With This Ring (14 page)

“
Oh, he is not mine!” Lydia
declared, quite unable to keep the confusion from her
voice.

General Picton’s wife only smiled
and changed the subject.

H
er word
was as good as the major’s. She went to St. Barnabas in the morning
and informed Major Reed’s men that he was suffering enforced exile
at General Picton’s house, and would remain there until he felt
better. “It is precisely as I told you it would be,” she wrote that
night after her return to Holly Street. “They were relieved to know
that you were someplace where you might recuperate.”

She set down her pen. Now, sir, if
you were sitting across from me, you would probably challenge that
word “relieved,” but I maintain that I am correct. There was
disappointment when she told them, but it was the relief she
remembered, and a certain satisfaction that someone was seeing to
their major.

“
I vow I would take it right
painfully, if I thought he was suffering,” the corporal with the
bad leg had told her.

What about you, she wanted to ask,
but was too polite to say. She was familiar by now with the
fragrance of decay that rose from his blanket, and she did not need
to pull back the cover and look at his leg, covered today at her
insistence with a wire basket to keep even the pressure of a sheet
from it. Why was it not amputated at Toulouse, she wanted to ask
someone, but the surgeons were too overworked to question, and she
knew that they would only pat her arm and tell her not to fret
herself. She could only watch the soldier’s eyes begin to settle
back in his head, and fret to herself at the inward look of him
now.

She picked up the pen again, telling
the major how each man was doing, and added, “I assure you, I will
continue to visit them each day. If you wish, I could visit you,
too, but that would take time from the men. Let me know how you are
getting on, so I can tell your men. Yours respectfully, etc., Lydia
Perkins.”

He responded the next day, as she
knew he would, and she took the letter to his men, reading it aloud
to them. “ ’I will return as soon as I am able,’ ” she
concluded, and could not keep the laughter from her voice.
“ ’Do mind the surgeon, and the first man who troubles Miss
Perkins will go on report.’ There you are.”

And there she was, as well. Major
Reed had not addressed the suggestion that she visit him, too, so
she mentally turned a page, and vowed not to think of him more than
once or twice a day.

A week passed. More of the men in
St. Barnabas had healed sufficiently to return to the ranks, at
least according to the surgeon. She could not believe it, but her
protests only earned her another pat on the arm, and the remark
that only made her grit her teeth: “You needn’t worry your head
about this, madam. Let us be the judge.”

Corporal Davies left at the end of
the week, the bandage over his eye replaced with a patch that made
him look like a benevolent sort of pirate. “Watch the rest of them
blokes for me, miss,” he said. “I don’t like the looks of two or
three of’um, but what say do we have?” He shook his head. “And they
keep bringing them over.” He shrugged and shouldered his kit. “If
you’re ever in Belgium, Miss Perkins, look up the Third Battery
there. Occupation duty is a dead bore.”

She looked around her at the nave of
St. Barnabas, as familiar to her now as her own room. The latest
wounded from Toulouse who had survived the rough hospital there
were lying here now, far gone, many of them, with no place to go
except a shabby church on London’s dock.

“
It is too bad, Papa,” she said that
night as she and her father sat together in the book room. Since
that first night she had returned so discouraged from General
Picton’s, he had been waiting for her in the book room. “Think how
everyone is celebrating here with parties and routs, while the men
who made victory possible lie in a leaky church with bad drains,
mice, and bat soil.” Her voice hardened. “We are visited
still—plagued is the better word—by fashion fribbles who come to
gawk and point, as though the men had no feelings. It is not fair
in the least.”

“
I am certain it is not, my dear,”
her father said. He held out his hand to her, and she sat beside
him. “And are we not to be part of a celebration in two days’ time?
We can join our own hypocrisy to theirs, my dear.”

She grimaced. “The Capitulation
Banquet, Papa. How could I forget? Kitty has talked of nothing
else, and I am not even sure she knows which continent Toulouse
resides on, much less which country.”

