No Place For a Lady Read online

  ‘There are no close relatives, I’m afraid. I asked him who I should contact if his condition worsened but he said there was no one.’

  Perhaps that will be my situation one day, Dorothea mused – especially if this terrible rift with Lucy is not healed. At thirty-one, she was too old to marry and have children. The thought filled her with sadness, but she comforted herself that at least she had her work. She loved being useful to her patients and knew she was good at easing their suffering and making them feel they were not alone. Hospitals were terrifying places, where you were surrounded by strangers, with doctors whisking in to perform painful procedures before disappearing again. Dorothea tried to make patients feel she was a friend, someone on their side, and their heartfelt thanks were gratifying.

  She decided to spend the day sitting with Mr Peters, whose breathing was now tortured and shallow. He clearly didn’t have long to go and she couldn’t let him pass away on his own. She made herself a cup of tea and pulled up a chair by his bed, then wiped his brow and offered him a sip of water but he shook his head. Each breath was an effort and before long he drifted into sleep. There was a rattling in his throat, the noise some called the death rattle, caused, she knew, by saliva gathering once he could no longer swallow. She kept wetting his lips so they didn’t crack and holding a cool cloth on his brow. Although he was unconscious she hoped he could sense her presence.

  At four-thirty he opened his eyes one last time, choking from the fluid in his lungs. His hands were freezing cold and she could smell the sharp chemical scent she often noted right at the end. Dorothea slipped the pillow from beneath his head because death would come quicker if he was lying flat. ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered. ‘You are a good man and I’ll miss our conversations.’ She squeezed his shoulder as he took one last virtually undetectable breath, just as she had done five years earlier on the night her mother died.

  That had been a cruel death. Her mother had been in hideous pain as the cancer gnawed through her insides. She could keep nothing down, not even the laudanum that could have offered some relief, and her opium enema seemed to do little good. Towards the end the disease had been in her spine, making it impossible to find a comfortable position whether sitting or lying. She was terrified, yet strove to muffle her cries of agony in the blankets so as not to waken thirteen-year-old Lucy, who was asleep in her bedroom down the corridor. Dorothea could see the fear etched in her mother’s eyes, could hear her whispered pleas for help, and was powerless to do more than hold her hand, moisten her lips and soothe her with whispered endearments. The doctor came and went, leaving further useless supplies of laudanum; their vicar came to pray. Her father couldn’t bear it and retreated to his study, leaving Dorothea to witness the final throes of the awful death struggle on her own. It was an experience that scarred her, something that would never leave her. Her mother’s last breath when it came was a blessed release from acute torture and the expression caught at the moment of death was one of horror. Thankfully Lucy had not witnessed any of it. By the time she came to see the body the following morning, their mother’s features had settled into a peaceful repose. Lucy complained of not being called to say goodbye but Dorothea knew she was too young for such a distressing sight.

  Mr Peters, by contrast, had a peaceful death, the best he could have hoped for. Dorothea sat with his body for half an hour watching the tightening of his features, the blanching of his complexion, then she helped the orderly to wash and prepare him for the undertaker. It was five-thirty in the evening when she walked out into the street in her dark wool cloak and climbed into a Hansom cab the hospital porter had called to take her back to Russell Square.

  Covent Garden was abuzz with costermongers dismantling their fruit and veg stalls under the metal and glass awning, and flower girls with a few remaining pink, white and yellow blooms in their baskets. Some ladies of the night hovered on street corners, hoping for an early piece of business. Nothing shocked Dorothea after her work in the hospital. She had seen all types pass through its doors.

  Back in her bedroom, she started to change for dinner but she was too agitated to fiddle with all the buttons on her gown. Instead she sat at her dresser to compose a letter to Lucy. She told her she was sorry for her actions, that she hoped her marriage would be a very happy one. She was sad to have missed the ceremony but perhaps once they were reconciled she could host a celebration for them … Suddenly Dorothea dropped the pen and a great sob tore from her chest. She gasped and tried to control herself but emotion took hold and she shook with intense grief.

