To Take Her Pride

by Anne Brear

  You may have heard back home that Ladysmith is surrounded? Isn’t it ironic that me, the one who never expected to be a fighter as a youngster, is now the one fighting for his life? Despite it all, I’m a good officer, Aurrie. Does that surprise you? It does me. I get along well with the men and they don’t mind my lack of experience, for they know I’m the first one to stand with them when it counts. How did I become so brave, Aurrie? Or am I still the reckless one my mother despairs over?

  We’re holding out here well enough. Please don’t worry. I am well. Food is getting awfully expensive for the town’s people and rations are short for the soldiers. There will be no Christmas pudding for us, which is disappointing, as I like a good pudding. Water is running out like everything else, except the enemy’s shells. The roof of my little house was holed last week. It’ll need fixing before we get rain.

  This morning while I was on duty, the odd Boer shell landed in the town and killed a horse. For some reason this angered me far more than anything that has gone on before. An innocent, hard working horse killed and for what, I ask you? The animals are in a sorry state, the cows don’t give enough milk, the oxen but skin and bones. Dysentery is killing so many good men, Aurrie, it breaks your heart to see it.

  December 24th 1899

  Forgive me for not finishing the above. News came that the Relief were coming for us, but it proved to be a false rumor sadly.

  Sorry, I had to break off again, Aurrie, I’ve managed to hear of a runner going out this evening. I’ll not have time to finish this letter and am hurrying now so forgive my hand. Please give my kind regards to Sophia and the others. By the time you receive this letter your baby might be born, and I hope him or her are in good health.

  To you dearest, Aurrie, I give you my love. Keep well and happy, dearest, I live knowing that via you I have done some good in the world and I am content.

  Farewell, my wonderful friend,

  Yours etc,

  Tom Sinclair.

  He put done the pen and hurriedly folded the letter into the envelope and left the bedroom. In the kitchen of the little house he shared with two fellow officers, he gave the letter to a subordinate with instructions on where to take it and watched him go. He let out a breath of longing that always gripped him when he thought of home. He didn’t know which part of home he wanted. It wasn’t just one thing he wanted, but a collection that to him, made up “home’. He wanted to laugh with his friends, ride with his brothers, and listen to his mother make plans for Christmas. He wanted his room at the Hall, a snowy day, to go pheasant shooting, drink at his father’s gentleman’s club in Belgravia, visit his tailor and admire pretty girls at a ball. All these things made up home for him.

  Across the dusty, dirt street, a lieutenant he knew waved in greeting. “Happy Christmas to you.”

  “And you.” Tom smiled with a nod. “May our present be the Relief!”

  The whine of an incoming shell went unnoticed by the pair of them as it was a common enough occurrence, but within a moment they knew the whine was aiming for them. Tom turned and looked up at the blue sky.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Happy Christmas!” Sophia raised her glass at the table.

  “Happy Christmas to all.” Aurora added hers to the others raised, which included Jed, who’d quickly become a member of the family. They sat in the dining room eating the sumptuous meal Sophia and Lily had prepared with the fire ablaze as snow drifted on the breeze outside the frosted window. Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, Sophia and Noah had been quietly married after the Sunday service. They had celebrated with a small family party and this morning Aurora had blushed on seeing how happy and in love Sophia and Noah were on coming down to breakfast.

  “Our first Christmas as a real family,” Lily said, her eyes filling with tears. “So much has happened to us all in one short year.”

  Aurora’s throat grew tight. What a year it has been. She thought back to other Christmas days with her parents and sisters and the ache of missing them grew larger. She’d sent them another letter with loving Christmas messages enclosed to each of them, but it wasn’t enough. She longed to see them.

  Lily passed the gravy pot across to Sophia. “I know you’ll be having your own grandchild soon, but I would be honored if you’d allow Will to call you grandma too.”

  Sophia’s smile nearly split her face. “Thank you, Lily, I think that is the best Christmas present I could have.” She grinned over at baby Will lying in his cradle by the fire, and then leaned over to kiss Noah’s cheek. “I never thought I’d be so blessed.”

  Later, as darkness crept across the land and the animals were bedded down for the night, Aurora retired early, leaving the others to sing carols and play cards.

  Lying in bed, watching the half moon through the window, she wallowed in thinking of Reid. What was he doing now? Where was he, at the London townhouse, the Hall in Leeds, or still across the sea in New York? Was he happy?

  A lone tear trickled down her cheek and fell onto the pillow. She rubbed her belly in comfort, wishing the baby was born, giving her a part of Reid to love and cherish as she could never do with him.

  Reid swallowed a mouthful of brandy, savoring the way it burned down to the pit of his stomach. If he kept drinking enough it would burn out his memories too. Memories of the beautiful Aurora, his Aurora, who was now married. Why? Why had she done it? Why had she rejected him? For days he’d tried to work out why Winnie had lied about the letter, saying it was a telegram, and although he presumed Winnie didn’t want to reveal more details to his mother, the whole situation mystified him and left a ghastly taste in his mouth.

