Victors and Lords Read online

  So . . . they were here, virtually prisoners in this dark little house in the Street of the Silversmiths, their presence only tolerated because, officially, it was not recognized. Charlotte’s husband was somewhere in the interior, buying horses, and had no idea that she and Emmy had arrived. And even Phillip had been compelled to abandon them, because he had been ordered to accompany Lord Cardigan on a reconnaissance into enemy-held territory, from which the date of his return was uncertain.

  Tears came to prick at Emmy’s closed eyes but she blinked them back. When, at the beginning of March, she had embarked so gaily in the sailing ship Henry Wilson for Malta, it had seemed to her that she was embarking on the adventure of her life. Military bands had played the troops away in an atmosphere of wild enthusiasm, which had been repeated in London, at Woolwich and in Southampton, as well as in Portsmouth and Devonport. There had been crowds lining the route, to cheer and wave, and thousands had waited all night on the docks in order to wish their loved ones a final Godspeed.

  On board the Henry Wilson had been two squadrons of the 11th with their horses, Charlotte and her husband, with other members of the quartermaster-general’s staff, Phillip and Sophie and eleven soldiers’ wives . . . among whom, disguised as a maidservant, Emmy had smuggled herself aboard. Permission to accompany the army to Turkey had been readily granted to those officers’ wives who desired to do so and, as always, many of the other ranks’ wives sailed with their menfolk, according to the established custom of the times. Indeed, such was public enthusiasm for the campaign against the Russians that, in the end, a good many ladies and far more than the usual number of soldiers’ wives had been allowed to sail, all of them in the highest spirits as they boarded the waiting transports.

  The scenes, as their ship weighed anchor, had been deeply moving and Emmy felt a lump rise in her throat as she recalled the forest of waving handkerchiefs on the quayside and the strains of Rule Britannia played by a Royal Marines band, floating across the widening gap between ship and shore. Yet despite the tears and the farewells, they had left England more in the atmosphere and spirit of a vast picnic party than that of an army going to war and the picnic party spirit had continued to prevail after their arrival at Scutari from Malta. It had not, Emmy reflected ruefully, prepared them for what they would have to endure in Varna.

  In Scutari and in Constantinople, where she, Charlotte and Sophie had been guests of the British Ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and his wife, they had enjoyed every sort of social distraction. There had been dinner parties, receptions, wonderful sight-seeing trips across the Bosphorus and into the Sea of Marmora in sailing boats, and splendid military reviews attended by royalty. With young Lady Errol, whose husband was a captain in the Rifle Brigade, and the charming, high-spirited Mrs Duberly, she and Charlotte and her brother’s attractive young wife had been in great demand, snowed under by invitations to this or that function, sought after and fêted and never at a loss for entertainment. Charlotte had been in her element, loving every moment of it, with a host of handsome young officers eager for her company whenever Arthur Cassell’s duties took him from her side.

  Which, Emmy thought, looking back, was why she was so utterly lost and miserable now, so petulant and so ready to complain for here, quite suddenly, the harsh realities of war had caught up with them. Varna was not a healthy place, as they soon discovered. The army was under canvas, the infantry close to the town, the cavalry a few miles outside, with the Light Cavalry Brigade in a delightful park-like valley known as Devna, whence they had moved soon after their disembarkation. But, owing to bad organization in the commissariat and transport departments, the men were short of fresh food, of medicines and water and even, in some cases, of tents and blankets and the sanitation was deplorable. Despite the outward beauty of their surroundings, the camp sites quickly became a breeding ground for disease and many men were ill.

  Dysentery had broken out among the soldiers on board ship and since their landing had increased. Without adequate hospital accommodation and on a diet of salt pork and ship’s biscuits, the plight of the unfortunate victims was pitiable, for there were too few doctors and, in most cases, only untrained medical orderlies to care for the sick men. There was also a rumor that the still more terrible scourge of cholera had struck the French Zouaves, but this had not been confirmed.