  ‘Please God, don’t let any harm come to Lucy,’ she prayed, squeezing her eyes tight shut. ‘I’ve let her down and I will never forgive myself if anything bad happens to her.’

  She laid her head on the dresser and fell asleep, waking an hour later when the bell rang for dinner to find her tears had soaked the writing paper and blurred the ink.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Four

  24th April 1854

  Plymouth Dockyard was teeming with people bustling between precarious stacks of luggage. Tall-masted ships stretched as far as the eye could see. The noise of ships’ horns sounding, street traders crying their wares, and the anxious chatter of bystanders was overwhelming. Lucy worried that they would never find their way but when Charlie hailed a porter and asked him to take them to the Shooting Star, the man seemed confident about finding it. He loaded a trolley with their steamer trunk, all their bags stuffed to bursting, and their large tin bath, and set off. Charlie clutched Lucy’s arm tightly and hurried them through the throng in pursuit of their luggage.

  Before long, he spotted some comrades in royal blue and gold Hussars uniform and hailed them, pulling Lucy forwards to introduce her. She shook hands with several gentlemen and was pleased to note their appreciative glances. She had dressed with care in a wide-skirted soft wool gown with cascading ruffles in the skirt, and a warm fitted jacket, both of a deep blue very similar to that of the Hussars’ colours. A prettily trimmed bonnet framed her face.

  ‘I think you have new admirers,’ Charlie winked, squeezing her hand.

  As they approached the ship, she noticed several women sobbing, with young children clinging to their skirts, and asked Charlie what ailed them.

  ‘These are the soldiers’ wives who can’t come along,’ he told her. ‘There was a ballot and only a few won a place. You’re lucky to be the wife of an officer, as we can all bring our wives, if our commanders agree.’

  ‘What will become of them while their husbands are away?’ She felt alarmed for their plight. She had no idea what would have happened to her if she hadn’t been allowed to accompany Charlie because his wages were not sufficient, after stoppages for uniform and so forth, for him to have supported her in lodgings like the boarding house where they had been living in Warwick for the last three months. She suspected from the haste with which he insisted they leave that he owed money to the landlady there. If a captain couldn’t manage, how could the soldiers, who earned so much less?

  ‘I expect their families will look after them,’ Charlie said, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him.

  Some called out – ‘Miss, can you help us?’ ‘Need a lady’s maid, Miss?’ – and Lucy cast her eyes down, feeling guilty that she had a place while they did not.

  They walked up the gangway onto the ship and followed their porter down to the officers’ deck, where Charlie located their cabin. Lucy swallowed her surprise at how small it was, barely six paces wide and ten long, with a bunk so narrow they would be crushed tight together. There was hardly any hanging space for her gowns, and only one tiny mirror above the washbowl.

  ‘This is one of the better cabins I’ve seen on a military ship,’ Charlie remarked cheerfully. ‘It’s very well appointed.’

  Lucy kept her thoughts to herself. ‘I’ll just unpack a few things, dearest, to make it a little more homely.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll go and check on the horses on the deck below.’ He kissed her
full on the lips and grasped one of her breasts with a wink before he left.

  Lucy felt her cheeks flush and she hummed as she arranged their possessions. She liked having someone to look after, loved the intimacy of sharing a bed and eating meals with Charlie. ‘You see, Dorothea?’ she thought. ‘You were wrong!’

  Before long, she heard women’s voices in the corridor and popped her head out. The first woman she saw introduced herself as Mrs Fanny Duberly, wife of the 8th Hussars’ Quartermaster. She seemed rather superior in attitude, and moved off after only the briefest ‘hallo’ but not before Lucy had noted that her gown was plain grey worsted and not remotely fashionable. The other woman, Adelaide Cresswell, had a kind face and shook Lucy’s hand warmly.

  ‘Charlie is a good friend of my husband Bill, so you and I must also be friends, my dear.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Lucy cried. ‘I would love that. We women must stick together. I need your advice on how I can support my husband. We are so recently wed I don’t yet know what is expected of an officer’s wife.’

  Adelaide smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘I was overjoyed to hear about your marriage. Charlie is a very lucky man. Look how pretty you are! Such lovely china blue eyes.’ She glanced past Lucy into their cabin. ‘Goodness, you’ve brought rather a lot of luggage.’

