The Rose of Sebastopol (27 page)

 

And finally, a few scraps of paper that scattered on my lap like confetti.

 

For the rest of the day I didn’t leave my room as I read and reread the contents of the envelope until the words of Henry’s last, scribbled notes were as part of me as flesh and bone. I fumbled through volumes of Keats until I found the “Bright Star” sonnet from which he’d quoted and by midday I’d learnt it by heart. Then I sat in the window and watched the May sun climb higher in the sky, the shadows shorten, the cedar glitter and ripple in new greens, the changing quality of light in my room.

Punctually at four o’clock I heard the doorbell. Next came the voices of Mr. Shackleton and my aunt as they emerged onto the terrace beneath my window, then the chink of teacups.

As the afternoon advanced the light grew warmer and the garden dipped into a late-springtime haze of blossom and new leaf. Everything shifted under the golden wash of the sky. From my window I couldn’t see much past the cedar, except the beginning of the wilderness and the edge of the vegetable garden where the new gardener stooped and straightened, stooped and straightened.

Early in the evening I dressed for dinner. When I opened my door I was immediately aware that the ears of the house were alert. Nora appeared at the top of the staircase. “You’ve had news,” she said.

I nodded.

“Rosa?”

“Dr. Thewell. He is very sick.”

“Does he mention her?”

“He does. He saw her, but a long time ago.”

She came a step closer and a light glimmered at the back of her eye. “I hope now we shall take action,” she said.

At dinner I took no part in the conversation. Father was in for once, and Aunt was still up, though on the brink of tears because of Rosa. Mother filled the silences with the news that premises had been found for a second Governesses’ Home in Fulham; all that was needed was seven hundred pounds though Mrs. Hardcastle wondered if it was the right time to embark on such a project, given that she was herself about to leave for the trip to Europe.

Father joined us in the drawing room as soon as we left the table. Aunt, too distracted to work, lay back on the sofa with her hands clasped under her bosom, rotating her thumbs round each other. A window was open and a draught ruffled the frill on her cap. The grandmother clock began its wheezing buildup to the hour and struck nine. Mother’s pen squeaked. Father turned the page of
The Times
but said nothing about the war. I was working on a simple patchwork quilt for one of the governesses, because straight lines and plain seams were all I could manage.

Despite the thaw in relations between us, Aunt had not quite lost her habit of speaking about rather than to me. “I see Mariella is using the striped flannel after all,” she said. “Maria, I see your daughter is disregarding all our advice that flannel will not wear well. That old shirt of Philip’s has been washed too often.”

Mother’s pen paused and she smiled attentively but I could tell she wasn’t listening.

“I’m surprised there is enough fabric even for eight small squares. Well, I hope she’s allowing more than a quarter of an inch for the seams. I’ve noticed that Mr. Shackleton wears ...”

I stood up and the quilt went rolling the length of my skirt onto the floor. Afterwards I discovered the needle still pressed between the index finger and thumb of my right hand. “I am going to see Henry,” I said but my voice was no more than a whisper, and at that moment Featherbridge came in with the tea tray and placed it on the table in front of Mother. “I will need some money,” I added after he’d gone. “I’ll ask the Hardcastles if I can go to Italy with them.”

I was shaking so much that my knees actually knocked against each other. Aunt said: “Stir the tea before it stews, Sister. I don’t know what the girl is talking about. Maria, can you make sense of what your daughter . . . ? ”

Father let his paper drop into his lap and Mother laid down her pen, because I was still standing by the tea table saying in a querulous voice, “So, Father, I wonder if I might have a few pounds for the journey.”

“Journey,” said Mother, “where are you going? ”

“Henry. I must see Henry.”

“Oh, that’s it,” said Isabella, “here’s another girl wanting to up sticks and abandon us.”

“Follow me,” said Father, and ushered me into his study, a room I scarcely ever entered now, though as a child I’d been allowed to go in and borrow one of his thick erasers for my drawings, or peer at the faultless pencil lines of the plans spread out on the drawing board.

I sank down in the one armchair and started to cry while he paced about. “What is this, Ella? What are you talking about?”

“Henry is ill. He is in Italy. I think he may be dying. I must go to him.” I held out the letters and covered my face.

He didn’t speak for a long time though I heard the slight rustle of paper as he placed each page on his desk. At last he said: “My dear child, I hardly know what to say. This doesn’t sound like Henry at all. I would not have believed him capable of anything so . . .”

“How can I not go to him, Father?”

He stared at me. Then he coughed, folded each sheet into four, and handed them back to me. “And it seems that he met Rosa, but so long ago it scarcely helps. He might have let us know before. Mariella, what of all this uncertainty about Rosa? And then there is the question of a chaperone. Who would be your companion? ”

I sat open-mouthed, nose running, tears dripping off my jaw and onto my bosom, because something extraordinary had happened: Father was discussing the obstacles rather than forbidding me to consider the plan any further.

