Shining Threads (36 page)

‘I don’t care what you say, Mrs Shepherd, if she don’t get out soon God knows what she’ll do. She’s as wild as an animal in a cage at times.’

Emma had been to the Zoological Gardens at Liverpool once when her family had stopped there for a while on their way from Ireland and the famine which continually seemed to rage there, before
moving on to Crossfold. The restless padding and infuriated snarls of some beasts, the listless apathy of others had made a great impression on her and had lingered in her young mind. Miss Tessa
reminded her of them. Not the padding, of course, since she could do no more than stand weakly by her chair as yet, but the snarling, the wildness, the sudden, depthless silence were enough to make
your blood run cold.

And Miss Laurel did her best, poor thing, and her with another little one to see to.

‘I do wish you would stay in bed, Tessa. Don’t you think it would be wiser to rest instead of . . .’

‘Taking up everyone’s time and energy with my constant demands? It would be so much simpler if I were to remain here, mim as a mouse, hidden away and a nuisance to no one,
wouldn’t it? It must be so peaceful at table now without Drew and Pearce and myself to . . .’

‘That is not what I meant. In my opinion, this determination of yours to leap out of bed so soon after what has been a very serious illness . . .’

‘
Leap?
If only I could! Why am I so weak?’

‘It cannot be good for you, all this anxiety to be on your feet. Why don’t you stay in bed and I will fetch you a book from the library?’

‘A book! Dammit, Laurel, I don’t want a book. I want some excitement, some noise, something going on. Why don’t you send the children down to see me?’

‘They would jump all over you, darling.’

‘I don’t care. I want them to.’

‘Now, Tessa, you know what the doctor said. Besides, Robert and Jane are at their lessons and Nanny would not like it if I woke Henry and Anne from their nap. And baby is too young . .
.’

‘Laurel . . . please . . .’

‘Just rest, Tessa.’

‘
I don’t want to rest!
’

It was March before she was completely recovered, nine long months before she was able at last to walk with her usual proud carriage and not just the lurching stagger from one piece of furniture
to the next, with Emma and Dorcas hovering at each elbow. At last she could pass out of the bedroom which had been her prison for so long; away from the cosy, fire-warmed comfort, the feather
quilts and lace-edged pillows, the soft carpets and soft voices, away from safety and into the wide hallway towards the stairs.

‘Let me do it alone,’ she begged Charlie who would have held her arm.

Down the shallow steps of the stairs, one by one, she went, her hand refusing the banister, her legs like jelly but her face hard and determined in her triumph. She wore a pretty gown of scarlet
delaine, the colour giving her a bold and gypsy look which belied her fragility. It had been made to fit her new slenderness and the bodice clung to her small breasts. The skirt was full and plain
with fifteen feet of fabric round the hem. And beneath it were half a dozen fine cambric petticoats, each flounce edged in white French lace. Fastening back her flowing hair was a scarlet
ribbon.

The front door stood open to let in the sunshine and she stepped through it into the fresh light of spring. Gardeners raised their heads from their planting and touched a finger to their caps
and she nodded to them, but it was not them who held her attention.

On the gravel driveway, stamping and blowing through her nostrils as though she knew what a great day this was, stood her mare, saddled, her coat glowing, her mane tossing, her eyes rolling in
her mistress’s direction. Walter held her bridle, beaming from ear to ear, his face as red as Tessa’s dress.

‘She’s ready for thee, Miss Tessa,’ he said, then wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

She walked down the steps, her legs no longer like jelly but strong and sure and when she put her face against that of the animal’s she was smiling since she knew she would survive
now.

‘Give me a week or two, Walter.’

‘Happen less, miss?’

‘Aye, happen . . .’ and they both grinned.

The valley of Balaclava lay desolate and melancholy. The road to the camp was a track of liquid filth. The town itself was as muddy as the plains which surrounded it. The
tideless harbour was no more than a common sewer in which floated not only the waste of the bodies of thousands of men but the carcasses of soldiers, horses, dogs, cats and every other discarded
and decomposing matter which could be found no other resting place.

