Tangled (3 page)

"People can be hurt while you are selfishly enjoying life," David said. "Scherer, for example. Rebecca. Flora Ellis."

"Cynthia is bored," Julian said. "I am bored. We are not in love, Dave. This is no grand passion. Becka will not be hurt because she will never know about it. And it makes no iota of difference to my feelings for her. I miss her, if you want to know the truth. I wish she were here instead of Cynthia. God, how I wish it. But she isn't so I have to make the best of what there is."

David sat down on his own bed to pull off his boots. He would not call his servant. There was too much of a strained atmosphere in the room to be shared with an outsider.

"The silent treatment," Julian said. "It always comes to this and you have always been expert at it." He smiled

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winningly. "Look, Dave, I know you think I treat Becka rottenly, and you are right, damn you. She is everything a man could ask for and more, isn't she? And she loves me. It never ceases to amaze me that she loves me. But she is not always available. Either she is ill or—or she is a thousand miles away. What am I expected to do?''

There was no point in arguing further with Julian. It would not even be an argument. Julian would capitulate almost immediately and be contrite and charming and full of good resolutions. He really had not changed. And the trouble was that David loved him now as he had always loved him—from the moment of Julian's arrival at Cray bourne at the age of five. The seven-year-old David had welcomed this new brother into his lonely life with open arms and a yearning heart. He had felt instantly protective of the smaller, younger Julian, with his rumpled fair curls and big gray eyes and mischievous grin.

Even as a young child Julian had had a natural charm.

In those days David had been afraid of his father, whose hand could feel remarkably heavy after some wrongdoing. Oh, he had loved his father too and felt that love returned in full measure. But he had been afraid that love might not temper severity in Julian's case.

Julian was not his father's son and Julian was incurably mischievous.

David had been afraid that Julian might be punished more severely than he and even perhaps turned off and sent to live elsewhere. The very thought had filled David with anxiety. And so almost from the start he had developed the habit of shielding Julian from detection and punishment whenever the child had got into serious mischief—as he did occasionally. Many was the spanking David had endured for an offense he had not committed.

Protecting Julian had become a habit. The spankings had progressed to more severe thrashings as they grew older, and David had been aware of his developing reputation—among the servants and neighbors—for wildness and even slyness since no one ever saw him commit all his various offenses.

Finally, when he was seventeen years old, he had realized that it was a pointless and undesirable habit. He knew very well by then that his father, though stern, gave unconditional love to both boys. And David had begun

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to consider it a weakness in himself to be so used by his foster brother—though to give Julian his due, he was always charmingly grateful for David's interventions and always brimming over with resolutions to reform his ways. His essential weakness had seemed charming, even lovable, in a young boy.

But the habit had been more deeply ingrained in David than he had realized. There had come the time several years later when Julian had come to him frantic and white-faced. He was within three months of marriage to Rebecca and he claimed to love her dearly. But there had been a moment of thoughtless passion—he did not know what could have possessed him. He really did not. And he did not know what to do.

Flora Ellis was pregnant.

It would be dreadful for Rebecca to discover the truth. The humiliation, the scandal for her would be more than Julian could bear. And it was her he loved. He knew it now and would know it forever after.

And so David had done it once more—and had regretted it ever since. He had agreed for the last time to take the blame. For Rebecca's sake. And because he had believed against all the evidence of his experience that marriage would change Julian.

He had done it because he loved Rebecca himself— always had and always would.

And so once more he had allowed himself to become the scapegoat.

And he had lived ever since with the guilt of having interfered in something he should not have touched. Julian—and Rebecca—should have been left to work out the problem somehow together. Julian should have been forced to take responsibility for his action for once in his life.

And yet, David thought now with a feeling of some self-contempt, he still loved the foster brother who had come into his lonely life like a little bundle of sunshine. Despite disillusionment and bitterness, he could not hate Julian.

"Just be careful," he said after a lengthy silence, bringing the argument to a rather lame end. "You would not want to humiliate Scherer quite this publicly, Julian.
And you would not want to hurt Rebecca. She deserves better."

Julian combed his fingers through his fair hair. "You were always my conscience, Dave," he said. "I suppose you realize how wretched you have made me feel? As always it's your silence that does it more than the words. I'll be done with the bloody woman. There. Are you satisfied? I'll be as celibate as a monk. It's good for the soul or something like that, isn't it?" He grinned.

"Something like that." David threw his coat from him and felt the deceptive coolness of the air against his shirt sleeves. "Lord, I hate this heat. Why can't someone invent a uniform to be worn in hot climates?'' He stretched out on his bed and closed his eyes. "Wake me when something exciting happens, will you, Julian?"

"You might find yourself in an everlasting slumber if I do that,"

Julian said. "How about getting up for dinner in two hours' time?"

"That sounds exciting enough," David said, yawning hugely.

******************************************************************

It was only after the British forces had been moved from Malta to Gallipoli in May that David became aware that the affair had resumed. Though probably it had never stopped, he thought.

Probably Julian and Cynthia Scherer had merely become more discreet.

David said nothing all through the summer—even after June took them to Varna in Bulgaria and the unhealthy heat and the chronic outbreaks of cholera and fever and dysentery started to kill off the men by the thousands long before they saw any military action. The affair continued unabated. Perhaps soon they would be finally at war, David thought grimly, and the boredom would be at an end for Julian. Perhaps soon celibacy—and marital fidelity—would be a necessity rather than a choice.

Indeed it seemed that he would be proved correct. In September the British and the French landed in the Crimea and the enemy was finally engaged, first in the storming of the Alma Heights on the 20th and then, after a few minor clashes, in the Battles of Balaclava on Oc-tober 25th and Little Inkerman the following day. The Guards established their camp up on the Chersonese Pla-

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teau, between Balaclava to the south and Sebastopol to the north.

