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Still Lucy was ashamed of her outburst and determined to be stronger when next she was challenged. She wanted Charlie to think her a worthy officer’s wife. And although Dorothea wasn’t there to witness it, she was determined to prove herself to her as well.
On the 19th July, Mrs Blaydes came to Lucy and Adelaide’s tent with some alarming news: a soldier in the Royal Horse Artillery had died of low fever.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Lucy panicked. ‘There must be poisonous vapours in the earth here. What can we do to avoid them?’
‘Perhaps we should stay out of company until we can be sure there are no further cases,’ Adelaide suggested. ‘We could halt the beetle races and card games, just for now.’
‘Seems a shame,’ Mrs Blaydes said, ‘but I ’spect you’re right.’
Four days later sixteen men had died and it was confirmed as an outbreak of the deadly cholera. Lucy listened with shock to Charlie’s description: ‘I’ve heard a man can drop dead within hours of the first bout of diarrhoea, and his final hours are spent writhing on the floor with liquid spewing from both ends.’
Adelaide admonished him for scaring Lucy, but he continued: ‘It’s the truth. One captain in the Horse Artillery took an overdose of laudanum after his diagnosis as he couldn’t face the horrors of such a death.’
‘We must all keep out of harm’s way,’ Adelaide said firmly. ‘If we are careful, I am sure we will avoid it.’
Lucy wondered if Dorothea had encountered any cholera sufferers in her hospital and might have some advice. If only she could write to ask! But even if her sister replied, the letter would take too long reaching them to be of use and Dorothea would probably just tell her to come home. She had not received a reply to the letter she sent her father from Malta. She knew some letters were getting through to the troops because in Constantinople Adelaide had been handed several, with coloured drawings made by her children, which had left her withdrawn and silent all afternoon.
In camp, there were whispers about those affected by fever, and Lucy steered well clear of sufferers’ tents, anxious about vapours. She stopped wandering out to chat with other women at the cookhouse or down by the river, keeping close to the area around their tent in the hope that they had chosen an area of healthy soil. But her precautions were in vain. One evening, Bill was unable to eat his dinner but rose unsteadily and lurched towards the latrine trench where they emptied their bedpans. Shortly afterwards they heard him throwing up. Adelaide’s face turned pale as she rushed to help him. His forehead was hot and his eyes glassy. The diagnosis seemed clear.
‘Should I take him to the hospital tent?’ she asked Charlie.
‘Don’t,’ was his advice. ‘No one who goes there comes out alive. I hear it’s best to nurse patients in isolation. Lucy and I will move out of the tent to give you space, and will leave supplies for you outside.’
Lucy’s throat was tight with fear – what if their patch of land was poisoned? What if Charlie caught the cholera? – but she was determined to be strong. ‘Don’t worry about anything but caring for your husband,’ she told Adelaide. ‘I’ll bring water and food, and will empty bedpans if you leave them outside. Tell me whatever you need and I’ll find it.’
Adelaide helped Bill to lie down in the tent and moistened a cloth to wipe his brow. ‘A cure,’ she said, her voice choked up. ‘I need a cure.’
Charlie and Lucy retrieved their bedding and slept under the stars, as they had done on the first night in Varna. They clung together, both terrified but unwilling to put their fears into words. Lucy decided she would write to her father asking if he knew any remedies and presumably he would then ask Dorothea’s advice. Perhaps she would send some miraculous medicine post-haste.
Next morning, Lucy called to Adelaide from outside the tent and was relieved to hear that Bill’s condition was not any worse. She set off to get fresh water, the legs of her drawers tied tight to deter leeches. While she was filling her bucket, she saw one of the Sisters of Charity who accompanied the French army and in her best French asked for advice on treating cholera.
‘The doctors give calomel for purging,’ the Sister told her, ‘but we believe it only increases the agony. Keep your friend’s temperature down with cool cloths and feed him tiny sips of water and chicken broth. May God be with you all.’ She made the sign of the cross.
Lucy took a bucket of fresh water back to their tent and called to Adelaide, telling her the advice she’d received and adding that she was setting out to beg for a chicken from one of the farmers. At the same time she would post the letter she had written.
