by May Woodward
‘Aubrey! I cannot leave without my brother… he’s out there somewhere… all alone.’
‘Let his regiment search for him – it’s their duty. And Richard’s on his way, you know. He set off when I telegraphed to say Aubrey was missing. You cannot do anything.’
No! Men fight wars… women mop up the mess they leave.
Suddenly, Clemence laid her head upon Brandon’s shoulder. Her cheek nestled against his. She wanted only to stay there in his arms. Put the past right, forget James, love Fanny. Let her share with him icy December on a foreign clifftop forever.
‘Oh, Clemmie!’ She felt his fingers stroking the back of her hair. ‘I used to tease you, didn’t I… Dickon’s baby sister!’
The Baronet of Eardingstowe alighted on the Balaclava quayside.
Beyond the white walls and red roofs of the little waterside town he looked, up into the hills where could be heard the distant crack-crack-boom of artillery-fire. As he watched, shell-fire lit up the purplish landscape.
‘Where does one go to hire a horse?’ he asked one of the crew from the ship which had brought him from Constantinople. ‘I need to secure transport for myself and my fiancée.’
The fellow shrugged. Too busy unloading.
The dockside was teeming… men in lots of different kinds of uniform… seamen… an Orthodox priest… laden mules… two Turkish soldiers in fez and culottes… all bustling by and leaving the newcomer to fend for himself.
So Amathia might have to walk, might she? His eye tracked the uphill climb one would have to navigate to reach the plateau where the army was camped. He glanced towards the window of the ship’s cabin. There his fiancée waited.
What had been in her mind he wondered – accompanying him to the Crimea? Clearly, she was no traveller. She’d been train-sick and had already complained of the noise of the gunfire. And they were only in Balaclava harbour.
In the oily waters which surged and sucked around the legs of the jetty an old rifle floated by. Bits of wood. A horseshoe was caught in the weed which trailed the rudder and keel of a small sailboat. And then… a face-down, deceased person wearing a scarlet-jacketed uniform came floating by.
What way was this to wage war? And Aubrey… infuriating, spendthrift, womanising spoiled pet of both their parents… but Richard’s beloved flesh-and-blood for all that. What the dickens had become of him?
Amathia was working at her embroidery in her cabin as she awaited Richard’s return. How much longer before they could disembark?
From the small, oval window she could see gaudily-coloured cottages climbing the gradient of the headland. On the brow stood a ruined fortalice; leaden mountains reared against the skyline. The waves glowed hellishly for a few heartbeats as up in the hills an explosion went off.
Aubrey Somerlee not coming back from Balaclava’s bloody fields could turn out to be the only real success so far in this blighted campaign. It would mean that Uncle George’s legacy would be coming her way instead.
‘The Oriflamme moors somewhere around here,’ Richard told her as he ducked his head under the cabin door. ‘But doesn’t appear to be in port today. That’s as much as I could get out of the stevedores – ignorant crowd.’
Amathia made a noise of annoyance and called to her abigail.
‘Vickery, you might as well cease unpacking for the moment and make yourself useful some other way! It doesn’t look as if we are going anywhere just yet.’
Richard moved aside to let the maid pass.
‘Do you regret, yet, accompanying me on this difficult trip, Lady Amathia?’
‘Oh no, Sir Richard! A member of your family has gone missing – soon to be my family. Naturally I’m distressed for you.’ As long as they didn’t find Richard’s sibling, of course. Anyway, she thought the sound of gunfire rather engaging. She fancied a glimpse of these ruffians shooting at each other – although the best had probably passed by now.
She took up her hoop and went on with her stitching.
‘That is a very pretty sunflower you are embroidering, Lady Amathia,’ Richard observed. ‘Perhaps you will have finished it by the time we set sail for home again? I should like to frame and mount it.’
‘In a room where it shan’t be much on display I trust, Sir Richard? I fear I have very little accomplishment.’
‘On the contrary, dear lady. You’ve only been stitching that same leaf since our stop in Belgrade. Clearly you are a meticulous needleworker.’
