responsibility for the way their children turn out.’
Reading her letter, Dorothea agreed. Charlie was a flawed character, but his sin had been one of thoughtlessness rather than evil. She wondered if Lucy knew of this? She had never breathed a word of it, but surely she must. Suddenly she could see why poor, motherless Lucy would be attracted to a man with a tragic past, someone on whom she could lavish all her pent-up love. It must have felt romantic and compelling.
That evening, Dorothea and Gordon dined with the ambassador – a white-haired gentleman who talked mainly to Gordon about politics and the war – and his charming wife. After dinner they were left alone in a drawing room with a blazing fire, where Gordon sipped a glass of brandy while Dorothea drank tea. She told him about Adelaide’s letter, because it was foremost on her mind, and he listened carefully.
‘I can understand now why he was so keen to keep Lucy to himself that he hid your letters,’ he mused when she had finished. ‘He must have lived in fear of losing her, as he had lost the rest of his family.’
‘Adelaide says she thinks parents are responsible for their children’s characters, to an extent at least. Do you agree?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, very much so. My own father taught me the importance of hard work and humour, values I use in my craft to this day. Many others are not so lucky.’ He swirled his brandy in the round-bodied glass, and the amber liquid gleamed in the firelight. ‘Tell me, have you given any thought to having children?’
Dorothea’s cheeks burned. ‘Goodness, I’m far too old for that.’
He reached out to take her hand and asked, ‘Do you still have your monthly bleed?’
Dorothea blushed even more deeply and could only nod.
‘We are medical people,’ he twinkled. ‘Surely we can talk openly about such matters? I want us to be honest with each other about everything. If you still have monthlies then there is no reason why we could not have a child – if you would like one, that is.’
‘Yes, I would … At least, perhaps we can try.’ She blushed again, thinking about what ‘trying’ would entail and, partly to change the focus of the conversation, she mused, ‘I wonder what my sister will do if Murad does not recover? She will have a baby and no husband. It is not an easy position.’
‘She will have to consider her options very carefully. But if she is in need I would of course be happy for her to live with us in
Edinburgh, with or without the child. I know you feel like a mother to her.’
‘Less so now, I think. She has become independent in the months since last I saw her. I doubt I will have any influence over her decisions, so all I can do is support her – even if I think she is misguided.’ Dorothea chuckled. ‘Especially then.’
The ceremony took place in early evening of the 23rd December 1855, by a huge window looking down towards the Bosphorus, with the gas lamps of Constantinople twinkling in the darkness. The ambassador’s wife had talked Dorothea into wearing an ivory lace gown with pearl buttons, a fashionable hoop skirt and billowing swoops of fabric, much fancier than any gown she had ever owned. She moved carefully, unaccustomed to the weight of the garment. A large cream gardenia bloom was pinned in her hair, along with a filmy ivory veil. Gordon wore a black dress coat and a cream waistcoat, his ginger hair neatly combed and oiled flat in a style she had never seen him with before (and suspected she never would again). A minister conducted the ceremony, with the ambassador and his wife as witnesses, and afterwards they all stood stock still while a daguerreotype was made to capture the scene.
Lady Stratford de Redcliffe had arranged a sumptuous wedding supper of dainty finger sandwiches, light scones and pretty fruit jellies, and an artful cake in the shape of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople’s ancient cathedral built in the Byzantine era to which the Muslims had added minarets to convert it to a mosque. It was a true representation of the multi-cultural aspects of the city, she said, and she hoped it would augur well for their English to Scottish union. Gordon managed to persuade Dorothea to drink half a glass of champagne – ‘It’s my job to corrupt you,’ he joked – and she found she liked the sensation of the fizz on her tongue, if not the sour taste.
She felt light-headed all day, as if she were floating. The time sped past and she was glad they would have a daguerreotype to remind them because everything was a blur. All Dorothea knew was that she had never experienced such bliss.
Chapter Forty-four
The winter in Smyrna was pleasantly sunny, with blue skies and a gentle breeze. When rain fell, it usually came at night and Lucy awoke to find the garden refreshed and glistening. Even in January there were flowers in bloom: small dark pink flowers on bushes and yellow ones that resembled buttercups on the ground.
Lucy and Hafza worked hard to find new ways to stimulate Murad’s brain healing. Hafza bought oils of sweet jasmine and neroli to perfume his room. The pianoforte was finally delivered and Lucy spent long hours playing his favourite lieder, sonatas and nocturnes. They fed him spoonfuls of soups with unusual flavours – salty cheese, spicy lamb, honeyed figs – prepared by the cook. A cat that often roamed in their garden was placed in his lap and Lucy moved his hand along its back in stroking movements. The male orderly and the driver took him to the sea and immersed him in the cool waves but they reported that he grimaced and bellowed, clearly uncomfortable, so the experiment was cut short.
Others helped too. Local medical men came to burn strange herbs in little metal holders placed against his skin; the hot metal left red rings, but Murad bore it patiently. The imam came to pray over him and all his sisters, aunts and cousins visited to sing favourite childhood songs, to laugh and chatter in his company. Murad smiled benignly at them and uttered his forced, guttural sounds.
