by V. A. Stuart
“Miss Emmy O’Shaughnessy, is it not?” he said, smiling. “I thought I recognized you. And”—he regarded her with anxious eyes—“I am glad to see you looking so well. In these unhappy times, it is a miracle.”
“Oh, I’ve kept to the house, Colonel,” she told him, feeling ashamed that she should have to make such a confession but he nodded approvingly and applauded her good sense. “I, too, have avoided the infection—I have been in Shumla all this time, at Omar Pasha’s behest. But he has given me leave of absence at last and now I’m on my way to report to General Scarlett who, I trust, has not forgotten his promise to give me employment on his staff.”
“Then”—Emmy could not hide her eagerness—“you will be seeing Alex Sheridan, perhaps?”
“I hope to, my dear young lady. He is on General Scarlett’s staff also, as far as I know—although I have had no news of him recently. I had thought that you might know more about his present whereabouts and his doings than I do.”
“No, I . . .” Emmy lowered her gaze, flushing uncomfortably. “It is a long time since I have seen him, Colonel Beatson.”
He did not question her statement but she was aware of his eyes on her bent head and, looking up to meet them, caught the hint of bewilderment in their keen blue depths. “We . . . were to have been married,” she told him wretchedly, feeling that some explanation was called for, in spite of her reluctance to offer one.
“So I had heard,” Colonel Beatson admitted, when she was uneasily silent. “Alex told me so in the only letter I received from him since we parted. He seemed, in that letter, to be overjoyed at the prospect, Miss O’Shaughnessy, and anxious that the ceremony should take place as soon as it could be arranged.” He hesitated, still watching her with puzzled eyes. “I do not wish to press for your confidence, of course but . . . has something occurred to cause you to alter your plans? This cholera epidemic, perhaps? I have heard that it has been very severe.”
“No, it was not that,” Emmy denied. “There was another reason, I am afraid. No doubt Alex will tell you about it himself.”
“No doubt, if he sees fit, he will,” the colonel agreed dryly. He sighed. “I cannot deny that, for his sake particularly, I’m extremely sorry.”
“Iam sorry too,” Emmy assured him.
“Is there any message you would like me to convey to him?” the colonel asked.
She caught her breath. Suppose Alex were ill, as he might well be, suppose he had caught cholera or become infected by the fever which had beset others in the cavalry? Suppose—her heart sank—suppose he were dying and, on this account, unable to write, either to her or to Colonel Beatson? This was no time to remember grievances or to bear ill-will, to anyone . . . and her feelings for him had not changed. They had always been the same.
“Please . . . .” She looked pleadingly up into William Beatson’s bearded face, “I should be most grateful if you would tell him that I send my love. And . . . and say that I hope he is well.”
“I will do that gladly, Miss O’Shaughnessy,” the colonel promised. He asked politely for Charlotte and seemed pleased when Emmy told him of Arthur Cassell’s return. But, when she invited him to call at the house, he excused himself. “I was, as it happens, intending to drop in for a few minutes, in order to see you and your sister, before riding on. But since I have been so fortunate as to meet you, I think if you will forgive me, I will press on. I have some distance yet to cover and I am anxious to reach my destination as soon as possible. However, if you will be kind enough to renew your invitation for some later date . . . .” He held out his hand to her. “I will take advantage of it with much pleasure.”
“Please come at any time, when you are free, Colonel.” Emmy accepted the hand he offered. “We shall always be glad to welcome you.”
“And Alex?” he asked softly.
“Yes, if . . . if he wishes to come.”
“I cannot imagine why he should not wish to come, my dear!”
“Unhappily, I can,” Emmy told him, with a flash of bitterness. But it was momentary and she added quickly,“Nevertheless he is welcome, so far as I am concerned, Colonel Beatson. We are no longer betrothed but . . . we have been friends for a very long time. It is on this account that I . . . that we should be glad to see him.”
“I shall tell him what you have said. Au revoir, Miss O’Shaughnessy and take good care of yourself.”
“Au revoir, Colonel Beatson and . . . thank you.”
