A Dark and Distant Shore (93 page)

Underslept, seasick, and racked by bowel pains, Gideon wrapped himself in one of the blankets he had brought and lay down on the second of the camp beds Fred had managed to buy from an Albanian merchant who had set up shop in Balaclava. There were letters from Fanshawe, and one from his publisher, and another from a different publisher inquiring whether he was likely to put his Crimean reports together to make a book. Billy Russell had sent him a copy of
The Examiner,
drawing his attention to a poem by Alfred Tennyson.

‘Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward... “Forward, the Light Brigade, Charge for the guns!” he said... Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die...’ Gideon would have been sick if there had been anything left in his stomach. He had held one of the Light Brigade down while the doctor had taken his arm off, but the man had died two days later. He remembered picking a handful of maggots from the bandage round another man’s chest; the dressing hadn’t been changed for three weeks because there weren’t enough bandages.

He, Gideon Lauriston, who had always tried to remain detached, uncommitted, could be so no more. The sights he had seen and the problem of writing about them obsessed his mind now to the exclusion of all else. It was with scarcely more than lukewarm interest that he turned to the two family letters awaiting him. There was one from Theo and one from Lizzie. Theo’s was dated first so he opened it first.

Vilia should be writing this letter, but she is, I suspect, too embarrassed. Gideon, dear boy, I much regret to tell you that Lizzie has run off with Guy Savarin. This may not come as a complete surprise to you, since Juliana tells me she wrote to you that they were attracted, and elopement, it seems, runs in the family. I will not weary you with all the details. Suffice it to say that they went, and that Vilia then instructed me to go after them and put a stop to it. I, as you may imagine, said, ‘What, again?’ which was not at all well received. In the end, I pursued them to London, and had no difficulty in finding them, since Guy had taken Lizzie to his apartment at Blackfriars, a romantic place overhanging the river and smelling of it quite strongly.

Unfortunately, it appears that they are not married. Guy turns out to be a Catholic and declares that a civil ceremony has no meaning, and Lizzie –
such
an impressionable girl – has agreed that, since they propose to live in perfect chastity until she is received into the church of Rome – when they will be married ‘properly’ – the formalities of a civil ceremony are superfluous. They appear to be sincere.

I see no way by which Lizzie can be saved from Guy, except possibly by an appeal from you – mine had
no
effect! – or by due process of law, which would still require your presence. In Scots law, there would be nothing at all one could do about it, since they would be regarded as legally married ‘according to custom’, or whatever the phrase is. But English law may be different; Lizzie is not of age by English standards, and most certainly not married. Unfortunately, even Peregrine James doesn’t appear to know whether Scots or English law would apply. In any case, neither Vilia nor I has any legal jurisdiction over the child. So you must decide.

We are all genuinely sorry about this. Vilia considers she should have foreseen it, and Magnus, as you may imagine, is being quite intolerable about the bad blood that causes Lauristons to elope left, right and centre. As if the bad blood in the Randalls wasn’t enough! How one wishes that Edward Blair would do something wildly improper, and take the Telfer strain down a peg or two. Anyway, let me know, dear boy, if there is anything I can do, although I can’t think what it might be. Try not to get in the way of any of those nasty, noisy guns.

It was another world, Gideon thought, a world filled with characters as cut off from him as if he were seeing them through glass or reading about them in the pages of some penny novelette. He recognized that his daughter had done something extremely foolish, and that she hadn’t done it without being pushed – by someone, or some circumstance. She was such a biddable girl. If someone had been there to say, ‘Don’t!’ when Guy said, ‘Do!’ she would still be safely at Kinveil. He hoped no one had been unkind to her. But Guy had probably filled her head with rosy visions, painted a glowing picture of the life they would have together in some neo-mediaeval paradise. Just the thing that would appeal to Lizzie. He remembered vaguely that Guy had been besotted by the Middle Ages; so had Drew once, but at least he knew how to keep his misguided ideas of chivalry separate from the demands of modern life, and Gideon wasn’t sure that young Guy did. He sighed, and opened the letter from his daughter.