‘Don’t take any risks on our account,’ Adelaide called. ‘Stay well clear of others. I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you …’
Lucy had never made chicken broth before but with Adelaide calling instructions from inside the tent, she managed to produce a palatable brew and she left a large bowl of it by the tent flap, along with half a loaf of black bread.
For two days and two nights, neither Bill nor Adelaide emerged and there was little sound from inside the tent but Lucy could tell from the contents of the bedpans that the illness continued. She felt desperately lonely and scared during the day when Charlie went about his duties, and every evening she examined him for possible symptoms – was his brow slightly warm, his complexion pale? – but he seemed fine. Fatalities multiplied and coffins had to be constructed from any materials that could be found: Lucy saw one that read ‘Bass’s Superior Pale Ale’ on the side, which seemed horribly disrespectful to the dead. Was life really so cheap that a man could be full of life one day and buried in a beer crate the next?
On the third day of Bill’s illness, Charlie went hunting and brought back four quail. He plucked them then Lucy roasted them, following Adelaide’s method, and she was delighted to hear that Bill had managed to eat a small portion. He must be on the mend, and, thank God, Adelaide was showing no signs of having caught the disease.
Only when she and Charlie lay down to sleep that evening did Lucy dare to put into words the fearful thought that had been in her mind these last days, making her chest tight with nerves: ‘Promise me you won’t die out here,’ she whispered.
‘Of course I’m not going to die,’ he replied, stroking her hair back from her face. ‘I’m Lucky Charlie! I didn’t catch the cholera and I’ve got you for a wife.’
They made love for the first time since Bill had fallen ill, and Lucy clung to him, feeling the warmth of his skin, the beating of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest, all the signs that his body remained healthy. He stroked her hair and kissed her eyes, her nose, her neck. ‘You are extraordinary,’ he whispered. ‘Lord knows, I don’t deserve you but somehow I am lucky enough to have you in my arms and nothing could make me let you go.’ His voice cracked with emotion and Lucy had never loved him more; this must be what Adelaide meant when she said love deepens in times of adversity.
During the night she woke to hear Charlie mumbling in his sleep. She leaned in to listen and suddenly he grabbed her in a tight embrace and whispered ‘Susanna’ with such longing in his voice that her blood froze. The name had been clear, no question. Her insides twisted with jealousy. Who was Susanna and why did it sound as if Charlie felt so passionately about her? Was she a woman with whom he had been in love before he met her? If so, why had he not mentioned her? Perhaps he loved her still. She dismissed the thought – Charlie’s love for her seemed beyond question – but all the same she found it hard to get back to sleep.
Chapter Eight
Once Bill had recovered sufficiently to emerge from the tent and rest in the nearby shade or go for gentle strolls to regain his strength, Adelaide was able to keep Lucy company once more, and the women became closer than ever. They were chatting together when Mrs Williams came by to ask after Bill.
‘He is much better,’ Adelaide replied. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
‘The 8th has been hit bad,’ Mrs Williams told them. ‘We’ve lost several men, and poor Mrs Blaydes has perished.’
‘Mrs Blaydes? Oh no!’ Lucy was distraught to hear of the loss of someone she had known, albeit slightly. ‘And some of our men? Which ones?’
Mrs Williams rattled off a list of names, and tears filled Lucy’s eyes. ‘Their poor wives. What will they do now? I must visit them.’
Adelaide extended a restraining hand. ‘Perhaps you had best not visit. I’m sure Mrs Williams will extend your heartfelt sympathies and let you know if there are any services you can perform for them.’
‘Of course,’ Mrs Williams agreed, her head bent.
After she left, Lucy told Adelaide about her letter to her father and her secret hope that Dorothea would write with advice that would help all cholera sufferers in the camp.
Adelaide poked the fire with a stick to stir the embers. ‘My dear, if it is a painful subject then you needn’t answer, but I am curious to know more about the argument with your sister. Was it simply because of Charlie or were you never particularly close?’
Lucy tried to answer truthfully. ‘I think we were close once but it changed after my mother fell ill when I was seven years old. Dorothea appointed herself chief nurse and I was only allowed to see Mama when she said it was convenient. She often scolded me for making noise while Mama was trying to sleep and I suppose I began to resent her for keeping me away. Whenever I visited, Mama seemed cheerful and pleased to see me so it didn’t appear I was doing any harm. She always liked me to play and sing for her, right up to the end …’
‘How many years was she bedridden?’ Adelaide touched Lucy’s arm with empathy.
