by Tim Jeal
*
Tom started nervously as Fuad, the cook, opened the door and shuffled across the coarse matting, carrying a bowl filled with a messy-looking pilau of red mullet, rice and herbs; glancing absently at the food, Tom gave a brief nod of approval and turned with a troubled and preoccupied expression to gaze out at the dark yews and myrtles in the garden. When nothing had turned out as he had imagined, what did it matter that the fish had been inexpertly boned and would have to be washed down with a sour and watery local wine? Having assumed that the house in Orta-köy would be well-built and comfortable, it had shocked him to find it no more than a wooden summer kiosk, evidently only used by its owner when the flies and smells of the city compelled a brief exodus during the hottest months of the year.
The warped window frames and lattices were no defence against winter winds; and a few pans of glowing charcoal produced nauseating fumes and little heat. Apart from a long divan in the window of the principal room, the furniture was rudimentary: two camp stools, a deal trestle table covered with a dirty embroidered cloth, and several hard upright chairs. Fuad’s gaunt face and ill-fitting English tail-coat, worn with a green hadji’s turban and baggy traditional trousers, were at one with the makeshift air of the house. Only the tubs of tree-geraniums and jasmines in the hall saved the place from utter drabness.
But no surroundings, however congenial, could have eased the taut expectancy of Tom’s nerves, nor have helped him recapture the determined and aggressive mood in which he had written his letter. He could no longer understand how he could ever have believed that simply by seeing Helen, he would be able to break her hold over him. Even before his arrival in the village, he had dreaded that her coming would merely remind him of the magnitude of his loss. She might prove understanding and tender, not callous and indifferent to him, as he had imagined. What if she were to confess to unhappiness comparable with his own? He had seen himself shaming her, forcing her to admit that she had wronged him, led him on, lied to him and ended their affair with a brutal unconcern bordering on contempt.
But now, with her arrival imminent, every vestige of his former certainty had vanished, leaving him agitated and overwrought. The thought of her physical presence both scared and stirred him, bringing panic and elation, confusing and alarming him in case he should prove unable to think or even speak coherently when she arrived. And soon it came to him with a sudden clarity that shook him: this is what hope feels like – the dread of disappointment a man feels when he has rashly allowed himself to hope against the odds. And Tom knew with sinking certainty, that if Helen showed him any trace of love, he would surrender unresisting, gladly, and that his past intentions had meant nothing; that time since his parting from her had been no more than an interval, a pause before this inevitable admission of frailty.
*
It rained heavily shortly before midday, and afterwards the sun shone fitfully for a while. Tom had put on the best clothes he had brought with him, but feeling the absurdity of appearing in such surroundings wearing a ‘half-dress’ morning coat and quadrilled velvet waistcoat, he changed into leather trousers, untanned Napoleon boots and an old brown frock-coat. Then, to make it appear that he had just come in from a walk or ride, he went out into the garden and stamped about until his boots were convincingly muddy, tousling his hair to add further conviction. Opening the lattice commanding the verandah and the road, he sat down to wait, and partly to calm himself, partly to soften the possible disappointment, pretended to believe that she would not come, that he had been mad in his presumption ever to have supposed she would. From the imam’s school beside the mosque he could hear the faint sound of children chanting; closer at hand, sparrows were splashing in the newly formed puddles on the road. A veiled Armenian woman, munching a cucumber, rode past on a milk-white mule carrying long wooden troughs of bread to the bakery; two street dogs began a desultory fight. As time passed, his feigned pessimism turned to a genuine despondency, so that when at last he heard the clatter of hooves and saw the approaching carriage, he felt a breathless shock of real surprise. He was also stunned to see in addition to the liveried coachman and groom, two British hussars in full dress trotting beside the coach: living symbols of the now even greater gulf between their respective stations; and he felt a humiliating sense of guilt for having dared to summon her. Then his pride lived again. This cavalcade had come at his bidding to the very place he had chosen, at his appointed time; and the meanness of the house, and those around it, merely enhanced this victory. Tom clapped his hands to summon Fuad and sent him out to welcome his guest; then, turning abruptly, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked stiffly across to the divan, where he stood staring out blindly at the yews behind the house.
On hearing the soft rustling of a dress, he remained motionless for several seconds, as if lost in thought. From the corner of his eye he saw Fuad bowing low, his hand raised to his face in a profound salaam. As the servant withdrew, Tom turned with lowered eyes, not daring to look at her face, taking in at a glance a cream-coloured merino dress and astrakhan-trimmed pelisse. He moved forward several steps, trying to slow his movements to convey confidence and ease, praying, in the lengthening silence, that she would speak first. With burning cheeks and lips too stiff and tight to form a smile, he heard himself murmuring banalities about being glad that she could come; assuring her that had he known about Turkish roads and summer kiosks he would never have subjected her to the journey. And then he stopped, shocked by the grating artificiality of his voice and the fact that he had apologised. He looked up and her expression robbed him of further words; expecting, if not sympathy for his predicament, at least understanding, he saw only an icy indifference, which pierced him to the heart. A year ago, only a year and she would have run to him with open arms; parting as at Barford with tearful kisses. He shot her a look of tortured resentment, but the set of her features remained the same; the pale gold of her skin and the warm rich lights in her hair mocking by contrast the freezing hostility in her eyes.