Poor little Lizzie. She had tried to give herself confidence by searching for a suitable model in
The Lady’s Indispensable Letter Writer,
and had found some genteel paper – horribly gilt-edged and deckled – with a matching envelope. She had sealed it with lilac wax. Even her handwriting, for the first few lines, was all that a lady’s should be.

Dearest Papa – May I commence by inquiring after your health? I hope the weather is more clement with you than it is here in London. The purpose of this letter is to inform you that I am shortly to be married to M. Guillaume Savarin, a connection of Uncle Magnus Telfer’s, who had the pleasure of making your acquaintance at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851. I hope you will be pleased.

But here the reference model had begun to let her down.

For reasons which it would impose on your patience for me to relate, I have come to London somewhat in advance of the wedding, which I hope will take place quite soon. M. Savarin has been so kind as to offer me his hospitality in the meantime.

And then, as if she had realized that there was no possibility of wrapping it all up in clean linen, the timid, worried girl began to show through.

I do assure you, dearest Papa, that there is nothing whatever improper in this situation. M. Savarin is the most perfect gentleman. It is just that Uncle Theo has been here, and I think he wants to separate us, and I could not
bear
that. He said he would write to you about it, and if he does, please
please
don’t pay any attention to any horrid things he says about Guy or the way we ran away together which we had to otherwise grandmother would have parted us and I would have
died
because she was already cross with us and Uncle Magnus said he wouldn’t have Guy in the house any longer and he was to go away. So you see we
had
to leave and we didn’t even say good-bye which was very ill-bred of us.

Gideon sank his head into his hands. Poor child, poor child. The appalling thing was that all he could feel about it was a mild, rueful resignation. Strange how war put the triumphs and tragedies of ordinary life into a different perspective. The suffering, degradation and death he had observed on such a massive scale for so many weeks now reduced his daughter’s troubles to no more than a problem of etiquette. She would have to learn to face the world as others did, and grow up on her own; though if Guy truly loved her, and Gideon hoped he did, she would not be wholly on her own.

There was nothing Gideon could do; nothing, perhaps, he would do even if he could. Tomorrow, he would write her a note of reassurance and give it to someone who was going down to Balaclava and could send it off. He fell asleep with a bleak half-smile on the lips that were hidden, these days, under four months’ growth of beard.

Vilia, with some idea of keeping an eye on Lizzie, went to London early in January, taking Juliana with her. Juliana was to make her come-out in a few weeks, and Vilia told Magnus there was a great deal of shopping to be done first. It was a relief even for Juliana, dutifully and unthinkingly fond of her father, to get away from him, for he showed no sign of easing up on his complaints about Guy, Lizzie, and Lizzie’s grandmother. In response, Lizzie’s grandmother had been becoming progressively sharper-tongued, and although Magnus bore the brunt of it, Juliana had not escaped. Vilia had been swift to recognize that a large part of the blame for Lizzie’s flight could be laid at the door of the other two girls, and Juliana and Lavinia had emerged, shaking, from an interview that Juliana still preferred not to remember. Lavinia had been able to stalk off back to Marchfield, but for Juliana there had been no escape. She was beginning to wonder if Vilia would ever forgive her, and wasn’t sure that she cared. Vilia had never been the kind of stepmother one ran to for warmth and comfort and perfumed embraces, but until about three years ago she had been briskly understanding and sympathetic. And then, suddenly, after the Great Exhibition, she had just stopped being interested, as if she didn’t like anyone any more. Juliana wondered wistfully, sometimes, what her own mother had been like. In her portrait she looked soft, and pretty, and –
cosy.

They did some shopping, mostly in Regent Street, thick with carriages and horsemen, and debutantes and their mothers, sisters and aunts, especially in the late afternoon, when the whole world seemed to congregate in Swan and Edgar’s silk shop, or Allison’s, where the latest fashions and materials were to be had. London seemed to Juliana to be terrifyingly busy.