  Emmy started to move restlessly about the room. Phillip had forbidden Charlotte and herself to live in camp and she rebelled against having to obey these instructions. But Charlotte was adamant and, in her present mood of fretful boredom, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain their normal friendly relationship, when they were cooped up together, day after day, in this small house, seeing no one but their servants. If only Sophie had been here, Emmy thought wistfully, how different it might have been. Sophie and she were of the same age and they had much in common, including the views they held concerning the war and the part they both believed that officers’ ladies ought properly to play, if they accompanied the army into battle.

  These were serious views, which Charlotte did not share and of which Emmy had long since ceased to speak to her or endeavor to explain, since it was evident that she did not want to understand them. But . . .she passed a hand over her moist, throbbing brow. Because Charlotte did not understand, she lived in almost hourly fear that her stepsister would announce, suddenly and without warning, that she had endured enough and not only demand that she be sent to the ambassador’s summer residence at Therapia but would also insist on Emmy’s going with her.

  It would be quite impossible for her to remain in Varna by herself, of course, and if Charlotte compelled her to leave, this would be the end of everything she had lived for and hoped so desperately to accomplish. She had never been able to forget her childhood dream of caring for the sick—it lingered on, in her heart together with the futile, hopeless dream she had once had about Alex Sheridan. The two were linked together, as such dreams often are and when Alex had failed to send for her to join him in India, as he had promised he would, she had decided that she would not marry at all.

  Even when she had sent him a copy of the newspaper in which Charlotte’s forthcoming marriage to Arthur Cassell had been announced, he had not replied and so, regretfully, she had come to the conclusion that he wanted no more to do with either of them. Not all the British girls who went to India were unattached . . . he had probably married himself, by this time, and it would be useless for her to go on hoping that he would remember and keep his promise. It had been then that she had resolved to take the veil—a decision reached after much anxious heart-searching and which she had confided to no one but her mother, who had smiled sympathetically but had not taken it seriously.

  “Enter a nursing order, Emmy my darling? I think that would be rather unwise. You will change your mind,” she had spoken with affectionate tolerance. “When you are older and you meet some young man who takes your fancy . . . you will see.”

  But Emmy had not changed her mind. She had, it was true, met a number of nice young men but none had taken her fancy, none had succeeded in erasing Alex Sheridan’s memory from her heart. He was lost to her but her other dream remained, as vivid and as enduring as it had ever been. Accordingly, at eighteen, with her mother’s reluctant consent, she had returned to her native Dublin, there to enter the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy as a postulant to the order. At first she had been content with the cloistered life of self-sacrifice and service and had believed that she had found her vocation but, after a time, doubts had assailed her and a restlessness which she could neither explain nor assuage. After almost three years of arduous training, she had won high praise for her skill as a nurse, but the Mother Superior had gently advised her against taking her final vows as a nun.

  “You have a calling, my child, but it is not here, within these walls . . . it is out in the wider world, I believe, where God can best use your talents. Go with a clear conscience, for you have nothing with which to reproach yourself. Yours
is an unruly, adventurous spirit which you have tried hard to subdue, and it is not your fault that you have failed to subdue it. I have watched and grieved over the efforts you have made and I do not think that it is right for you to have to continue to struggle so hard against your own nature which, after all, is God-given. You go with my blessing, child, and with my prayers, possessed of knowledge and skill which few young women of your age and class ever acquire. All I ask of you is that, in future, you use them well . . . .”

  Emmy’s slender dark brows came together in a worried pucker. She wanted, with all her heart, to use her medical knowledge and skill; it had been for this reason that she had come to Turkey, for this express purpose she had followed the army to Varna. But for a young lady of good family, it was impossible; convention decreed very strictly against it and even the soldiers’ wives, in whose company she had travelled from Scutari, had laughed at the idea when she had mentioned it to them. They washed and mended their husbands’ uniforms and sometimes cooked for them but it was no part of their duty to nurse them when they were sick or wounded. The army provided an ambulance corps of pensioners, it set up hospitals and staffed these with doctors and male orderlies, and women had no place inside the wards. In any event, the women had hinted darkly, the scenes enacted in army hospitals in time of war were too horrible to be witnessed by feminine eyes—least of all by the eyes of a young lady of quality. Emmy would be wasting her breath if she attempted to seek permission to nurse the British army sick, for it would be refused. Indeed, it was unheard of . . . only the French permitted their vivandières and cantinières any sort of contact with wounded on the field of battle and they, the British women said, with meaning glances at each other, were coarse creatures, of low morals, scarcely deserving the name of women. They . . . hearing a movement from the adjoining room, Emmy turned, forcing a smile.