‘Why have you forced me to come here?’
The slightest tremor of suppressed anger ruffled the precise polished surface of her voice; her tone an absolute denial of any claim he might suppose he had on her. Humiliated and outraged, he burst out:
‘I did not think our former association so bereft of meaning, so far beneath consideration….’ The thread of his sentence had gone. ‘Because,’ he went on, his voice rising, ‘I deserved better than to learn with the cut of cane in the face what should have come from your lips when we were together. Or did Captain Crawford come as your personal messenger?’
She raised her brows and inclined her head as if surprised by such an immoderate and ungentlemanly tirade; then said with only a hint of questioning:
‘You wish revenge for what was no fault of mine?’
‘No fault that you kept silent knowing what that man knew?’ He stared at her with incredulous fury. ‘No fault that you left me in a fool’s paradise … did that knowing the appointments for the Black Sea, knowing what they meant?’
For the first time he saw her hesitate, noted a slight movement of her hands as if impulse had almost broken her studied reserve, but she replied with the same distanced blandness:
‘Nothing could have been changed, whether you knew or not. A sudden death is less painful than a lingering one.’
‘Dead I may have been to you after our parting, but a living death … I did not cease to feel when you had gone. Did it not cross your mind that I might wonder how it was that you never found time to see me before you left? Was I supposed to shrug my shoulders and go on as if ours had been no more than a casual encounter in a crowded summer?’ His legs were shaking and he could feel tears starting to his eyes.
‘How you choose to remember me is your concern, but one thing I will remind you. Nothing that I ever said could have given you reason to hope that I might break my word to the man I had pledged myself to.’ She raised a hand to the brim of her feathered hat, a gestur
e half nervous, half mannered elegance. The ghost of a smile played on her lips. ‘No sweet farewell could have brought any alteration.’
‘That did not excuse … I had a right to see you knowing it was for the last time.’
She met his gaze easily, as if unaware of the burning reproach in his eyes. A trace of mockery in her voice as she said:
‘And you have claimed that right … today. I trust you are satisfied.’
‘If there is satisfaction in learning how easily you forgot….’
‘Forgot?’ she said sharply. ‘How could I forget? You mean, did I suffer continually? You wanted to hear that I am still sad and discontented. You brought me here to gratify your vanity, to hear me say that losing you I lost hope and happiness, shutting the door on life; the angel chained to a satyr pining for youth and beauty.’ She stared at him defiantly challenging him to deny the truth of her accusation, glorying in his silence. ‘The opposite is true. You are quite ignorant of the natural dignity of men used to the obedience of others, but I, who have lived among such men and am proud to be married to one, count myself privileged. I enjoy my husband’s strength and his position and will not stoop to the hypocrisy of denying it.’
He saw a frightening light of triumph in her eyes and felt his powers of resistance ebbing like blood, felt that another onslaught would annihilate him utterly; yet something stubborn in him could not give way.
‘And would that natural dignity,’ he asked, ‘survive the knowledge that your ladyship had given herself to a man as mean and insignificant as myself?’
‘By threatening me, Mr Strickland, you stigmatise yourself as I never did. Should not a proud little upstart’s adoration please a worthless sensual woman’s vanity and pass an idle hour? Sentimental shop-girls give themselves. Perhaps you gave yourself, but I did not. So do not threaten to punish me for your innocent self-deception.’
‘You risked everything,’ he cried, moving towards her.
‘I enjoyed the excitement, as men like to risk their fortunes at “hazard.” He stood motionless, staring with wide eyes as if hoping by the concentration of his gaze to burn out the image before him. ‘You see how much better it would have been never to have seen each other again?’ He heard the sudden change of tone, the softness of her voice; a softness that was almost tender, and stifled a swelling groan. He had survived her hostility, but this final hint of kindness, recalling everything her harshness had blotted out, everything he had wished for and dared to imagine possible again, broke him, and he turned away clutching his face, feeling hot tears wetting his palms. He did not see the light die from her face and her lips tremble as she moved towards the door.
Among the jasmines and geraniums in the hall she paused breathing deeply, agonised at what she had done, yet still sure that her only safety had lain in killing his love, in making herself despicable to him. A few steps from the door and the hussars would see her and after that no going back; but still she hesitated, consumed with grief and shame; she had feared the encounter, but how horrifyingly easy it had been; and worst of all, even while tortured by doing such forced injustice to her motives, she had felt a wild exultation in her capacity for so absolute a denial of her true feelings, even believing that she was hurting him not for her future security but only for his peace of mind, only to help him forget her as unworthy of his regard; and his resistance had sharpened her resolution and pride in her control until she had gone far further than she had ever intended, oblivious to his pain until his final surrender. On a peg by the door hung some coats, a wide-awake hat and a leather pistol holster. A cold splinter of fear pierced her heart; that he might kill himself had not occurred to her before; yet he had come from England to engineer this meeting, had probably spent more money than he possessed in doing so, had dreamed of what they would say – and she had treated him thus. It was horrible. Yet to go back, to risk undoing what had been so painful to achieve…. From the dark hall she could see the coachman and the groom smoking on the grass under the trees across the road. An araba pulled by two oxen lumbered past; a woman carrying a child; the sun was shining. She longed to be gone, and yet – and yet had not the power to go. A moment later she sensed him behind her and heard his dry faltering whisper:
‘Did you ever love me?’
