The face of a stranger Page 17

  Hester remembered going over the battlefield afterwards, the ground soaked with blood, seeing mangled bodies, some so terrible the limbs lay yards away. She had done all she could to relieve the suffering, working till exhaustion numbed her beyond feeling and she was dizzy with the sights and sounds of pain. Wounded were piled on carts and trundled to field hospital tents. She had worked all night and all day, exhausted, dry-mouthed with thirst, aching and drenched with horror. Orderlies had tried to stop the bleeding; there was little to do for shock but a few precious drops of brandy. What she would have given then for the contents of Shelburne's cellars.

  The dinner table conversation buzzed on around her, cheerful, courteous, and ignorant. The flowers swam in her vision, summer blooms grown by careful gardeners, orchids tended in the glass conservatory. She thought of herself walking in the grass one hot afternoon with letters from home in her pocket, amid the dwarf roses and the blue larkspur that grew again in the field of Balaclava the year after the Charge of the Light Brigade, that idiotic piece of insane bungling and suicidal heroism. She had gone back to the hospital and tried to write and tell them what it was really like, what she was doing and how it felt, the sharing and the good things, the friendships, Fanny Bolsover, laughter, courage. The dry resignation of the men when they were issued green coffee beans, and no means to roast or grind them, had evoked her admiration so deeply it made her throat ache with sudden pride. She could hear the scratching of the quill over the paper now—and the sound as she tore it up.

  "Fine man," General Wadham was saying, staring into his claret glass. "One of England's heroes. Lucan and Cardigan are related—I suppose you know? Lucan married one of Lord Cardigan's sisters—what a family." He shook his head in wonder. "What duty!"

  "Inspires us all," Ursula agreed with shining eyes.

  "They hated each other on sight," Hester said before she had time for discretion to guard her tongue.

  "I beg your pardon!" The general stared at her coldly, his rather wispy eyebrows raised. His look centered all his incredulity at her impertinence and disapproval of women who spoke when it was not required of them.

  Hester was stung by it. He was exactly the sort of blind, arrogant fool who had caused such immeasurable loss on the battlefield through refusal to be informed, rigidity of thought, panic when they found they were wrong, and personal emotion which overrode truth.

  "I said that Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan hated each other from the moment they met," she repeated clearly in the total silence.

  "I think you are hardly in a position to judge such a thing, madame." He regarded her with total contempt. She was less than a subaltern, less than a private, for heaven's sake—she was a woman! And she had contradicted him, at least by implication and at the dinner table.

  “I was on the battlefield at the Alma, at Inkermann and at Balaclava, and at the siege of Sebastopol, sir," she answered without dropping her gaze. "Where were you?"

  His face flushed scarlet. "Good manners, and regard for our hosts, forbid me from giving you the answer you deserve, madame," he said very stiffly. "Since the meal is finished, perhaps it is time the ladies wished to retire to the withdrawing room?"

  Rosamond made as if to rise in obedience, and Ursula laid her napkin beside her plate, although there was still half a pear unfinished on it.

  Fabia sat where she was, two spots of color in her cheeks, and very carefully and deliberately Callandra reached for a peach and began to peel it with her fruit knife and fork, a small smile on her face.

  No one moved. The silence deepened.

  "I believe it is going to be a hard winter," Lovel said at last. "Old Beckinsale was saying he expects to lose half his crop."

  "He says that every year," Menard grunted and finished the remnant of his wine, throwing it back without savor, merely as if he would not waste it.

  "A lot of people say things every year." Callandra cut away a squashy piece of fruit carefully and pushed it to the side of her plate. “It is forty years since we beat Napoleon at Waterloo, and most of us still think we have the same invincible army and we expect to win with the same tactics and the same discipline and courage that defeated half Europe and ended an empire.''

  "And by God, we shall, madame!" The general slammed down his palm, making the cutlery jump. "The British soldier is the superior of any man alive!"

  "I don't doubt it," Callandra agreed. "It is the British general in the field who is a hidebound and incompetent ass."