So lowly a feminine art, Amathia thought, must remind a male that a woman was his prisoner, sewing away at sacking in a Millbank cell. More fool he: Arachne caught men in her web while they supposed she was only stitching; Queen Matilda stole the Conqueror’s crown while he thought her pretty head was bent over her tapestry; and Penelope won a kingdom picking away at her sewing silks.
‘Your heart must be aching so, dear Sir Richard.’ Amathia cast him a compassionate look. ‘I would be heartbroken had my own dear brother Philoctetes gone missing!’
‘Yes, I am troubled, Lady Amathia.’
‘Are you and Aubrey close, Sir Richard?’
No, he admitted. A decade stood between the brothers, and their lives had flowed in separate courses. But he was fond of the fellow.
‘And I’m deuced worried for him, if you’ll pardon my language! If Aubrey wasn’t killed, what in blazes could have become of him?’
‘I’m sure my cousin Lord Fanshawe will have news… good or ill. Better unfavourable news, perhaps, than no news. At least then you… we… might begin to mourn.’
‘Yes… yes… quite so, Lady Amathia. Well, Fanny cannot be far.’
‘I have not yet had the pleasure of your brother’s acquaintance, Sir Richard,’ Amathia smiled, ‘but anyone dear to you has a place in my heart. And if we should learn the worst, Aubrey shall have a fine marble memorial in St Laurey’s! No expense shall we spare!’
‘Thank you… dear heart!’ His quick smile faded. He set a hand to his brow.
‘Not another headache, Sir Richard?’ Amathia made to rise and go to him in concern. ‘These last few weeks have been such a trial for you! It really is too bad of my cousin not to have sent news more frequently. Perhaps I might fetch you your medicine?’
‘So kind, Lady Amathia… I do feel a trifle indisposed again…’
Amathia set down the embroidery frame. She went to fetch the… medicine… from his dressing-room. A long, thoughtful look she took at the… medicine… in its pretty green bottle, and a long look also at him through the open door while his back was to her.
‘Laudanum, Sir Richard?’ She’d been surprised the first time she’d caught him taking a few doses of the stuff.
‘Yes… it is only for the relief of pain, of course,’ he’d assured her. She’d smiled and agreed that laudanum could do one so much good.
But it had set her thinking. Amathia recalled a friend of her father’s: poor Sir Hugh was supposed to have succumbed to his gout. But she knew otherwise. A man who took laudanum or opium could not have enough of it… grew to need it… unable, finally, to function without it. Such had been Hugh’s case. And, for sure, the more dependent was a man on this nectar, the less in control… Until one day over a cliff in his high he would dance.
Amathia would see that Richard got his laudanum with cream and cherries on it. Eventually, he’d be signing whatever banker’s draft she presented under his bemused gaze.
She tripped back into the cabin where Richard had taken a seat, a hand propping his sore head. Ah, yes, she’d chosen the right man in Dickon Somerlee.
‘Fretting over your poor brother is making you ill, dear Sir Richard.’ She stood over him and soothed her soft hand over his brow. ‘Here – take your medicine.’
Tired, grateful eyes rose to meet hers.
Clemence watched from the end of the quay until Fanny, waving from the stern of the Or
iflamme, and then his vessel itself, had become just one more among the skittering sparkles of sunlight.
Was it as well Brandon was heading back to Balaclava? The look on his face when she’d mentioned the voices… oh, but how she would miss him until he came calling in his boat again.
He must fear she was going like her Aunt Cassandra. Imagine his infantilising kindness when they put Clemmie away. Going to live with lots of nice ladies just like you… Being locked away as a madwoman for the rest of her days? Well, right now, with her world in ruins, this she could face.
‘Oh, Brandon, I loved Captain Swynton so, so much! My heart is quite broken!’ she’d sobbed. She was upset enough about so many other things right now that hot, hot, authentic tears had come washing down. And Fanny had gathered her in his arms and gone ‘there, there.’
He’s not yours, treacherous minx. What would he think if he knew how you really feel about your captain’s death?
Clemence clenched her fists. The nails cut into the flesh.
That night, on duty in the ward, she saw a man wakeful who had been comatose earlier. She fetched him water.