Emmy felt a great deal happier as she rode back into the town. She had offered an olive branch to Alex, she thought, and now it was for him to decide whether or not to accept it.
He did so, with an alacrity for which she had scarcely dared to hope, two days later, arriving at the door of the house, with Colonel Beatson, at a little before four o’ clock in the afternoon. Constantin, pleased to be able once again to announce visitors, came in beaming, to acquaint Emmy with news of their presence. His English had improved in the time he had been with them; now, with the dignity of an English butler, he announced the callers by name, so that Emmy was prepared when Alex entered the room at the colonel’s heels. Charlotte was, as usual, resting. It was her habit to come downstairs for tea at five, so Emmy did not send to summon her.
She shook hands with the visitors, noticing with concern how thin and pale Alex looked. But he shook his head to her inquiry. “I suffered some fever and was a trifle off-colour for a week or so. It is nothing, Emmy. I am perfectly recovered now. And you?”
She avoided his gaze. “As you see, I am well, thank you.”
Colonel Beatson rose to his feet. “If you will forgive me, Miss O’Shaughnessy, I will leave you and Alex for a time. I have a friend to see—a Captain Lane Fox, late of the Grenadier Guards, who was with my Bashi-Bazouks in Shumla when we first went there. I’m told that he is in Varna and I should like to renew our acquaintance. There is also”—he shrugged his massive shoulders resignedly—” a matter I must take up with Lord Raglan, if I can manage to see him. Lord Lucan, it seems, is raising objections to my appointment as one of General Scarlett’s aides.”
“Objections, Colonel? But—?” Emmy turned to him in surprise. “Why should Lord Lucan object to your appointment, if it is General Scarlett’s wish that you serve him?”
“For the same reason,” Alex put in cynically, “that his lordship objects to mine, Emmy . . . we are officers of the Indian army, you see.”
When Colonel Beatson had gone, he enlarged on this theme—choosing it, Emmy decided, in preference to anything more personal—and added the information that Lord Cardigan had, for once, agreed with his brother-in-law. “Neither of their noble lordships is anxious to have me on the staff of the Cavalry Division, I am afraid. Lord Cardigan has remembered who I am and the circumstances under which we parted, and he’s brought considerable pressure to bear on poor old General Scarlett to send me packing.”
“And . .. will he do so?” Emmy asked. “Will he yield to Lord Cardigan, do you suppose?”
Alex sighed. “So far he has insisted on my remaining with him. We get on well and he has expressed satisfaction with my work. But it has caused a certain amount of unpleasantness and I am thinking, for his sake, that it might be wiser if I were to seek employment elsewhere.”
“But, Alex, with whom?”
His expression relaxed. “Sir Colin Campbell is willing to make use of me, temporarily at any rate. I served with him in India and he does not share Lord Lucan’s opinion of Indian officers. The matter is not settled yet, Emmy, but as a means of placating Lucan and Cardigan, I may yet have to resort to it. And,” he finished smiling, “there are many worse fates which could befall me. There is no man in the British army that I respect and admire more highly than Sir Colin Campbell.”
They were both silent, the topic exhausted, eyeing each other with the uncertain wariness of strangers. Finally Alex said, two bright spots of colour burning in his pale cheeks, “Emmy, I am sorry, you know . . . truly and deeply sorry. I have been wanting to tel
l you so for weeks.”
“It is not your fault, Alex. How can you help it, if you do not love me?”
“But I do love you, Emmy—”
“No,” Emmy pleaded, feeling suddenly close to tears. “We are friends, Alex—there is no need to pretend to me, to lie to me. I would rather you did not, I . . . it has always been Charlotte, so far as you are concerned, hasn’t it?”
He shook his head vehemently. “I can only ask you to believe this, Emmy, for I can prove nothing. But I have had time to think since we last met . . . while I was ill, I had nothing to do except go over it, again and again, in my mind. My feelings for Charlotte have existed only in my imagination for years. They amounted to an infatuation, perhaps, a sort of madness over which I had no control.Yet I do not love her. I do not think I ever really knew her, even in the days when she was engaged to be married to me. The Charlotte I believed I loved isn’t real Emmy . . . she must always have been a creature I created for myself, in my thoughts and memories. An image to which I clung, because I had no other and because I was alone. I beg you to try to understand. Emmy child, the reality isn’t Charlotte—it is you.”
