‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘The rest of his regiment is still at Malta.’
‘He’s a good-looking fellow,’ Naughton observed, in a distinctly wistful tone – at which it was my turn to be puzzled. Following some judicious probing I gathered he was referring to the soldier who had gallantly come to Myrtle’s side during the shocking incident with the dogs.
‘Are they to be married before or after the war?’ Naughton asked, and it was then that George, irritated by such persistence, chose to break off Myrtle’s engagement. ‘He may be handsome, sir,’ he replied, ‘but he has treated my sister disgracefully. She will never be his.’
I remember how pleased we were at our inventiveness. It was, after all, nothing more than an amusing ending to a good, if rather cruel, joke.
It was decided that Beatrice, Annie and the children would sail home at the beginning of May, Constantinople having become insufferably crowded with troop transports and officials. Moreover, with the advancement of the season came an alarming increase in the number of flies and things that nipped in the night. It did no good to shake the bed linen from the balcony, as Beatrice took to doing morning and evening, for the verminous intruders were secreted in the floorboards and every slight crack in the walls. Annie, for one, couldn’t wait to retire to the civilised surroundings of her aunt’s house in Anglesey.
In April, George had achieved his goal, and now spent three days a week at Scutari, where he had been appointed assistant to a Turkish doctor at the Barrack Hospital. He could have returned each night, Scutari being no great distance, but felt it prudent to consolidate his position. His cases, as yet, consisted for the most part of falls from horses, injuries sustained in inebriated brawls and fever occasioned by venereal disease. In these parts a soldier could get drunk for sixpence and syphilis for a shilling. He said it was just as well he was not required to perform more surgery, facilities being primitive in the extreme. He reckoned there was a rat for every patient admitted.
He was a changed man. Though he returned weary and in need of a bath, hair cloudy with dust and clothes stained, his blue eyes conveyed a candour and innocence of spirit missing since his youth. Myrtle rarely accompanied him, due to the impending departure of the children. In this she was content, her love for them being quite simply an extension of her love for him.
In deference to the wishes of Beatrice, a last outing was planned – an excursion to the Sweet Waters of Europe beside the Golden Horn, followed by an evening at the opera. My feelings can be imagined, yet I smiled, feigning enthusiasm. I loved my wife, and indeed, the thought of parting from her, for Lord knows how long a duration, filled me with sorrow. How was I to manage? I dwelt sentimentally on the habit she had of sometimes picking at the food on my plate, the fond way her stubby fingers rubbed at my insect bites in the small hours. Needless to say, attempts to put my thoughts into words were greeted with irritation. Yet, when she slept and I made to move from the circle of her hot little arms, her clasp only tightened.
The Sweet Waters of Europe, a resort popular with all the Turkish rank and fashion of Stamboul and Pera, lay a fast two hours’ ride across country. We were to picnic in the grounds of the Palace belonging to the Sultan’s brother, a man celebrated for the beauty of his cultivated gardens and the hundreds of peacocks that swayed up and down his avenues of roses. I say fast, but as the children’s necks were in danger of being dislocated from the jogging of the ponies, our progress was necessarily more sedate. We started soon after dawn but by eight o’clock the sun was already high and Myrtle wielded her fly-whisk above those downy infant heads as though warding off eagles.
It was pretty countryside we passed through and if it had not been for the temperature – a well-built man is rendered almost to lard by a fierce sun – I would have found it a pleasant enough way to spend a morning. We were trailed and sometimes overtaken by Naughton, who rode rather well for a violin maker. He was accompanied by one of the engineers and a skinny man in a turban. Each time Naughton drew close, he called out a greeting and raised his hat. Of course, he only looked directly at Myrtle. ‘He stalks you like a hunter,’ Beatrice said. ‘I don’t know how you bear it.’
‘You forget that I understand obsession,’ said Myrtle. ‘Besides, what harm does he do?’
As we approached our destination, winding our way past the rustic villas that lined the water’s edge, a flight of storks rode the blue heavens. For a moment we saw them clear, then, piercing the glittering sunlight around the golden dome above us, they flashed from dazzling view.
