With This Ring (16 page)

To her relief, she felt Major Reed’s
presence behind her. She did not turn around, but felt her own
confidence returning. At least I do not have to walk this path
alone again, she thought. At least, until the turn is
mine.

Charles began to struggle for
breath, and at last she turned around to motion the major closer.
She stopped in surprise at first, and then in huge
indignation.

Instead of the major, staring over
her shoulder were two men in high shirt points, with fobs and
seals. One of them held a cologne-drenched handkerchief to his
nose.

“
Oh, don’t mind us,” said the other,
his tone as languid as the hand he waved at her. “We’ve never seen
a man die before, and this is all so excessively
diverting.”

“
Oh, God,” she whispered, wanting to
throw herself on the dying soldier to keep them from staring at
him. “Please go away! He doesn’t deserve this!”

The men only crowded closer. “He is
only a common soldier, so how can it possibly matter?” said one,
his voice muffled by the handkerchief. “You there, tell me. Do they
all make such noises? I do hope he dies soon. We have another
engagement”—he pulled out his pocket watch—”in an hour, but we do
not want to miss something so promising.”

“
I thought they writhed about,” said
the other man, his tone disappointed. “He is merely lying there. We
were expecting more,” he concluded, and frowned at her as though
such inattention to detail was her fault.

“
Oh, you were?”

It was Major Reed, and he stood
behind the men now, his uniform jacket off and his hair untidy from
sleep.

Lydia stared at him. She thought she
had seen the major angry before, but as she watched the way he
stared at the two fribbles, inhabitants of their own class, she
realized how wrong she was, how unenlightened. She had nothing
except contempt for the human vultures who entertained themselves
by watching Private Banks’ death agony, but as she watched Major
Reed’s expression, she felt the smallest sympathy for the two men.
“I think you two should leave now,” she told them, her voice
low.

“
And lose a bet?” said the one with
the handkerchief. “Lord Allsuch has one hundred pounds sitting on
this one, and I intend to collect. Oh, do stand aside! He is doing
something interesting now, isn’t he? It’s about time.”

She turned back to the private, who
in his struggle to breathe was attempting to raise up on his elbow.
Keeping herself between him and the men who crowded close behind
her, she elevated him with another pillow, then sat on the edge of
his cot.

“
You made a bet?”

Lydia flinched at the conversational
tone in the major’s voice. How can these men be so stupid? she
asked herself in amazement. Major Reed had come closer now and was
standing between her and the men.

“
Yes! Yes!” said the other man
impatiently. “Allsuch said we hadn’t the rumgumption to watch one
of the soldiers die at St. Barnabas. To prove we have been here, we
are to take back some little souvenir from the dead man. You can
find us something when he dies. I wish you would move.”

“
I’ll find you something,” the major
said. “Let’s be dears now and let Charlie die first, shall we?” He
sat down beside Lydia and took the private’s other hand. “It’s all
right, Private Banks. I order you to let go.”

She thought he was beyond hearing,
but the private opened his eyes one last time. “We did it, didn’t
we?” he gasped, and then he died.

The major sat in silence a moment
and then he closed the private’s eyes. “Yes, we did, Charlie,” he
whispered, tears on his cheeks. “From Vimeiro to Toulouse, by God.
Shift a bit, Lydia.”

She did as he ordered, and the major
pulled the blanket she had been sitting on over his private’s face.
He turned around then, and still sitting on the cot, looked up at
the fribbles. “Well, then, sirs, what can we do for
you?”

His tone was so pleasant that she
felt almost sick to her stomach. Go away! she pleaded silently, but
the men were oblivious.

“
To begin with, I am disappointed,”
said the man with the handkerchief. “I was expecting something
more. Weren’t you, Lindsay? I thought so.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes, and this place stinks,”
complained the other.

Major Reed rose to his feet then.
Lydia wanted to leap up and grab his arm, but she remained where
she was. Reed sniffed the air elaborately, leaning close to the men
until they backed up. “Funny. The only stink I notice comes from
you two worthless hounds of hell.”

He said it so calmly that it took a
moment for his words to sink in. “See here!” declared
one.

“
Yes!” said the other. “Do you know
who my father is?”

“
No, and I doubt that you do,
either,” the major said. “You’re not fit to stand with heroes,” he
continued, his voice rising slightly as he stepped closer and the
men continued to retreat. “I could puke when I think that
we—Charlie here and I—fought for dregs like you.”

She could see fear in their eyes now
as the men shuffled backward against the major’s relentless
advance. “I just need a souvenir!” insisted the one with the
handkerchief. He gasped as he brushed against a pile of stained
bandages.

“
I have some proof for you. You can
take it to Mayfair.”

Before she could move to stop him,
Major Reed bent down and picked up an earthenware jar covered with
a cloth. With one swift motion, he threw the contents onto the two
fashionables. Dripping, stinking, they screamed and clutched each
other, then ran from the chapel.

His hand to his shoulder, the major
sat down on a vacant cot. “I probably shouldn’t have done that,” he
said after a long pause.

She thought of all the hot words she
could throw at him about manners and decorum, and rudeness to
possibly prominent people, but none of them seemed terribly
important. She touched the blanketed arm of the private. Charles,
you had an able defender, she thought, but you knew that, didn’t
you?

“
No, you shouldn’t have done that,”
she agreed, matching him calm for calm. “You might have hurt your
shoulder again.”

She stood up, noting how curious it
was that the room seemed to be dipping and spinning. She waited a
moment until the building stood still again, then crossed the
dripping floor to Major Reed and held out her hand to
him.

“
Let us shake hands, sir. I am going
now, and I will not be back. Do listen to your surgeons just once
in a while. Oh, and I wish you luck in your matrimonial
career.”