Lucy tried to remember. ‘Six years, more or less. Sometimes she came down to the parlour but such occasions were rare. They scared me because she looked so frail that I worried she would slip on the staircase. She seemed safer in bed, propped up on her pillows, and that’s where she spent most of her time until she died. Dorothea didn’t waken me that night but told me in the morning.’
Fresh tears came to her eyes, even five years on. ‘I had no chance to be there as she passed away, to hold her hand and tell her how much I loved her, but Dorothea thought I wasn’t old enough, that it would be too distressing for me. She made that decision on my behalf.’ Lucy was surprised how angry she felt talking about it, even now.
‘I expect she did what she thought was best.’ Adelaide pursed her lips.
‘No doubt she would say she did what she thought was best when she wrote to Charlie’s family trying to prevent our wedding, and got a barrister friend of hers to write to Major Dodds.’
An intake of breath signalled Adelaide’s surprise at this disclosure. ‘Goodness! I can understand her trying to persuade you that eighteen is rather young to come to war, but perhaps she went too far. I’m sure she only did it because she loves you.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘She has to be in charge. After Mama died, she was constantly scolding and correcting me. I was always in trouble for taking my gloves off when etiquette said I should not, or wearing a coat she thought was not warm enough, or talking too much in company. But although she may be thirteen years older, she is not my parent and does not have the right. So I often disobeyed, knowing Papa would take my side.’
‘And he consented to your wedding?’
‘Of course! He likes Charlie. Why wouldn’t he?’ Lucy felt defensive.
‘I suppose he too must have worried about you coming out here with a man you haven’t known for terribly long …’ Adelaide’s voice trailed off.
Lucy looked at her. Was she taking Dorothea’s side? ‘Papa simply wants me to be happy.’
‘So Dorothea was twenty-six when your mother died? I suppose devoting herself to nursing her meant she had missed her opportunity to marry. Such a shame.’
‘I’m not sure Dorothea was ever interested in men.’ Lucy picked up a stick and began to trace a pattern in the dusty ground. ‘She’s too domineering. She volunteered to work at the Pimlico Charitable Hospital after Mama died, where I imagine she is very bossy. She has no time for anyone who doesn’t agree with her.’
‘It’s good that she lives a useful life. I hope she enjoys her work?’
Lucy pondered this. ‘I suppose she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t enjoy it. She talks about it a lot. I only hope she writes soon, and maybe she will be able to send us some medicine to cure cholera. I expect it will be accompanied by long lists of instructions about what to do, what to avoid; you can count on that.’
‘A family rift is such a sadness. I worry about you and Charlie both being estranged from your kin. Promise me you will make peace with Dorothea after the war.’
‘Only if she will respect our marriage and treat me as an adult.’ Lucy folded her arms, determined that any apology should come from her sister since she had done nothing wrong.
That evening, Charlie and Lucy went for a stroll in the moonlight, arms linked, and she mentioned that she had written to her father and very much hoped that Dorothea would send advice on preventing cholera.
Charlie seemed hurt. ‘Why did you write to them? We have each other now. Dorothea only ever caused trouble for us and, to be frank, your father doesn’t know the day of the week. You and I don’t need anyone else.’
Lucy squeezed his arm. ‘Of course we don’t, darling. I only wrote because of the cholera. Don’t be cross with me.’
He fell silent and she could tell from the way he stiffened and peered into the distance that he was cross about it. He wanted her all to himself. Perhaps he was worried that Dorothea would try to persuade her to return home again – as no doubt she would. But nothing would make Lucy leave now. How would Bill have survived cholera without Adelaide’s tender care? If anything should happen to Charlie, she wanted to be there to offer the same comfort.
*
The summer passed slowly and Lucy grew increasingly frustrated with the delay in any fresh orders coming through. She missed her home, her friends and her father, and the novelty of living in a tent had long since grown tiresome. Towards the end of August, rumours began to spread that the troops were set to sail for Crimea but that officers’ wives must be left behind in Varna, since there would be no decent accommodation for them once the army was on the move.
