Coming Home (10 page)

J
ULIANA, TO HER dismay, received no more than a tepid greeting from her aunt and uncle. The Trewbridge carriage bowled up to a small, run-down house set well back off the Melksham road. There were no flowerbeds, just an ill-kempt patchy lawn. The groom ran to the horses' heads and, as the front door of the house remained shut, Juliana and Tilly had to jump down from the carriage without assistance.

‘Sorry, miss,' the groom apologized. ‘There's nowhere for me to put 'em at the moment.'

Tilly dragged their valises down from the carriage while Juliana trod up the steps and looked around. Nobody had opened the door, so she tapped as best she could with the broken doorknocker. One tap and the gargoyle on the knocker came apart. Tilly stifled a giggle and Juliana muttered out the corner of her mouth, ‘Not a very good omen.'

There was a scramble of movement inside, then a maid wearing an over-sized cap cracked open the door and peered cautiously through the narrow slit.

‘I'm Miss Colebrook,' Juliana said. Who had the housemaid been expecting?

‘Sorry, Miss. Do come in. James!' the young woman yelled in the general direction of the interior. Juliana flinched and Tilly looked shocked. James pelted towards the door, pulling on a jacket. As he rushed past, Juliana said, ‘Please see that the groom receives some refreshments before he returns to Trewbridge.'

James stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Refreshments?' he asked, as if this were an unusual request.

Juliana blinked. ‘Yes, please. The Marquess of Trewbridge was kind enough to lend me his carriage.'

‘What's this?' a voice boomed. ‘Trewbridge's carriage, is it? Then hop to it, James.'

Juliana turned to greet her uncle. And got the shock of her life.

Sholto Colebrook was the spitting image of her father.

‘
Déjà vu
is it, my dear?' Sholto Colebrook's voice sounded amused. ‘But you must have expected it?'

Juliana wasn't sure if that was a question or not. She settled for a vacant smile.

He extended a careless hand, barely touching the ends of her gloved fingers. ‘Young lady, we expected you yesterday. When you wrote to us from Portsmouth you said we were to expect you on Wednesday. I have the note here,' he added, as if she were about to argue the point. ‘You inconvenienced us.'

Oh, no. Her heart sank. She
knew
she should have come straight on instead of staying the night at Trewbridge. How she wished she had not listened to the marchioness.

‘I'm very sorry, sir,' she apologized, anxious to placate this man who held her future in his hands. ‘The Trewbridges were most pressing. Indeed, had you not been awaiting me, they would have kept me even longer.'

‘You stayed at Trewbridge last evening?'

‘Yes. They—'

He interrupted. It seemed he had no interest in explanations. ‘Why did you not say so?' Then he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Juliana and Tilly standing in the hall.

Juliana was stunned. What should she do?

At that moment a thin, middle-aged lady fluttered in their direction, trailing wisps of clothing that had seen better days. This must be her aunt. Stretching out a languid, lace-mittened hand towards Juliana she intoned, ‘My dear Juliana, we expected you yesterday. Sholto was much put out.'

Juliana bobbed a curtsy. ‘Good day, ma'am. I have already explained my lateness to my uncle.' She did not wish her relatives to think her inconsiderate or rude, but anyone would imagine her late arrival was a national disaster.

A short silence ensued. Her aunt peered around the hall as if she could not quite remember why she had come there.

As the woman showed no disposition to welcome her, Juliana thought it best to retire to her room to unpack.

‘Aunt, would you be so kind as to find someone to direct me to my room?' she asked.

Her aunt looked puzzled for a moment then wafted from the room calling out ‘Annie!' in dieaway tones.

 

‘Not very welcoming, miss, are they?' Tilly said, as she shook out Juliana's clothes.

‘No. It's my fault for arriving a day late.'

‘All the same,' Tilly muttered, ‘you'd think they'd be right glad to see you. There you are, miss. If you need me for anything, just call out. I'm next door.' She nodded further along the narrow hallway.

Well, that showed where Juliana stood in the household: with the servants.