As soon as they had settled into the Brook Street house they had taken, Vilia summoned Jermyn from the War Office, where he was involved in a series of complex discussions about military equipment. With his usual, faintly absentminded air, he set off as instructed for Guy Savarin’s apartments at Blackfriars and returned, equally absent-mindedly, to report that Lizzie had announced that nothing in the world would persuade her to see her grandmother, who would only bully her. ‘Overwrought,’ Jermyn remarked laconically, ‘and I don’t wonder. That Savarin fellow seems to live with his head in the clouds, and poor Lizzie doesn’t have the wits to realize that there’s nothing up there. In the clouds, I mean. He’s kind enough to her, but she feels horribly inferior, poor girl. Anyway, she says she’ll see Juliana. Do you want me to take you, Juley? I can’t spare any more time now, but we’ll go this evening.’

It was dark and eerily quiet by the river, and the gas lamp outside the house was reflected in the oily surface of the Thames, not once, but again and again and again. Outlined against the faint luminescence of the sky Juliana could see St Paul’s and, where the buildings were lower and more squalid, the rigging and masts of tall ships; the silence was full of stealthy murmurings which, at last, she identified as the river gurgling and sucking round the wharves, and barges moving gently on the current or snubbing the rotting wood of the wharf piles. There was a sickly mist over all, evidence of the sewers that poured into the water, day and night, the refuse of one of the greatest cities in the world. ‘It can’t be healthy,’ she whispered to Jermyn. She had no reason on earth to be whispering, but once the carriage had drawn to a halt, there was no single sound that did not reek of darkness and secrecy.

‘It is the most delightful room for a party,’ Lizzie said in her small voice when she had greeted them and taken Juliana’s cloak. No servants, Juliana noted in disbelief. ‘There are windows on all sides, you see, and there is a balcony over the water where Guy sits and paints when he is here. The weather has not been very clement, of course, but we have had one or two beautiful days. When the wind is fresh and the sun is shining, it is very exciting and beautiful. And there is so much activity on the river.’

‘Hmmm,’ Jermyn said. ‘And when the fog comes down, the mudbanks are bare and putrid, and the air must be thick with cholera and typhoid. It’s not right for you, Lizzie, you know, especially when you’re used to a place like Kinveil. I’d get Guy to find somewhere else, if I were you.’

Her eyes dilated. ‘Oh, but Guy loves it!’

‘No doubt. This one of his paintings, is it? Dante and Beatrice, I take it, in a Tuscan landscape? Well, he doesn’t need the Thames for that, does he? Were you the model?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mmm. He’s certainly caught that blank look of yours. To the life.’

‘Jermyn!’ Juliana exclaimed. ‘
Will
you go and wait in the coach while Lizzie and I talk. How can you expect Lizzie to feel comfortable when you are criticizing all the time.’

‘I’m not criticizing.’ It was said without heat. ‘All right, I’ll go. Guy’s out, is he, Lizzie?’

‘He’s gone to dine with Mr Swinburne.’

‘Oh. Well, call when you want me, Juley.’

It took a long, long time to break down Lizzie’s brittle little barricades. She talked as if Juliana were some new acquaintance to whom it was necessary to say all the hostessly things, offer all the correct refreshments, make all the polite responses. It was as if her physical beauty were all that existed. Beyond that, there seemed to be nothing there at all. And yet they had grown up together, lived together for twenty-four hours a day for more than ten years of their lives.

In the end, Juliana exclaimed, ‘For heaven’s sake, Lizzie! This is me –
me, me
!
Are you all right? Truly, that’s all I want to know!’

She was wearing some strange drapery that had nothing to do with fashion, and the beautiful copper hair, no longer disciplined into modish waves and knots, flowed smoothly and silkily over her sloping shoulders. The column of her neck was like cream. She sat, upright and motionless, hands gracefully clasped in her lap, in a massively built, straight-backed chair that looked as if it would take four strong men to move it. ‘I am very well, thank you,’ she replied with no perceptible change of tone or expression.

Juliana, petite, fair and fashionable, hopped briskly to her feet and marched over, then, taking Lizzie by the shoulders, shook her vigorously.
‘Lizzie!
You aren’t here at all, are you! Come back this minute and talk to me as if you were a human being instead of an automaton!’

Lizzie’s wide eyes, so much darker than Juliana’s, blinked and then settled on the other girl with something akin to alarm. ‘I
am
perfectly well,’ she said in the small, bell-like voice that somehow didn’t match her looks. A statue, Juliana had always felt, should never speak at all, or should have a voice that was cool, low and musical.