  The door opened and Charlotte came in looking, as Emmy had known she would, fresh and young and, as always, very beautiful in the elaborate gown she had donned and somehow—despite the hazards of travel—had contrived to keep bandbox neat and without a crease. Maria, the dark-faced maidservant, hovering anxiously about her, muttering under her breath in her own language as she attempted, with awkward, untutored hands, to adjust a frill.

  Charlotte waved her impatiently away. She said, her voice still querulous, “Oh, you are ready, Emmy. I am sorry if I have kept you waiting but Maria is so slow and she hasn’t the remotest idea of how to dress my hair. Do you think you could do it for me?”

  “Yes, of course I will,” Emmy asserted readily, glad of an opportunity to please her. “And you did not keep me waiting, I assure you . . . I was ready much too soon. Sit down, will you not? That gown becomes you well—you look charming in it.”

  “Do I?” Charlotte returned indifferently. She seated herself in one of the stiff-backed wooden chairs with which the room was furnished and suffered Emmy to attend to the dressing of her hair. When it was done, she studied her reflection in the mirror from the bedroom which Maria held for her but evidently found little cause for satisfaction in what she saw. The glorious auburn hair was braided neatly enough but she shook her head, pouting. “Loosen it a little, Emmy—you’ve drawn it much too tightly. Oh, dear, I wish now that we had not to go to this wretched affair. It is such an effort going anywhere here, is it not? So different from Constantinople and it’s so hot, one can scarcely breathe!”

  “You will enjoy yourself when you are there,” Emmy suggested consolingly, although privately she doubted it. “They say that General Canrobert is a delightful person and a splendid host.”

  “Oh, yes, perhaps I shall,” Charlotte conceded. “At least it will be a change of scene and of company, which will be welcome. I am sick to death of being cooped up here in this dreadful little house. Maria, fetch my fan . . . my fan, don’t you understand?” By means of pantomime, she made her request clear at last and the peasant girl clumped sullenly off in search of the missing fan. When this had been found and delivered to her, Charlotte brusquely dismissed her maid. “All right, you may go, Maria. Go, go, go! Oh, goodness, why doesn’t this stupid creature speak English? It is so wearying always having to tell her everything a dozen times.”

  “I think she is beginning to understand a little, Charlotte,” Emmy began, but Charlotte cut her short. “I wish Phillip had not had to go on that patrol—he could always make her understand. Besides, it is undignified to attend this reception without his escort.”

  “Captain and Mrs Duberly have promised to call for us. In fact, they should be here soon . . . it is already past the time when they said they would be here.”

  “They have probably forgotten,” Charlotte said tartly. Emmy sighed and returned to her post by the window, peering out in search of the Duberlys’ carriage. “They have probably been delayed,” she suggested, “or bogged down on these awful roads.”

  “Yes, indeed, that’s more than likely. Emmy, we cannot stay here, you know . . . we simply cannot! My nerves, my health will not stand it. I wish I had never allowed you to persuade me to come to Varna, truly. I was a fool, I should not have listened to you.”

  Emmy’s heart sank. This was what she had dreaded.

  “Oh, but Charlotte!” she exclaimed, shocked and perturbed. “We cannot leave until Arthur and Phillip return, surely? Having come so far and endured so much, we must make sure that they are safe.”

  “They are in no danger,” Charlotte answered scornfully. “Arthur is merely buying horses and he has Captain Nolan with him, who knows the country well—or he should, he has been here since April, I believe.”

  “But Phillip is on patrol, in enemy-held territory—!”

  “Little goose . . . everyone knows that the Russians are in full retreat. In any case”—Charlotte spoke with authority befitting the wife of a cavalry officer—“a reconnaissance patrol is not supposed to engage the enemy. It must observe them only and then report on their movements to headquarters. Those are Lord Raglan’s orders; Phillip told me so.”