  "Callandra! For God's sake!" Fabia was appalled.

  Menard put his hands over his face.

  "Perhaps we should have done better had you been there, General Wadham," Callandra continued unabashed, looking at him frankly. "You at least have a very considerable imagination!"

  Rosamond shut her eyes and slid down in her seat. Lovel groaned.

  Hester choked with laughter, a trifle hysterically, and stuffed her napkin over her mouth to stifle it.

  General Wadham made a surprisingly graceful strategic retreat. He decided to accept the remark as a compliment.

  "Thank you, madame," he said stiffly. "Perhaps I might have prevented the slaughter of the Light Brigade."

  And with that it was left. Fabia, with a little help from Lovel, rose from her seat and excused the ladies, leading them to the withdrawing room, where they discussed such matters as music, fashion, society, forthcoming weddings, both planned and speculated, and were excessively polite to one another.

  When the visitors finally took their leave, Fabia turned

  upon her sister-in-law with a look that should have shriveled her.

  "Callandra—I shall never forgive you!"

  "Since you have never forgiven me for wearing the exact shade of gown as you when we first met forty years ago," Callandra replied, "I shall just have to bear it with the same fortitude I have shown over all the other episodes since."

  "You are impossible. Dear heaven, how I miss Josce-lin." She stood up slowly and Hester rose as a matter of courtesy. Fabia walked towards the double doors. "I am going to bed. I shall see you tomorrow." And she went out, leaving them also.

  "You are impossible, Aunt Callandra," Rosamond agreed, standing in the middle of the floor and looking confused and unhappy. "I don't know why you say such things."

  "I know you don't," Callandra said gently. "That is because you have never been anywhere but Middleton, Shelburne Hall or London society. Hester would say the same, if she were not a guest here—indeed perhaps more. Our military imagination has ossified since Waterloo." She stood up and straightened her skirts. "Victory—albeit one of the greatest in history and turning the tide of nations— has still gone to our heads and we think all we have to do to win is to turn up in our scarlet coats and obey the rules. And only God can measure the suffering and the death that pigheadedness has caused. And we women and politicians sit here safely at home and cheer them on without the slightest idea what the reality of it is."

  "Joscelin is dead," Rosamond said bleakly, staring at the closed curtains.

  "I know that, my dear," Callandra said from close behind her. "But he did not die in the Crimea." .

  "He may have died because of it!"

  "Indeed he may," Callandra conceded, her face suddenly touched with gentleness. "And I know you were extremely fond of him. He had a capacity for pleasure,

  both to give and to receive, which unfortunately neither Lovel nor Menard seem to share. I think we have exhausted both ourselves and the subject. Good night, my dear. Weep if you wish; tears too long held in do us no good. Composure is all very well, but there is a time to acknowledge pain also." She slipped her arm around the slender shoulders and hugged her briefly, then knowing the gesture would release the hurt as well as comfort, she took Hester by the elbow and conducted her out to leave Rosamond alone.

  * * * * *

  The following morning Hester overslept and rose with a headache. She did not feel like early breakfast, and still less like facing any of the family across the ta
ble. She felt passionately about the vanity and the incompetence she had seen in the army, and the horror at the suffering would never leave her; probably the anger would not either. But she had not behaved very well at dinner; and the memory of it churned around in her mind, trying to fall into a happier picture with less fault attached to herself, and did not improve either her headache or her temper.

  She decided to take a brisk walk in the park for as long as her energy lasted. She wrapped up appropriately, and by nine o'clock was striding rapidly over die grass getting her boots wet.

  She first saw the figure of the man with considerable irritation, simply because she wished to be alone. He was probably inoffensive, and presumably had as much right to be here as herself—perhaps more? He no doubt served some function. However she felt he intruded, he was another human being in a world of wind and great trees and vast, cloud-racked skies and shivering, singing grass.

  When he drew level he stopped and spoke to her. He was dark, with an arrogant face, all lean, smooth bones and clear eyes.

