The Face of a Stranger (23 page)

"Responsibilities to care for him?" she suggested.

Gratitude shone in his face. "Exactly. Sometimes I daresay Joscelin
gambled more than he should, and it was Menard who—er ..."

"I understand," she said, more to put him out of his
embarrassment and end the painful conversation than because she believed him.

Later in a fine, blustery morning, walking under the trees with
Callandra, she learned a good deal more.

"Stuff and nonsense," Callandra said sharply. "Joscelin
was a cheat. Always was, even in the nursery. I shouldn't be at all surprised
if he never grew out of it, and

Menard had to pick up after him to avoid a scandal. Very sensitive to
the family name, Menard."

"Is Lord Shelburne not also?" Hester was surprised.

"I don't think Lovel has the imagination to realize that a Grey
could cheat," Callandra answered frankly. "I think the whole thing
would be beyond him to conceive. Gentlemen do not cheat; Joscelin was his
brother—and so of course a gentleman—therefore he could not cheat. All very
simple."

"You were not especially fond of Joscelin?" Hester searched
her face.

Callandra smiled. "Not especially, although I admit he was very
witty at times, and we can forgive a great deal of one who makes us laugh. And
he played beautifully, and we can also overlook a lot in one who creates
glorious sound—or perhaps I should say re-creates it. He did not compose, so
far as I know."

They walked a hundred yards in silence except for the roar and rustle of
the wind in giant oaks. It sounded like the torrent of a stream falling, or an
incessant sea breaking on rocks. It was one of the pleasantest sounds Hester
had ever heard, and the bright, sweet air was a sort of cleansing of her whole
spirit.

"Well?" Callandra said at last. "What are your choices,
Hester? I am quite sure you can find an excellent position if you wish to
continue nursing, either in an army hospital or in one of the London hospitals
that may be persuaded to accept women." There was no lift in her voice, no
enthusiasm.

"But?" Hester said for her.

Callandra's wide mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile. "But I
think you would be wasted in it. You have a gift for administration, and a
fighting spirit. You should find some cause and battle to win it. You have
learned a great deal about better standards of nursing in the Crimea. Teach
them here in England, force people to listen—get rid of cross-infection,
insanitary conditions, ignorant nurses, incompetent treatments that any good
housekeeper would

abhor. You will save more lives, and be a happier woman."

Hester did not mention the dispatches she had sent in Alan Russell's
name, but a truth in Callandra's words rested with an unusual warmth in her, a
kind of resolution as if discord had been melted into harmony.

"How do I do it?" The writing of articles could wait, find its
own avenue. The more she knew, the more she would be able to speak with power
and intelligence. Of course she already knew that Miss Nightingale would continue
to campaign with every ounce of the passion which all but consumed her nervous
strength and physical health for a reformation of the entire Army Medical Corps,
but she could not do it alone, or even with all the adulation the country
offered her or the friends she had in the seats of power. Vested interests were
spread through the corridors of authority like the roots of a tree through the
earth. The bonds of habit and security of position were steellike in endurance.
Too many people would have to change, and in doing so admit they had been
ill-advised, unwise, even incompetent.

"How can I obtain a position?"

"I have friends," Callandra said with quiet confidence.
"I shall begin to write letters, very discreetly, either to beg favors,
prompt a sense of duty, prick consciences, or else threaten disfavor both
public and private, if someone does not help!" There was a light of humor
in her eyes, but also a complete intention to do exactly what she had said.

"Thank you," Hester accepted. "I shall endeavor to use my
opportunities so as to justify your effort."

"Certainly," Callandra agreed. "If I did not believe so,
I should not exert them." And she matched her stride to Hester's and
together they walked in the wood under the branches and out across the park.

