by May Woodward
‘Instead of the mere bumpkin gentry,’ Amathia had supplied.
‘Quite! But the mill came to his daughter’s husband, and the Somerlees are fairly rich, I believe. Think he owns land in Ireland, too.’
‘Yes… he told me. Some boggy swamp. Dickon’s never actually been there. Just evicts the starving tenants when they’re making a nuisance!’ Amathia had laughed. ‘I am rather hopeful, Papa,’ she had added, ‘that Sir Richard does intend to make an offer. And I’m quite amenable to becoming Lady Amathia Somerlee of Eardingstowe. Although, we might need to keep Richard’s unfortunate relatives hidden in the closet, I daresay.’
The duke had glowered.
‘Don’t forget my grandfather started out as …’
‘As if I could!’ Amathia had shuddered.
‘He’s an ambitious cove, you know – Dickon Somerlee,’ Consett had continued. ‘Probably expects me to get him an earldom. As if I grow the damn things in my hothouses!’
‘Really, Papa!’ Amathia had said. ‘Your language has deteriorated since we lost Mama.’
The duke had wavered in surprise.
‘Wouldn’t be too difficult to find her again if you really wanted, Amathia. There cannot be that many gaming-houses in Biarritz.’
‘Papa! That is something else we don’t mention. If anyone enquires, I have lost my mama, and look suitably melancholy over it! Well, now, sir – Richard has the money and ancient lineage; you, Papa, the title and ear of the men who count at court and in Parliament. I truly think this alliance might work.’
Her thoughts returned to the present. At this dreary country house party at Lord Tewksbury’s she fully expected the Baronet of Eardingstowe to address her. She picked up one of the discarded necklaces, and let it drop to the woodwork again.
Truth be told, Lady Amathia Consett might have done better for herself than Somerlee. Sir Quincy Dooley. Now, there had been a catch. Amathia’d observed the smouldering desire beneath those grizzled eyebrows when he’d been seated opposite her at a dinner-party. Made his money in banking, ha-ha, having started out as messenger boy no doubt, ha-ha.
But he was wifeless, childless, sixty-eight years old, and had suffered at least one cerebral seizure. So, not long would his bride have to wait before living happily ever after with Dooley’s thousands stuffed in her drawers. With his warts, nasal hair and flatulence of the decibels of HMS Agamemnon’s artillery, Quincy was notwithstanding one of Amathia’s most personable beaux.
She’d surprised herself, therefore, in settling upon Dickon Somerlee. He wasn’t as rich as Quincy; or especially well-connected; and he was no fool; she’d not be able to work his strings as she could have Quincy’s.
But he was Brandon Fanshawe’s good friend. The Brandon who had scorned her interest.
Well, now – be as well to look her best for Somerlee, wouldn’t it, just in case he was having second thoughts?
‘I will have the lilac bombazine after all,’ she told Vickery when the maid returned with immaculately pressed gold satin. ‘The gold can wait until dinner tomorrow.’ When Sir Richard was most likely to make his overtures.
A dish of chocolate marzipan had been left on the toilet-table for guests. She plucked and munched one.
‘What are you waiting for, fool?’ she snapped at the abigail. ‘I said fetch the lilac! And I want it properly pressed, mind.’
‘Yes, madam!’ said the girl, and bustled out.
Amathia sank her teeth into a second chocolate. The light blue eyes and moonshine-pale ringlets of Richard’s sister seemed to swim before her vision. What was it about Clemmie Somerlee that always got Amathia’s goat? It was more than just the fortune the girl was to inherit, damn her, although that was galling enough.
Amathia pushed the plate of sweetmeats aside. Vickery would have to fetch her some more, now. Well, at least Clemmie Somerlee’s presentation gown had had fewer pearls on it than Mathy Consett’s – and Amathia was the kind of lass who could count.
While she waited for the lilac dress, Amathia performed a twirl before the cheval-glass in her frillies. She caught a glimpse of white drawers stretched taught across humungous round dumplings, which Dooley had had the bad taste to pat. Like the South Downs following her around. Turning to the front view instead didn’t help – the button was fighting for freedom from the blancmange horde. She imagined a ping so loud that the entire dinner table fell silent – what a nightmare.