Perhaps she should make immediate enquiries about available work. She had been sure her relatives would advise her to have a small holiday first, but from their unwelcoming attitude that no longer seemed likely. So much for her visions of open arms and cheerful faces. She had imagined the smell of biscuits cooking and beeswax on the furniture and gentle questions.

Hah! More fool her.

However, in some ways it was fortunate they showed no interest in her. If they'd enquired who had accompanied her from Portugal, she would have had to prevaricate so they did not discover that she and Colly had posed as husband and wife. She could not yet warm to her aunt and uncle, but even so, she did not wish to lie to them. Perhaps with time they would find their way around one another. That was it. She must give it more time.

She could not agree with Colly's jaundiced outlook on family, but deep down she knew her rosy expectations had been … well, unrealistic. But they had buoyed her up at times when her work was particularly distressing. This cool reception might be disheartening, but she would manage.

 

By dinnertime she knew the whole thing was a terrible mistake. She forced down a few mouthfuls of fatty mutton broth followed by chunks of a boiled joint of tough meat dressed with cauliflower sauce. For the past hour the smell of boiling cauliflower had permeated the hallways. Judging from the taste, the broth was made from the water the mutton had been boiled in. Her portion boasted a tiny piece of carrot and a shred of onion. She thought longingly of last evening's meal at Trewbridge.

‘So, my dear,' her uncle said as he crammed as much meat into his mouth as possible, ‘tell us about Trewbridge.'

Not about her parents. Not about Portugal. About Trewbridge.

‘Are the private chambers elegant?' he enquired.

‘Very. But I saw only the guest wing, withdrawing room and family dining room, sir. I cannot tell you much. It is a very well-run household. '

Sholto Colebrook snorted. ‘So it should be with the number of servants they have running about. Lucky they can afford to feed them all.'

She persevered. ‘The marquess and marchioness are very kind. If you permit it, it is possible that the marchioness and Lady Brechin might call upon me … er … us.'

‘
Here
? They might come
here
?' Aunt Colebrook interpolated. ‘Fancy that, Sholto!'

Sholto Colebrook grunted into his food.

Juliana stared down at her plate and realized that an uncomfortable night lay ahead of her. Undercooked meat and rich sauces were the very things that most offended her tender stomach. She hoped this meal was not representative of many to come. She had seen only two servants about as yet, so perhaps the cook had her day off today. She could not imagine her uncle employing a male French chef, such as they had at Trewbridge. Sholto was just too … too English for that.

Sholto Colebrook clattered his knife and fork onto his platter. ‘Well, young Juliana,' he mumbled, around a mouthful. He chewed enthusiastically for a moment.

Placing her utensils on her plate, Juliana waited.

‘I think we might have hit upon the very occupation for you. I made some enquiries on your behalf.'

She wished he hadn't. She didn't know why, but she wished he hadn't. If he was as like her father as he seemed, then she rather thought any occupation Uncle Sholto found, might not be to her liking. But he had not offered to house her as befitted a daughter of the house. It seemed she was to be a poor relation. Their cross to bear. So she must find employment quickly.

She looked enquiringly at him.

He nodded. ‘The very place. The poorhouse in Hungerford is in dire need of good workers at its infirmary. They were pleased to employ you when I told them about your extensive nursing experience. There now, you cannot say your uncle has done nothing for you, can you, my dear?'

Concerned, Juliana stared at him. She knew nothing about poorhouses, but they did not sound like very nice places. She had rather hoped for a genteel occupation as a companion to an ailing lady, or something of that sort. Inwardly she sighed. She had no choice. She could end up in the poorhouse herself if she did not take this opportunity.

‘Thank you, Uncle. I shall abide by your advice and see the person in charge. How will I get to Hungerford?'

‘All arranged, m'dear. Each morning the carter's dray comes past our gate at six-thirty. In the evenings the superintendent will bring you home in his carriage. You are to start tomorrow,' her uncle said, as if he had accomplished a great feat.

Tomorrow! Was she not even to familiarize herself with Hungerford and Melksham first?

