by Jane Lark
“No.” The word left her mouth on a whisper as darkness crowded in on top of her, stealing her vision.
When Ellen woke she was lying on her bed. The Lieutenant Colonel sat beside her, while the two men dressed in the uniform of Paul’s regiment stood across the room with the maid from the lodging house. The room stank of burning feathers. The Lieutenant Colonel held her hand and rubbed the back of it with his other. “Madam…” he said quietly.
Ellen’s heart raced as the memory of what he’d said downstairs rushed back and tears filled her eyes. How can I live without Paul? How?
“You have no relatives. Am I right?”
Ellen nodded. Paul had always insisted they did not speak of her father.
“Have you money?”
She shook her head. Paul’s superior officer must know his wages had remained unpaid for weeks.
“Do you have anywhere to go then?”
Emptiness and loneliness opened a void inside her. There was not even grief – just a space that had been Paul’s and now refused to believe he’d gone.
“I think you must come with me then, Mrs Harding.”
Ellen looked at him, unable to think. But then her mind filled with the images of the wounded she’d seen over the last few hours. “How did Paul die?”
The Lieutenant Colonel let go of her hand and straightened. “At the end of the battle the 52nd broke the last surge by the French. But in four minutes of gunfire I lost one hundred and fifty men. Captain Harding was shot. His death was quick. He would not have felt much pain.”
The tears which had been trapped within overflowed in rivers. She needed to hold Paul - his strength and warmth, to smell the scent of his cologne. But he was not here. He would never be here now.
“Paul said I am to seek Captain Montgomery’s help.”
“Captain Montgomery also passed away.”
Cold horror chilled Ellen’s chest. So many men dead, and – Paul. He was alive in her head, saying goodbye to her, kissing her. How could he never come back? His face hovered in her mind’s eye, youthful and smiling, alive and elemental…
Tears traced pathways of sensation down her cheeks like his fingertips running over her skin.
“Let me take you to my home. Where is your woman? She should pack your things.”
“She left” Ellen whispered.
“Then come with me. I shall find you another. But for now…” He looked up at the maid in the room. “Pack Mrs Harding’s things. I will take her with me, and send for them later.”
Ellen noticed then, he smelt clean. His uniform was fresh; he’d bathed and changed since the battle – washed away any blood.
She shivered.
“Come, Mrs Harding. Let me take you under my protection.” He stood and held out a hand.
Ellen rose, but it was in the guise of a ghost. It was not her who moved. She walked downstairs before him as though she was in a dream – no, a nightmare.
She was leaving the place she and Paul had lived for weeks – the only place which might still feel like home, even though he could never come back to it. She was deserting him. In the street, she looked back, longing to refuse to leave, but if she did not go with his Lieutenant Colonel, what would she do?
The Lieutenant Colonel’s hands gripped her waist suddenly, and he lifted her up onto his saddle. He had touched her before when they’d waltzed, but now the pressure invaded her senses through the thin layers of her gown and petticoats, uncomfortably bracing her flesh. It was not Paul’s touch. She longed for Paul’s touch.
The Lieutenant Colonel led the horse through the streets at a walk, as Ellen gripped onto the pommel, her knuckles white, tears flowing down her cheeks.
When they reached the house which she and Paul had visited several times, he lifted her down, his gaze boring into her asking questions he did not speak. When he did not release her waist, she stepped away. Her emotions in turmoil, she turned her back on him, looking at the door.
“Forgive me,” he said before stepping about her to lead the way into the house, but he held back at the last moment, encouraging her to enter first. Then he said to the man who stood in a black long-tailed coat at the door, “Send for a maid to escort Mrs Harding to a room. She is to stay.”
He led her to the drawing room where she’d waited with Paul a few times before being called in to dinner. Ellen’s heart pounded at the memories. She did not believe he was gone. The Lieutenant Colonel spoke, but she did not hear what he said as he moved to pour a drink; she could think of nothing but Paul now.