Even the officers had only tents in which to live. It seemed impossible that any clandestine affair could be conducted under such circumstances.

But Julian, of course, had always thrived on challenge and danger.

He spent the night following the Battle of Little Inkerman in Captain Scherer's tent while the captain himself was on picket duty. David lay awake most of the night, cursing himself for so wasting his energies and for worrying about a man who was not even his brother.

Sometimes, he thought, love could be very akin to hatred.

Julian returned to the tent he shared with David a safe time before dawn, and David cursed himself again for his feeling of relief. He said nothing though he did not even pretend to be asleep.

Julian sighed and wriggled into a nominally comfortable position on the ground. "Life begins to get interesting," he said. "The attack to our rear the day before yesterday, to our front yesterday. I wonder where the next one will come From. Or will we take the initiative, Dave, and attack Sebastopol at last? That is what we came here to do, after all." He yawned.

"Pretty soon we'll see all the action we can handle," David said.

"The sooner the better," Julian said. "I didn't join the military just to lie on my back staring up at canvas all day and all night except when there is picket duty to relieve the tedium."

"Go to sleep," David said.

"I've already gone," Julian said, yawning again.

He had returned safely. But obviously something had gone terribly wrong. Late in the afternoon of the same day, David entered the open space ringed about by officers' tents, a general gathering place for all off-duty Guards' officers. He found that he had walked into a crisis.

A dozen or so officers were standing about the edges of the space, rather like spectators at a prize fight. Julian stood in the empty center, his booted feet set apart, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, looking rather pale and tense. Captain Scherer, both his arms held by fellow

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officers, was having a glove pulled free of one clutched fist. He was glaring at Julian, his normally florid complexion almost purple, murder in his eyes.

"No, don't George," one of the two officers was saying. "Once you have thrown it down, you will find yourself in a hell of a mess. Think again."

Captain Scherer pushed off his two friends with a snarl of rage though he had no glove left to dash in Julian's face. His hand went to his side and with a scraping of metal his sword was free of its scabbard. Julian's hand went to the hilt of his own sword.

"Cut it out! Both of you." Major Lord Tavistock's voice whipped about the space like a lash. One quick glance about had shown him that he was the senior officer present. "Put it away, Scherer, if you don't want to be facing a court-martial. Drop your hand back to your side, Card well. We don't need to be starting to carve each other up when the Russians are poised and ready to do it for us."

Neither of the two central figures in the drama moved for a few moments. They continued to stand with eyes locked on each other's.

"Major Tavistock is right, George," one of his friends said, relief in his voice. "General Bentinck would not look at all kindly on two officers of his brigade dueling, especially while on active service. Not to mention the Duke of Cambridge. Or Raglan himself for that matter.''

"Leave it, George," the other friend said. "At least for now. The matter can be dealt with later, after the war is over."

"I'll give you both ten seconds." David's voice was cold and hard.

There was no thought now to any personal feelings. He was an officer, imposing his will on others as a matter of military discipline.

Captain Scherer returned his sword slowly to its scabbard after perhaps five seconds. Julian's hand fell away from the hilt of his sword.

"Look out for yourself, Cardwell," Captain Scherer hissed through his teeth. His eyes had not flickered from Julian's. "You have not heard the end of this matter. You may feel assured of the fact that your useless life has been reprieved for only a short time."

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"I'll be happy to give you satisfaction any time, any place," Julian said, his voice quiet and steady. "Court-martial or no court-martial, Scherer."

When Captain Scherer finally turned away, Julian strode toward his tent without another word. David felt the tension drain from his body even as he felt inner fury mount. It would serve Julian right if Scherer had run him through—he had a reputation for being handy with his ¦word. It would be no less than Julian deserved.

David and Julian avoided all reference to the incident during the few days that remained before they went into action themselves.

Cynthia Scherer disappeared from the camp. She had been sent back to Balaclava, David heard. He hoped fervently that from there she would be sent to England.

******************************************************************

The Russians launched a massive surprise attack at dawn on Sunday, November 5th—in a dense fog. Thousands of Russian soldiers marched in huge columns up onto the heights from Sebastopol to the northwest of the British camp and from across the River Tchernaya to the northeast. Battle raged all day, the numerically weaker British pushing back wave after wave of attack, both sides enduring terrible slaughter.

General John Pennefather's Second Division fought alone for several hours, reinforcements not coming up until the situation looked desperate. In particular it seemed that the Russians were about to turn the British right flank when they took possession of the Sandbag Battery overlooking the steep slopes of the Kitspur on the east side of the battlefield, driving back the defending soldiers of the Forty-first and Forty-ninth.

Rescue came just in time in the form of the Guards, the Grenadiers in the center, the Coldstream to their right, the Scots Fusiliers to their left. They drove the Russians back down the slope and then held the position in line, their discipline keeping them from making a wild pursuit of the fleeing enemy. But the men of the Fourth Division, also newly arrived, felt no such restraint and went hurtling down the slope in hot pursuit of the enemy to the bottom of the Kitspur. In the heat and excitement of a battle that seemed to be won, The Coldstream Guards

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followed them and then many of the Grenadier Guards, despite the fact that several of their officers, Major Lord Tavistock among them, bellowed at them to hold the line.

David plunged downward after his men through the heavy oak brushwood on the hill, sword in hand, holster loosened on his pistol, cursing volubly. The Russian masses were still fleeing and showing no immediate sign of standing and reforming. But even so it was dangerous to pursue and leave the Sandbag Battery above them defended by only a small remnant of the Guards. There were other Russian columns still up on the heights and constantly resuming their push forward. He must round up his men, and anyone else's men he happened to run into for that matter, and herd them back up the hill—at sword point if necessary. Heads would roll for this.