She nodded dumbly, her eyes misting, filling slowly, but never leaving his pale tear-stained face. Burning with shame, she saw the transformation of his eyes and the flame of joy set there by that slight pitiful inclination of her head.
‘Yes, yes, I did, truly I did,’ she repeated fervently; and yielding to the melting of her heart, held out her hands, but he did not move to take them. For a moment of pain she was close to explaining that she had kept silent at Barford only for his sake, that she had begged Charles on her knees to allow a last hour with her lover, but then she saw his slow gentle smile and knew that she had no need.
This confirmation had been all he sought. He looked at her in perfect stillness for perhaps a minute before walking back into the room. Choked by scalding tears she moved after him, agonised that she had dared speak of dignity, but then she stopped and bowed her head. Everything had been said; she was already forgiven. His going had also been a request to her. Longing to remain, she wiped her eyes, and, with an outward composure, maintained she knew not how, walked out into the sunlit road. The coachman got up from the grass and stretched, then ambled across to the brougham.
‘Get on,’ she shouted, to the man’s amazement, and again, as the groom scrambled to secure the steps, ‘Get on.’
44
A perfect winter morning with scarcely a breath of wind, and across the Bosphorus, on the further shore, the hospitals at Scutari, transformed by the sun to shining oblongs of blanched ivory; high in the crystal sky: a frieze of wispy clouds like decorations on a Chinese screen. Sitting with Milroy and Padmore in the stern of the commissioners’ launch, Tom was keenly aware of the visual beauty around him, but it evoked nothing in him – unreal because outside and independent of his misery.
In two days he would be sailing for the Crimea and, in what time remained, had decided to visit Scutari – something he had been previously unwilling to do: afraid of what he would see, and ashamed to be thought a callous experience seeker, prepared to stare at those for whom he could do nothing. Now in his confused and untypically introspective state, he hoped to find in the greater suffering of others, a personal cure: an end to his sense of helpless captivity within a timeless moment. He repeated to himself that the fixed point of despair, which fate had led him to, had been no ending, but an accident of time, a single milestone on a longer road. If, in the constant back-flow of change, even great disasters could not claim the name of tragedy as a lasting appellation – then how much less could an individual instance of disappointed love? Whatever the intensity with which desire sought to embalm experience, time would soon enough deny those wishful efforts. Yet in his heart, Tom recognised the deception in such thoughts of universal transience.
He had lost what he most wanted; that fact remained – now, today, tomorrow, and, as he feared, always; and if peace of mind could come only with the certainty that there was nothing else ahead except time’s slow erosion, then he would rather suffer than accept that nothingness.
*
Tom had heard so much from Sutherland and Milroy about conditions at Scutari, that the reality did not distress him as acutely as he had supposed it would. Pus-filled bowls, saturated and verminous floor-boards, too rotten in places to be scrubbed, and condensation-streaming walls, shocked and sickened him, as did the thick sweet smell of putrefaction, but far greater was the shock of seeing the scores of men with dysentery, apathetic and indifferent, dying, apparently without a struggle and, according to Padmore, without pain: doomed by the absence of proper food. But in wards filled entirely with wounded there was more active suffering, but also much more hope, even in cases where recovery seemed impossible. When Padmore, who had acted as Tom’s guide, prepared to leave him in a ward, Tom
made as if to follow, but was prevented.
‘Stay and talk to them. They like to see a sympathetic face.’
‘But what could I say?’ he asked, feeling not only deep sympathy and respect for the sufferers, but also a dread of offending them by saying too much or too little.
‘Ask them how they got their wounds, where they’re from. Ask things and listen. It won’t bother them who you are or why you’re here.’
Unconvinced by this, Tom watched Padmore go with mounting dread. On the mattress nearest him a man was breathing raspingly through cracked parched lips, one arm thrown back in a way that showed agonising pain; his leaden eyes staring upwards into space. The room was some fifty yards long, and near the far end a man was sitting up, propped against the wall, reading a description of the Alma from an old ‘weekly’. His voice was strong and clear and those around him were listening attentively. When he had finished, the paper was handed round and a conversation started, which made Tom wince with embarrassment.
‘Them as writes the words ha’e bin ter war right enough. More than cans’t say for the painters.’
The speaker, a powerful red-faced man with massive shoulders, and the remains of his right thigh resting on a stained stump-pillow, tossed the paper to his neighbour, who looked at it for a moment, his sallow face wrinkling with mirth.
‘They think our horses bin fit for nowt but brewers’ drays …’
‘Drays?’ cut in a third. ‘Ours weren’t fit ter pull a barrow.’
‘See here,’ went on the soldier with the paper, stabbing at it with his thumb: ‘There’s not a smite o’ smoke; a battle wi’out smoke… Lot o’ tom-foolery, isn’t it?’