When the maid finally came, after what seemed like an hour but was probably only minutes, Ellen went willingly, following her upstairs to a room at the rear of the house. There was a sunny sitting room dressed in pink and a separate bedchamber beyond it.
“May I fetch you anything ma’am?”
Ellen turned and looked at the maid, not really seeing her. “No. You may go.” Nothing could bring Paul back. There was nothing to help.
When the maid had gone, Ellen walked into the bedchamber, climbed on to the bed, crawled into the middle, curled into a ball, and wept, with her knees hugged tightly to her chest as her heart broke.
~
Sitting up in the bed, Ellen looked out of the window. She’d remained in this room for a day and a night, pain biting in to her heart as she watched the sky change beyond the window, but now the sun had risen again. She should get up, and return to help those who were alive and wounded. That was what Paul would wish of her. She rose from the bed, still clothed. She had neither eaten nor undressed since arriving here.
There was a sharp wrap of a knock on the door of the sitting room. Ellen hurried from the bedchamber into the room beyond it. “You may come.” It was not a servant, the knock had not come from the servants’ door.
When the door opened, it was the Lieutenant Colonel. He stepped into the room. Instinctively Ellen took a step back.
He lifted his hand, and spoke in a gentle voice. “Mrs Harding, I have come to see how you are. The maid said you have not eaten. I am worried over your health–”
“I am well.” She did not say that she had been sick again this morning, it was only because she had not eaten yet. “But I shall return to care for the wounded today, there is a house, Mrs Beard has taken the wounded in, and I… I was helping, I shall return there today…”
He walked towards her. This time Ellen rejected the instinct to back away; it was rude. He had taken her in and given her a place to stay.
When he reached her he took her hand. Ellen recoiled, she could not prevent it, she was too heart-sore for Paul. She did not want the touch of anyone else, but his grip firmed though it was not painful.
“My dear Mrs Harding, you should not leave the house, not yet. I refuse to allow it. You are in shock, and suffering grief. The maid has told me this morning you were unwell. It is not sensible for you to go to help others. For now, you must look after yourself, I insist upon it. I cannot allow you to go. You must stay here, and let me care for you.”
What could she say? She had no heart or will to argue. Her spirit just wished to curl up in a ball and be with Paul. How could she live without him? Tears filled her eyes, clouding her vision and then spilled onto her cheeks, rolling downwards in a trickle to drip from her chin. She swiped them away, and nodded.
The Lieutenant Colonel’s arm came about her. He led her to a sofa, sitting beside her. “You must not distress yourself, Mrs Harding, I shall protect you now. You may stay with me for as long as you wish, and I shall keep you safe.”
Ellen nodded, wiping away more tears. She felt uncomfortable with him, but she had nowhere else to go. She needed somewhere to stay.
“Let me send up some food to tempt you to eat, and I shall buy you some pretty dresses to cheer you.”
“I do not need them…”
“But you should have them. You should have beautiful things. I have hired a woman for you. I shall send her to you now so she might help you change. Do you wish me t
o eat with you? Shall you come down?”
“No.” Ellen’s answer was vehement. She could not simply sweep Paul away like that and carry on. She looked at the Lieutenant Colonel and said more quietly, realising perhaps she had been disrespectful. “No, thank you, I would rather remain alone…” She left a pause after her words, a pause asking him to leave her now.
He stood, keeping a hold of her hand. She stood too.
He bowed slightly and lifted her fingers to his lips, to kiss the back of them. Then his head lifted and his gaze looked deep into her eyes. “Believe me, Mrs Harding, I shall do my utmost to make you happy.”
He gave her a stiff nod, before letting her hand fall, and then he turned away.
Discomfort skimmed up Ellen’s spine.
Once the door had shut, she returned to the bedchamber and climbed back up on the bed as tears traced a tingling path down her cheeks.
Chapter Eighteen
“But you have been sick almost every morning, ma’am. When did your last bleed come?”