The Palace was built on a wide plateau, its grounds planted with trees and flowering shrubs. Leaving our ponies, we climbed a flight of steps and entered by way of a tunnel fashioned out of some sort of exotic privet. A hundred men, so Annie said, were employed in its upkeep.
The gardens beyond were extensive, an artistic blend of lawns, rockeries and herbaceous borders. I myself have never been able to raise much interest in horticulture, and grew weary of Annie’s constant exclamations of delight at this or that example of what she termed an exquisite bloom. I was far more taken by the little clearings among the trees, in whose shade lolled parties of fortunate ladies, their scarlet fingernails languidly fanning the air. How I longed to join them! Instead, spurred on by Beatrice, who was driven forwards by the distant sound of clapping and muted cheers, we toiled down an avenue of purple rhododendrons and came at last to an open space ringed by boisterous spectators.
Here, the navy was holding an athletic sports day, presided over by a French admiral who, judging from the uncomplimentary remarks of several English on-lookers, should have been occupied with more urgent matters, namely the conflict brewing beyond the Bosphorus. I rather agreed, though later, having caught a glimpse of this gentleman coming out of the refreshment marquee, gloriously attired in cocked hat and braided coat and supported on either side by blue-coats, I altered my opinion of his usefulness. It was evident from his drooling mouth and tremulous gait, each step placed as though fearful of encountering quicksand, that his days were numbered.
Presently Beatrice became absurdly engrossed in sprinting and jumping; unable to stand upright any longer in the blistering heat, I found refuge under a Judas tree and, draping a handkerchief over my perspiring face, fell into a reverie. My thoughts, possibly because I was thirsty, centred on the writings of Homer, in particular those verses dealing with the death of Antinous, stabbed in the throat by Ulysses as he was about to drink from the golden goblet – hence the proverb, There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip – when I was painfully disturbed by a kick on the ankle. Snatching the cloth from my eyes I was in time to see an elderly gentleman diving across my legs and sprawling to my side.
I have often thought that most things in life are ordained and that there is no such thing as chance. Galileo Galilei could not have deduced that the earth spun round the sun without the inventor of the telescope having been born in his lifetime, any more than Myrtle would now be in her present proximity to George without an outbreak of smallpox and a visit to a brothel. These two examples, of course, are in no way to be compared in importance, but they do point to an extraordinary fusing of time and place. In my case, I have been the unhappy victim of predestination in that anything I might have had an aptitude to study has already been worked over by minds greater than my own.
I mention all this because the ancient man now lying alongside me under the Judas tree was none other than Gustav Streicher, the director of the Archaeological Collection at Kertch, whom I had known twenty years before. After assurances that no bones had been broken, there followed one of those conversations peculiar to encounters between comparative youth – my hearing was certainly superior – and extreme old age. I wasn’t even sure he knew who I was, though he appeared to remember the marble head of Apollo whose tinge of rouge on the cheeks I had once so admired, also the sarcophagus with its two gigantic figures astride its lid, their heads knocked off by marauding Turks. I told him I recalled his inspiring lecture on th
e latter subject.
‘Barbarians,’ he muttered. ‘Barbarians to a man.’
‘And are you still at Kertch?’ I asked, to which he replied he held a courtesy post, with pension.
‘You prefer to live there … rather than England?’
‘What is England?’ he retorted. ‘Where is England?’ I took this as rhetorical and stayed silent. I noticed his eyes had closed and hoped he slept rather than swooned from the effects of his tumble. Just as I was about to enquire whether he was all right, he cried out with great vigour, ‘It is sheer nonsense to transfer the wanderings of Ulysses to the Black Sea. He would surely have mentioned the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus if his travels had taken place to the west of the theatre of the Trojan War rather than the Pontus Euxinus to the north.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ I said, and added, ‘I’m here on a modern journey. I intend to be an observer.’
‘Of what?’ he queried.
‘Why, the war,’ I said.
‘What war?’
‘The present one,’ I replied, disconcerted by the question.
‘I know of no war,’ he declared. ‘Troy has been sacked.’
