Hope - Lesley Pearse [234]
‘I love you, Hope,’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears, and as he turned to leave her he was almost stumbling with sorrow.
*
Hope waved until the ship was right out of the harbour, tears rolling down her cheeks unchecked as she caught her last glimpse of Bennett waving a red handkerchief and Angus beside him, resplendent in his blue and gold jacket. The Crimea had been the worst of times, yet this soiled little harbour, the grim hospital, the cliffs and the Heights would stay in her heart, as would all the people she’d met there.
Her wish was that one day hospitals would be better places, that rank-and-file soldiers would be treated humanely, and nursing become an honoured profession. Maybe when she was old and grey with her children all grown-up, with children of their own, she’d tell her stories about this war, and they’d smile to humour her, thinking she was exaggerating the horror of it.
Would future generations ever be able to believe that the vast number of men who died here, died for a cause they never really understood? Or that even more died of disease or infected wounds?
Hope thought her grandchildren were more likely to want to hear about the Christmas when the bands had played on the quay, and she had danced with more men than was good for any girl, for that was a far prettier picture. If she kept her arm covered they would never see her scar, just as they would never see the hideous images printed indelibly on her mind.
She pulled up her sleeve and looked at the ugly red puckered wound. To her it was a permanent reminder of how blessed she was to escape so lightly when so many others were disfigured or dead. She didn’t want it to fade.
The sea breeze felt and smelled good and her spirits lifted, knowing that the sadness of goodbyes was finally over. The Marianne was reported to be a fast ship; she would only be putting in at Malta, and then sail straight back to Portsmouth. A great many of the other passengers were officers and staff sent home on sick reports but there was also a fair proportion of those who back in Balaclava had been called ‘tourists’: gentlemen and their ladies who had travelled out here to view the war.
Her heart quickened a little at the prospect of teasing some of these ghoulish rich people who got their excitement from watching others die. It would be enjoyable to wait until they were eating their dinner and then relate a few choice tales about gangrene and cholera.
She hoped she had let her pink dress out enough to look presentable at dinner.
As the ship steamed into Portsmouth harbour in late August, Hope was beside herself with excitement. She had loved every minute of the voyage, and although she was so huge and slownow, she had never felt better. The food on the ship had been wonderful, her cabin comfortable and the weather in the main glorious, and she’d enjoyed having nothing more pressing to do than make herself a new dress, read a book, write a letter or chat to someone.
Coming up the coast of Spain, some of the passengers had suffered from sea sickness, but Hope had resisted the urge to go and take care of them. It was such a joy to be entirely selfish, and to revel in her quite unexpected new status.
She had never imagined back in the days of Lewins Mead and St Peter’s that the day would ever come when she’d be considered a lady, let alone a heroine. But one of the officers on the ship knew all about her, including her rescue of Robbie and how she’d been wounded herself, and had clearly passed it on. Each time she went into the dining room someone always begged her to sit next to them. The men were attentive and curious, telling her she must write her memoirs and get them published when she got home. And the women cooed over her courage at travelling so late in her pregnancy, and asked how she managed to keep her hair so beautifully shiny and her