Wickham

by Karen Aminadra

  “Georgie.” Her voice cracked as she repeated his name.

  “Don’t you worry about him now,” her mother insisted. “He is being well taken care of. It is you that I am concerned for. You gave us such a fright, and no mistake.”

  Lydia was not listening. “My son. Where is he?”

  Kitty answered before their mother could. “He is in the old nursery in the attic.”

  Lydia reached out and snatched hold of her sister’s hand. “I have to see him, Kitty. Is he gravely ill?”

  Kitty did not reply, but the look on her face was all Lydia needed to see to confirm that all was not well and that Kitty was indeed worried about the infant’s health. Lydia threw off the covers whilst her mother fussed and screeched at the top of her voice that she was too unwell to get up and move about. Lydia ignored her ministrations and, with Kitty’s help, put on her robe and slippers, and together they made their way slowly towards the door and up the stairs to the nursery.

  “I cannot imagine what you think to do!” Mrs Bennet continued to fuss from inside Lydia’s room. “You will make yourself unwell again, you mark my words, you will, gallivanting around the house like this just because the infant is sick. It is just a cold or the grippe, you know. No one ever died of a trifling cold!” she called up the stairs after the two young women.

  However, Lydia knew the truth. Infants did indeed die of colds, and the grippe was the most likely to be fatal to such a young babe as Georgie. She feared for his life as she never feared for anything in the whole course of her life at that moment. Her body was weak and tired and would not move and climb the stairs as quickly as she would have liked. She felt that if she could somehow reach the crib quickly, if she could hold him in her own arms, that it would all be set right and he would be well again in no time at all.

  As Lydia and Kitty reached the top of the stairs, Lydia found that her legs had turned to lead and she could hardly move them. What she would find within scared her. She did not know what a sick child would look like, and her imagination began to run wild. Kitty opened the door and led her inside. What she saw in the crib broke her heart. Georgie was lying on his back, wheezing and gasping for breath. His whole body was wet with perspiration. “Oh, dear God, no! Don’t take my baby boy away from me!” she cried, fell down to her knees, and took one of his tiny little hands in hers. “He is so hot. Can we not open a window?” She looked around her and spied the wet nurse who was hired to care for her son. “It is so hot in here.”

  “He’s got to be kept warm, Mrs Wickham,” she replied. She did not move from her seat and folded her arms.

  “Kitty.” Lydia turned to her sister. “Open the window. Let us get some fresh air in the room. The sun is shining, I see. It can hardly be cold outside.” She saw the worried expression on her sister’s face. She clearly did not wish to go against the advice of the wet nurse. “Please. Just for a little while,” Lydia begged.

  With a sigh, Kitty reluctantly did as her sister asked. “I just hope the doctor does not berate me for this, Lydia.”

  The wet nurse stood up and protested loudly. “In all my years carin’ for babes, do you think I ’aven’t learnt a thing? Do you?” She was red in the face, and Lydia spied a cider demijohn under her stool. “Go ahead.” She pointed at Kitty as she stood to her feet. “Open the window and kill the child. What do I care?”

  Lydia gasped and Kitty made to close the window again. “Kitty, leave the window ajar. The air in this room is stale and reeks of cider.” It did not, but Lydia was certain the woman had been supping heavily from the clay jar—she knew the signs on her face well enough. “Then, if you please, fetch Mama and Hill. You…” She turned to the wet nurse. “…may get some fresh air yourself. You look as though you need it.”

  Lydia gripped hold of the side of the crib to steady herself as her head spun. Despite her strong and angry words, she did not feel strong, nor up to the task of staring down the older woman. Thankfully, the woman reddened more deeply than the cider had already made her as she caught the insinuation and blushed, then left promptly and stomped her way down the stairs muttering that she would never return. Lydia turned to her sister. “Please, Kitty. Mama raised five daughters, and Hill has been with us all since Jane was born. She always took care of us when we were ill as children. She will know how to bring Georgie’s fever down.”

  Kitty smiled kindly at her sister and nodded. She took hold of her hand. “You are right. Hill is the proper person to sit with Georgie…” Her smile turned wry. “And she does not touch liquor.”

