Hope (59 page)

‘Leave me here to take my turn. There’s a great many worse off than me.’

She started at the familiar voice, and realized it was coming from one of the carts filling the quayside. The darkness had added a new problem. Earlier, in daylight, they had been able to check over the wounded, selecting the most urgent cases first. This was impossible now, and it was too horrible to think that someone might die of blood loss for the want of a simple tourniquet. Taking a lantern down from the wall, she called to two orderlies to come with her. Then, going from cart to cart, she quickly looked the men over, telling her assistants which ones she wanted taken straight in.

It was on the fourth cart back that she found the owner of the voice she had recognized.

Captain Pettigrew.

She hadn’t seen him at all since she landed here, much to her frustration when she wanted to know all about Nell, and she hadn’t had the time or opportunity to go to search him out.

‘Where are you wounded, Captain?’ she asked, holding the lantern up so she could see him better.

‘Why, if it isn’t Mrs Meadows!’ he exclaimed in some surprise. ‘I thought you’d been left at Varna!’

‘Not me,’ she smiled. ‘I was always disobedient. Where are you hurt?’

‘Just a sabre slash,’ he said, indicating that it was on his thigh. ‘It can wait.’

Even in the darkness she could see a vivid flash of white flesh where his cherry-coloured breeches had been slashed. The sleeve of his blue jacket was cut too, and the surrounding material was dark with blood.

‘Take this man,’ she said to the two orderlies.

‘No, leave me, there’s others more urgent,’ he said.

‘Allowme to be the judge of that,’ she said. ‘A clean wound if stitched up quickly heals in no time. Stay here and you’ll bleed to death. Don’t argue with me.’

He grinned at her and made a mock salute. But despite his jovial manner she could see his face was alarmingly pale and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

By the time she’d checked the other carts and gone back into the hospital, Captain Pettigrew had been laid on a palliasse and she could see he was already weak from loss of blood.

Taking the scissors from her apron pocket, she cut away the sleeve of his jacket and the leg of his breeches, then bathed both the wounds. Once cleaned, she could see they were deep, but she was sure stitching would be sufficient.

She called Bennett over for his opinion. He’d just finished one leg amputation and was about to start on another man’s arm.

‘You can do this, nurse,’ he said, glancing sideways at her, perhaps guessing she was nervous of stitching up an officer. ‘They are longer wounds than you’ve done before, but good clean ones. I expect the Captain could do with a tot of rum before you start.’

Pettigrew tried to smile but it was more of a grimace. ‘Will her stitching be as good as her sister’s?’

‘It’s better,’ Hope said. ‘And I give bigger tots of rum too. Now, just you lie still.’

It took over an hour to stitch the two wounds, and although he grimaced a great deal, he didn’t cry out. Hope’s knees hurt from kneeling on the stone floor, her eyes felt sore from squinting in the bad light, and she was so tired that there were moments when she thought she wouldn’t be able to finish the job. But finally the last stitch was in and she was able to bandage the wounds.

‘Can you get someone to take me back to camp?’ Pettigrew asked, his voice weak and shaky now.

‘Certainly not,’ she retorted indignantly. ‘Jolting up that rough road will just break the wounds open. You’ll stay here and keep still. You aren’t out of the woods yet.’

She washed his face and hands, then got another blanket and tucked it round him.

His eyes were fixed on her face and the look was so intense it made her blush. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Your colouring is the same as the rest of your family’s,’ he said. ‘But your features are different.’

‘Have you met them all?’ she asked in some surprise.

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Not James recently though, but I remember him from Briargate.’

A warm glow of delight ran through her. ‘There is so much I want to ask you about them,’ she said eagerly. ‘But I can’t now, you need to rest and I’ve got other men to nurse.’

‘Nell will be so proud of you,’ he said, putting one hand on her arm to stress his sincerity. ‘I did write to tell her I found you. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘No, I’m glad, but tomorrowyou must give me the address so I can write too. We have a great deal of catching up to do.’

‘Did Albert force you to write that letter?’ he asked.

Hope nodded.

‘And how did he ensure you’d never come back?’

‘Blackmail,’ she said simply. ‘But that’s enough for one night. Try to sleep.’