We were interrupted by Beatrice, who rushed up with the news that George was about to take part in the long jump, an event open to all-comers.
I helped the old man to his feet and shook him by the hand. ‘I remember you with fondness,’ I said, though it wasn’t altogether the truth. I had not forgotten the mortifying occasion, after another of his lectures, when, questions having been invited from the floor, he had called me an ass and told me to sit down.
‘Hurry,’ Beatrice urged.
‘I hope we will meet again,’ I said, shaking him by the hand.
‘I trust not, Mr Lyell,’ he replied, which at least showed a flattering remembrance of my geological pursuits, however wide of the mark. ‘My regards to your daughter.’
‘Did he mean me?’ Beatrice demanded to know.
‘Who else?’ I said, at which she glowed.
George didn’t do spectacularly well in his competition. His brother Freddie, alas dead from inflammation of the brain, had been the sportsman of the family. All the same, when he sped across the ground and launched himself into the air, the sun transforming his leaping head into a helmet of gold, we roared ourselves hoarse.
An hour later, as Beatrice was chivvying us to leave, George insisted we must pose for a photograph. He had seen a man with a camera standing before a dark tent near one of the fountains. So we lined up, some of us rearranging ourselves in the small hope of minimising physical defects, Beatrice, under the guise of appearing reflective, propping her chin on her finger, Annie slipping off her shoes so as to come down in height. As for myself, I took up the elder child, careful to let its petticoats dangle upon my belly, at which it howled and George ordered me to give it to its mother, who was already clutching the younger infant to her breast. Behind us, a tug-of-war progressed, officers versus men, the pig-grunts of the participants punctuating the struggle.
We stood there a long time, motionless as statues, except for the children. ‘Be still, my sweet babes,’ Myrtle murmured, as they leapt like fish in her arms.
Our visit to the opera took place at a late hour, long after we had eaten dinner. The theatre was in Pera, in the European quarter of the town, next door to a grog-shop bursting with soldiers. There was such a caterwauling issuing from within, one might have thought they were performing an opera of their own.
I was cross with Beatrice for making me put on my best clothes, the interior of the theatre being nothing short of filthy. Fortunately, we had a box and were somewhat elevated from the squalor. Even so, though I kept it from Beatrice, I brushed two cockroaches from her seat before she sat down. The stench both from below and from the establishment next door, a mixture of frying onions, beer and something sweetly rotten, was unbearable and kept us constantly flapping our handkerchiefs before our noses. Along the edge of the stage, perilously close to the tattered velvet curtains, stood a line of burning oil lamps, some with missing cowls. I took the precaution of examining the narrow passageway behind our chairs, and threw into the street several articles of broken furniture, which, in the event of fire, would surely have hindered our escape.
Myrtle sat as though in a trance, oblivious to her surroundings. Tomorrow the children would leave for England, and her heart had hardened to ice at the prospect. Then, some moments before the interval, I heard a strange mewing sound, which instantly brought back memories of Mrs O’Gorman’s kitchen and the cry of the stable cat prowling the bucket in which its kittens lay drowned. Startled, I glanced at Myrtle, and saw her cheeks were wet.
It was the music, according to George, that had thawed her, though how such a modern composer as Verdi, all discords and jangles, had the power to move anyone to tears, unless from sheer irritation, was beyond my comprehension. Beatrice put a consoling arm round her, and Annie, who found it difficult to show sympathy, from embarrassment rather than feeling, ferreted out her smelling salts.
It was only after the curtain had fallen that I noticed Naughton in the box opposite, seated alongside his crony the engineer and Mrs Yardley and her colonel in the Guards. Naughton was staring to the left of our group, an expression of rage tormenting his features. Following the direction of his infuriated gaze, I leant out to spy on the adjacent box. It housed an adolescent female, of dusky complexion, clasped in the passionate embrace of a young man brilliantly attired in the uniform of Lord Cardigan’s 11th Hussars.
