Виктория Холт - Secret for a Nightingale

“What did you tell her?” she asked.

“About the boy.”

I said: “I understand. I lost a boy myself.”

Eliza stared ahead. She said: “We’ll all be overboard if this goes on.

I never knew it was going to be like this or you would never have got me on this lark. ” She turned to me, her expression softening: ” She needs looking after,” she added.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“She’s had bad luck. Cruel bad luck. She ain’t meant for all this.

Wants looking after. How was it? “

“I was sitting here. She came out and I saw her … I saw what she was going to do. I brought her here and we talked. We found we had had a similar experience.”

“You! Not you!”

“Yes. I was married. I lost my husband and my little boy.”

“Thought you was a Miss.”

Ethel spoke for the first time.

“It’s a secret. You mustn’t tell, Eliza. I’ve promised.”

“I prefer to be known as a single woman,” I said.

“It’s a way of forgetting.”

Ethel nodded vigorously as a gigantic wave almost lifted the ship out of the sea. In that moment we all thought we were going to be flung overboard.

“Do you think we are going to get there?” asked Ethel.

“God knows,” said Eliza.

As for myself, I wondered too. The crashing and pounding of the waves and the violent creaking of the timbers were unnerving. I was sure that in that moment we all-thought the ship was about to break up and we should all be flung into that turbulent sea. I felt that it did not really matter if they knew my secret. It helped Ethel to think of me as a bereaved mother, as she herself was. It occurred to me that it was a strange commentary on human nature that sorrow was easier to bear when other people suffered, too.

“Funny … to come all this way for this,” said Eliza.

“It is something I have never considered until now,” I answered.

“Well, there we are.” She paused.

“I worry about her,” she added.

“I know you do, Liza,” said Ethel.

“You shouldn’t. All I done was of my own free will.”

“I dunno. Times like this sets you thinking. You see. Miss er ..”

“Pleydell,” said Ethel.

“You mustn’t never mention she was. a Mrs. Somebody.”

“Do all them stuck-up friends of yours know?”

“Only Miss Marlington.”

“The pretty one? She’s your special friend. She don’t look so bad.”

“She is very nice. You would like her.”

“Can’t stand them others. Noses in the air. They look at you like you was stinking fish.”

“We are all here together and Miss Nightingale said there should be no distinction.”

“Oh, Miss Nightingale’s a real lady, she is.” She added a little hesitantly, “Like yourself.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I wonder what it feels like to drown.”

“It would be quick in a sea like this,” I said comfortingly.

“The three of us would go down together,” said Ethel.

“I’m not sure it is as bad as that,” I said.

“Perhaps it seems so because we are unused to the sea.”

“Funny,” went on Eliza, “I never thought about dying … not yet anyway. That’s why I’m worried about her. You see, I was the one who started her off. It was all right for me. I thought it would be all right for her.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t mind if I tell her, do you, Eth? I’d like to get it off my chest. She couldn’t make a go of it. She was sewing half the night and still there wasn’t enough to keep her going. I said to her, ” Look here, girl, there’s an easier way. ” So I took her out with me. You get used to it. I did. I thought she would. Then she goes and falls in love with this chap. Silly girl.” She gave Ethel an affectionate push.

“And he’s all loveydovey and things look good for Ethel. He’s going to marry her and settle down. Then she’s going to have this child and he’s off. That’s about all. But you see, if I hadn’t brought her into it she would have been stitching away with just herself to keep and who knows, she might have got by.”

“You did what you could to help,” I said.

“That’s true. But it didn’t, did it? And then she went back to it all for the sake of the kid. And one day while she leaves him there, while she’s out on the game … she comes back and finds him gone.”

“It is so very sad.”

“She’s never got over losing him.”

“I know. One doesn’t.”

“Then I thought: Well, this is it. We’ll go to the war. We’ll be nurses. We both once did a spot of work in the hospitals. Horrible it was … washing dirty floors and not much for it. Anyway, it gave us what they call experience. But you see I’ve always felt I had to look after her.”

“I can see how she relies on you.”