‘I am not staying behind,’ Adelaide declared firmly. Although Bill had returned to his duties he was still weakened by his illness and she could not contemplate waving goodbye to him. ‘I will go along by hook or by crook.’
‘And I’ll come too,’ cried Lucy. She could think of nothing worse than being left alone in this land of cholera and leeches.
Charlie told them that Lord Lucan intended to patrol the quayside watching every person boarding the ship, and they tried to think of ways to avoid his eagle gaze. Lucy suggested she could hide in her trunk, but Charlie pointed out that she would soon suffocate.
‘Why don’t we dress as soldiers?’ Adelaide suggested. ‘We could borrow some trousers and tunics and hide our hair under busbies.’
Lucy laughed at first but her friend was serious. She rushed into their tent and emerged some minutes later wearing Bill’s spare uniform. While the blue tunic was baggy on her, and the red trousers with a yellow stripe threatened to fall down at any moment, she could have passed for a man if you didn’t look too closely.
‘Charlie’s would be far too big for me. Perhaps I can borrow a spare uniform from Mrs Williams’ husband Stan, who is slighter,’ Lucy suggested, feeling a surge of excitement. ‘I’ll ask her. It doesn’t seem fair that soldiers’ wives are allowed to go along while we are not.’
‘They plan on putting the soldiers’ wives to work, cooking and laundering clothes,’ Adelaide explained, ‘but we can do that just as well.’
At daybreak on the 31st August, when the Hussars struck camp, Adelaide and Lucy were already dressed in their borrowed uniforms. It meant they couldn’t beg a lift on a gun carriage for the eight-mile march to Varna and even had to carry a bag apiece (although Charlie managed to arrange transport for Lucy’s trunk, the bath and her heaviest bags). Their feet blistered in army boots several sizes too large, stuffed with socks so they didn’t fall off, but both marched with determination and kept up with the others, chatting along the way.
‘By the by, there is something I wanted to ask you,’ Lucy said. ‘Did Charlie ever mention a girl called Susanna? He called that name in his sleep. I don’t want to embarrass him by asking about her, but wondered if she was perhaps a lady he used to be enamoured with before he met me? He is a man of seven and twenty years and must have courted other ladies before we met. Perhaps Bill knew her?’ Sensing Adelaide’s discomfort with the line of questioning she continued hurriedly, ‘Don’t worry; I am not a jealous type of woman.’
‘I … I think I have heard the name,’ Adelaide told her, hesitantly. ‘I believe there may have been ladies before you, but you must know you have nothing to worry about. Charlie dotes on you.’
‘I’m not worried. It’s just that he seemed to feel so passionately about her.’
‘I’m sure one day he will tell you about her.’
‘Won’t you tell me?’ Lucy pleaded.
‘It’s not my place …’ Adelaide began, then cried, ‘Look! I see the ships ahead. We are almost there.’ None of Lucy’s questions could induce her to say any more.
On the quayside at Varna, crowds were milling and amongst them Lucy recognised Lord Lucan standing by the gangplank watching those boarding. Shoulder to shoulder, she and Adelaide pushed forwards, trying to adopt a masculine style of walking, keeping their heads down, and the Major General barely glanced at them as they hurried on board. They asked directions to the officers’ quarters, and were momentarily surprised to find Fanny Duberly there, already having commandeered the best cabin. She glared at them in their uniforms.
‘Hardly dignified, ladies,’ she remarked, making them burst into fits of giggles.
‘How did you get past Lord Lucan?’ Lucy snorted, looking at Adelaide in her trousers and fur busby.
‘I simply walked past. He wouldn’t dare to stop me. My husband and I are terribly good friends of Lord Raglan’s.’ She looked them up and down. ‘I must say, you two look ridiculous.’
This made Lucy and Adelaide laugh anew, partly with the relief of having achieved their aim and avoiding separation from their husbands. Charlie and Bill arrived later and congratulated them on the success of the ruse.
The crossing to the Crimean peninsula was only supposed to take around thirty-six hours and they decided to keep a low profile and eat in their cabins rather than in the officers’ dining hall. However, the ship was almost instantly becalmed in the waters of the Black Sea. It was twelve days before Lucy saw the coast of the Crimean peninsula, an ominous, shadowy vision through torrential gusts of diagonal rain.