  "Good morning, ma'am. I see you are from Shelburne Hall—"

  "How observant," she said tartly, gazing around at the

  totally empty parkland. There was no other place she could conceivably have come from, unless she had emerged from a hole in the ground.

  His face tightened, aware of her sarcasm. "Are you a member of the family?" He was staring at her with some intensity and she found it disconcerting, and bordering on the offensive.

  "How is that your concern?" she asked coldly.

  The concentration deepened in his eyes, and then suddenly there was a flash of recognition, although for the life of her she could not think of any occasion on which she had seen him before. Curiously he did not refer to it.

  "I am inquiring into the murder of Joscelin Grey. I wonder if you had known him."

  "Good heavens!" she said involuntarily. Then she collected herself. “I have been accused of tactlessness in my time, but you are certainly in a class of your own." A total lie—Callandra would have left him standing! "It would be quite in your deserving if I told you I had been his fiancée—and fainted on the spot!"

  "Then it was a secret engagement," he retorted. "And if you go in for clandestine romance you must expect to have your feelings bruised a few times."

  "Which you are obviously well equipped to do!" She stood still with the wind whipping her skirts, still wondering why he had seemed to recognize her.

  "Did you know him?" he repeated irritably.

  "Yes!"

  "For how long?"

  "As well as I remember it, about three weeks."

  "That's an odd time to know anyone!"

  "What would you consider a usual time to know someone?" she demanded.

  "It was very brief," he explained with careful condescension. "You can hardly have been a friend of the family. Did you meet him just before he died?''

  "No. I met him in Scutari."

  "You what?"

  "Are you hard of hearing? I met him in Scutari!" She remembered the general's patronizing manner and all her memories of condescension flooded back, the army officers who considered women out of place, ornaments to be used for recreation or comfort but not creatures of any sense. Gentlewomen were for cossetting, dominating and protecting from everything, including adventure or decision or freedom of any kind. Common women were whores or drudges and to be used like any other livestock.

  "Oh yes," he agreed with a frown. "He was injured. Were you out there with your husband?''

  "No I was not!" Why should that question be faintly hurtful? "I went to nurse the injured, to assist Miss Nightingale, and those like her."

  His face did not show the admiration and profound sense of respect close to awe that the name usually brought. She was thrown off balance by it. He seemed to be single-minded in his interest in Joscelin Grey.

  "You nursed Major Grey?"

  "Among others. Do you mind if we proceed to walk? I am getting cold standing here."

  "Of course." He turned and fell into step with her and they began along the faint track in the grass towards a copse of oaks. "What were your impressions of him?"

  She tried hard to distinguish her memory from the picture she had gathered from his family's words, Rosamond's weeping, Fabia's pride and love, the void he had left in her happiness, perhaps Rosamond's also, his brothers' mixture of exasperation and—what—envy?

  "I can recall his leg rather better than his face," she said frankly.

  He stared at her with temper rising sharply in his face.

  "I am not interested in your female fantasies, madame, or your peculiar sense of humor! This is an investigation into an unusually brutal murder!"

  She lost her temper completely.

  "You incompetent idiot!" she shouted into the wind. "You grubby-minded, fatuous nincompoop. I was nursing him. I dressed and cleaned his wound—which, in case you have forgotten, was in his leg. His face was uninjured, therefore I did not regard it any more than the faces of the other ten thousand injured and dead I saw. I would not know him again if he came up and spoke to me."

  His face was bleak and furious. "It would be a memorable occasion, madame. He is eight weeks dead—and beaten to a pulp."

  If he had hoped to shock her he failed.

  She swallowed hard and held his eyes. "Sounds like the battlefield after Inkermann," she said levelly. "Only there at least we knew what had happened to them—even if no one had any idea why.''

  “We know what happened to Joscelin Grey—we do not know who did it. Fortunately I am not responsible for explaining the Crimean War—only Joscelin Grey's death."