He looked startled that she would
leave, and this surprised her. “You have been telling me to go all
day,” she reminded him.

“
I suppose I have.” He shook her
hand. “Mind that you wash your hands really well, Miss Perkins.” He
cleared his throat, and changed the subject in that drastic way of
his. “If you won’t marry me, would you allow me to write
you?”

I would love to know how you go on
in Northumberland, she thought, and whether you can find a wife, or
even stand up straight again. “No, sir. That is rather too forward.
Good day.”

He seemed to take it in good grace,
smiling and nodding as she picked her way across the floor. I will
honestly miss him, she thought, and turned around for a last
look.

He had not moved any closer, so he
spoke to her in a loud voice, an artillery voice, one used to
carrying over canister and round-shot. “As far as I can see, Miss
Perkins, you have only one lack.”

“
I am an antidote?” she called
back.

“
God, no!” he said. “I don’t know
why you say that, and it irritates me.” He held his thumb and
forefinger close together. “Your spirit of adventure is a bit
undeveloped. That is all.”

She turned away. Thank you and
good-bye, Major Reed, she thought.

L
ydia was
quite alone with her thoughts as she rode home from St. Barnabas,
and her thoughts were not productive. With a heavy heart she gazed
out the window, seeing the arches and banners proclaiming victory,
and wondering if anyone who cheered or raised glasses had even an
inkling of the terrible price of success. I know I never did, she
thought.

She stirred restlessly in the
carriage, wishing that she could have walked off some of the
agitation that festered inside. The war was over, and discounting
renewed trouble in America, and the agitation that always simmered
in India, England was more at peace than anytime she could
remember. By the time the last man dies at St. Barnabas, she knew
that few would even remember that anyone was there in the crumbling
structure except bats and mice.

“
What did you expect, Lydia?” she
scolded herself. “You didn’t know such places existed before your
first visit.” She wondered what she would do with her newfound
knowledge. If Kitty does not contract a good alliance, we will
return to Devon, and things will go on as before, she thought. Mama
will scold and rail, Kitty will demand and pout, and I will be
expected to soothe and placate each, while Papa retreats to his
study. Life will go on as before, she decided and the fact did not
fill her with any enthusiasm, even though it was the only life she
knew.

She leaned against the glass and
closed her eyes. I suppose I will always wonder about Private
Charlie Banks, lowliest of men, a loader and rammer in the
remarkable Battery B, where he had worth and family. I can pray he
died peacefully, his commander with him, and not aware of the two
creatures who saw him only as entertainment on a boring
afternoon.

She took a deep breath and sat up
straight, appalled all over again by what she had witnessed. You
creatures are lucky that Major Reed only emptied the slops on you,
she thought. How sad that the major and his men should have to
fight through Portugal, Spain, and France, then come home to fight
different battles no less painful.

What is my place, now that I have
earned so much education? The question was high in her mind as she
went into the house on Holly Street. I should probably say
something to Mama, she thought. It will be an unpleasant interview,
but I ought to advise her to warn away Kitty from the likes of
those two—oh, I cannot call them men—those two unfeeling
beings.

There was no time for conversation,
she discovered, as she glanced at the clock, then hurried upstairs,
where the overworked maid who worked for her and Kitty had already
drawn her a bath. It was lukewarm, but she sank into it with
gratitude, wondering if there was enough soap in the world to
remove the disease and death that layered her like
armor.

She knew Mama would never permit her
to carry on any sort of philanthropic work at home. Lydia sank
lower in the water. “I can hear you now, Mama,” she said.
“ ’What would the neighbors think, Lydia, to find you grubbing
in workhouses? A little soup at Christmas to the deserving poor, or
some ox-foot jelly is all that is expected of a
lady.’ ”

She washed thoughtfully, thinking of
marriage, and reflecting on the vicar’s wives she had known through
the years; dour, practical women, for the most part, who were
expected to do more good than their parishioners. I shall have to
figure out how to snare a vicar, she thought. But oh, how I dread
the idea of Sunday sermons!

There was no time for more
reflection: the water was already getting cold. From habit, she
dressed by herself, knowing that the maid would be entirely
occupied with Kitty’s needs. She smoothed down the folds carefully,
her spirits rising a little. Papa had purchased the fabric for her
when Mama and Kitty were in Bath, and the dress was commissioned
and constructed before they returned. She clasped on the garnet
necklace, then mentally kicked herself because she had left behind
at St. Barnabas the beautiful bonnet that Major Reed had purchased
for her. “Oh, I am stupid,” she said, looking at herself in the
mirror. ‘The dear thing would have been perfect.”

Likely he is on his way to
Northumberland by now, she thought. I wonder what he has done with
the hat? I shall go back tomorrow and hunt for it, she told
herself, even though she knew she would never return to the
church.

How quiet the house is, she thought
as she went downstairs to the drawing room and seated herself,
careful not to wrinkle the fabric. St. Barnabas was quiet, too, she
thought, unable to direct her mind along other channels. Death is
charitable to come so quietly. One moment there is life, and in the
next, Private Banks sees more and knows more than we do who remain
behind. She closed her eyes. I must clear my mind of this, or it
will overpower me, she thought.

Papa joined her in a few minutes,
dressed formally and looking every inch a baronet. He ruined the
effect by peering around the edge of the door before he came into
the room. It is all right, Papa, she wanted to reassure him, but
she merely smiled. How sad that we have almost nothing to say,
after twenty-two years in the same family. “Papa, you look quite
handsome,” she said finally.

He started, as usual, then smiled
back. “So do you, my dear. I believe yellow is most attractive on
you.” He cleared his throat, and glanced around again. “How was
your day at St. Barnabas?” he asked, as he had every evening for
the past two weeks.