‘Of course your posterior didn’t show in your presentation gown, sissy dear,’ her brother Philoctetes had suspiciously reassured her. Clemence, blast her, was a twig. But that didn’t make her unique. So were most débutantes – with the exception of Pearl Arbroath whose train was still being spread over her enormous proportions by the lord-in-waiting in the anteroom while the rest of her was curtseying before the throne.
‘I’ve told you before, Vickery!’ Amathia said. ‘Warm your hands before you dress me.’
But as she stepped into the raiment for afternoon tea, and then studied her reflection, her mood lifted. No-one could deny that Amathia was very pretty.
‘You’re a maiden of summer, Lady Amathia,’ one admirer had told her. ‘Sunshine, cherries and cream.’
The young woman gripped the post of the first-aid tent for support. It didn’t take her long to learn that this stench was the smell blood gives off.Metalic. Like a rusty garden hoe she’d once stumbled across, abandoned in the untended overgrowth where Eardingstowe’s Paradise Garden met the wild wood.
At the operating table in front of Clemence, an elderly surgeon was struggling alone. He worked by the light of a single oil lamp hanging from the roof of the tent. She could make out dampness glistening on his brow.
There must be two dozen wounded lying slumped around the floor; among them the pair Clemence had bandaged. One man’s face looked like a theatrical mask – one side handsome and normal, the other blown off, with the mouth fixed in a macabre, grinning rictus. Poor soul… but at least he was not her brother. Heavenly Father, let Aubrey be safe back in Balaclava. James, too… yes, I hope James is well.
The surgeon glanced up as he cut through torn flesh.
‘You’ll be the young lady the major mentioned?’ he said without surprise.
‘Can I do anything, doctor?’
‘If you think you can assist, then yes, please…’
Clemence had heard rumours that the quartermaster’s department was less than competent. Round lead ball for muskets sent to men who needed the conical bullets for Minié rifles and so on. The rumblings had crept into Mr Russell’s newspaper copy. Now Clemence could see that the medical corps, too, was laughable. There was no anaesthetic. The hussar under the surgeon’s blade was quivering and wailing.
The girl trod deeper inside the hut, lifting her hem over pools of blood, and took up a sponge and bandage from the doctor’s tray.
She began to peel away the ruined coatee from a groaning man’s injuries. She dabbed at the congealing ridges of blood, her unsteady hand darting away at each shriek he let out. When she’d cleaned enough to see the source of the haemorrhage, she tried to staunch it.
She struggled to free his canteen from his girdle.
‘Here. Drink.’
She held the water-bottle to her soldier’s lips. But her dratted hand wouldn’t stop shaking. A lot got spilled.
Eventually, he spoke.
‘Kus ma olen? Kes sa oled? Ma olen kohutav valu!’
So… unknown language… must be one of the other side she was assisting. Well, what did she care?
Clemence had believed she was kneeling in the patient’s blood-flow. When she glanced down, the sticky gunge puddling around her knees was not red but brown – from beneath his legs not out of his thorax.
‘Doctor,’ she called from behind a hand clasped to her mouth, ‘I think we have a cholera case. I suggest we move him out, away from t
he others.’
Outside in the breeze, Clemence pushed back the hair which was clinging to her damp brow. She set a hand to her aching back.
There was Saupon Hill where she and the spectators had stood, darkened now at sundown. Her eyes picked out the path Captain Nolan had taken down its daunting face. Was it really only six hours ago? There jutted each stubby bush which he’d danced his mount around.
‘Will you be all right, young lady?’ The doctor was strapping some of the injured into a cart to transport them to Balaclava. ‘Shall I take you back to Kadikoi?’
‘No, doctor – your patients are in more need. I can find my own way,’ she said. The surgeon cast her an appreciative smile. He returned to his dray. ‘Doctor,’ she continued, ‘what is to happen to these men? That small hospital in Balaclava cannot cope with all the casualties surely?’