“
Still, I am pleased to know that
you are made of sterner stuff, and have rendered a service,” he
said.

She nodded, too tired to add more to
the conversation. Oh, I have done my little part, she thought, with
a certain bitterness that surprised her. I do not flinch at the
worst wounds anymore, but I still jump when Mama makes a demand or
Kitty verges on hysteria if I will not sew a flounce or do her
curls. She sighed. “Papa, do you know, we are not really very brave
here at home.”

The moment the words left her mouth,
she realized how rude they sounded, spoken to her parent. “Papa, I
mean … I mean ….” she stammered, quite unable to revise
them. Sir Humphrey only shook his head and patted her
hand.

“
Never mind, my dear,” he said, not
looking at her, but with nothing but contrition in his already soft
voice. “We sit here on the fringes, and hope that Kitty will make
an eligible alliance ….” His voice trailed off.

“
It never changes anything, does it,
Papa?” she asked, driven by some demon of honesty. “I am never
pretty enough, and you …. Oh, Papa.”

They sat close together in silence
until her father cleared his throat. “Daughter.”

That was all. He could not bring
himself to say any more. In a few moments, Lydia said good night
and left the room. She had embarrassed him enough for one
evening.

* * *

Although she was seldom allowed
access to the newspaper, as the hackney drove toward the docks, she
heard the news from the running patterers. The Capitulation Events
were on everyone’s lips. In the better part of the city, store
owners were sweeping the streets with more interest than usual. An
arch went up, and another, temporary structures on which to hang
the greenery of high summer. When she returned that evening, tired
and out of sorts, there were garlands and medallions with the Duke
of Wellington’s name prominent.

The victory at Toulouse, if not its
full importance, had finally drilled itself into Kitty’s brain, and
she was full of cheer that evening at the dinner table. “Lydia,
Edwin—I know, I know, Mama, Lord Allsuch—took me to a balloon
ascension this morning, and what do you know but the man in the
gondola poured out little tickets with Wellington’s name? They were
in all colors, and it was beautiful.”

Lydia nodded, intent more on her
dinner. She never took time for luncheon anymore, and indeed, had
lost all appetite for a noon meal after spooning watery gruel down
the throats of men who could scarcely swallow anymore. No one
remained at St. Barnabas now except the worst cases. To her great
distress, some of the men released too early were returned to St.
Barnabas, where they died.

I could tell you stories, she
thought, looking at her sister, but you do not wish to hear them.
“We heard the music of a procession of some sort, I believe,” she
commented, as she nodded to Stanton to take away the half-eaten
course, her appetite gone as quickly as it had come. She did not
look at the butler; she knew he was displeased that she ate so
little now. She glanced at him quickly—he is worried, more like,
she thought, touched at his concern.

As tired as she was, she found some
relief in sitting down with Kitty’s dress for the Capitulation
Banquet to take in a seam here and let out one there, secure in the
knowledge that no one would plead for her to come quickly, for
God’s sake. She had only to sit in a sweet-smelling room, her
stockinged feet propped on a hassock, and sew. How simple this is,
she told herself. It could be that I am no better at nursing than
anyone of my class. She sighed. Or it could be that I am worn down
to a nub. Who would have thought it would take death in the
afternoon, and suffering in all its forms to make me grateful for
the peace and quiet of Kitty’s work?

Simple and pale yellow, her own gown
lay carefully folded in the clothespress, with yellow-dyed Moroccan
leather slippers close by. It will look especially fine with my
dark hair, she thought, and with a paisley shawl. And if Mama does
not take the opportunity to comment on all my flaws before I leave
the house, perhaps I can believe myself handsome enough for one
night.

She returned to St. Barnabas in the
morning, and was greeted at once by Major Sam Reed. She almost did
not recognize him, because he was standing more straight, and he
showed the effects of General Picton’s dinner table. “I am so glad
to see you,” she said, her pleasure unalloyed by any thought to her
forwardness. Mama was not there to remind her, and she was free to
enjoy the moment. “Oh, sir, you will do now, won’t you?”