Bitter disappointment seeped into her bones as her dreams of a happy, loving family faded even further. From now on, not only would she earn her keep, she would make a large contribution to household funds, if the furnishings were anything to go by. The whole place suggested a faded dowdiness and none of the rooms she had seen thus far had been cleaned very well either. She could only conclude that Uncle Sholto was of the same mind as her father had been – that a penny spent on anything apart from himself was wasted money. Would she ever see her earnings, or had the superintendent and her uncle arranged for her wages to go straight to Uncle Sholto? She surveyed her uncle's smug face. She was sure he would milk her for everything he could.

But maybe she was being uncharitable and Uncle Sholto had very little money. Perhaps her aunt and uncle were living in genteel poverty.

Later, as she lay in her narrow bed in the attic – no furnished bedchamber for the poor relation – she wondered if Lieutenant Davidson was faring any better with his aunt and uncle. Now she understood why he had got himself drunk during his last hours of freedom. To be obligated to heinous relatives was the most helpless feeling in the world.

Juliana pulled the thin coverlet up over her shoulders and allowed herself a small admission. ‘You were right, Colly,' she whispered.

She was sure Colly would have a good life with the Trewbridge family. And if he could manage to swallow his pride and contact his family, he might be able to make Amelia Blevin admit that nobody had ever coerced her. Or if they had, then that person had not been Colly.

Once he was freed from the shadow of guilt, no doubt his straitlaced father would see to it that he wed a proper English miss. She would be mealy-mouthed and would keep him away from all likelihood of scandal. He would forget an independent half-English, half-Portuguese woman with a very tenuous claim to being a lady.

A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away. Obviously she had been alone for too long. If her family had not turned out the way she had expected, that was too bad. She must make the best of it.

She got out of bed and scrabbled in her hatbox. Gently lifting out the
three pansies Colly had given her, she saw in the faint moonlight that the edges of the petals were already brown. She would press them. That way she would have them forever.

‘Colly,' she whispered into the darkness.

S
HIVERING IN THE clammy morning mist, Juliana and Tilly clung to the side of the dray as it lurched along the lanes towards Hungerford. Beneath her cloak, Juliana wrapped her arms around herself and wondered how long it would take to get used to the chilly beginnings of England's early autumn days.

Today was her second day of work. She hoped it would not be as bad as her first. During her years at Sao Nazaire she had endured some dreadful sights and sounds, but the workhouse infirmary at Hungerford took the prize for sheer misery.

It comprised three blocks of faceless red-brick buildings in the shape of an open square. There was not a plant or flower to be seen in the big, dusty courtyard. Her work was in the women's section of the infirmary. Although she had never been inside a prison, she was sure the Hungerford Charity Homes for the Indigent were as near to a prison as made no odds.

In Porto the stench had been of hot, unwashed bodies, vomit and excrement. At the infirmary the stench of despair overrode everything. It was equally distressing. She had swapped one unwholesome environment for another.

Clambering down from the dray she held out two pennies to the carter. Just as he had yesterday, he curled his lip at the meagre offering.

‘It is all I can spare. I'm very sorry.'

As he jogged his big carthorses to a trot, she took from her reticule the huge key to unlock the iron gates. Yesterday, with due ceremony, the superintendent had handed it to her as if he had been entrusting her with the keys of Heaven.

‘Because of my friendship with your uncle I know I can trust you, Miss Colebrook. Remember, once you are inside, lock the gates behind you.'

Clang! As she and Tilly dragged the heavy gates together they resounded like the knell of doom. And, for many of the people inside, that's what it was, Juliana thought. After enduring the superintendent's
lecture yesterday, she had nothing but sympathy for the inmates. The stringent policies and procedures of the Hungerford Charity Homes were enough to depress even the most sanguine inmate.

Trudging up the unkempt driveway Juliana and Tilly smiled at a group of small children crouched on their haunches in the dust. They were not playing. Childhood had already been knocked out of them. Aimlessly they scrawled patterns in the dust.

‘Good morning,' Juliana said brightly.

‘Morning, miss,' a curly-headed tot replied.

She smiled. Such a nice boy. Yesterday he had held a basin of water for her while she bathed his mother's face and hands. Juliana had found the woman huddled in a dark corner, moaning in pain.