  "Which seems to be beyond you," she said unkindly. "And I can be of no assistance. All I can remember is that he was unusually agreeable, that he bore his injury with as much fortitude as most, and that when he was recovering he spent quite a lot of his time moving from bed to bed encouraging and cheering other men, particularly those closest to death. In fact when I think of it, he was a most admirable man. I had forgotten that until now. He comforted many who were dying, and wrote letters home for them, told their families of their deaths and probably gave them much ease in their distress. It is very hard that he should survive that, and come home to be murdered here."

  "He was killed very violently—there was a passion of hatred in the way he was beaten.'' He was looking at her closely and she was startled by the intelligence in his face; it was uncomfortably intense, and unexpected. "I believe it was someone who knew him. One does not hate a stranger as he was hated.''

  She shivered. Horrific as was the battlefield, there was still a world of difference between its mindless carnage

  and the acutely personal malevolence of Joscelin Grey's death.

  "I am sorry," she said more gently, but still with the stiffness he engendered in her. "I know nothing of him that would help you find such a relationship. If I did I should tell you. The hospital kept records; you would be able to find out who else was there at the same time, but no doubt you have already done that—" She saw instantly from the shadow in his face that he had not. Her patience broke. “Then for heaven's sake, what have you been doing for eight weeks?"

  "For five of them I was lying injured myself," he snapped back. "Or recovering. You make far too many assumptions, madame. You are arrogant, domineering, ill-tempered and condescending. And you leap to conclusions for which you have no foundation. God! I hate clever women!"

  She froze for an instant before the reply was on her lips.

  "I love clever men!" Her eyes raked him up and down. "It seems we are both to be disappointed." And with that she picked up her skirts and strode past him and along the path towards the copse, tripping over a bramble across her way. "Drat,"'she swore furiously. "Hellfire."

  7

  “Good morning, Miss Latterly," Fabia said coolly when she came into the sitting room at about quarter past ten the following day. She looked smart and fragile and was already dressed as if to go out. She eye
d Hester very briefly, noting her extremely plain muslin gown, and then turned to Rosamond, who was sitting poking apologetically at an embroidery frame. "Good morning, Rosamond. I hope you are well? It is a most pleasant day, and I believe we should take the opportunity to visit some of the less fortunate in the village. We have not been lately, and it is your duty, my dear, even more than it is mine."

  The color deepened a trifle in Rosamond's cheeks as she accepted the rebuke. From the quick lift in her chin Hester thought there might be far more behind the motion than was apparent. The family was in mourning, and Fabia had quite obviously felt the loss most keenly, at least to the outward eye. Had Rosamond tried to resume life too quickly for her, and this was Fabia's way of choosing the time?

  "Of course, Mama-in-law," Rosamond said without looking up.

  "And no doubt Miss Latterly will come with us," Fabia added without consulting her. "We shall leave at eleven.

  That will allow you time to dress appropriately. The day is most warm—do not be tempted to forget your position." And with that admonition, delivered with a frozen smile, she turned and left them, stopping by the door for a moment to add, "And we might take luncheon with General Wadham, and Ursula." And then she went out.

  Rosamond threw the hoop at her workbasket and it went beyond and skittered across the floor. "Drat," she said quietly under her breath. Then she met Hester's eyes and apologized.

  Hester smiled at her. "Please don't," she said candidly. "Playing Lady Bountiful 'round the estates is enough to make anyone resort to language better for the stable, or even the barracks, than the drawing room. A simple 'drat' is very mild."

  "Do you miss the Crimea, now you are home?" Rosamond said suddenly, her eyes intent and almost frightened of the answer. "I mean—" She looked away, embarrassed and now finding it hard to speak the words which only a moment before had been so ready.

  Hester saw a vision of endless days being polite to Fa-bia, attending to the trivial household management that she was allowed, never feeling it was her house until Fabia was dead; and perhaps even afterwards Fabia's spirit would haunt the house, her belongings, her choices of furniture, of design, marking it indelibly. There would be morning calls, luncheon with suitable people of like breeding and position, visits to the poor—and in season there would be balls, the races at Ascot, the regatta at Henley, and of course in winter the hunt. None of it would be more than pleasant at best, tedious at worst—but without meaning.