  Lucy looked at the pile. ‘In truth, it was hard knowing what to bring. I’ve had to leave many of my possessions in store,’ she explained. ‘Charlie told me I would need summer clothes, but I also tried to think of items we might need if we have to sleep in a tent.’ She couldn’t contemplate quite how she would manage to change her gowns and perform her toilette in such a cramped space but she was prepared to give it a try if that’s what being an army wife entailed. As well as the tin bath, she had brought some soft feather pillows and a pale gold silk bedspread that used to be her mother’s, so they would have some home comforts.

  ‘Of course you did – and I’m sure they’ll come in very useful. It’s just that we may have to carry our own luggage at times and your trunk looks rather heavy …’ Seeing Lucy’s alarmed expression, Adelaide added quickly: ‘I expect Charlie will find someone to help you. Now, I was on my way below deck to introduce myself to the women travelling with Bill’s company, the 11th Hussars. Perhaps you would like to come and meet the wives of Charlie’s men? There’s plenty of time as the ship won’t leave harbour till after dinner.’

  Lucy’s eyes widened. ‘I’d love to!’ It hadn’t occurred to her that Charlie had men beneath him, men who obeyed his commands, but she supposed as a captain that he must. She was anxious to give the right impression and decided she would follow Adelaide’s lead.

  Two decks below their own, there was a strong smell of rotting vegetation, which Adelaide told her came from the bilge. The soldiers’ wives were in a shared dormitory and Adelaide greeted them, explaining who she and Lucy were, and saying that they would be happy to offer assistance if any was required. The women looked doubtfully at Lucy, who was by far the youngest of the thirteen wives accompanying the 8th Hussars. Most were rough, sturdy women, with ruddy faces and cheap gowns; none looked a day under thirty.

  ‘What an exquisite shawl,’ Lucy commented to one woman, who was wearing a gaudy, paisley-patterned garment round her shoulders. ‘Are your beds comfortable? Ours is so narrow I think my husband will knock me to the floor if he turns in his sleep.’

  ‘Make sure you sleep by the wall so he’s the one that falls out,’ one suggested, and Lucy agreed that would be the sensible course. She asked about children left behind, about where the women normally lived, about their husbands’ names and duties, and she felt by the time she and Adelaide left that she had made a good first impression.

  ‘We will all be good friends after this adventure. I am sure of it,’ she called back.

  That evening she and Charlie shared a table in the officers’ dining hall with the Cresswells. Lucy had changed into a blue and purple silk taffeta evening gown with smocked bodice, and dressed her own hair in the absence of any apparent ladies’ maids, but she noticed that Adelaide wore the same plain serge gown as earlier. Looking around, all the officers’ wives were in day dress; it seemed dinner was not a dressy occasion.

  ‘Why didn’t you warn me not to wear evening dress?’ she whispered to Charlie, feeling embarrassed.

  He grinned. ‘I love to see you all dressed up. You are by far the most beautiful woman on the ship and I’m so proud to be with you.’

  The food was plain cooking: soup, stew, pudding, with not even a fish course. The conversation was lively, though, with the men talking of war, and the belligerent stance of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I who dreamed of creating a huge empire in the East from the remains of the tottering Ottoman Empire.

  ‘Do you have children?’ Lucy asked Adelaide, and realised she had touched a raw nerve when tears sprang to Adelaide’s eyes, which she blinked away before replying.

  ‘We have a little girl called Martha, who is four, and a boy, Archie, who’s just three. I’m sorry …’ She closed her eyes briefly to regain control. ‘It was a wrench leaving them behind, although they are with my mother and will receive the best of care. I decided that Bill needed me more. I want to make sure he has a clean uniform and decent food as well as a woman’s comfort while he is out fighting for us.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Lucy agreed. ‘All the same, I can imagine how difficult it must have been to leave your little darlings.’ Adelaide must be in her twenties to have such young children, she guessed; she looked older, her face tanned and lined by the sun.