“I find it hard to understand,” Emmy told him.
“Of course you do. It has taken me years to understand it—how could you hope to, in a few minutes? Yet”—Alex held out his hand to her—“it is the truth.”
“Charlotte was . . .” Emmy could not look at him. “When I came in, she was in your arms, Alex.”
“That was when I learned the truth,” Alex said. His voice was flat but somehow it carried conviction, even to Emmy. “What I held in my arms was an empty dream. Charlotte knew it and so did I.”
“Charlotte knew it?”
“Of course she knew it. Did she not tell you?”
“No.” Emmy bit back a sigh. Charlotte had not told her, in so many words but, in a hundred other ways, she had surely made it plain enough. She had not returned to her husband simply because she had been afraid that she might lose him, as the result of her affaire with Alex—or, at least, that had been only part of the reason. She had gone back to Arthur Cassell because Alex no longer had any allure for her; indeed, perhaps the only allure he had ever possessed had been that of the unattainable. His scruples, the fact that he had been about to marry her younger sister, had been a challenge which, being Charlotte, she had found hard to resist. But Alex, it was certainly evident now, meant no more to her than this . . . he probably never had. She had let him go, when he had been compelled to end his career in the British army and she had not loved him enough to wait for him, even then. She had scarcely spared him a thought, during the intervening years . . . . Emmy’s hands clenched fiercely. She looked up to find Alex’s gaze on her face. He looked so tired and ill, so contrite that her heart went out to him in pity. As it always had, she thought despairingly. As, no doubt, it always would, although it was no longer only pity she felt for him. As a child she had loved and trusted him and that had not changed. She was a woman and she loved him still . . . .
He read her answer in her eyes and taking both her hands in his, drew her to him. “I have been so miserable, not seeing you, Emmy. Yet I thought—I was afraid that you would never consent to receive me again. Or believe me, if I attempted to explain to you. William Beatson told me I was a fool. He said that if I told you the truth, you would know it for what it was . . . and you do, do you not?”
“I think I do, Alex.”
He laid his cheek on hers. “It is you I love, Emmy—you and only you, for the rest of time. For all the time God gives me, my sweet love, I shall do everything humanly possible to make you believe it.”
He had said at last the words she had longed to hear, Emmy thought, and she knew that he meant them, knew that they were the truth and wondered, even as she let him take her into the safe haven of his embrace, how much time would be left to either of them now, in which this love of theirs could grow and come to fulfillment . . . .
When Charlotte came in, a little later, followed by the faithful Constantin with a laden tea tray, she greeted Alex without enthusiasm, seeming as if she scarcely knew or cared who he was. She was nervy and ill at ease, complaining that she had been unable to rest, that the tea was cold and that Arthur—about whom she worried constantly these days—was late.
“He is not usually so late, Emmy,” she remarked petulantly. “And he isn’t yet fully recovered. They should not keep him working so hard, when he is still a sick man.”
“Lord de Ros is also sick,” Emmy reminded her. “I imagine that his absence from duty must put an extra strain on the members of his staff.”
“Arthur says he will be sent home,” Charlotte said. “He is fortunate to be able to go. I wish that Arthur could go also . . . he has never got over the effects of that dreadful journey all over the country. Captain Nolan should have stayed with him, when he was first taken ill, instead of leaving him to manage as best he could, and dashing back here so as to ingratiate himself with Lord Raglan.” She looked at Alex then, with resentful, lacklustre eyes. “You have heard, I imagine, that Captain Nolan has got himself appointed as one of the commander-in-chief’s aides-de-camp?”
“I had heard that,” Alex admitted cautiously. “Most of the cavalry staff are of the opinion that it is a very wise and farseeing appointment. Edward Nolan may be young but he is one of the greatest living authorities on cavalry tactics. He has published two textbooks on the subject, which he has studied in Italy, France and Germany and, in addition to holding a commission in the 15th Hussars, he has held one in the Austrian cavalry.”