Some minutes later I saw Naughton making his way across the front of the auditorium. Arriving beneath our dusty cubicle, he looked up, first at Myrtle, who was in the act of dabbing at her eyes, then to her left. If such a thing is possible, I swear his lip curled. Then he walked purposefully towards the doors at the back of the theatre. Meanwhile, Mrs Yardley was energetically signalling to me, waving her programme and generally making a show of herself. As for the engineer, he was standing up, shoulders hunched like a prize-fighter, punching the air with his fists. I reckoned the pair of them were drunk and said as much to George, but when I succeeded in bringing his attention to the box opposite, the engineer had disappeared.
‘It’s extraordinary how foreign parts bring out the worst in people,’ I remarked to Beatrice, who told me to shush as the orchestra were again filing into the pit.
The second half had just commenced, chorus gloomily wailing, when I heard footsteps thudding along the passageway behind. Then came a crash and a mumble of unintelligible words; my chair shook as something heavy bounced against our partition. Every eye in the house now turned in our direction, including those of the singers on stage. A voice – later identified as that of the engineer – distinctly shouted, ‘Don’t be a b—fool.’ Craning forwards, I was flabbergasted to see Naughton, on his back, bent over the edge of the box next door at such an angle that his head dangled above the orchestra pit. He was leant over by the hussar, who had his hands round Naughton’s throat. A good proportion of the audience, shamefully yelling encouragement, jumped to its feet.
There followed a most dramatic incident, far exceeding in authenticity and excitement anything we had yet seen on stage. Naughton, scrabbling desperately at his assailant’s breast, managed to hook his fingers through the golden frogging of that splendid coat. The hussar, no doubt appalled at the thought of such defacement, loosened his hold and attempted to prise himself free, at which Naughton, levering himself upright and twisting sideways, jerked him off balance, sending him toppling across the edge of the box. Teetering, the hussar raised one hand, and tracing what appeared to be the sign of the cross, dropped to the boards below. For the first time I grasped the purpose of music, my emotions being considerably heightened by the continued playing of the orchestra – the unfortunate fellow landed to the accompaniment of percussion.
George hurried downstairs and, pushing aside the agitated crowd, did what he could for the fallen man. The rest of us stayed put, not wishing to add to the crush. The
re was a tremendous hubbub coming from the passageway; peeping out I was astonished to see Naughton being dragged off by half a dozen burly Turks. The engineer, much distressed, burst in among us and declared he himself was partly to blame. ‘I should have stopped him earlier,’ he shouted. ‘By God, I could see which way the wind was blowing.’
Taking him out into the passage I asked him to explain what had happened. What was the quarrel about? Why had Naughton been attacked in such a brutal manner?
‘It was Naughton who did the attacking,’ cried the distraught engineer. ‘He just dashed into the box and slapped the hussar across the face.’
‘But for what reason?’ I demanded, though I had a sudden and horrid suspicion I already knew.
‘Why, on account of Miss Hardy … for treating her so badly. There he sat, not ten paces away, his arm round that low woman … and Miss Hardy in tears at the affront.’
‘I advise you to go back to the hotel,’ I said. ‘In the morning … when you’re calmer … we can call on the English consul.’
‘I should have prevented him,’ the engineer moaned, and ran off down the passage.
The affair ended better than one had feared. The captain, though bruised and having had all the breath knocked from his body, broke neither neck nor back. Suffering from nothing worse than a sprained ankle, he was helped to his barracks by comrades summoned from the grog-shop nearby.
George and I kept silent on the ride home. Both of us had reason to feel ashamed. I couldn’t help thinking of the duck-boy, Pompey Jones, and how I had upbraided him over the childish nonsense of the tiger-skin rug.
Cause and effect, I thought. One should never underestimate the disruptive force of haphazard actions.
I rented the top half of a house at Scutari. George, who, until we joined him, had been sleeping at the hospital, was delighted at the move. Our windows overlooked the sea of Marmora and he was within walking distance, through the yard of a mosque, of the Great Barrack. Beyond what was absolutely essential, we had little in the way of furniture and Myrtle insisted it stayed that way. I was all for rushing off to procure sideboards and pictures and the like, but she said we weren’t at home and it was no good pretending life was as it had always been. As it happened, we weren’t destined to stay there very long.
Master Georgie Page 7