  “But with Lord Cardigan in command, one cannot be sure,” Emmy objected. “One cannot be free of some anxiety, Charlotte. He has such a reputation for reckless daring and he has only two hundred men with him.”

  “He is a soldier,” Charlotte replied, “and even Lord Cardigan must obey orders when he is on active service.” But a shadow crossed her face and she added, in a more reasonable tone,“Very well, if you are so concerned for him, we will wait until Phillip gets back from his patrol.”

  “And . . . Arthur?” Emmy ventured innocently. “Do you not want to wait until he returns?”

  A wave of embarrassed colour flooded Charlotte’s lovely face. “Perhaps,” she said evasively, “although it is scarcely necessary. If Arthur wishes to see me, he can ask for leave and visit me at Therapia. I fancy he would prefer that to visiting me here.” She rose and came to join Emmy at her vantage point by the window, her cheeks still a trifle pink, as if the question had disconcerted her and said, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, “For goodness’ sake, Emmy, what do you find of such absorbing interest in the street? You have been gazing out there for the past five minutes!”

  “There is nothing of interest,” Emmy confessed, “only those dreadful dogs! But I thought the Duberlys’ carriage might be coming.”

  “Oh, those dogs!” Charlotte shivered distastefully and averted her gaze. “They make me quite ill . . . I do not know how you can bring yourself to look at them. And that woman, sleeping in the gutter, with all the dogs around her . . . ugh!”

  She returned to her chair and, picking up the fan, started to fan herself vigorously. Emmy abandoned her contemplation of the street outside and studied her stepsister anxiously. She had wondered once or twice during their stay in Constantinople whether Charlotte’s relationship with her husband was as happy as she had always imagined it to be. Charlotte’s beauty had attracted a number of admirers about her but . . . Emmy caught her breath. Her convent education, allied to a natural innocence
, tended to make her unsuspicious in such matters and, until this moment, it had never occurred to her to have any misgivings where her stepsister was concerned. She had been brought up to believe that marriages were made in heaven and that a wife’s duty was to be submissive to her husband and to obey him. Yet she was uneasily aware—because on several occasions she had overheard them quarreling—that Charlotte was not always submissive to Arthur Cassell and that, quite frequently, she disobeyed him, with or without his knowledge.

  Arthur was a man of forty, titled and immensely rich, but inclined to corpulence and not particularly good-looking. He was proud of his young wife and appeared to be extremely fond of her, solicitous of her comfort and unfailingly courteous to her. But he had resented the attentions paid her by a handsome Guards captain in Scutari and, on one of the occasions when Emmy had overheard them indulging in a heated difference of opinion, he had told Charlotte so, without mincing any words. In spite of which, she recalled uneasily, Charlotte had continued to receive the young Guardsman and to accept his escort when her husband’s military duties took him from her. And now, it seemed, she was far from anxious to await Arthur Cassell’s return to Varna, the prospect of which, indeed, evidently did not please her as it should in the circumstances, if . . . .

  “Emmy,” Charlotte asked sharply,“why are you staring at me?”

  “I . . . I’m not. That is, I did not mean to stare at you, Charlotte. “Emmy glanced once again out of the window and this time, to her relief, she saw the carriage approaching their door. She called this news over her shoulder and Charlotte’s smile returned and she rose, impatiently reaching for her shawl. “At last! Is Mrs Duberly riding in the carriage or on horseback?”

  “She is in it, I think . . . yes, she is.” Emmy helped Charlotte to drape her shawl about her and picked up her own, echoing the older girl’s smile almost apologetically, ashamed of her own thoughts. As if she had guessed them, Charlotte said, with brusque affection, “Little nun! That is what you should have been, you know, Emmy, whatever your Mother Superior told you . . . a nun. But you’re the strangest mixture—I suppose you always have been, really. You know nothing of love, you do not understand how a woman feels about a man . . . yet you are intelligent. I remember Alex Sheridan once said that your tragedy was that you were too intelligent.”