Hope - Lesley Pearse [264]
‘What on earth do you mean by “the likes of us”?’ Hope snapped indignantly. ‘We are all better mannered than that stuck-up lot. Sir William took Albert on, it was he who allowed the man to run the place, and therefore his own fault things went badly. I despise those sort of people – who do they think they are? I pity poor Rufus having to suffer an hour or two with them, he’d have been better off in the Crown with our boys who at least care about him.’
‘I saw them all looking at Matt, Joe and Henry. They didn’t think it was fitting they were carrying her coffin.’
‘Are they numbskulls?’ Hope exploded. ‘Matt rescued Lady Harvey from the burning house, all three of them spent the whole night trying to put out the fire, and they’ve done countless jobs for her without ever expecting payment. Who could be more fitting? And who else would have done it? Most of that family are too decrepit to wipe their own backsides.’
‘You mustn’t say things like that,’ Nell exclaimed. ‘You should showthem some respect.’
Hope launched into a bitter tirade about the upper classes, including the fools of officers she’d met out in the Crimea. It was only when Nell began to cry that she stomped off to her bedroom with Betsy. But she had no intention of apologizing to Nell, for why should she? It was all true.
It seemed to her that she had no ‘place’. She had got too much spirit and fire to be anyone’s lackey, and she couldn’t ever pass for gentry because of how she’d been brought up. Even if Rufus was to acknowledge her publicly as his sister, that wouldn’t change anything. They would just tag ‘bastard’ on to her name, ‘fly blow’, or any of the other ugly words they used for illegitimate children. The Dorvilles wouldn’t want to be associated with her, and after seeing them today she wouldn’t want to lay claim to being related to them anyway.
If Bennett did come home and set up a practice away from here she would probably be accepted as ‘the middling sort’, but she doubted her ability to accept the narrow confines of that kind of life either.
She had seen and done things few women could even imagine. How could she settle down in a neat little house with lace at the windows and a maid doing all the chores? She wasn’t cut out to spend her days doing embroidery and receiving visits from dull women who could only talk about the price of fish, or the latest fashion.
The walls seemed to close in on her then. She had been glad to leave the Crimea; being reunited with her brothers and sisters was everything she expected, and bringing Betsy into the world in a clean, safe place had been wonderful. But now it all seemed so empty.
She put Betsy down to sleep, and stood at the crib watching her. She wasn’t as dark as Hope now, nor yet as fair as Bennett. The slightly uptilted nose came from her, but she had a very solemn look most of the time, just like Bennett.
Icy fear gripped Hope as she contemplated that Betsy might never know her father. That year after year she would have to look at her daughter’s face and be reminded of all she’d lost.
This time last year she and Bennett had climbed up the slippery steep path to the Heights with baskets on their backs packed with dressings, bandages and medicines for the field hospital. She could remember how the icy wind had stung her face, that she was hungry and lice-ridden, but Bennett had kept turning to her, holding out his hand to help her over the worst places, telling her that it was imperative they made it up there because men were dying for want of these precious items.
It was the most wretched she’d ever felt in her entire life, but with Bennett leading the way, urging her onwards, she made it to the top. Later, when they’d finally staggered into the field hospital and seen the relief on those gaunt, pain-filled faces, she had felt it had all been worth the struggle.
She couldn’t have made it up there without him, and she couldn’t bring Betsy