And the poor boy had been punished for his helpfulness. Mr Sourface Superintendent Pettigrew, her uncle's friend, had appeared behind them suddenly and cuffed the boy about the head, roaring at him, ‘Put that down at once, boy. How dare you steal that basin?'

Juliana had been appalled at such a ridiculous assertion. ‘Sir, please. Stop it!'

She had dragged Pettigrew's arm away as he continued aiming blows at the child. Fortunately the boy's agility enabled him to duck around the corner out of harm's way.

‘No … no.' Juliana's patient had moaned in distress. The woman was very ill. Juliana had seen that look before when fever took a hold.

‘Damn you, sir! Go away.' Juliana had not cared how uncivil she sounded. Mr Pettigrew had no place in the women's part of the hospital, and he had no right to upset the sick mothers and children.

‘How dare you, madam!' he had hissed at her, his self-importance cut to the quick.

Juliana had stood up. She was taller than Mr Pettigrew by a full inch and a half. ‘I dare, sir, because this woman is very ill and needs my help. That is the job I am here to do. Her son offered to hold the bowl for me. I obtained the water from the pump as you instructed this morning.' She had glared at the superintendent. ‘And I fail to see why a … man should be in this particular part of the infirmary.'

Frankly, she thought designating him ‘a man' was raising him from the gutter where he belonged. Comparing this worm to real men like Colly Hetherington and John Trewbridge was ridiculous. She did not like or trust Mr Superintendent Pettigrew and she let her contempt drip into her tone. It made no odds to her. She did not intend to stay at the infirmary very long. Red-faced, bristling with anger, he had spun on his heel and left.

‘He's always here, miss. He likes watching the children.' The speaker was a scrofulous-looking woman whose meaning was all too clear. She nodded her head towards Juliana's little helper and winked surreptitiously, screwing her face up into a mask of revulsion.

‘Not while I'm here,' Juliana had retorted.

And when Mr Pettigrew came to convey her home in his carriage that evening, she had scurried to the door to meet him to prevent him from entering the infirmary. He'd folded his lips tightly but said nothing. There was nothing he
could
say and they both knew it. She had been employed to manage the women's section as she saw fit. Those had been the board's instructions. When Pettigrew had told her that, his lip had curled. He must have resented her before he even met her. Her experience with the sick undermined his authority.

Today, however, he left her alone. She did not see him as she went about persuading some of the more able-bodied women to help her scrub the walls with lye soap. No doubt Superintendent Pettigrew rationalized that, not being familiar with how things were done, she would soon find herself at
point-non-plus
and need his assistance. Then she would have to beg him for it. He was that sort of person.

Huh. She smiled to herself as she rinsed out a rag. Mr Pettigrew had reckoned without her experience of difficult situations and difficult people. And to make matters easier, the women in her care were very knowledgeable. They had been tending themselves for many months with only a midwife available for serious cases.

And Juliana had Tilly. Dear Tilly had rolled up her sleeves and taken the scrubbing brush from Juliana. ‘Let me do it, miss. I'm used to this.'

Juliana smiled her thanks and washed her hands. Then she began to dig around in her bag of medical supplies.

‘You done a lot o' nursing then?' An unkempt young woman with a piratical appearance nudged her elbow. Her wild black hair and one sightless eye were not pretty, but she worked diligently at scrubbing down the walls, and Juliana didn't care one whit about the woman's appearance. She was good-hearted and helpful, and that counted most in here.

Juliana smiled. ‘Well, I've nursed a lot of soldiers, but not many women – only a few Portuguese ladies who needed assistance with birthing and well … medical problems.' She thought of the prostitutes who had crept around to the back door of Sao Nazaire to get help. What would become of them now?

‘Coo. Wasn't you scared of them men?'

‘No. They were far too sick to bother me.'

The pirate sniggered. ‘But what abaht when they got better?'

Juliana laughed. ‘Well, then I sent them to the convalescent hospital.'

‘What's a con…?'