Three hours later, Hope was finally leaving the hospital. Although she was close to complete exhaustion, she stopped to look at Captain Pettigrew for a moment. A lantern nearby gave enough light to see him clearly, and in sleep his face looked youthful and handsome.

She could understand why Lady Harvey had fallen for him, not just because he had fine, strong features, or that air of sheer masculinity Sir William lacked, but something more. She couldn’t define it, but she felt it inside her. A strange, warm feeling, not unlike the way she’d felt about Bennett when she first met him.

Chapter Twenty-one

‘And where do you think you are going?’ Hope asked indignantly as she arrived at the hospital early in the morning to find Captain Pettigrew about to dress himself in some new clothes.

It had been two days since he’d been brought to the hospital, and his wounds were already healing, but he wasn’t fit enough to be walking around.

‘I can’t stay here, nurse,’ he said, flashing his brilliant grin at her. ‘I need to see my men and the horses. Besides, you’ve got plenty of really sick patients to fuss over.’

A great many of the wounded from that disastrous day had already died from their injuries, but the hospital was still vastly overcrowded, and more men would need amputations today if gangrene had set into their wounds. Looking around her, Hope thought the place had more in common with a squalid ‘padding ken’ than a hospital. There were men everywhere, shoved up together like sardines in beds, under beds, every inch of space filled.

‘You will lie down and let me re-dress those wounds,’ she said sharply, snatching the new breeches and jacket from his hands. ‘Just stretching to put those clothes on is likely to open you up again. Or do you want an infection, then an amputation, so you can go hopping around with only one leg and one arm?’

‘Nowthere’s a cheerful thought,’ he responded teasingly. ‘You are even bossier than Nell.’

But he did obey her, and didn’t even wince as she removed the bandages and washed the wounds.

‘There’s no sign of an infection,’ she said after she’d examined him and begun to re-dress the wounds. ‘But that doesn’t mean you are able to walk or ride yet. I think you should be moved somewhere to convalesce though, you need a strong stomach to stay here.’

‘Don’t you dare suggest I go to Scutari,’ he said with some indignation. ‘I’d sooner lie here and look at you than face that hell-hole.’

Hope had been told that just the previous day a copy of
The Times
had been circulating which had reported on what a terrible place the hospital at Scutari was. As a result, most of the wounded were fearful about being sent there.

‘Ask Lord Cardigan if you can stay on his yacht then,’ she retorted. It was something of a miracle that Cardigan had survived the charge. Apart from a minor sabre slash he was unhurt. He had retreated to his yacht and ordered his company surgeon to treat him there. It was said he was drinking heavily, as well he might, for many here held him responsible for the carnage.

‘He doesn’t like “Indian Officers”, Pettigrew said cheerfully. ‘He probably hopes I’ve croaked.’

Hope smiled. It was hard not to be amused by Pettigrew; he was brave, outspoken, charming and like a naughty boy at times. Apparently Lord Cardigan had slighted many officers who had served in India, which was ridiculous, as they were the only officers who had recent battle experience.

‘We could put you in a tent out the back,’ she suggested. ‘I daresay if your servant couldn’t come down to wait on you, I could bring you the odd bowl of gruel to keep your strength up.’

He laughed heartily but then winced at the pain in his arm.

‘No laughing, no walking, no anything,’ she said with mock severity. ‘You’ve already used up all your luck, so if you’ve got any sense you’ll just lie low.’

‘Can you spare some time to come and talk to me today?’ he said. ‘There are so many questions I want to ask you.’

‘There’s plenty I want to ask you too,’ she said tartly. ‘But meanwhile I’ve got more important things to do.’

It was noon before Hope had finished changing dressings. Most of these wounded would be cleared out of the hospital shortly, but they would soon be replaced by others brought down from the Heights. The shelling was going on right now, though she hardly noticed it over the moans. She just hoped Robbie would stay safe up there. He’d been ordered there with his company the day after she and Queenie arrived. Queenie had gone with him, and she really missed her friend for there were so few women down here, and none that she felt as comfortable with as Queenie.