‘Are you Miss Somerlee?’ His eyes glittered as the beam from her lamp fell upon his face. ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you. Something to tell you…’
‘Later, private, when the fever has broken.’
‘No… listen!’ He pawed the edge of his blanket with his one remaining hand. ‘I’m in the Queen’s Owns. In the charge I was. I’ve heard about your brother.’
‘You know something of Aubrey?’ She took hold of the dithering hand.
‘His horse has been found, miss… Sparkle… wandering rider-less by the Causeway, he was. Cornet Somerlee’s messmate identified him.’
Clemence leaned close.
‘Go on… please… if you can…’
‘There was a Tartar shepherd what watched the charge from the hillside. Saw a young hussar officer what was a prisoner of a group of Serbs, so he did. Leading him away, bound, they was when yer man saw them.’
‘This might have been Aubrey! He could yet be alive!’
‘Wouldn’t help you, or him, miss. The Russkies is decent enough coves. But the Serbs…’
It was the first hope, though. That was all which mattered. When the boat came tomorrow, Clemence would send word to her aunt.
She gripped the bedstead as the voice spoke her name, booming and fading like cannon-fire, or the waves pounding the sea wall all night long.
‘We came as soon as we received your telegram, Fanny,’ said the Baronet of Eardingstowe as he strode below deck on the Oriflamme. Amathia followed close behind. Lord Fanshawe was waiting there in the cabin.
‘And we’ve heard nothing further since that first communication,’ Amathia added. ‘Really, Brandon! We’ve had to visit the harbourmaster’s office just to find out where your boat was moored! You might have spared Sir Richard’s worries. We have been beside ourselves.’
‘I had nothing further to report, Amathia,’ Lord Fanshawe protested. ‘What I told you then is almost as much as I know now! Aubrey did not return from the cavalry charge, and his body has not been found.’
Amathia moved about the floor at a more sedate pace than her fiancé was doing. She ran her fingers through the frilled rim of the antimacassars on the backs of the two window-side easy chairs. She peered at a watercolour depicting the harbour-front at Nice. Her eyes went to the small looking-glass in which she could see her cousin reflected.
Laughable that she’d once set her cap at Fanny Fanshawe. What had she seen in him, Amathia wondered? His land and prosperity, probably. And that didn’t amount to as much as she’d then naively supposed, now she had a season behind her and had encountered the likes of Sir Quincy Dooley.
‘How brown you have grown, Brandon!’ she told him. ‘Too much sunshine is not a boon, you know.’
She settled in a chair draped in a quilt embroidered with a maritime motif.
A pity Brandon was too cowardly to join a regiment. Wouldn’t Amathia love to see him spouting gore as a sword ran through some vital organ? If the stupid Cossacks knew where to aim, of course – the wallet; strike him in the heart or head and nothing would happen because there was naught there.
But, no, on second thoughts – she’d not wish a battlefield martyrdom on Brandon; too quick, easy… and honourable.
Lord Fanshawe spoke to his servant, who was hovering in the doorway which led to the pantry.
‘Fetch Sir Richard and Lady Amathia something to drink, would you please, Challoner? What’ll you have, Dickon? The local Massandra wine’s rather soothing to the nerves. Or might I suggest a glass of Samogon… very fiery vodka. I think you need it, old man.’
‘Whatever…’
Amathia kept Brandon in view the whole while. Comely enough, wasn’t he, if you liked simpleminded men? But he wasn’t married or engaged yet, was he? Come to think of it, Amathia was not the only female whose interest Fanny had spurned. And he a most eligible bachelor for the last four or five seasons. Now why might that be?
‘Tell me, though, Brandon.’ Amathia inclined towards him. ‘Did you actually see the Charge of the Light Brigade?’
Lord Fanshawe nodded.
‘And Clemmie and Lizzy did too. We were watching from the hill. That valley is no more than a mile wide, you know! Six hundred men rode in the charge. Over two hundred died.’
‘What a lucky fellow you are,’ Amathia said. ‘For hundreds of years they’ll be telling the tale. And you were there, Brandon!’