For weeks now those who still survived had been without proper clothing, fuel or food and to worsen matters further in this vast and mystifying war, the reason for which the soldiers themselves
were not fully aware of, there was a virulent outbreak of cholera. In the camp hospitals the men lay down to die upon the bare ground and in the hospitals themselves, ignorance, dirt and confusion
prevailed for want of doctors, blankets, medicines, bandages, fresh water, beds and space to put beds. Even had these been available, there was still the need for someone with the sense and energy
to arrange them all together.

The weather was appalling. There were heavy squalls with winds so strong they brought down every tent on the plateau. No fires could be lit and no food cooked and the sick and wounded lay
exposed to the elements which were no respecters of rank. Generals, officers, soldiers, sick, wounded, hale and hearty lay together in the deluge and when the rain turned to snow 300 men died in
one day.

But worst of all, far worse than anything which had previously befallen them, four steam transports, ten sailing transports and four freight ships, caught by the violence of the weather were
dashed to the bottom of the harbour.

And those who were left, without blankets or rugs, socks, boots, biscuit, salt beef, or even corn for the horses which survived, must face the winter in the liquid mud on which the camp floated.
Every victim on the muddy and half-frozen plains of the Crimea sent home doleful and angry accounts of his own and his brother soldiers’ suffering. It was always the same. They lived from
hand to mouth with the minimum of ammunition to keep them safe from the enemy. Their lives were unendurable and when they lost them it was from overwork and exposure, not as soldiers in the heat of
battle but like deserted children abandoned by cruel parents. In two weeks the number of sick increased from 13,000 to 16,000. What had become of the fine army, they asked one another, sent off so
dashingly, for no other reason, it seemed, than that there had been no war for forty years and it was time for another?

It was about this time that Miss Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari and the hospital there.

The two young soldiers had, with what remained of their strength, dug a hole in the hard ground, just deep enough and wide enough for them to sit, or lie side by side, drawing over it a sheet of
canvas from another such hole in which four soldiers of the 2nd Hussars had frozen to death several weeks before. Thousands of men had died but the loss of life had become a condition of life
itself and they concentrated the whole of their physical energy, which was scant, and the whole of their mental energy which was not much better when there is nothing to do all day but turn their
minds to their memories.

‘Do you remember the day she’ – they never mentioned her name by unspoken mutual agreement – ‘challenged us to a race from . . . where was it? . . . Badger’s
Edge or Friar’s Mere? . . . I forget, to Greenacres? She jumped that bloody gate as though it was no more than a foot or so from the ground then turned to grin at us. It was May. The sky was
so blue that day and it was warm . . .’

‘Warm? Warm? What the devil does that mean, d’you think, brother? How does it feel? It is so long since we enjoyed it I have forgot. To be warm and dry and clean . . .’

‘And can you remember the time we went with Nicky Longworth and Johnny Taylor to that dog fight at the Craven Heifer?’

‘She didn’t like it, as I recall . . .’

‘No,’ the voice was soft and smiling, ‘and, really, would you have expected her to? She only went because we did.’

‘The poor brute was nearly disembowelled . . .’

‘And she brought her dinner back and then tried to pretend she had eaten something which had disagreed with her.’

‘Eaten something! What do those words bring to mind, Pearce? To eat something. Actually to put in your mouth some delectable, tasty, delicious,
palatable
food. What, though? What
would you order if you could have anything you wanted?’

‘Roast beef.’

‘Yes, yes, or smoked salmon with . . .’

‘No, a saddle of lamb with mint sauce . . .’

‘Pheasant done in . . .’

‘Followed by . . .’

‘Washed down with a good claret . . ’

‘And then a warm, clean bed . . .’

They fell silent. Their shoulders touched and they huddled in the faint and grave-like light cast through the heavy canvas, their backs to the wall of the dugout. They had a candle which they
did not light, ever, except in the emergencies created by Pearce’s nightmares where he dreamed he was buried alive beneath a growing mound of dead and injured soldiers, as he had been at the
tail end of the battle of Alma. Drew had been beside him for they had made sure as the frenzied day had eased towards nightfall that they did not become separated again. When the bursting shell had
lifted a dozen or more soldiers, shredding them to an assortment of bloody torsos, arms, legs and heads, and threw them by some strange chance over Pearce, burying him for ten appalling minutes
with the softness and wetness and obscene weight, it had been Drew who had dug him out. Pearce dreamed of it often, screaming as he had done then, clinging to his brother until the candle was lit
and sanity returned.

