Isabella Rockwell's War (3 page)

“Ah, yes.
You’re the Rockwell girl are you not?”

“Isabella.
Isabella Rockwell,” she replied.

“Yes. Yes of
course, Isabella.” He swept a chair clear of papers and then
settled his bulk in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. In
front of her sat the man who would dictate her fate: her father’s
commanding officer, who was responsible not only for the men under
his command, but for their families too. If ‘responsibility’ were
what you’d call it. Isabella and her father had a quiet agreement
to not discuss the Colonel, whom they both disliked intensely. The
Colonel’s rheumy eyes flicked over her, his expression cold.

“You don’t
need me to tell you how stupid you’ve been.” Isabella shook her
head. “Two of my best men risked their lives to bring you back, god
knows why. I’d have left you to meet your maker, as that was so
clearly what you wanted.” She nodded again and the colonel sighed.
“Still, it was their choice. He’s a popular man, your father, no
doubt about it. He is deeply mourned.”

A hot tear
rolled unchecked down her cheek and her voice was quiet.

“There is no
more news then?

“No.” He
sloshed some more brandy into his glass. “Well there is news,
Isabella, but it’s not about your father.” She looked at him,
startled by his harsh tone. A sudden thin shoelace of fear
tightened around her chest.

“It’s the
Sahiba Abhaya. She’s dead.”

To Isabella
his words came from down a faraway tunnel, and she gripped the
chair in front of her until her knuckles turned white. He’d made a
mistake, surely? He couldn’t mean her Abhaya. The Abhaya who’d
raised her; who was waiting for her back at the camp with a warm
embrace and words of comfort; the Abhaya who loved her despite
everything…?

The colonel
watched her over the steeple of his fingers.

“It was
cholera; totally unexpected. They evacuated and many were
saved…”

“But Abhaya
wasn’t?”

The colonel
paused.

“Abhaya didn’t
evacuate with everyone else.”

Isabella was
disbelieving. Everyone knew the minute the cholera arrived, you ran
for your life. The only hope of avoiding the deadly disease was
putting as much distance as possible between yourself and the
outbreak.

“But…but why
not?”

In that moment
realisation poured over her like a shower of ice. She clutched at
her mouth as her stomach disappeared. The colonel opened his mouth
to speak, but she was too quick for him.

“She was
waiting for me, wasn’t she?” The colonel nodded. Isabella closed
her eyes.

So this was to
be her punishment.

Nothing she
could have ever imagined for herself, could hurt as much as
this.

“Would you
like to sit down?” She shook her head. “Are you sure, you’ve gone
quite white.” Still she clung to the back of the chair, surprised
the floor was still beneath her feet. “Very well then, but we must
now discuss your future.” She nodded. What was he talking about?
His mouth was moving but she was having difficulty understanding
what he was saying.

“Sadly your
father left no provision should something happen to Abhaya. He
would have expected you to have stayed with her, and his war
pension be paid to her for your upkeep. Now this is not possible,
his pension will come to you, but you can’t have it until you are
sixteen. How old are you now?

“I’m nearly
thirteen.”

He nodded.

“Very well. In
the meantime a household has been found for you in which you will
learn a trade, such as parlour maid, or even housekeeper, if you
work hard. When you’re sixteen, you will be given your father’s
pension and be free to return to India.”

Isabella
started.

“Return to
India? Sorry sir, I don’t think I…”

“No, no me
dear. I didn’t quite explain meself well enough. Normally we’d send
you to the orphanage at Howrah Junction, but it’s full to bursting.
So, our orphans are being sent home to be cared for there, until
they are of age.”

“Sent home?
But this is my home?”

The colonel
snorted.

“No, no, no.
England, Isabella. Your new position is in England, in London, to
be precise.” He raised his heavy brows and continued. “It’ll do you
good to go back to the old country, get some of those corners
rubbed off. After all, though it’s hard to tell at times, you are
English.”

Isabella sat
down hard on the chair she’d avoided for so long. She could hear
someone’s breathing coming in harsh gasps. It was a moment before
she realised it was her own.

There was a
knock at the door and the colonel stood up adjusting his belt and
sabre. He lifted a leather satchel and placed it on the desk before
her. The smell of sand and long distances rose from it.

“It appeared
the Sahiba Abhaya had been keeping it for you, so I had it mended
once you’d been found. There’s not much in it. A few papers, a
likeness of you and your mother and the Sahiba’s medicine pouch.”
Isabella lifted the bag into her lap and clung to it, the last
remaining link with the two people she loved.

The colonel
clanked over to the door.

“Isabella,
just one more thing.” She dragged her unseeing eyes to where he
stood. “Don’t think for one moment of running away, otherwise
you’ll forfeit your father’s money and I won’t waste any more
resources on trying to find you. You’ve already paid a heavy price
for one episode of stupidity. Let’s not make it two.”

The door
slammed behind him leaving Isabella alone with the maps and the
brandy, and the impossible weight of her grief.

When she
looked back on her voyage to England, Isabella found she could
remember little, if any, of it. The journey had taken eight long
weeks as the ship travelled though the Indian Ocean, down to the
tip of Africa, and into the chilly Atlantic.

Indeed, one of
her only memories was of the shortening days and the increasing
cold and how, worryingly, the stars by which she had travelled all
her life started to change. The constellations, once so clear and
familiar, shifted position and some even disappeared, leaving her
lost and disorientated. It was still shock she supposed; shock of
losing Abhaya, her father and her home all at once, which made her
feel as if there was a thick, see-through bubble between herself
and the rest of the world.