  Muted laughter drifted through from the other rooms. He looked out of the library window at the half moon and cursed his mother and her friends who partied in the drawing room. He hated his mother’s parties, which were become more and more frequent. Why she had to encircle herself with people all the time he didn’t know. His father had been able to put up with it, but he couldn’t. Christmas was meant to be spent with family. Yet, here he was, surrounded by a house full of people he didn’t care much about. James and Edward had remained in London, his father gone, and barely mourned by those who should do it most sincerely, and Tom ... Tom was in Africa. Not just anywhere in Africa, but Ladysmith.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against the icy cold windowpane. Poor bloody stupid Tom. The man’s craziness had landed him in the hottest hellhole on earth. Still, he was one brave fool and Reid admired him for it. In truth, he envied him. Tom was away from all this nonsense. Tom didn’t have to make polite chat with strangers. Tom didn’t have their mother watching him every day, expecting something from him, but what he didn’t know.

  He heard the door open behind him and knew who it was instantly. His mother’s perfume reached him before her words.

  “There you are, dearest. What are you doing in here?”

  “Getting drunk. No, I should say staying drunk.” He didn’t look at her. Didn’t want to see the censure in her face. He was so tired of doing the right thing by the family. Where had it got him? Yes, he was wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, he’d done all what his father had asked and more, but he was alone, lonely. Putting his family before Aurora had cost him dearly, and he wasn’t certain the price had been worth it.

  His mother tutted loudly. “This will not do, Reid. For weeks you’ve been neglecting the Sinclair businesses, coming home stinking of drink. It’s so unlike you that I’m beginning to worry. Tonight you drank more at the dinner table than anyone else. People noticed. It cannot continue.”

  Slowly turning around, he once more felt the growing dislike of the woman who only months before he loved devotedly. Since the afternoon tea with Winnie, he’d seen his mother in a new light, one that didn’t shine but was tarnish in the extreme. He now noticed the arrogant way she treated anyone she believed to be beneath her, whether that be servants or friends and acquaintances. She was selfish and extravagant. Although he felt she had loved his
father and did mourn him, her anguish of losing her husband wasn’t as acute as it should be, unless she was a superb actress and hid it well, but he didn’t think she was that good at play acting. All too quickly she had shed her widow’s blacks and gone abroad to Italy and Paris, where new friends wouldn’t be able to comment on her lack of grief. No, he saw through her now and didn’t like what he saw.

  “Reid?”

  He blinked back to the present. “Mother. Leave. Me. Alone.” He gulped the last of the brandy and promptly poured another.

  “Reid, stop this nonsense.”

  He waved the glass at her. “Go away.”

  “It’s Christmas and we—”

  “How do you think Tom is celebrating Christmas, Mother? Have you even thought about him today? Do you care?”

  Surprised at the attack, she straightened her shoulders, her magnificent ruby gown shimmering in the gaslight. “Of course I care.”

  “Why? So you can boast of having a solider son to your useless friends.”

  “That is enough, Reid. You are seriously displeasing me tonight.”

  “And you seriously displease me, Mother.” He took another large swallow, firing his throat and gut.

  “I’ve done nothing to warrant your disapproval! I’ve tried to make this Christmas, the first without your father or your brothers, into a pleasant time. I filled the house with people so it wouldn’t seem so empty. Was that wrong?”

  “Yes! Because I don’t care a fig about any of them in there. I wanted us to feel the silence of those missing from the table.”

  “Why be so morbid for God’s sake?”

  “Because it makes you not take them for granted.”

  “Such twaddle, Reid.” She tossed her head in disgust. “James and Edward preferred to stay in London with friends, rather than come here and be with us. What does that tell you?”

  “It tells me they couldn’t stand being holed up in the house with you!” He finished the glass in one gulp and poured some more.

  “What a shameful thing to say to me. I have done nothing wrong.”

  “No? Where are your widow gowns, Mother? Why aren’t you mourning our father, your husband?”

  “Because your father told me not to. He said to me that he didn’t want me to be depressed and unhappy, that I must live for him too.”

  “Yes, he would have said that, he was that kind of man, respectable, loving, and generous.”

  “I’m following his commands.”

  He swayed. “You are indecent.”

  She gasped, her hands going to her mouth. “What has happened to you? You’d have never said such a thing to me before.”

  He raised an arrogant eyebrow and took another gulp of his drink. “Perhaps I see you more clearly than ever before?”

  “I’m going back to my friends.” She turned away.

  “What battalion is Tom in?” He added more drink to his glass.

  Her step faltered. “I won’t play your silly games.” She quickly made for the door. “I’m returning to my guests.”

  “You don’t know or care, do you? Well, I’ll tell you shall I? The King’s Royal Rifle Corps, Mother, did you hear that.”

  “I think you should retire for the night,” she snapped.

  He drank the rest of the drink in one swallow and poured out some more in the balloon glass. His movements grew heavy and slow. “Do-do you know your son is under … under s-s-siege, Madam?”

  Her hand twisted the doorknob but didn’t open it. “I am not completely without sense.”

  “So you’ve read the papers then?” He blinked, his eyelids felt as though weights sat on them. He drank some more. He blinked again to focus. “You know then that while … while you are entertaining your guests, your second son is trap-trapped in a town under shellfire. He is low on food and ... water in an area that is hot and dry as any desert.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “That-that s-sickness, dys-dysentery and the like, is killing more men than the shells exploding around them.”