Three weeks had passed since the Battle of Waterloo. Ellen tried to remember, but she had not been able to think properly since Paul’s death.
She looked at the new woman Lieutenant Colonel Hillier had hired to take care of her with a sense of bewilderment. Megan had asked “Are you with child?”
A part of Ellen thought the woman mad.
She could not remember. She had been sick most mornings for the last week of Paul’s life too, and before then… Before then… Whenever she thought of Paul, an overwhelming pain absorbed her heart and a burning emptiness opened as a deep chasm in her chest.
It was possibly two months since she’d bled.
“Shall I send for a doctor, ma’am?”
When Lieutenant Colonel Hillier had refused to let her leave his house to help the wounded, it had left her with nothing to think of but Paul and the fact she would never see him again.
She’d cried so many tears there seemed none left within her. Yet she thought the emptiness inside her would never leave.
Ellen looked at the woman finally and nodded.
A child? Paul’s…
When the doctor arrived, he pressed her stomach a few times then looked up and nodded. The verdict was swift. “You are indeed with child. Have your breasts felt tender?” Ellen nodded, but she had thought that merely a part of her aching heart, and longing for Paul’s touch. “That is all a part of it. I would estimate the child is due in February.”
Ellen’s fingers covered her stomach as she sat upright, looking at the maid across the room. A child.
The man watched her. “And who should I look to for my fee?” Since the battle, with so many men lost, and so much debt dying with them, she’d heard from the maid that no trades accepted credit.
“You must speak to the Lieutenant Colonel,” Ellen answered. He had supported her since the battle. He’d bought her new dresses, though she had not asked for them, and sent the best food up to her rooms, though she’d not been in a mood to eat.
“Is the child his?”
Blushing she looked at the doctor, calling him a fool with her eyes.
“Of course not. My husband is… was…” The words stuck in her throat, but she forced them out, hating the sound of them. “A captain in his regiment. He died during the battle.”
“And you are living with the Lieutenant Colonel now…” His words carried judgement as though it was wrong for Lieutenant Colonel Hillier to help her.
But he was being kind to her, protecting her…
“Very well.” The doctor turned away and Ellen’s maid moved to show him out.
A child…
The thought grew like a planted seed in her heart. Her fingers spread over her stomach. Paul was not here but there was another reason to live now. A child.
Paul would have loved to become a father… The tears she’d thought dried up forever, flooded her eyes.
~
A knock struck the sitting room door.
Ellen climbed from the bed.
Lieutenant Colonel Hillier. She knew his knock; it was always the same. The door opened without her calling as she entered the sitting room.
“Ah forgive me, I thought you may be sleeping. I wished to know how you fared. I have paid the physician. He says you are with child.” He stared at her, his eyes questioning her as they’d always done.
A shiver spun up Ellen’s spine. She ignored it. It was just his way. She was used to it now.
To hide her discomfort, Ellen clasped her hands before her stomach. She was in awe of the news. Paul’s child grew inside her, even though he had gone. Jubilance, fear, and love overwhelmed her in equal measures.
“You need not fear,” Lieutenant Colonel Hillier said in a tight voice. “You may continue to reside with me. I shall keep you, and protect you while you carry the child, and I am willing to look after you once the child is born.”
It had never occurred to her that he may not allow her to stay, because if she did not stay where would she go? Yet she ought not to stay forever. She should apply to Paul’s family, and her own, as Paul had said.
“Will you dine with me tonight, Mrs Harding, and may I call you Ellen? You may call me Mark, if you wish.”
“I will dine with you, yes. But I cannot use your given name. It would be wrong.”
He stared at her, his gaze intense and questioning, then turned away. The door shut behind him with a bang as it hit the wooden frame.