  Lydia smiled as relief washed over her and she watched her sister descend the stairs and head for the kitchen to fetch Hill. Lydia knew that she was not experienced as a mother, nor as a nurse, but something told her the most important thing was to bring the child’s temperature down and to aid his breathing, and she herself could not breathe well in the stifling air of the nursery. Lydia reached out and touched Georgie’s white chubby cheek. She was shocked at how clammy his skin felt beneath her fingers. His breathing was so laboured that she found it hard not to reach out and pick him up. She wondered if he would breathe at all better if he was upright and held against her shoulder, or not? She did not know.

  It was not long before Hill and Mrs Bennet came scuttling up the stairs and bustled into the room.

  “Good gracious, child!” Mrs Bennet declared. “What is that awful stench?”

  “I see you’ve opened the window. Good,” Hill said as she bent over the crib to see to Georgie.

  “The air is stale, and I think the wet nurse has been drinking.” Lydia pointed to the cider jar under the stool.

  “Ugh!” Mrs Bennet threw her hands up in the air. “You have no idea how difficult it is to find trustworthy staff these days. I will give her a piece of my mind when I get back downstairs. You mark my words, I will.” She walked to the other window in the dormer and opened it a fraction. “There!” she said, and stood back to admire her handiwork. “That ought to give us a little breeze and get the air changed in here post-haste. I cannot abide such stuffy rooms.” Lydia rose from the floor, walked over to the window, and breathed deeply of the fresh air now flooding the room. It felt like an age since she last felt a breeze play across her face. She watched as her mother marched across the room to the fireplace. “Who on earth in their great wisdom would have stoked such a great fire in such a small room?” she asked no one in particular. Lydia observed mutely as her mother picked up the iron poker from the grey-stone hearth and began to move the coals around in the grate and separate them. “If it wouldn’t make such a terrible mess, I would have a mind to throw a bucket of water over it.” She shook her head.

  “I don’t believe anyone has tried to burn out a fever in a hot room since I was a child,” Hill lamented.

  Mrs Bennet nodded. “Neither do I. Neither do I, Hill. Surely the poor child labours enough in the fever without making things worse with a roaring fire, too.” She jabbed at the coals as though they were a vicious animal that needed killing.

  Lydia felt grateful that her instinct to open the window was the same thing that her mother and Hill would have done had they arrived in the nursery first. She felt exhausted. Slowly, she realised what must have happened to them. The rain had been incessant, and she remembered that they were so bitterly cold in the carriage despite having hot bricks placed on the floor each time they stopped overnight, or for something to eat and to change the horses. The bricks had no effect. Apart from warming their feet minimally, their heat did nothing to warm the carriage, and progressively, the passengers had taken ill and caught a chill. Suddenly, Lydia remembered that she and Georgie were accompanied by Tess, her maid. “Tess! Where is Tess?”

  The look that her mother gave her as she turned to face her from the fireplace was one of shock, she knew. “Tess? Who is Tess?”

  “My maid. She was travelling with me. Is she ill, too?”

  “No, no.” Mrs Bennet looked surprised at Lydia. “She is below stairs, in the kitchens. Sh
e recovered much quicker than you did, my dear, and I saw no reason that she should laze about in bed being waited upon hand and foot—so I put her to work.” She turned back to the fire.

  Lydia was relieved and glad that Tess was well. She determined that once she could be assured that Georgie would recover, she would go in search of the girl and see for herself how well she fared. However, for now, she looked on, completely helpless as Hill ministered to the boy labouring under the fever.

  They sailed on through the night and Wickham, Poynter, and Turpin stayed below decks with their men. Captain Fletcher was in such a foul mood at being ordered to transport the infantry across the channel to Calais post-haste that they all deemed it safer to remain out of his sight and line of fire, as the man was seething. Wickham admitted that he, too, would seethe had he been ordered to do the same thing. The man’s orders from the Navy were to transport the infantrymen to London, and there to receive new orders from the Admiralty. However, his ship, along with many others, had been commandeered for the use of transporting as many troops across the English Channel and onto French soil as expediently as possible.

