The Rose of Sebastopol (26 page)

LONDON, 1855

 

 

 

W
hen Rosa stopped writing
we weren’t unduly alarmed at first. The post from the Crimea was so erratic that people wrote to the papers protesting how in our modern times of steamships and telegraphs it was disgraceful that families had to wait up to a month for news. But as the days passed and still no letter came we grew anxious. Mother wrote to everyone we could think of, including the English ambassador in Turkey, the War Office, Miss Nightingale, then every point of contact in the Crimea from Lord Raglan to Captain Max Stukeley. We even disobeyed Rosa’s instructions and wrote to Henry that she was perhaps nursing in Balaklava, and could he look out for her.

In the end Father discovered that Miss Stanley was back in London and at once paid her a call, but only managed to speak to her brother, an archdeacon, who gave a brief, mournful interview during which he said that Miss Stanley was too ill to speak.

Three days later a letter arrived written in a quavering female hand.

We told ourselves that no news was good news, and that knowing Rosa she would be in the midst of some extraordinary adventure but anxiety made my sewing coarse and erratic; I couldn’t be bothered to keep the reverse side of my embroidery as immaculate as the front; and the criss-crossing of loose ends frustrated me so much that I once slashed an entire afternoon’s work to pieces with Aunt Eppie’s little scissors. I didn’t care if my hair needed washing or my gloves mending and when I went with Mother to the Governesses’ Home I found the smell of ancient bodies so oppressive I had to wait outside in the carriage.

Father was so concerned about my low spirits that one afternoon he made time to drive me across London to The Elms but the trip was unfortunate because the gates were locked and he had forgotten the key. I peered through the bars at the blank windows and noticed that clumps of daffodils had sprouted on the lawn and some were already brown. When we arrived back at Fosse House, Featherbridge told us that Lady Stukeley was serving tea to a gentleman in the drawing room.

In the months since Christmas Isabella had altered her mourning by degrees so that now cascades of lace spilt from her throat and wrists, and jewels (those she had saved from Horatio Stukeley’s clutches) sparkled on her fingers and breast. A further lace creation was perched atop her softly coiled hair which, released from her widow’s cap, was revealed to be a tender shade of gray-blond, and her complexion was powder-soft and pink. She looked matronly and genial, her plump bosom ripe with promise.

She introduced the gentleman, Mr. Shackleton, as a distant relative of Mr. Hardcastle’s. “Mr. Shackleton and I discovered at once,” she said, smiling guilelessly from her nest of shawls and pillows, “that we share an interest in nature.” Today, in response to her supposed nostalgia for the abundant specimens of flora and fauna on her Derbyshire estate, Shackleton had rushed round to show her part of his moth collection, twelve creatures in all, pinned inside a glass frame.

The visitor was so short that when he got up to shake my hand the top of his head was level with my nose, and so small and bony that his frock coat would have fit me. His ginger beard stuck out like the blade of a spade. As soon as was politely possible he sat beside Isabella again, leant close to her shoulder, and allowed his hand to stray near her breast as he pointed out the markings on what he insisted was a particularly handsome cinnabar moth.

I noted that Isabella had ordered the best tea service, and this shameless appropriation of Mother’s treasured porcelain was the last straw. “Is there a letter from Rosa yet?” I asked.

Sure enough her lip quivered and her eyes filled. Mr. Shackleton took the cup from her shaking fingers. “No letter. None from Rosa. Oh, Mr. Shackleton forgive me. I don’t know how I shall carry on.”

O
n the morning of May
2
,
Featherbridge brought me a letter on his salver. The envelope was addressed in an unknown hand, post-marked in Italy a week ago. I took it upstairs to my room, closed the door, and sat down at the dressing table.

Of course I knew that the letter could only bring bad news, I would have been a fool to expect anything else. Throughout that winter, wherever we went, bad news hung in the air like miasma. Everyone was afraid of catching it. When I glimpsed my face in the mirror I saw that I was deathly pale.

The first sheet of paper, which enfolded all the others, was written by a stranger.

 

Next, a crumpled envelope with no stamp, addressed to me in Henry’s writing.