‘Convalescent hospital? That's where they recovered. Then they were sent back to the war.' She bit the words out. She had always struggled with the concept of tending injured men who were then nurtured until they could return to fight and become injured all over again. Or die.

‘Poor buggers,' said the pirate.

‘Yes.'

‘What's your funny accent then?'

‘My mother was Portuguese and my father was English.'

‘Was?'

‘Yes.'

The pirate did not proffer her sympathies. Juliana understood that where the pirate came from, death was common and not a thing to be exclaimed over or examined.

‘So why did you come here?' the woman demanded.

Juliana did not answer. She knelt to sponge the face of her little friend's mother. The woman's condition had worsened.

The pirate followed and knelt down too. ‘The lass is done for,' she whispered.

Juliana could not help but agree. The woman was wringing wet with sweat, and her skin was blue-white and dried like parchment. Her head swung constantly from side to side as she tried to suppress her moans of pain.

‘When did she have her baby?' Juliana asked the pirate.

‘Two weeks past.'

‘Poor lady. I've seen this before. It is a fever that sometimes comes on after childbirth. The baby?'

The pirate shook her head.

Distressed, Juliana swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘She was left far too long without help. I realized yesterday that I could do nothing, but—'

Suddenly the woman opened her eyes and stared straight at Juliana. ‘Help him. Help the boy. Go to Sir Alexander Mortimer. He will help.' She spoke in a cultured voice, but then, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her, closed her eyes again and slumped sideways against the wall.

‘Fetch me some … no, I'd best go myself.'

‘If it's water yer want, I can get it.' Juliana's self-appointed assistant
hauled herself to her feet. ‘Old Pitiless Pettigrew won't bother us now you've put him in his place. Gutless, that's wot 'e is. You did a good job yesterday.' The pirate chuckled, snatched the basin from Juliana and lurched out of the room leaving Juliana with the dying woman.

It was not the first time she had held the hand of the dying. And it would not be the last. Her stomach began its familiar rolling. Reaching inside her pinafore pocket with her free hand, she pulled out a precious bottle of laudanum. The superintendent had been very niggardly with medical provisions. Too bad. This lady did not deserve to die in agony. Nobody did. The woman's lips were so cracked and dry that Juliana would have to moisten the parched lips and mouth first, otherwise the poor thing would never be able to swallow the laudanum mix.

‘'Ere.' The pirate slopped water as she staggered across the room.

Juliana took out a fresh rag from her apron bib and soaked it with water. Then she pressed it gently against the chapped lips of the dying woman. A cracked cup was all she had to hold the water. Yesterday, when she'd seen the primitive tools available to her, she had scoured that cup most thoroughly. This morning she had again scrubbed the basin and cup. Tonight she would take home her rags and wash them out. No ladies' hands for her. She thought longingly of the pretty container of glycerine and rosewater that Colly had given her.

Conditions at Sao Nazaire had not been pleasant, but the wealthy people of Porto had made sure that Dr Barreiro had good equipment. Even when the French stole some of it, the British Army and the Portians had replaced everything. Of course, that had been an important military hospital. This infirmary was merely a holding pen for the indigent.

As she held the cup to the dying woman's lips, a shudder shook the woman's body and she fell back against Juliana. Juliana sat still for a moment, quietly saying a prayer for the dead. Then, placing the body on the floor, she blinked to clear her vision. No matter how many deaths she attended, she could never get used to the desolate feeling of helplessness.

‘Sorry,' she whispered. ‘I'll try to help the boy.'

‘'Ere,' said the pirate. ‘You don't want to go making promises you can't keep, miss. Ain't no chance of getting out of here once you're in.'

Juliana turned to her in surprise. ‘What do you mean? Surely there is work for the men and schooling for the children?'

‘Sometimes,' the woman agreed. ‘But her young feller is too young for work or school. He'll go to the foundling hospital.'

‘Well, that's better than nothing.'

‘If you say so, miss.'

Juliana kept silent. It wasn't for her to enquire into the administration of the Hungerford Charity Homes. It was her business to succour the sick women and children as best she could. And she had a huge job ahead of her.

All the same, she planned to find out where Sir Alexander Mortimer lived.