Hope was terrified that Bennett might be ordered on to the Heights. By rights he should be there with his regiment, but maybe his superiors realized that they had few doctors as experienced in surgery as him and felt he was more valuable here.

The army certainly didn’t value their rank and file. The men had no shelter, hardly any food, and when it rained the trenches were knee-deep in mud. Everyone was concerned about what would happen when winter set in.

Hope found time to go and see Captain Pettigrew that evening. The surgeon who had treated Lord Cardigan’s wound had moved him to a small house along the quay being used by officers from the 93rd Regiment.

She was ushered towards a room at the back of the house by the same servant she’d met at the cavalry camp in Varna. He was a wiry man of about thirty with very bad teeth and a completely bald head.

‘You done a good job with the Captain,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Didn’t think I was going to see him again!’

Hope smiled at the rather blunt remark. ‘You take good care of him and don’t let him exert himself,’ she said.

Pettigrew looked remarkably comfortable in his new surroundings. The bed wasn’t quite long enough for him, but he had a pillow and a colourful quilt tucked round him. The damaged jacket was gone and had been replaced by a loose white linen shirt.

‘I hope you had help getting your clothes off?’ she said tartly.

‘Mead stripped me as tenderly as if I were a baby,’ he grinned. Then, looking up at Mead who was still in the doorway, he asked him to bring in some coffee.

‘Have you eaten?’ Pettigrew asked. ‘Mead will make something for you if you haven’t. He’s a good cook. He’d put most women to shame.’

‘I had something with my husband,’ she said. ‘I just called to see how you were. I can’t stay long.’

‘Surgeon Lewis said it was the best bit of stitching he’d seen in a long time,’ Pettigrew said. ‘I suspect he wished he’d got you to stitch up “the noble Yachtsman’s” wounds too.’

Hope laughed. ‘I think I would have let my scissors slip,’ she said.

‘Are scissors your weapon of choice?’ he asked.

Hope sat down in a chair beside his bed. A fire was burning in the hearth, the oil light gave a honey-coloured glow to the bare, rough walls, and after the hospital and the tent, it felt very luxurious and almost homely.

‘They could become so,’ she said airily. ‘But without further ado, I want to know about Nell and how she came to be your housekeeper.’

Hope hung on his every word as he explained how he’d met Nell while out riding in the early spring of ’48 and offered her the position as his housekeeper. When he said he met her on the bridge at Chewton she could visualize the millpond, the willows coming into leaf, and the sound of running water.

He was neither sentimental nor brusque, and while providing only a modicum of detail, he still managed to give Hope a very clear picture of how it all came about. He touched lightly on Nell’s state of mind following her discovery that Hope had vanished, but lessened any anxiety Hope might have had by enthusing about how she’d taken him and his house in hand, and explaining that she was secure and contented now.

It was the account of a man who fully understood heartbreak; a compassionate man who was more than aware how hard and unfair life could be for women in Nell’s position. In that respect he was very like Bennett, and Hope found herself warming more to the man as each minute passed.

Pettigrew went on to explain how he and Nell had heard about the fire, how Nell had taken Lady Harvey from Matt’s to the Warrens’ house, and he also spoke of Sir William’s funeral which he had attended.

‘It was quite the most disturbing funeral I have ever been to,’ he sighed. ‘Usually there is just deep sadness, especially when the death has been unexpected. But this was bafflement; the ordinary people from the village could not accept that a man they knew, who had prayed with them in church, could be evil enough to set fire to a house knowing there were people in it.

‘Poor Nell was distraught, even though it had been years since she’d left Albert, and indeed had spoken out against him to anyone who would listen. I think she felt partially responsible.’

‘She would,’ Hope agreed. ‘She always felt it was her fault when any of us did something wrong. But how did Rufus stand up to the funeral?’

‘His rage was palpable. He gave a reading from the Bible during the service and his voice was firm, but he was quivering, and his eyes were like ice. He had by all accounts been of the opinion for years that Albert was dangerous – he told me he had refused to come home that Christmas because he didn’t like the liberties the man was taking with his parents. He’s a fine young man now, Hope. Tall, athletic and very handsome. He is so like William at the same age, it took me right back to when I used to pester him to take me riding.’