‘No, miss. They’ll be sent by ship to the field hospital in Scutari on the other side of the Black Sea. Yes, I know,’ he added as Clemence must have shown shock, ‘it is four days’ sailing and many won’t survive the journey! God bless you, young lady, though. You’ve brought them some relief.’
When she and the surgeon had parted company, she took the long track to the village of Kadikoi. Upon the edge of a horse trough she perched, foot sore and weary.
‘Clemence! Oh, thank heavens!’
She looked up to see her aunt hurrying towards her.
‘I’ve been worried ever since I could not find you at breakfast!’ Lysithea settled beside her. ‘Someone said they saw you go down to the valley!’
‘Yes, Aunt, I did. Reckless of me, I know. But then, I guess battle makes fools of men, and women, just as drink does!’ Clemence sighed. ‘I could see the fighting was finished. And I thought of Aubrey. And James. Oh, Aunt Lizzy,’ she screwed up eyes hot with tears, ‘I never knew there was such suffering…’ Lysithea rocked her in her arms, kissing the top of her head. ‘You warned me, too. You must have seen this in Spain.’
As she cried in Lysithea’s arms, Clemence thought of her mother, dead these seven years.
‘Well… I’m proud of you, chicken.’ Lysithea stroked Clemence’s hair. ‘Did you find Aubrey or James?’
Clemence shook her head.
‘But I did not search every grisly pile! I take it they did not return with the survivors?’
‘No, I have not seen them. But come – return to headquarters with me. News will most likely arrive there first.’
Lysithea led her through rows and rows of soldiers’ huts towards the farmhouse where the Field Marshal was quartered.
Whenever Clemence looked up she would see a Highlander, say, sitting outside his tent, bathing a bullet wound on his arm with water from his kettle; or a Buckinghamshire stuffing a hungry mouth with cold, salt pork; and seeming to regard the two gentlewomen with a hostile eye; then a trooper’s wife hanging laundry on a rope stretched between tents; two thin children with scabies clinging to her skirts.
At headquarters, the Field Marshal was pacing and fuming. The commander of the Light Brigade stood before him as he faced the music, defiant – helmet under arm.
‘You have lost the Light Brigade, sir!’
‘I was following the order Lucan gave me!’ Cardigan protested.
‘You have lost the Light Brigade!’
‘Advance on the enemy, Lucan said, dammit.’
‘Disgraceful language, sir! There are ladies present.’
As the two decrepit old castles, Raglan and Cardigan, continued to thud each other’s outer defences with withered battering-rams, Clemence turned to her aunt.
‘Cardigan returned unscathed I see.’
Lysithea laughed without mirth.
‘Depends how you define ‘unscathed’! He galloped back to Balaclava while the rest of the Light Brigade which had got that far was still in the thick of the fighting. I’ve already heard hints of cowardice being directed his way. Better, almost, to be lying out there with the dead.’
The two women moved into the next room where General Airey stood briefly unengaged.
‘Any news of my nephew, Cornet Somerlee, or Captain Swynton?’ Lysithea said.
‘I’m sorry, no, Countess. But it will be days before all the dead, injured and prisoners are accounted for. Excuse me.’ He edged politely past.
Lysithea and Clemence left the farmhouse. They wandered, arm-in-arm, across the plateau.
Near the encampment of the Westmorlands they halted. Two old sweats were sitting beside a cooking fire, discussing the battle in rough, East End voices. Apart from the gallant Highlanders, most of the infantry had not seen action today. The wound one of these troopers was dressing must be old, from the Battle of the Alma.
The Somerlee ladies stood on a brow overlooking the mountain peaks to the east. You could smell the salt on the wind which was blowing in from the sea.
In the other direction lay the Tchernaya estuary and Sebastopol. Beyond the port on the distant headland rose a grim-looking Russian defence known as the Star Fort. The allied fleet lurked outside the harbour entrance – its ship-shapes black against a violet sea and brilliant bedtime sun.
‘Captain Nolan died, Aunt. I saw it,’ Clemence said. ‘Was he trying to stop the charge when he pushed his way forward like that? Did he know they’d blundered? We’ll never know.’
‘Or maybe he did know,’ Lysithea replied. ‘He wanted to prove what cavalry can do – it’s well known. He’d even written a book on the subject.’
