Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [575]
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach . . .
She knew them all by heart. She loved the moving story of how the poet Browning had rescued Elizabeth from her father and eloped with her.
“But no Browning comes to elope with me from the close,” she laughed sadly to herself.
It was morning. Outside, the sun was already well up. The leaves were falling from the trees around the choristers’ green. Below, she could hear Lizzie the housemaid scurrying about.
Sarum. Life was slow. But it was pleasant.
But today was a day for decisions. She knew they must be made now, while the spirit of adventure was still strong. Was she to go to London to train? If so, how soon? Difficult decisions, uncomfortable ones. She lingered lazily for a moment in bed before beginning such a fateful day.
There was a knock on the door: Lizzie with a letter, from Bernard.
Before the girl had even closed the door, she had slit it open.
My dear Sister,
With the loss of dear Mama you are entirely alone at Sarum and this perturbs me. Harriet joins me in suggesting most warmly that you come to spend at least half a year here. Your two nieces and nephews long to see their aunt – we have made you out to be a dragon so don’t disappoint us on any account. You will find amusement here and some society, a change of air, I need hardly say. There are some young fellows here too, quite gentlemen, who perhaps . . . but I run on.
This war in the Crimea is already having a remarkable effect upon our fortunes – for the better! Here in Hoogly District, as you may know, we have a large crop of desi – jute as it’s called in England. We do an excellent trade with America already, even with a firm called Bradley and Shockley – isn’t that a coincidence? But more important, this war in the Crimea has cut off the supply of Russian raw flax and hemp to Dundee, and we are quite supplanting them with our jute instead. The profits are remarkable. However, I shall tell you more when you come here, and you can see for yourself.
There was much more, but she broke off. Dear Bernard. Ten years her senior. Ten years in India now; he always wrote her letters full of his practical business, just as though she were a man, which was why she so loved to receive them. She would keep the rest until later.
She dressed quickly. Then she made straight for the cathedral.
Whenever she had to make a major decision, Jane Shockley always walked in the cloisters. They were so quiet, so peaceful. In the first year of Queen Victoria’s reign, Bishop Denison had planted two cedars of Lebanon in the centre and already they were beginning to spread a small shade over the grass of the little graveyard there, making the place more delightful even than it had been before. She walked by the chapter house. Both cloisters and chapter house were being repaired that year by Mr Clutton the architect. Just recently the restoration of the wonderful series of low reliefs in the chapter house had been begun and, since the door was open, she walked in and spent several minutes admiring the lively carvings of the Creation and the other Old Testament scenes. She liked the silent antiquity of the place. During repairs to the walls recently, the workmen had found some coins from the time of Edward I, nearly six hundred years before.
It was hard to decide. Now that the prospect of travel to the Crimea had gone, to be replaced by several years’ grinding hard work at a hospital, probably in London – was she still certain she wanted to be a nurse? Why not go out to India: that was a more exciting prospect. Or even stay here in Sarum, here with her friends, amongst these quiet scenes she loved? It was tempting.
For once, she could not make up her mind. Annoyed with herself, she walked slowly out of the cloister and into the main body of the cathedral.
And there she saw it.
It was only a tattered object, on a stick: a single flag, hanging out at an