  “Enough Reid.”

  “Why? Don’t you want to hear what your son is going through? Will it ruin your lovely p-par-party, your Christmas?” He swayed and had to hold onto the back of a chair to stay upright.

  “Go to bed immediately,” his mother’s furious voice reached through the fog engulfing his head.

  “Or is it because you don’t ... care for him as you should? You-you care for the Sinclair name,” he hiccupped, “and as the first … first born you care for me because I control the family weal-weal … money now, but,” he waved his glass at her, “the three other sons you bore don’t warrant your concern, do they? Why is that, M-mother?”

  “I said that is enough!” Two spots of angry color brightened her cheeks better than the expensive rouge she’d applied hours earlier.

  “How would you feel if all your four sons joined the army?” He laughed, finding the notion very funny. “With luck we might all get sh-sh-shot too. Then you could boast of your brave dear dead boys.”

  “You are insensible with drink. Go to bed, Reid. I don’t want to see you again tonight!” She slammed the door behind her and it echoed in the silent room.

  He crashed down onto a nearby chair, his vision blurred. “And I don’t want to see you again ever, Mother.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Reid sat at the breakfast table alone, his plate of eggs, bacon, mushrooms and toast half eaten. His mother had a tray in her room each morning and never came down to breakfast unless they had guests. Thankfully, in the last few days the houseguests lingering on from the Christmas and New Year celebrations had slowly gone home and the Hall rang with the silence. Once the snow had receded he planned on leaving too, back to London, or if his mother decided to return to London he would go elsewhere, a friend’s house perhaps. No, he shook his head. He wasn’t fit company for friends. Yet he couldn’t stay here either. The Hall and especially the Pettigrews across the way held too many memories of Aurora.

  He flicked the newspaper and read the articles about the war in South Africa while sipping his tea. Since that disastrous night of getting so drunk that he’d woken up the next morning on the library floor, he’d not touch alcohol again. The mere thought made his bile rise.

  “Your mail, sir.” Denning, the footman handed him a silver platter with several envelopes on.

  “Thank you.” Reid lifted the top envelope and saw it was from George Bolton in Lancashire, an old friend. The next envelope was from his solicitor in London, another from his steward at the Sinclair estate in Kent and lastly a letter whose name or handwriting he didn’t recognize. Slitting open the pale envelope, he scanned the letter, but bewildered by the contents, he started again from the top.

  Mr Reid Sinclair

  Dear Sir,

  I am writing to you on behalf of the good people of Hebden Bridge who I represent in the office of councilor.

  It has come to our notice that having a close member of your esteemed family now living within our environs it would be beneficial to offer you the hand of friendship and open communication in respect of your concerns in our town.

  As a valued member of the business community, my fellow councilors and I send you this letter as a way of invitation for your presence to one of our council meetings at your convenience.

  A gentleman of your prominence would be warmly welcomed and your advice at such a meeting would be highly valuable.

  Your humble servant,

  Bartholomew Blackwell.

  Councilor.

  Pecket Well.

  Yorks.

  He read the letter twice more and was still puzzled. A close member of the family? He searched his memory for some distant relative who’d be living there and couldn’t think of one. He knew a little of Hebden Bridge. After his father’s death he’d been made aware of all the properties scattered around the country, belonging to the Sinclairs. He knew there were several properties they owned in the Hebden Bridge area, but they were small tiding
s and a trusted agent took care of them, so he’d not bothered visiting them as he had with other larger Sinclair holdings.

  “Would you care for more tea, sir?” Denning asked, holding the teapot aloft.

  “No, thank you.” Reid scooped up his mail and pushed back his chair. “Have the carriage ordered, will you? I need to go to the station.”

  “Yes, sir.” Denning left the room but bowed at the doorway as his mistress walked in. “Good morning, Madam.”

  Reid hesitated as his mother strolled to the table. They had said very little to each other in recent days.

  “Oh, you have finished already?” She pouted.

  “Yes, I’m heading out to Leeds.”

  “In this weather? It’s snowed all night.”

  “I have business to attend to.” He tucked his mail into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Do we know anyone in Hebden Bridge, family perhaps?”

  His mother frowned and rubbed her head, this morning she looked her age for the first time. Deep lines were around her eyes and mouth no matter how much night cream she applied to them. “Where is this place?”

  “Near Halifax.”

  “Good lord, no. Why would we know anyone there? We’d hardly have family in a mill town, would we?” She sat down on the chair and waved away a scurrying maid.

  “You never know. Textile is a wealthy industry and the Sinclair’s do own mills in other parts of Yorkshire.”

  “My family would never live in such a town. I doubt my father went any further north than Nottingham in his life. London or India were our homes.” She rolled her eyes. “Halifax indeed.”

  “There is nothing wrong with Halifax, Mother.”

  “Well, why ask me such a question then? Your father’s people could be scattered everywhere for all we know.” Her tone grew bored. She poured herself a cup of tea, but stopped when Denning returned.