‘You’re saying he let the men of the Light Brigade ride to their deaths like that just to make a point? Deliberately misrepresented the instructions Raglan gave him? So the cream of the cavalry lies dead because of braggadocio and deceit?’
‘From what I’ve been hearing – yes. But as you say, Nolan’s no longer with us to tell his side of the story. So, we’ll never know. At least his body’s been brought back so we can bury him.’
If only she knew as much of her brother. Was Aubrey lying dead? Then Clemence might begin to mourn. Was he wounded in one of those abattoirs they called field hospitals? Then she might be with him, holding his hand, wiping fever sweat from his brow. Uncertainty seemed worse even than the finality of death.
Was Aubrey a prisoner on the other side? She and Lysithea could be proactively negotiating release.
Aubrey, always Aubrey. James, too. She must remember her husband-to-be…
‘I’ve been thinking…’ Clemence watched four eagles circling the closest blue-green mountain summit. ‘I gather they could use some assistance in the hospitals. Do you think I might help…?’
‘You? A nurse?’ Lysithea laughed tragically. ‘You sat with your papa when he was dying! So, you think that makes you qualified?’
‘I bandaged two men in the valley! And I helped the doctor in the field hospital. Of course I’m squeamish! I almost gag now just thinking about it. But at least I’ve not fainted.’ A smile broke through the tearful strain. ‘And being busy… less time to fret.’
Lysithea smoothed strands of wind-tangled hair back behind Clemence’s ear.
‘It’ll be quite ghastly,’ her aunt said. ‘That reporter, Russell, has had a lot to say about the state of the hospital at Scutari. So much so that the government has intervened. They’re sending over a team of trained nurses led by a Miss Nightingale. I suppose, though, Clemence, you might be better there among the lice and infections… keeping busy, as you say. You will see all the casualties brought in from the battle. You could look for our menfolk there, and I shall continue to seek them here. Although,’ Lysithea spoke in a soft voice, ‘all I really want is to take you home, my love.’
‘Well, we’re here, and we cannot leave. Not until we have news of James and Aubrey.’ Clemence summoned a smile. ‘We might as well make ourselves useful!’
She turned from the mountain-view to look back across the plateau towards hea
dquarters. The first covered wagon had arrived there, bearing dead from the valley.
Someone was approaching, waving to attract their attention.
‘It’s Lord Fanshawe,’ said Lysithea. ‘My word, his expression looks bleak.’
The Baronet of Eardingstowe excused himself from the after-dinner company, stepped out of the dining-room, and crossed the tiled hallway.
A beautiful young woman was in the curtained inglenook, seated on a sofa.
‘Lady Amathia. Thank you for meeting me,’ Richard began. He had passed a note to her maid earlier that day asking Lady Amathia Consett to wait right here at the hour of nine.
The young lady gave a little bow of the head. Always she bore that soft smile on her lips – quite the diplomat at times.
‘Yes, Sir Richard. I received the communication you sent me. You wish to speak with me?’
He hemmed.
Back in the dining-room, the gentlemen’s merry tones continued. The brandy decanter would be on its second circuit of the table. The hum of female voices and laughter rose from the sitting-room in the other direction. You caught the occasional muffled sound of a footfall coming from the servants’ corridor behind the panelling. But otherwise the hall was quiet, with no-one apart from Amathia and him around, and deeply shadowed in those corners like the inglenook which were distant from the few lamps.
‘Not very pleasant weather, is it?’ said Richard.
‘Fine enough for a shooting meet, Sir Richard. Especially for those of us who, by virtue of our gender, may elect to stay within the warmth!’ The smile grew wider. ‘Pray, what was it you wished to discuss? Or am I just an excuse to leave the table?’
‘Oh, you are far too charming to be a mere excuse for anything, Lady Amathia. No-one could take anything but delight in your company.’
‘My pleasure, Sir Richard,’ said she, on a quick bow of the head. ‘Although I imagine you menfolk must be discussing little except the war over your brandy and port. I daresay war-talk might indeed become tedious, even for a gentleman.’