“Have you met him?” Charlotte challenged. “In my view—and it is also that of my husband who knows him well—he is of far too volatile a temperament for any reliance to be placed in him. Lord Raglan will regret the appointment, you will see.”
She was not to know how prophetic her chance remark was to be. But Alex, who could not know it either, came to the defense of the young Irish-Italian officer, whose whole hearted enthusiasm for his profession had impressed him deeply, and whose personality had also appealed to him, from the first moment of their meeting.
Arthur Cassell returned while they were still discussing this controversial subject and his appearance instantly silenced them.
For, Emmy realized, he was very ill, and it was no longer from the after-effects of scouring the Bulgarian countryside in Captain Nolan’s company. This was more serious and, with a little half-stifled cry of alarm, she went to him and taking his hand, gently led him to a chair. He sat there mute, smiling at her weakly, his face the colour of dark parchment, his hands clutching the arms of his chair in convulsive agony. Alex came to stand behind her, looking down at the sick man with narrowed, anxious eyes.
“I will get him to bed,” he offered and bent to pick him up. “If you will show me where his room is, Emmy, please.”
She obeyed him without question and Charlotte, the colour draining from her cheeks, followed them up the narrow, curving staircase, to halt by the door, watching them, reluctant now to venture inside the room that had also been her own.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Emmy . . . Emmy, tell me the truth, for mercy’s sake! Is it . . . has he got cholera?”
It was Alex who answered her, with a single, brusque affirmative. But Emmy had known, before he confirmed her fears and they looked at each other, Alex’s eyes with a question in them.
“We could move him to the hospital,” he said.
“No. Oh, no, not there!” Emmy shuddered. “He would die in terrible agony. I will look after him. I am trained, I know what to do. He must stay here, if he is to have even a chance of recovery, Alex.”
“But you will be running a terrible risk, my love,” Alex protested. “I cannot let you do that. Besides—”
“I shall be running no greater risk than many others,” Emmy put in quietly. “And I shall be doing what I came here to do. Oh, Alex, don’t you see . . .” she turned to him eagerly. “They would not permit me to help them at the
hospital, although I wanted to do so and offered my help many times. But I can care for Arthur . . . with God’s help, perhaps I may save him.”
“And Charlotte?” Alex asked. “Is he not her husband?”
But Charlotte was sobbing as, with feverish haste, she started to fling as many of her clothes as she could into a valise. She heard Alex say her name and glanced round at him with frightened, tear-filled eyes. “I cannot stay with him . . . not if he has cholera. I cannot possibly stay in this house, I . . . I am afraid. Emmy, you know how terribly afraid I am.You know!”
Emmy, indeed, knew only too well. She said gently, “Don’t worry, I will look after him. But where will you go?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care!” Charlotte answered wildly. She snapped the valise shut, her hands shaking.
“There isn’t anywhere for you to go here,” Emmy said.
“Then I will leave this hateful, plague-infested town. I can go back to Constantinople . . . to Therapia. Lady Stratford will offer me hospitality. I cannot stay, Emmy, don’t you understand?” She appealed to Alex in her desperation. “Are there no ships in which I could obtain passage? Because I shall go mad with fear if I am forced to stay here.”
Alex hesitated, eyeing her in shocked silence. But he saw that she was in earnest and said doubtfully, “Taking passage by ship would present as great a hazard as if you were to remain with your husband, Charlotte. Greater, perhaps if—”
“No,” Charlotte interrupted hysterically. “That is impossible. If I stay with Arthur, he will expect me to sit with him, to touch him, to . . . share his bed. And I cannot, I am afraid. He would not let Emmy nurse him if I were there—and she is trained, she isn’t afraid, she has worked in a hospital.” She covered her face with her hands, her whole body trembling. “For pity’s sake, help me! I have to get away.” She was, Emmy saw, on the point of collapse, so terrified that it would be impossible to attempt to reason with her. People in such a mental state were, she was aware, more vulnerable to physical disease than those who did not fear the infection . . . and it would help none of them if Charlotte got cholera.