He smiled back at her. “So the
general’s surgeon claims, Miss Perkins. I will do.” He looked
around him, then took her hand and held it close to his chest. “Oh,
Lydia, why didn’t I tell you to quit coming here last week, before
it reached this stage? We’re at the mouth of hell now. It is always
this way, and I didn’t think to tell you.” He made a face.
“Sometimes I wonder why Horse Guards doesn’t just tell the last
dying man to blow out the candle before he pegs off, and pull the
dirt over him.”

She nodded, and made no move to pull
her hand away. “No one remains now except the ones who will
die?”

“
Abominable, isn’t it? Come along.”
He kept her hand in his and towed her along after him to the lady
chapel, where his campaign trunk rested, strapped now, along with a
duffle bag and what must be the box for his high-plumed
shako.

“
You’re leaving?” she asked, seating
herself at his table and removing her gloves. I wish you would not,
she thought. This place begins to scare me.

He shrugged. “Today or tomorrow,” he
said, then went to the altar and returned with a hatbox, which he
set on the table. “For you, Miss Perkins. I owe you.”

“
I am certain you do not,” she
murmured, but her fingers were already untying the white satin
ribbon that bound the pasteboard box. She smiled at him. “If it is
another bonnet, I will not be able to decline it as I ought. I have
a vast, unsatisfied desire for bonnets.”

He laughed. “Then, it was a lucky
guess. I picked it out, madam. My taste is far from impeccable, but
I gave this plenty of thought, and I was guided by the general’s
wife.”

With a gasp of pleasure, she pulled
out the bonnet, a ridiculous confection of chip straw au natural
adorned with nothing more than the yellow ribbon tie and a bunch of
cherries. It was incredibly understated, much too expensive ever to
accept—unless one were Kitty, she reasoned—and too dear ever to
decline.

“
Here.” He took it from her hands
even as she stripped her own hat from her head, and then set it
carefully on her hair, smoothing the tendrils that had sprung loose
because of the warmth of the morning. “Oh, my. Lady Picton was
quite right. Wait.” He unstrapped his campaign trunk and pulled out
his shaving mirror. “Have a look.”

No matter which way she turned her
face and looked in the small mirror, the hat was a wonder, and she
was a wonder in it. All this from a hat? she asked herself. I vow
even Mama would wonder at me now. After another moment’s preening
(which only made the major smile, she noted in the small space of
the shaving mirror), she removed the hat and replaced it carefully
in the box, as though it were blown eggs. “I cannot refuse it,” she
said honestly. She handed him his mirror. “How did you
know?”

“
I told you it was a lucky guess,”
he said as he replaced the mirror, “but I do recall each hat you
wore, each a little different—flowers here, berries there—and worn
with a certain—” he stretched for a word, looking at the vault
overhead—
ӎlan,
as the French would have it. Miss Perkins,
you have a flair for what becomes you.”

“
I’m sure I do not,” she said
promptly. “You need only listen to Mama animadvert upon the subject
of my lacks.” She replaced her own bonnet, tying it under her
ear.

He sat himself on the edge of the
table, and did not look at her. “Have you ever entertained the
possibility that your mother could be wrong?”

She smiled at him, pleased to see
him healthy enough to be clever, and funny. “You are quizzing
me!”

“
I don’t quiz people very often,” he
replied, “particularly those who have helped me. I mean
it.”

“
Then, I should blush,” she replied,
wondering where the conversation had taken this turn. “Actually, my
family has high standards of beauty, so I think we can say that my
mother is well-informed, sir.” She held out her hand to him. “But I
thank you for the gift, and yes, I will keep it. Wretch! I cannot
resist it!”

“
Excellent, madam.” There was a
pause; the mood changed. He looked over her shoulder. “Miss
Perkins, here comes the surgeon. I must have a word with
him.”