  After dinner, Lucy and Charlie strolled out on deck to watch as the Shooting Star pulled out of harbour then promptly came to a halt while they waited for the wind to change. She felt a thrill run through her: it was the first time she had left English soil. She felt so lucky to be there, with the man she loved. In their cabin, Charlie poured glasses of some rum he had brought along and they toasted the voyage: ‘We’re on our way!’ He raised his glass and she did the same. ‘This is where the adventure begins! And I am the happiest man alive that you are here by my side.’ He gazed at her and despite his words she could see the sadness in his eyes. She knew his loneliness after being cast off by his family still haunted him, although it had happened five years earlier. ‘If you had been unable to come, I swear I would have deserted from the army. I couldn’t bear to be without you now, Lucy.’

  His words caught in his throat and Lucy knew how deeply they were felt. It was part of what made her love him so wholeheartedly: the sense that beneath his confident manner there was a vulnerable man who needed her in a way she had never been needed before.

  ‘I know, darling, and I couldn’t be without you either.’ She stroked his dear face with the tips of her fingers.

  ‘We are so lucky to have found each other,’ he breathed. ‘Before I met you, I was nothing, a hollow shell of a man. I had no family, just some friends who enjoy me larking around: “Good old Charlie, he’s always up for some fun.” But with you I can be myself and know you love me no matter what.’

  ‘I will always love you …’ she began to say but Charlie silenced her by covering her mouth with kisses so tender that her heart almost stopped. They fell onto the bed and while they made love she marvelled at his passion; she loved the way he lost himself completely in her, loved the amazing secret of married love into which she had now been initiated.

  He fell asleep straight afterwards with his arm wrapped around her neck. She would have to wake him later because both were still half-clothed: her petticoats were twisted beneath her while he still wore his dress shirt, but she would let him rest awhile.

  When she opened her eyes the next morning, Lucy could sense from a gentle rolling motion that the ship was on the move and she felt a quiver of excitement. That rolling became less gentle as the day progressed, and she had to press a hand to the corridor wall for support as she and Adelaide made their way to luncheon. Charlie’s day was spent trying to settle the horses, who neighed
and whinnied, terrified of their enclosure in this rocking vessel, so Lucy and Adelaide strolled the deck gazing at the grey-green seas that surrounded them and took meals together. They went down to visit the soldiers’ wives again and Lucy was astonished to find some standing around in drawers and stays without a hint of modesty but she chatted as before, asking if their food was adequate and whether they saw more of their husbands than she was seeing of hers. She joked that Captain Harvington seemed to care more about the horses than his new wife, but in fact she loved the caring way he spoke of those magnificent creatures, particularly his own horse, Merlin, and his determination that he would do all he could to see they survived the journey unscathed.

  On the second day, as they entered the Bay of Biscay, the sea became choppy. Loose objects fell from shelves and a little flower vase of Lucy’s was smashed on the cabin floor, startling her. After dressing, she made her way to Adelaide’s cabin to find her friend vomiting into a bedpan, her face bleached of colour and eyes sunken in their sockets. Lucy gave her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth, then went to find a steward who would empty the bedpan and bring a fresh pitcher of water.

  ‘All the other ladies are sick as well, Ma’am,’ the steward told her. ‘You must have a strong constitution.’

  Sure enough, she heard retching sounds from Mrs Duberly’s cabin, although the quartermaster’s wife came to dinner that evening and remarked to Lucy she thought it a poor show that Adelaide didn’t make the effort to join them.

  In fact, for the next three days poor Adelaide couldn’t keep down more than a few sips of water and Lucy was concerned for her. There was no doctor on board but the steward found a supply of Tarrant’s Seltzer so Lucy fed Adelaide teaspoonfuls of it, trying to keep her spirits up by telling her that the rough weather must pass soon; everyone said it must. She herself remained miraculously immune to the seasickness, and was able to go down to the soldiers’ wives and dispense fizzing glasses of seltzer to them too. It was good to feel useful, and as Adelaide began to recover Lucy sat and read to her, growing fonder by the day of her sweet nature. She was the kind of woman who would never hear bad of another; a woman whose outlook was sunny even while she was feeling so ill.