  When dawn came, Wickham ventured up on deck. The sailors were busy about their business. Ropes were being coiled or plaited, the deck was being swabbed, and a few men were up the rigging and, looking up, Wickham was dizzily glad he was never called upon to climb such heights to repair small tears to the sails as they were at sea. He wondered why they did not simply leave it and begin repairs when they were safely back in England once more. As though in answer, as he watched, a gust of wind caught the sail up and tore the sail a little more, and Wickham jumped as the boatswain appeared at his elbow and yelled beside him up to the men above. The sailors aloft scurried to catch the torn part of the sail and stitch it quickly before it ripped further. Wickham stood open-mouthed at how they could perform such a task whilst seated, balanced on the crossbeam. He shook his head.

  “No head for heights, eh, Lieutenant?” The boatswain chuckled.

  “I’m afraid not. I prefer to keep my two feet firmly planted on the ground.” He kept watching the men stitching the sail. “How do they manage to do that?”

  “It’s their job.”

  “But balancing like that, stitching whilst the ship is moving so much and…” Wickham sighed with incredulity. “I do not believe it! They are singing, too!”

  The boatswain laughed. “Aye, it keeps ’em focussed on their work.”

  “How long does it take to learn such skill?”

  “Oh…” The boatswain shrugged. “…you learn quickly. You have to, or you’ll fall to your death.” The look on Wickham’s face made the man laugh again. “They come to us when they’re young lads—no older than twelve years old, usually. They climb a lot easier than a grown man, I can tell you. Then, once you have that skill and use it daily, well…” He shrugged again. “It never leaves you.” He followed Wickham’s gaze and looked up, too. “When they’ve spent time on land for any reason, then they get stiff, and that’s dangerous. But they soon limber up again.”

  Wickham puffed out his cheeks and whistled. “Well, I am impressed.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll pass your compliment onto the captain and the men, if I may.”

  “Yes, you may indeed.” Wickham smiled.

  The minutes stretched into hours and, more than once, Lydia slept in the rocking chair in the nursery at the top of the Bennet home. Each time she awoke, she was startled and cross with herself for being so weak when her only child lay fighting for his very life across the room. She looked up at Hill and watched the old servant humming and cooing gently to Georgie as she rocked his cradle to soothe him to sleep. She smiled faintly. She remembered Hill doing the very same thing for her when she was a child, and if her memory served her well, she believed Hill hummed the same lullaby, too. Lydia closed her eyes again. No matter how hard she tried, she simply could not keep them open. Nevertheless, she felt peaceful knowing that Georgie was in safe hands with Hill.

  Her dreams, however, were not so tranquil. They were filled with unnamed terrors chasing her dear husband, Wickham. In the dreams, she cried out to help him, but it was to no avail—he could not hear her. She was filled with panic. All she knew for certain was that if she did not call out loudly enough to save Wickham, he would perish. She ran after him through unknown villages where faceless strangers closed their doors and hid their faces from her, no matter how piercingly she screamed for their help. Lydia blindly ran past the houses and across the fields to where she knew instinctively Wickham was, but he still could not hear her. She grew increasingly distressed. The sound of musket and canon fire filled the air, and she choked on the smoke from the gunpowder. She cried his name at the top of her voice, and as she did, the other redcoat officers she could see turned and laughed at her. They pointed their fingers as they did so and the tears streamed down Lydia’s face as she pleaded with them to help her. Fighting through the seemingly endless sea of mocking soldiers, Lydia saw Wickham once more, and as she screamed his name, she heard a cannon blast. Terrified, she yelled, “No!”

  “What is it, Mrs Wickham?” Hill asked, her face a picture of concern.

  Lydia sat bolt upright in the chair. “Wickham…my Wickham!” She wept.

  “There, there,” Hill said, patting her hand and passing her a beaker of water. “You were just having a bad dream, my dear. Nothing more than a nasty, bad dream. You’ve got ever so much on your mind, and it was because of that, I’ll wager. Don’t you go reading anything else into it.” She smiled kindly down at Lydia, who was unconvinced. “You’ll be as right as rain again in a minute. You mark my words.” Hill turned back to the baby in the cradle, and Lydia shivered.

  She had to get out of the nursery. She was desperate to get some fresh air. What she wanted more than anything was to find Wickham, hold him, and know that he was safe. She stood up. “I think I will go and freshen up a little.”