* * * * *

Two days later General Wadham came to dinner with his daughter Ursula,
who had been betrothed for several months to Menard Grey. They arrived early
enough to join the family in the withdrawing room for conversation before the
meal was announced, and Hester found herself immediately tested in her tact.
Ursula was a handsome girl whose mane of hair had a touch of red in its
fairness and whose skin had the glow of someone who spends a certain amount of
time in the open. Indeed, conversation had not proceeded far before her
interest in riding to hounds became apparent. This evening she was dressed in
a rich blue which in Hester's opinion was too powerful for her; something more
subdued would have flattered her and permitted her natural vitality to show
through. As it was she appeared a trifle conspicuous between Fabia's lavender
silk and her light hair faded to gray at the front, Rosamond in a blue so dull and
dark it made her flawless cheeks like alabaster, and Hester herself in a somber
grape color rich and yet not out of keeping with her own recent state of
mourning. Actually she thought privately she had never worn a color which
flattered her more!

Callandra wore black with touches of white, a striking dress, but
somehow not quite the right note of fashion. But then whatever Callandra wore
was not going to have panache, only distinction; it was not in her nature to be
glamorous.

General Wadham was tall and stout with bristling side whiskers and very
pale blue eyes which were either far-sighted or nearsighted, Hester was unsure
which, but they certainly did not seem to focus upon her when he addressed
her.

"Visiting, Miss—er— Miss— "

"Latterly," she supplied.

"Ah yes—of course—Latterly." He reminded her almost
ludicrously of a dozen or so middle-aged soldiers she had seen whom she and
Fanny Bolsover had lampooned when they were tired and frightened and had sat up
all night with the wounded, then afterwards lain together on a single straw
pallet, huddled close for warmth and telling each other silly stories, laughing
because it was better than

weeping, and making fun of the officers because loyalty and pity and
hate were too big to deal with, and they had not the energy or spirit left.

"Friend of Lady Shelburne's, are you?" General Wad-ham said
automatically. "Charming—charming."

Hester felt her irritation rise already.

"No," she contradicted. "I am a friend of Lady Cal-landra
Daviot's. I was fortunate enough to know her some time ago."

"Indeed." He obviously could think of nothing to add to that,
and moved on to Rosamond, who was more prepared to make light conversation and
fall in with whatever mood he wished.

When dinner was announced there was no gentleman to escort her into the
dining room, so she was obliged to go in with Callandra, and at table found
herself seated opposite the general.

The first course was served and everyone began to eat, the ladies
delicately, the men with appetite. At first conversation was slight, then when
the initial hunger had been assuaged and the soup and fish eaten, Ursula began
to speak about the hunt, and the relative merits of one horse over another.

Hester did not join in. The only riding she had done had been in the Crimea,
and the sight of the horses there injured, diseased and starving had so
distressed her she put it from her mind. Indeed so much did she close her
attention from their speech that Fabia had addressed her three times before she
was startled into realizing it.

"I beg your pardon!" she apologized in some embarrassment.

"I believe you said, Miss Latterly, that you were briefly
acquainted with my late son, Major Joscelin Grey?"

"Yes. I regret it was very slight—there were so many wounded."
She said it politely, as if she were discussing some ordinary commodity, but
her mind went back to the reality of the hospitals when the wounded, the
frostbitten and those wasted with cholera, dysentery and starvation

were lying so close there was barely room for more, and the rats
scuttled, huddled and clung everywhere.

And worse than that she remembered the earthworks in the siege of
Sebastopol, the bitter cold, the light of lamps in the mud, her body shaking as
she held one high for the surgeon to work, its gleam on the saw blade, the dim
shapes of men crowding together for a fraction of body's warmth. She remembered
the first time she saw the great figure of Rebecca Box striding forward over
the battlefield beyond the trenches to ground lately occupied by Russian
troops, and lifting the bodies of the fallen and hoisting them over her
shoulder to carry them back. Her strength was surpassed only by her sublime
courage. No man fell injured so far forward she would not go out for him and
carry him back to hospital hut or tent.

They were staring at her, waiting for her to say something more, some
word of praise for him. After all, he had been a soldier—a major in the
cavalry.

"I remember he was charming." She refused to lie, even for his
family. "He had the most delightful smile."

