‘And he consented to your wedding?’
‘Of course! He likes Charlie. Why wouldn’t he?’ Lucy felt defensive.
‘I suppose he too must have worried about you coming out here with a man you haven’t known for terribly long …’ Adelaide’s voice trailed off.
Lucy looked at her. Was she taking Dorothea’s side? ‘Papa simply wants me to be happy.’
‘So Dorothea was twenty-six when your mother died? I suppose devoting herself to nursing her meant she had missed her opportunity to marry. Such a shame.’
‘I’m not sure Dorothea was ever interested in men.’ Lucy picked up a stick and began to trace a pattern in the dusty ground. ‘She’s too domineering. She volunteered to work at the Pimlico Charitable Hospital after Mama died, where I imagine she is very bossy. She has no time for anyone who doesn’t agree with her.’
‘It’s good that she lives a useful life. I hope she enjoys her work?’
Lucy pondered this. ‘I suppose she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t enjoy it. She talks about it a lot. I only hope she writes soon, and maybe she will be able to send us some medicine to cure cholera. I expect it will be accompanied by long lists of instructions about what to do, what to avoid; you can count on that.’
‘A family rift is such a sadness. I worry about you and Charlie both being estranged from your kin. Promise me you will make peace with Dorothea after the war.’
‘Only if she will respect our marriage and treat me as an adult.’ Lucy folded her arms, determined that any apology should come from her sister since she had done nothing wrong.
That evening, Charlie and Lucy went for a stroll in the moonlight, arms linked, and she mentioned that she had written to her father and very much hoped that Dorothea would send advice on preventing cholera.
Charlie seemed hurt. ‘Why did you write to them? We have each other now. Dorothea only ever caused trouble for us and, to be frank, your father doesn’t know the day of the week. You and I don’t need anyone else.’
Lucy squeezed his arm. ‘Of course we don’t, darling. I only wrote because of the cholera. Don’t be cross with me.’
He fell silent and she could tell from the way he stiffened and peered into the distance that he was cross about it. He wanted her all to himself. Perhaps he was worried that Dorothea would try to persuade her to return home again – as no doubt she would. But nothing would make Lucy leave now. How would Bill have survived cholera without Adelaide’s tender care? If anything should happen to Charlie, she wanted to be there to offer the same comfort.
*
The summer passed slowly and Lucy grew increasingly frustrated with the delay in any fresh orders coming through. She missed her home, her friends and her father, and the novelty of living in a tent had long since grown tiresome. Towards the end of August, rumours began to spread that the troops were set to sail for Crimea but that officers’ wives must be left behind in Varna, since there would be no decent accommodation for them once the army was on the move.
‘I am not staying behind,’ Adelaide declared firmly. Although Bill had returned to his duties he was still weakened by his illness and she could not contemplate waving goodbye to him. ‘I will go along by hook or by crook.’
‘And I’ll come too,’ cried Lucy. She could think of nothing worse than being left alone in this land of cholera and leeches.
Charlie told them that Lord Lucan intended to patrol the quayside watching every person boarding the ship, and they tried to think of ways to avoid his eagle gaze. Lucy suggested she could hide in her trunk, but Charlie pointed out that she would soon suffocate.
‘Why don’t we dress as soldiers?’ Adelaide suggested. ‘We could borrow some trousers and tunics and hide our hair under busbies.’
Lucy laughed at first but her friend was serious. She rushed into their tent and emerged some minutes later wearing Bill’s spare uniform. While the blue tunic was baggy on her, and the red trousers with a yellow stripe threatened to fall down at any moment, she could have passed for a man if you didn’t look too closely.
‘Charlie’s would be far too big for me. Perhaps I can borrow a spare uniform from Mrs Williams’ husband Stan, who is slighter,’ Lucy suggested, feeling a surge of excitement. ‘I’ll ask her. It doesn’t seem fair that soldiers’ wives are allowed to go along while we are not.’
‘They plan on putting the soldiers’ wives to work, cooking and laundering clothes,’ Adelaide explained, ‘but we can do that just as well.’
At daybreak on the 31st August, when the Hussars struck camp, Adelaide and Lucy were already dressed in their borrowed uniforms. It meant they couldn’t beg a lift on a gun carriage for the eight-mile march to Varna and even had to carry a bag apiece (although Charlie managed to arrange transport for Lucy’s trunk, the bath and her heaviest bags). Their feet blistered in army boots several sizes too large, stuffed with socks so they didn’t fall off, but both marched with determination and kept up with the others, chatting along the way.
‘By the by, there is something I wanted to ask you,’ Lucy said. ‘Did Charlie ever mention a girl called Susanna? He called that name in his sleep. I don’t want to embarrass him by asking about her, but wondered if she was perhaps a lady he used to be enamoured with before he met me? He is a man of seven and twenty years and must have courted other ladies before we met. Perhaps Bill knew her?’ Sensing Adelaide’s discomfort with the line of questioning she continued hurriedly, ‘Don’t worry; I am not a jealous type of woman.’
‘I … I think I have heard the name,’ Adelaide told her, hesitantly. ‘I believe there may have been ladies before you, but you must know you have nothing to worry about. Charlie dotes on you.’
‘I’m not worried. It’s just that he seemed to feel so passionately about her.’
‘I’m sure one day he will tell you about her.’
‘Won’t you tell me?’ Lucy pleaded.
‘It’s not my place …’ Adelaide began, then cried, ‘Look! I see the ships ahead. We are almost there.’ None of Lucy’s questions could induce her to say any more.
On the quayside at Varna, crowds were milling and amongst them Lucy recognised Lord Lucan standing by the gangplank watching those boarding. Shoulder to shoulder, she and Adelaide pushed forwards, trying to adopt a masculine style of walking, keeping their heads down, and the Major General barely glanced at them as they hurried on board. They asked directions to the officers’ quarters, and were momentarily surprised to find Fanny Duberly there, already having commandeered the best cabin. She glared at them in their uniforms.
‘Hardly dignified, ladies,’ she remarked, making them burst into fits of giggles.
‘How did you get past Lord Lucan?’ Lucy snorted, looking at Adelaide in her trousers and fur busby.
‘I simply walked past. He wouldn’t dare to stop me. My husband and I are terribly good friends of Lord Raglan’s.’ She looked them up and down. ‘I must say, you two look ridiculous.’
This made Lucy and Adelaide laugh anew, partly with the relief of having achieved their aim and avoiding separation from their husbands. Charlie and Bill arrived later and congratulated them on the success of the ruse.
The crossing to the Crimean peninsula was only supposed to take around thirty-six hours and they decided to keep a low profile and eat in their cabins rather than in the officers’ dining hall. However, the ship was almost instantly becalmed in the waters of the Black Sea. It was twelve days before Lucy saw the coast of the Crimean peninsula, an ominous, shadowy vision through torrential gusts of diagonal rain.