  “Yes, Mrs Wickham,” Hill replied, with her back still to Lydia. “I believe dinner will be served shortly, too. It’ll be nice for your mama and papa if you joined them in the dining room.” Hill turned and smiled at her. “Go on, now. I’ll keep watch over Master George. There truly is nothing more to be done here at the moment.” She nodded, and Lydia needed no further prompting. She turned and, as calmly as she could, fled the nursery for the solace of her own bedroom. Once inside, Lydia closed the door, ran over to the bed, threw herself upon it, and sobbed her heart out over the terrible dream she just had.

  “What will I do?” she cried into her pillow. “Wickham! Come back to me, Wickham, please!” For the first time in Lydia’s life, she felt the overpowering desire to sink to her knees and pray for someone other than herself. Silently, she slipped off the bed and onto the worn rug beside it, folded her hands in front of her, and prayed. “Dear God, if you can hear me, please spare my husband’s life. He is going into battle against a terrible man bent on taking the entire continent of Europe for himself. My George is fighting for the freedom of people in Europe. Please help him and keep him safe.” Lydia bent her head and sobbed into her hands. “And, Lord, bring him home to me.”

  Try as he might, Wickham could not sleep well in a hammock. It was a novelty to begin with, but it was not the sort of bed he was used to, and he stayed uncomfortably awake until exhaustion overtook him, only sleeping until the movement of the men around him awoke him. However, this morning, before he opened his eyes, he heard a cry spreading through the men around him: “Land ahoy! We’ve arrived. All hands on deck!” Wickham sat bolt upright, and forgetting momentarily that he was in a hammock, almost felt out of it at once.

  “Oh, steady on there, Lieutenant,” one of his men called as he passed and reached out to aid Wickham in climbing out of the swinging bed.

  “Thank you. Did I hear correctly? Are we there?”

  “Yes, sir. I believe that’s what they’re saying,” the man said and scuttled off towards the hatch to take a look for himself.

  Wickham
looked around him and spied Poynter and Turpin also trying to climb gracefully out of their hammocks. “We had better organise ourselves, for we have no idea if Boney has organised a welcoming party for us.” The two men nodded, and together they solemnly headed up the rickety wooden steps to the main deck.

  All about them, men hurried to do their duty and prepare the ship to weigh anchor. Wickham spied Captain Fletcher and headed up to the quarterdeck to speak to the man. “Can we not sail into Calais?”

  The captain laughed at him. “Not unless you wish to sink my ship and kill every man aboard, Lieutenant Wickham. You’ll have to take your chances in the boats. My men will set you ashore, and you’ll have to go on foot to the town of Calais. May God shield you from enemy eyes.”

  Chastened, Wickham watched in silence as the rowboats were lowered to the sea and the sailors prepared themselves to ferry the infantrymen to the shore. His stomach knotted as he surveyed the coastline and imagined thousands of pairs of French eyes watching and waiting for their chance to attack.

  “It doesn’t look very inviting, does it?” Poynter asked at his elbow.

  Wickham shook his head. “No, it does not, and we will be sitting ducks whilst we’re rowed in groups to the beach.”

  “How many trips will it take to ferry the men to land, do you think?”

  Wickham shrugged. “From this ship alone… Eight, ten, maybe.”

  Poynter whistled. “We had better pray that God is on our side, then.”

  Turpin turned from the railing and snorted. “Is He? Does God take sides?”

  “Surely He is on the side of good,” Poynter muttered.

  “I hope so,” Wickham replied.

  The preparations took no time at all and Wickham felt he did not have much time to catch his breath before he, too, was saying his farewells to the captain—who warned him not to salute just in case they were in view of the enemy and would make the captain a target. As he climbed down the rope ladder on the side of the ship to the waiting boat below, Wickham noticed he was sweating and shaking a little. Bread and cheese had been passed round hurriedly as preparations were made to depart, so he was certain he was not suffering the effects of not eating anything that morning. Much to his shame, he knew that his sweats and shaking were attributable only to the fear that gripped every muscle in his body. He was wearing an officer’s uniform, and the captain’s words reverberated in his head. He imagined a French rifleman nestled amongst the sand dunes taking aim at that very moment, with Wickham in his sights. He swallowed hard and pushed down those feelings. He forced his limbs to move and climbed down the rope ladder. It would not do to show cowardice now. He had to set an example. Little had he thought, back when he joined the militia in Meryton, Hertfordshire, that he would be heading into battle within a few short months, and now there was the distinct possibility that he would have to kill another man, or be killed himself.