“And then she creeps out and tries to do this. Just think. If you hadn’t been there, she would be down there now.”

“But I was here, and she has promised not to do it again. When she wants to talk about things she’ll come to me. We’ll talk about our little boys together.”

“I’m glad,” said Eliza.

“I’m glad you was there.”

We sat in silence, holding on to each other because of the pitching and tossing of the ship which threatened to dislodge us; and I think we all drew comfort from each other. I know I did from them.

The storm continued, abating for a while and then increasing. We spoke now and then, speculating as to what it would be like when we reached Scutari, speaking of ourselves. I told them about my visit to Kaiserwald, and I described the Deaconess and the magic of the forest.

They listened and sometimes I had almost to shout to make myself heard above the raging of the storm. Then I told them about my childhood in India and how my father had died.

I learned something of them both. Eliza had had a hard life. She had not known her own father but had a stepfather. When she was ten years old he had tried to ‘interfere with her’. She had hated him and left home, so she had learned to fend for herself at an early age. She had a great contempt for the opposite sex, so I guessed she had suffered a good deal at their hands. But she was strong and determined. I doubted anyone would get the better of Eliza nowadays. Ethel like Lily had come from the country to make her fortune in the big city.

Sad stories, both of them and I now felt that I knew them well. The truculence of Eliza was due to the fact that she had had to fight her way in the world; the timidity of Ethel was the manifestation of the knowledge that she was unable to.

We grew very close to each other on that night. We were very self-revealing probably because, in our minds, we thought that the Vectis might not survive the storm; and we found comfort in baring our souls.

It must have been for several hours that we sat, huddled together; and when the storm did abate and we found ourselves alive, a strong bond of friendship had been formed between us.

On a bleak November day we sailed into the Bosphorus, that narrow strait which separates Europe from Asia. The wind was shrieking, for the storm had stayed with us and it buffeted us as we stood on the deck. It was. a wonderful sight in spite of the rain. Promontories rose on either side of the bays and gulfs, and cypress and laurel grew along the shores. Picturesque boats, like gondolas which we learned were called caiques made their way up and down the waters. One of the gulfs formed the harbour of Constantinople and opposite that was Scutari, which was to be our destination. About a third of a mile separated the two towns.

In the semi-darkness of early morning, the scene was romantically beautiful, but as it became light it was less so.

We could then see the muddy shores, and the vast Barrack Hospital which had looked like a Caliph’s palace rising out of the gloom was now seen to be dirty, crumbling and in a state of decay. Tents, booths and huts had been set up about it, presided over by an array of nationalities. I saw two soldiers, one limping and one with a dirty bandage round his head, making unsteady progress among the booths.

Soon we were disembarking, which meant being lowered into the caiques with our carpet bags and then taken ashore.

And so we arrived at the hospital at Scutari.

There was no real road only a rough and muddy path; and to reach the plateau on which the hospital was situated it was necessary to climb up this path.

My first impression of that hospital was so depressing that I almost wished I could get back to the Vectis and ask to be taken home.

Hopelessness seemed to permeate the air. I sensed that even Henrietta’s spirits were quelled. I was not sure what we had expected, but it was not this.

We were breathless when we had climbed up to the plateau and the nearer we came to the hospital, the more our misgivings increased. Now we could see the stalls and booths clearly. Most of them sold drink. I saw a woman in a spotted velvet gown clutching a bottle under her arm, and making her way to the hospital.

“Camp followers,” I whispered to Henrietta.

“I can’t believe that.”

“I’ve read about them.”

“Not in the hospital, surely.”

“We’ll see.”

And we did.

The hospital was truly enormous. At least, I thought, we shall have plenty of room. This was not the case. Most of the space was taken up with the wards. When I saw how many sick and suffering lay there, I was astounded; and later I learned that they were not suffering from the effects of war but of disease. There had been a cholera epidemic which had killed thousands.

Damp ran down the hospital walls, and the once grand tiles of the floors were broken in many places; the courtyard was littered with decaying refuse which must have been left there for some time.