Chapter Nine
15th September 1854
The Pimlico Charitable Hospital was situated near Westminster Cathedral and every day Dorothea’s driver took them on a route that passed the Palace of Westminster, still in the process of being rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1834. Heaps of bricks were stacked in Whitehall, where builders always seemed to be standing around smoking and passing the time of day, reluctant to shift aside to let a carriage pass. From their accents it was clear many were Irish, refugees from the Great Famine that had recently swept that land and decimated the population. Dorothea often looked at them out of her carriage window, singled out one man in particular and wondered about his story: whether he had been able to bring his family over, or if he was here alone and attempting to send back money to his loved ones. The busy streets of London must feel very strange to these peasants who had earned their living from the soil until their potato crop failed catastrophically.
Dorothea was kept very busy at the hospital. Her role was to chat with patients, read to them and try to raise their spirits, but she was fascinated to learn the basics of wound dressing, and assisting doctors in blistering, cupping and blood-letting. Although it was not usual practice for ladies, the matron, Miss Alcock, realised that Dorothea was competent and allowed her to help with medical care, and she had rapidly become one of the most knowledgeable of the nursing staff. The patients were all destitute folk who required a letter from the charity commission guaranteeing their good character before they were admitted, so as to weed out the drunkards and criminal classes.
On her ward there was great interest in the progress of the war and Dorothea often read the newspaper to her patients, just as she had for Mr Peters. They cheered at the news that their brave boys had arrived in the Turkish lands then became frustrated at the delays in engaging in battle, wanting to crush the Russkies as soon as possible. In the final week of July, reports began to appear in The Times about a cholera outbreak amongst the troops at Varna. Dorothea followed the movements of the 8th Hussars with special interest and knew they were there. At first there was a short paragraph mentioning four deaths, then there were another six, most in the French camp, but by the second week of August it was reported that five hundred had died and Dorothea became seriously alarmed.
At breakfast the next day, she saw her father was reading reports from Varna and couldn’t help asking the news about the cholera. ‘I’m so terribly anxious about Lucy!’ she said. ‘We’ve had no word about how she is or whether she’s affected by the outbreak.’
Her father looked up, surprised. ‘But she is very well! I have received a letter from her.’
Dorothea was astonished. ‘What? A letter? Are you sure?’ She thought for a moment that he had imagined it. Since Lucy had left he was increasingly prone to believing his own flights of imagination and she had become convinced that the mental infirmity of old age had affected his reasoning.
‘Of course I’m sure. I read it myself. I have it in my study.’
‘Why on earth did you not tell me?’
Mr Gray returned to his reading. ‘It didn’t occur to me, I suppose. The letter was addressed to me.’
A wave of anger and hurt flushed Dorothea’s cheeks but she bit back a rebuke. Despite her certainty that he was senile, it was hard not to get cross with her father sometimes; she was still furious with him for giving his consent for Lucy and Charlie’s marriage. Dorothea had given him many strong reasons against the match and still he had agreed to it. He had always liked Lucy better; that was the honest truth. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of his late wife, or maybe because she was so pretty and blonde and far more adorable than plain, dutiful Dorothea with her dull brown locks and sharp features.
These days she found herself irritated by her father’s hypochondria. Every day he had some new symptom he wanted her to ask the hospital physicians about: a painful toenail, a slight rash on his chest, or difficulty with his bowel movements. She knew this was most likely a symptom of his senility, but found it hard to empathise. He was only in his mid-fifties. Surely, if he but tried, he could pull himself together?
‘Might I see the letter?’ Dorothea asked, her voice a little tetchy, and he sent Henderson to fetch it from his study with lengthy explanations as to its precise location.
When she at last held it in her hands, she read it rapidly. Lucy wrote gaily of the female friends she had made on the ship; she had always possessed a facility for female friendship, with her outgoing nature and lively conversation. Even as a child, whenever there was a guest in the house Lucy would be nearby, asking questions and charming them with her pretty manners. She loved to be in company. It cheered Dorothea to read the letter until she checked the date and realised that it had been written three months previously when their ship stopped off in Malta, long before the cholera outbreak.