‘It was a mistake!’ Fanshawe said. ‘A terrible blunder that cost so many lives. And who was at fault? Heaven knows. Raglan blames Cardigan. Cardigan blames Lucan. And they all blame Nolan who can defend himself no longer. As for me, well, I’ve told Lucan that in my opinion he ought to do the decent – disappear, and never show his face again.’
He turned to Richard.
‘I’m sorry for not sending further word, Dickon. I only got the first message off with difficulty. Do you know the telegraph line from London only goes as far as Belgrade? You must send written messages the rest of the…’
‘Yes, yes, no need to labour the point!’ Richard flopped into a chair and removed his hat.
‘My congratulations to you both, by the way,’ Brandon said. ‘I saw the announcement of your engagement in The Times.’
‘Thank you, Brandon,’ said Amathia. ‘My only regret is that my happiness comes along at a time of such great sadness! Clemmie’s betrothed dead. Aubrey… Lord only knows.’
‘I understand it was you who identified James Swynton, Fanny,’ Richard said.
‘Yes, when they brought the dead back from the valley. I wished to spare Clemence. Couldn’t keep her away, though. She wept over him. Very touching. But Aubrey…’ Brandon sighed. ‘He was definitely not among the dead. I checked twice. And if he was captured, we ought to have had word from the other side by now.’
‘Yes, he’d be worth a ransom,’ Richard said. ‘Son of a wealthy family. Brother of a Member of Parliament.’
‘Lysithea’s even spoken to someone on Menshikov’s staff. But… nothing. It’s as if he’s vanished.’
‘And while we’re grieving and worrying,’ Richard said with a gloomy laugh, ‘did you know Tennyson’s published a poem? “Forward the Light Brigade! ‘Charge for the guns,’ he said: Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred.”’
‘Yes, well, I’m afraid I’ve more bad news which will depress you even further,’ said Brandon. ‘Clemence is volunteering at Scutari, ghastly place. Lysithea even encouraged her.’
‘Good Lord! And you didn’t think to put a stop to it, Brandon?’ said Amathia.
‘Even I can’t control her, and I’m her brother!’ Richard told her.
‘Well, I think you’d be wise to bring her away, Dickon,’ Brandon went on. ‘I saw her seven days ago.
She is in dreadful anxiety over Aubrey and working long hours indeed.’
The servant arrived carrying decanter and drinking vessels. Lord Fanshawe waved the man away and took the tray himself. Setting it on the bureau, he poured, and handed Amathia a glass.
‘Clemence has heard what might be the first possible news, though. She’s sent us word by the boat which takes the wounded to and from Scutari.’ Brandon took Richard his wine. He perched on the wing of the seat, an arm resting on the chair back. ‘Sparkle’s been found alive. And a shepherd watching from the hillside witnessed a group of Serbs leading away a captive hussar. The fellow was bound, apparently… but alive.’
‘What? Then yes, this could well have been him!’ said Richard, stirring.
‘It’s a rather vague report, Sir Richard,’ Amathia said. ‘You must not raise your hopes unduly. It would only lead to disappointment.’
‘Yes, you are right. It’s an insubstantial rumour. But – it’s all we have!’
‘And…’ said Brandon, ‘if the Serbs, the troublemakers of Europe do indeed have him – then God help him.’
NINE
Men who had recovered from their sicknesses and injuries were clambering aboard the Balaclava vessel as Clemence watched from the waterfront; and sailors were loading crates of bullets and rifles to go to the front… or feathers for Lord Raglan’s pillow if she was to credit some of the soldiers’ ribaldry.
‘They’re sayin’ Sebastopol won’t fall this side o’ the new year,’ the captain told her. ‘Most o’ these chaps’ll not see their loved ones for Christmas, if again. You’d best settle in for a Crimean winter, miss. Why not return to the staff quarters – or better still, England?’
No… she was needed here – she was sure she was.
As the boat headed back out to sea, Clemence was thinking of what he had said of approaching winter. It was raining, and her cloak was blowing all over the place. Only four weeks ago, the sea-breezes had felt wonderful as the land baked under the southern sun.