They had a blanket between them, their most treasured possession since not many were so lucky. They had an upturned wooden crate on which stood the pathetic bits and pieces so dear to a soldier
far from home and which once they would have laughed over: a miniature of their mother as a girl, a few letters from their aunt and Charlie, a length of satin ribbon with a faint smell of some
woman’s perfume and which neither would acknowledge to be hers, a box with brushes and a comb, razors and a tiny, prized sliver of soap.

They each wore mud-stained breeches, knee-length boots, an army greatcoat and a peaked soldier’s cap. They were dirty with a sour odour about them for neither had washed, let alone bathed,
in weeks. Their beards were dark and stiff and their blue eyes, once so vivid, clear and devilish with merry arrogance, were dulled and staring from faces old and tired beyond their years. They had
seen and heard sights and sounds they would never forget. They had lost their horses and every fine thing they had brought with such high expectations from England and in each one was the common
longing to survive and get home. Nothing more. To survive the cholera and the dysentery, the shot and shell the enemy rained upon them, the siege and the enemy which besieged them. Somehow to get
up that invisible track to Balaclava and on to the first transport they could arrange to England. They had been taken for soldiers and had not argued since that was the only way to be fed. They
existed, when they were on the duty they were forced to do, in the mud and rain and bitter cold of the trenches, returning to sleep in wet clothes on the wet ground of their dugout.

‘D’you remember the fatty-cakes Cook used to make for the servants? We used to turn up our noses at them as some quaint dish of the working class.’

‘They’d be bloody welcome now . . .’ But the rest of what Drew Greenwood said was cut off by the clear call of a bugle and with a muffled exclamation both young men leaped to
their feet, threw aside the canvas of their ‘home’ and with a hundred others began to move towards the source of the sound.

Tessa read Drew’s letter again then stood up and strode towards the door, gathering up her crop and jacket as she went. She would ride over to Edgeclough and visit Annie.
It was a week since she had seen her and in that time she had done nothing but tear about from one place to another in search of some occupation which would keep her from going mad with boredom . .
. and grief. There were, after all, only so many hours in which one could ride to hounds, and besides the season had ended with the coming of early summer. She had ridden for hours across the
burgeoning moorland grasses, called time and time again at the Hall with the excuse that she brought news of Drew and Pearce and though the Squire and his friends welcomed her warmly, the
Squire’s lady could not quite forget Tessa Harrison’s behaviour at the ball last year. She and Robby Atherton had been the talk of the community then and after all it had come to
nothing.

March had seen the allies making preparation for the bombardment against Sebastopol. In April there was what Pearce called a ‘skirmish’ at a place called the Mamelon. In May an
expedition was despatched to Kertch with the express purpose of seizing the strait which led into the Sea of Azoff through which the Russian supplies were sent, and in June the Mamelon described by
Pearce was captured. In July and August the Allies crept nearer to victory, and on the ‘glorious twelfth’ Tessa accompanied the Squire and his guests, shooting grouse, partridge and
pheasant, drifting very pleasantly through the late summer and autumn days, the depth of her sadness hidden away beneath her wild, high-strung laughter. It was a pity about her cousins, they said,
still, for some reason known only to themselves, out there fighting in the Crimea when they might have been having such fun with them, but they had Tessa to amuse them. She was so exhilarating,
reckless and willing to do
anything
they did in her search for pleasure, careless and indifferent to the opinions of others. She wore her new outfit, designed by herself and made up for her
by a disapproving Miss Maymon who had never created such garments in her life, of black riding jacket, sleek, skin-tight breeches and a white, watered-silk waistcoat. She wore a black top hat, a
white frilled stock and black riding boots and was vastly amused, she told an admiring Nicky Longworth, by the consternation of the commercial and manufacturing society of the Penfold Valley who
had, no doubt, thought her roistering days had come to an end with the departure of her cousins for the Balkans. She caused a sensation on the hunting field at the start of the new season, in the
company of the wild and, in her mother’s opinion, unstable fox-hunting set of Crossfold who were, they thought, beyond being amazed at anything Tessa or her missing cousins did.