Fabia relaxed and sat back. "That was Joscelin," she agreed
with a misty look in her blue eyes. "Courage and a kind of gaiety, even in
the most dreadful circumstances. I can still hardly believe he is gone—I half
think he will throw the door open and stride in, apologizing for being late and
telling us how hungry he is."

Hester looked at the table piled high with food that would have done
half a regiment at the height of the siege. They used the word
hunger
so
easily.

General Wadham sat back and wiped his napkin over his lips.

"A fine man," he said quietly. "You must have been very
proud of him, my dear. A soldier's life is all too often short, but he carries
honor with him, and he will not be forgotten."

The table was silent but for the clink of silver on porcelain. No one
could think of any immediate reply. Fabia's face was full of a bleak and
terrible grief, an almost devastating loneliness. Rosamond stared into space,
and Lovel looked quietly wretched, whether for their pain or his own was
impossible to know. Was it memory or the present which robbed him?

Menard chewed his food over and over, as if his throat were too tight
and his mouth too dry to swallow it.

"Glorious campaign," the general went on presently. "Live
in the annals of history. Never be surpassed for courage. Thin Red Line, and
all that."

Hester found herself suddenly choked with tears, anger and grief boiling
up inside her, and intolerable frustration. She could see the hills beyond the
Alma River more sharply than the figures around the table and the winking
crystal. She could see the breastwork on the forward ridges as it had been that
morning, bristling with enemy guns, the Greater and Lesser Redoubts, the wicker
barricades filled with stones. Behind them were Prince Menshikoff's fifty
thousand men. She remembered the smell of the breeze off the sea. She had stood
with the women who had followed the army and watched Lord Raglan sitting in
frock coat and white shirt, his back ramrod stiff in the saddle.

At one o'clock the bugle had sounded and the infantry advanced shoulder
to shoulder into the mouths of the Russian guns and were cut down like corn.
For ninety minutes they were massacred, then at last the order was given and
the Hussars, Lancers and Fusiliers joined in, each in perfect order.

"Look well at that," a major had said to one of the wives,
"for the Queen of England would give her eyes to see it."

Everywhere men were falling. The colors carried high were ragged with
shot. As one bearer fell another took his place, and in his turn fell and was
succeeded. Orders were conflicting, men advanced and retreated over each other.
The Grenadiers advanced, a moving wall of bearskins, then the Black Watch of
the Highland Brigade.

The Dragoons were held back, never used. Why? When

asked, Lord Raglan had replied that he had been thinking of Agnes!

Hester remembered going over the battlefield afterwards, the ground
soaked with blood, seeing mangled bodies, some so terrible the limbs lay yards
away. She had done all she could to relieve the suffering, working till
exhaustion numbed her beyond feeling and she was dizzy with the sights and
sounds of pain. Wounded were piled on carts and trundled to field hospital
tents. She had worked all night and all day, exhausted, dry-mouthed with
thirst, aching and drenched with horror. Orderlies had tried to stop the bleeding;
there was little to do for shock but a few precious drops of brandy. What she
would have given then for the contents of Shelburne's cellars.

The dinner table conversation buzzed on around her, cheerful, courteous,
and ignorant. The flowers swam in her vision, summer blooms grown by careful
gardeners, orchids tended in the glass conservatory. She thought of herself
walking in the grass one hot afternoon with letters from home in her pocket,
amid the dwarf roses and the blue larkspur that grew again in the field of
Balaclava the year after the Charge of the Light Brigade, that idiotic piece of
insane bungling and suicidal heroism. She had gone back to the hospital and
tried to write and tell them what it was really like, what she was doing and
how it felt, the sharing and the good things, the friendships, Fanny Bolsover,
laughter, courage. The dry resignation of the men when they were issued green
coffee beans, and no means to roast or grind them, had evoked her admiration
so deeply it made her throat ache with sudden pride. She could hear the
scratching of the quill over the paper now—and the sound as she tore it up.