He was a difficult man to understand, and yet he was being kind to her, taking her in and protecting her. “Any of the officers would help you, you may appeal to any of them” Paul had said when he’d told her what to do before the battle. But he had also told her to look to his father for financial support…
An hour before dinner, a new dress was sent to her rooms. It was a very pale blue, almost the colour of her eyes. The muslin was thin, and very fine, and the white lace that adorned the neck and the hem of the short sleeves, was exquisite. It must have cost a good sum; more than Paul could have afforded.
The maid who delivered it bobbed a curtsy. “Ma’am, Lieutenant Colonel Hillier said he wishes you to wear this gift tonight so you might have something pretty to dine with him.” The girl looked at the floorboards, not at Ellen, as a blush heated her skin.
“Say thank you to Lieutenant Colonel Hillier.” Ellen replied, bluntly.
She did not feel like dining with him, or even eating. She walked within a nightmare that would not end. Perhaps, in a moment she would wake, and Paul might walk through the door, come up to her, hold her, and tell her all would be well – then kiss her.
She shut her eyes as the door closed, remembering his kiss. Her soul ached for him, desperately.
As her ladies’ maid helped her dress for dinner, Ellen was silent, allowing it, not really thinking or focusing, and then she sat before the mirror not at all aware of what the maid did with her hair.
“There, ma’am. The Lieutenant Colonel will be waiting.” Megan stepped back admiring her work. Ellen did not even look at the mirror. She turned away, a dark fog surrounding her as she left the room.
It was the first time she had gone beyond the door of her sitting room since coming here. It was odd; everything felt surreal and out of place. She lived with a stranger here – she was a stranger to herself.
Her fingers ran along the oak banister as she walked downstairs. Two footmen waited in the hall; neither of them looked up at her but merely at the floor near her feet. One opened the door leading into the dining room.
A sharp sudden pain pierced Ellen’s breast.
She had entered this room gripping Paul’s arm.
The last time she’d sat within it, she’d been sitting beside Paul and he’d talked animatedly with his peers, while she had listened, absorbed in his expression, trying to follow his words and the conversation of the men.
She was sure Lieutenant Colonel Hillier must have seen the tears glimmer in her eyes as she walked in. They distorted her v
ision.
He stood. “Let me draw a chair for you.” He moved to the side, and pulled one out next to him, at the head of the table.
She looked at the seats she had previously occupied with Paul at the lower end of the table as she walked past, her heart aching for him.
“Do sit,” Lieutenant Colonel Hillier said, ignoring her distress, if he sensed it.
Ellen bit her lip and swallowed back her tears, shutting her eyes for a moment to dispel them, but as she did so, she saw Paul, smiling at her.
She opened her eyes again, and took the seat Lieutenant Colonel Hillier held. He slid the chair in behind her, as Paul had done on their wedding night.
“The dress looks very beautiful upon you.” He sat too.
Ellen looked up and nodded. “Thank you.”
“You are a very remarkable woman, but I am sure you are aware of that.”
She did not know how to answer.
“Do you like my gift?”
Ellen nodded again, feeling dazed and strange. “Yes, thank you.”
“I picked the colour because it is so like your eyes; though I think no man-made colour could match their quality…”
Again, Ellen did not know what to say.
He looked up at the butler. “Go ahead then, serve.”
A footman came forward to serve her soup, then another stepped forward to fill her glass.
Ellen ate. The oxtail soup was warm, sweetened, and full of flavour. She did not really care, she was not hungry, but she would eat now for the child’s sake.
The Lieutenant Colonel gripped her hand. The sensation made her jump. He had been speaking and she’d not heard.
She’d forgotten to wear gloves. How foolish! She thought of the white satin gloves Paul had bought her for the Richmond ball. Where were they? Then she remembered the Lieutenant Colonel saying he’d disposed of the items left behind at her former residence… All Paul’s possessions were gone; so many things that would have reminded her of moments with him.
I should be wearing black…
She looked up at Lieutenant Colonel Hillier. “I should be wearing black. I am in mourning.” How ridiculous not to even remember something so simple. But then why had he not remembered, why had he bought her a blue dress?