It had never, for an instant, occurred to me that I might be allowed to go.

ITALY, 1855

 

 

 

T
he next morning Nora and I
set off once more for Henry’s lodging. Though the air was warm, it was still raining and the street was slippery with dirt.

Signora Critelli was actually at the door and as soon as we were within earshot shouted at me:
“Il medico . . . inglese . . . Roma . . .”
and bustled me up the stairs. An unpromising stranger emerged from Henry’s room and peered down at us; his florid complexion was due, from the smell of him, to a partiality for wine. This was the English doctor, Lyall, back from Rome at last.

“Was it you who encouraged him to go out yesterday?”

“There was no encouragement. He chose to go.”

“Madness. What is the point of all my hard work if it’s to be undone in a matter of hours? Getting a consumptive patient wet is as good as signing his death warrant.”

“Consumptive?”

“Was there ever any doubt? You must have known. Dear God, no wonder I choose to live away from England. No-one admits the truth there.”

“Is he much worse? ”

“I’m amazed he survived the night. Well, in you go. I presume you’re the woman he’s been talking about. Tormenting himself. You can’t do any more damage, after all.”

“What do you mean, tormenting himself ? ”

“You’ll no doubt be gratified to have him in thrall. Isn’t that every woman’s dream? ”

Henry was lying much as I had first seen him except that he didn’t even raise his head but flung it back and forth as if trying to escape the pillow. The shutters were closed and there was no daylight, just the glow of one candle.

When I knelt by the bed and took his icy hands he stared at me blindly, as if he was in the midst of a dream. “Henry, it is I, Mariella.”

He seemed not to know me, then suddenly gripped my hand. “Mariella.”

His beauty took my breath away: the tumble of hair on his forehead, the sculptured curve of his nostril, the fullness of his lips. I longed to press my mouth to his breastbone, visible through his translucent skin. With his burning eyes fixed on my face the knot of pain loosened inside me. I thought, he’s dying and I must forgive him everything, there’s no time for blame. “I love you,” I said and kissed his forehead.

Suddenly he clasped the back of my head and put his lips to my ear. “Help me. Find Rosa.” It was as if he had struck me in the mouth. “Mariella. Please. Please find her.”

I sat up poker-straight.

“Mariella. I beg you. There are terrible deaths. Thousands of unmarked graves. You must find her.”

“I’ll write her a letter,” I said at last.

“No. Find her. Tell her to come to me. I think she will, she must. I see her. I hear her voice but I can’t reach her. I should never have closed my eyes.” His grip was so tight on my hand that my fingers hurt. “Find Rosa.”

I was cold as stone though he was hunched over towards me with tears oozing down his cheek. “Mariella. Find Rosa.”

“Where shall I look, Henry?” He fell back on the pillow. “What happened? Please tell me.”

He pushed my hand away. “Find Rosa. Hurry.”

After that Nora and I walked back without a word to the Hotel Fina, where my room was so dark that I had to grope my way to the bed. She unlatched the window, lifted the bar, and flung open the shutters to admit a flood of moist, gray light. “Well?”

“I want to be alone.”

“And later?”

“We’ll go home tomorrow.”

“You’re never intending to leave him? ”

“I’m not wanted here.”

“Then you’re to abandon him? ”

“I’ve told you. He doesn’t want me. All he can think about is Rosa.”

“It’s true then, what’s being said. The woman downstairs insisted he’d been speaking her name, over and over.”

I untied my bonnet, threw myself back on the pillows, and covered my eyes with my forearm.

“They met at the war,” she said. “There’s no more to it than that, so he’ll be wanting to know if she’s safe.”

“He’s obsessed with her.”

“Well, it seems to me he’s right. Someone should go looking for Rosa. This silence from her isn’t natural.”

I sat up and gaped at her. “Nora, she’s in the Crimea, in Russia, in the midst of a war. How could I get there? ”

“We’ll find a way.”

“I’m alone. The Hardcastles . . .”

“I’ll go with you. I have a great fondness for Rosa.”

“I don’t want you to come with me. We’re going home.”

“Then I’ll go by myself.”

“And leave me here?”

“You have Dr. Thewell to care for, after all.”

“I don’t want you mentioning his name again. He’s in love with Rosa. I can’t bear to think about either of them. Leave me alone.”

“Now don’t you be thinkin’ ill of that girl. She would rather cut off her hand than hurt a hair on your head.”

She marched out of the room, leaving me shipwrecked on the bed. But then an hour or so later back she came with a cup of tea. “I presume you’ll be wanting to make some arrangements for the journey. We can’t just stand at the door and expect a carriage to arrive and carry us off,” she said.

I wouldn’t meet her eye. “We’ll go to the Hardcastles in Rome, as arranged. Mr. Hardcastle will take care of the rest.”