She’d been
entrusted to Mrs Trotter, an excitable elderly sergeant’s wife on
her way back to England for the birth of her second grandchild. Mrs
Trotter had spent most of the journey so far knitting fluffy white
bootees and talking to her travelling companions Lady Molesey and
Lady Molesey’s daughter, Eloise. Isabella had taken one look at
Eloise’s vacant china-doll face and known her hopes for an
entertaining travelling companion were to be short-lived. Eloise
only wanted to talk about dresses and hair fashions, and certainly
did not want to sit outside and pretend to shoot partridge.
Isabella quickly left her to it.

One evening
towards the end of their journey, Isabella and Mrs Trotter sat in
the steerage class dining room. A smell of boiled cabbage drifted
up Isabella’s nose. There were no windows, as the steerage class
dining room was below the water line, the same as their cabin.

“Why don’t we
ever spend the day down here, Mrs Trotter? I’m sure there are some
nice ladies who’d be happy to have your acquaintance. What about
Mrs Jolyon over there? She seems nice,” said Isabella liking Mrs
Jolyon’s twinkling brown eyes and shiny hair.

Mrs Trotter
wrinkled her nose.

“Well…” she
paused “Well, I’m sure there are. It’s just I’ve already made
acquaintances on this journey. I’m not sure I really need to make
anymore… though I’m sure they are perfectly nice.” The woman was
such a snob, Isabella couldn’t resist a little teasing.

“So it’s
nothing to do with the first class lounges being prettier, with
lovely views and nice cakes for tea…? Not to mention all those
titles wandering around – Lady This, the Duchess of That – I don’t
know how you keep track of them all.” Mrs Trotter’s knitting
needles were clacking much more quickly, and her mouth had
disappeared into her chubby cheeks. She changed the subject.

“Do eat up,
dear. Thousands starving you know….”

Isabella
stared at the congealing mass on the plate in front of her.

“Thousands
starving on this ship,” she muttered under her breath. Was this
really what passed for food in the west? She peered at it, poking
it with a fork.

“Isabella, do
stop it and sit up and, for heavens sake, take off your cape. You
are in the dining cabin….”

“But it’s so
cold, Mrs Trotter.” All day long the temperature had been dropping
as the boat headed north, and Isabella pulled her cape close for
comfort.

“What rubbish
you do talk Isabella. You really are the most ungrateful child.”
Mrs Trotter stood up, swaying. “I’m going upstairs to play bridge
with Lady Molesey. Make sure your clothes are packed, there’s a
rumour we might see land soon.”

Isabella
watched Mrs Trotter leave. A layer of darkness settled around her
heart and her face hardened.

How she wished
she were anywhere else but here.

She reached
into her bag. Three nutmeg shells fell from their tissue wrapping
onto the table. Her fingers moved with ease, sliding the black
pomegranate seed under one of the shells. Mindlessly she pushed
them this way and that, around and around. Her mind was soothed by
the action, the roughness of the shells beneath her fingers and the
familiar rhythm.

It was a
moment before she realised a little girl stood at her elbow.

“Can I have a
go?” Isabella shrugged and showed the child where the bean was and
then moved the shells around lethargically.

“That one!”
The child pointed at the middle shell once they’d come to rest.

Isabella
lifted the shell.

“No.”

“That one,”
the child swooped on another shell, her face dropping with
disappointment when it revealed only the wood of the tabletop.
Isabella lifted the third cup to show the errant bean. The child’s
eyes filled with tears. “You tricked me.”

Isabella
shrugged again.

“It is a
trick. You should have been watching more carefully.” Fat tears
rolled down the child’s face.

A bell rang;
it was the purser calling for silence.

“Ladies and
gentlemen, the captain is glad to report we shall arrive within
sight of land in eight hours. Please have your belongings ready for
eight hundred hours. You shall be given instructions as to when you
may disembark.”

A great cheer
went up.

Isabella
watched the child thread her way back to her mother, who gathered
the child onto her lap and gently wiped her face. Then Isabella got
to her feet and made her way to the tiny cabin and lay down on her
bunk, steeling herself against the homesickness, which washed over
her in never-ending waves.

The next
morning, Isabella woke with a start as the ship lurched, and she
was forced up against the wall of her bunk. Dressing swiftly,
careful not to wake the snoring Mrs Trotter, Isabella hurried to
the dining room for breakfast. Though she’d felt miserable the day
before, there was a part of her that was excited to see England. At
home it was talked of with such fondness and longing by the British
soldiers, and held in such awe by the Indian soldiers. It must be
the most wonderful place. In her mind it would be a country of
gentle sunlight and softly falling rain and misty green hills
rolling off in every direction. The black sky presently overhead
must just be a passing storm; by the time they reached England
surely the clouds would roll back, and there would be the old
country, green and welcoming in the morning sun.

She was
therefore unprepared for the rain-lashed deck and buffeting
November winds when she and Mrs Trotter were finally called to
disembark, almost eight weeks to the day after leaving India.

Was this it?
Was this really Great Britain? This cold damp place; so dark
despite it being mid-morning. Isabella grimaced.

All around her
stood people with their bags packed, holding onto each other as the
ship pitched from side to side, leaning over the wooden rail their
faces excitedly turned up-river, desperate for the first glimpses
of London. It had taken all of that day for the ship to travel up
from where the mouth of the Thames met the English Channel, and
then a further night whilst they waited for the tide to turn.
Finally, with great sails snapping and billowing, the Hugh Lindsay
could pull into her berth at the East India Company docks just
south of London Bridge.

The docks next
to the bridge were so crowded, it looked to Isabella as if she
could have walked from one side of the river to the other, on
ships’ decks alone. All she could see in either direction were the
black spires of their masts, glistening with rain and reminding her
of the pine forests where she would camp with her father in the hot
summer months. A man stood down on the dock in the midst of the
chaos shouting orders at others who now swarmed over the boat,
climbing the rigging and attaching themselves to the hull.