Every day, Lucy felt she saw a little progress. When she looked into his eyes, she was sure she could see intelligence and often got a sense that she knew what he was thinking. ‘You like the breeze from that window, don’t you?’ she asked, and when she opened the window his expression seemed somehow calmer. ‘You are thirsty now,’ she guessed and fed him sips of water. She sensed he didn’t like one of the doctors who visited; something indistinguishable in his posture seemed to shrink when the man came into the room. And some days, she felt sure he was melancholy and made extra effort to cheer him up. It must be simply awful to be unable to communicate while people fussed around, doing everything for you.
As her belief that he could understand his surroundings grew, Lucy began to talk to him as if he were fully present.
‘See how this gown is stretched across my belly now? I shall have to ask your sister Safiye to let it out for me. She’s such a talented seamstress. … The baby’s kicking kept me awake last night. Why does he seem to sleep when I am active then wake when I try to rest? I feel sure it is a boy … Your mother has been so generous. She gave me these earrings last night – look at the sparkle of the sapphires! They are family jewels but she thinks they suit me best because they match my blue eyes.’
Murad blinked.
‘You like them, don’t you? You think they suit me.’ Lucy kissed him passionately on the lips. ‘Oh, I wish you would recover so we could go out somewhere together. I’m fed up being stuck in this house with only women for company. I don’t understand why they don’t get bored, but I suppose it’s what they’re used to. I should die of boredom, were it not for the fact that I am confined here anyway to look after you and bear our child. Murad, you must try to get well for the baby’s birth in spring. After that, we can take our own house and live according to our own rules. Perhaps we could visit London for the summer, so I can see my dear Papa.’
Murad blinked twice and she took that as his agreement with her plan.
He still said ‘Oosh’ fairly often, and she remained convinced it was an attempt to pronounce her name. One day when the baby was kicking she held his hand to her belly so he could feel the movement. He looked seriously into her eyes and made a sound that was like, ‘A–ba’ and she was sure he was trying to say ‘baba’ or the Turkish word ‘bebek’. Excitedly, she told Hafza, using a mixture of mime and sign language. Next time she put Murad’s hand to her belly, though, he said something quite different. Did he understand about the baby? She was convinced he did.
Hafza let Lucy spend plenty of time on her own with Murad. There was a bell nearby in case she needed to summon help, for example in the event of a fit, but when she was with him no one disturbed them. During those hours she focused hard on trying to communicate and sometimes, despite herself, she got cross with him for not responding. One morning she challenged him.
‘Say “Lucy” right now or I will pinch your arm.’
He simply stared at her so she pinched him hard on his forearm. He grimaced but didn’t try to move his arm away.
‘Now will you say “Lucy”? Or just “Oosh”? If you don’t, I will pinch you again.’
He didn’t speak and she pinched him a second time. There were two red marks on his skin, just next to each other.
‘Oh God,’ she cried, instantly stricken with guilt. ‘What kind of monster am I?’ She rubbed the area, trying to make the marks disappear. How could she do that to a helpless man? The tiny purple bruises that developed were a reproach and she worried that Hafza or the orderly would ask about them, but neither did.
Sometimes when Murad was in his wheelchair, Lucy sat on his lap and pulled his arms around her, covering his face with kisses. He seemed to like that, and it let her pretend for a short while that they were still lovers. One day as she sat on his lap in the garden, she was astonished to feel a stiffening under his loose trousers. She glanced round to check no one was watching from the house then touched it with her hand. It definitely seemed he was responding to her caresses. She looked into his face, questioning. Did he know what she was doing? Did it make him happy? What if they were to make love? Dorothea had said he should have all kinds of stimulation. But no … she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.
The idea stuck in Lucy’s head, though. Whenever they were alone, she stroked between Murad’s legs and he usually stiffened at the touch of her hand. What if he was conscious and trapped inside a body that he could no longer move at will and this was the only way he could communicate his love for her? She had to find out. It would be so wonderful to make love with him again, and could even be the spark that was needed to jolt him out of his unresponsive state.
One afternoon
Lucy slipped into Murad’s room after his nap, dismissed the orderly who had been watching over him and turned the key to lock the door from the inside. She stripped off her gown and climbed into bed alongside Murad, pressing her body against his. He gazed at her blankly. She stroked his back, his chest, his legs and pushed one of her legs between his, then felt for his manhood. It was slightly stiffened. She stroked it, making it harden, and then she clambered on top to sit astride him. She had his manhood in her hand, about to push it inside her when suddenly the expression on his face changed to a grimace and he threw his head back with a bellow: ‘Waaaa …’
Lucy jumped off instantly, horrified: ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry. I’ve stopped.’
Straight away his expression was blank again and he lay still, as if nothing had happened. She stood semi-naked in front of him and burst into tears. There was no love in his eyes, no recognition of what she had just tried to do. He was a child and she was an evil woman for attempting to seduce him. The adult response of his body had fooled her briefly but only because she was searching for hope where in fact none existed.
She dressed quickly and ran back to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed sobbing uncontrollably. All those things she had thought were signs of recovery had simply been inanimate instincts. He was no more responding to her than he was to anyone else. The essence of the man she had fallen in love with was gone and all that remained was a living shell. Any hope that he would recover in time for the baby’s birth disappeared. He would never be able to marry her. This is how he would remain and she had to think now about what she would do with her own life – and that of their unborn child.