Isabella Rockwell's War (4 page)

There was a
thump and a crack making them both jump as ropes, as thick as
Isabella’s leg, were thrown from the decks to the stevedores
waiting below; great muscled men who pulled and heaved, until
they’d fastened the ropes to the dock and made the ship safe.

Isabella stood
shivering next to Mrs Trotter on one of the lower decks. They would
disembark after the first class passengers.

Mrs Trotter
was in a froth of excitement.

“Four long
years since I’ve seen my darling Tilly, the first time I shall see
Archie and another on the way. Really… it’s too much!” She patted
and rearranged her hair for the thousandth time.

Isabella said
nothing. There was to be no excitement for her. No faces to eagerly
search out in the crowd.

Mrs Trotter
patted her shoulder.

“Chin up,
dear. Here’s the purser now.”

Lifting her
head, Isabella gazed at London Bridge spanning the great width of
the river. It was lined with buildings and, occasionally, through
the gaps, she could see people and carts and carriages bustling
along it. Roads led back and forth from the docks; carts piled high
with exotic fruits and fabrics; even animals appeared to be on
their way to market.

Clearly, if
you wanted to buy it, London would sell it to you.

She drew
closer to the railing to watch the crew lower the gangplanks, the
man on the shore shouting at the heaving crowd to move back. A
voice close to her ear made her jump.

“Quite a
sight, isn’t it?”

Mrs Trotter
patted her hair again.

“Ooh, Mrs
Jolyon, you gave us a start.”

Mrs Jolyon
placed her gloved hand gently on Mrs Trotter’s arm.

“I’m so sorry
Mrs Trotter, I didn’t mean to creep up on you. There’s just so much
noise, I don’t think you’d have been able to hear anything at all.”
She laughed, showing her pretty white teeth. Her hat and cloak,
though plain, were clean and well pressed and she carried a neat
carpetbag. Her brown eyes were merry, and the skin of her cheeks
bloomed with health, despite their six-week voyage during which
time there wasn’t one passenger who hadn’t suffered with some kind
of sickness or another. Her breath smelt of mint.

“You must be
so excited, Mrs Trotter, to see Tilly and Archie… isn’t it?”

Mrs Trotter
blushed and simpered.

“I am indeed,
Mrs Jolyon. How clever of you to remember their names. And you? Are
you to be met or do you travel onwards?” They all grabbed the
handrail as the ship gave a momentary lurch. Isabella felt it was a
little late for Mrs Trotter to start making friends.

Mrs Jolyon
pulled her cape back around her throat with a slim hand.

“Well I hope,”
and here she raised her eyebrows, “to be met from here. I am taking
up a position of governess.”

Mrs Trotter
looked impressed.

“How
wonderful. Have you experience already?”

“Oh yes,” Mrs
Jolyon smiled. “In India, after my husband died I took a position
with the Earl of March at Cawnpore. I taught his children for three
years before being offered this position.”

“You preferred
to come home?”

“Well no,
actually, I prefer India,” she said with a gentle smile, endearing
herself to Isabella forever. “But they made me, shall we say, an
exceptional offer.”

Mrs Trotter
nodded.

“I see.”

Though
Isabella could tell she didn’t.

“Still, the
Earl of March… that must have been a very formal household,” Mrs
Trotter continued.

Isabella
raised her eyes to heaven, but had to hide her smile as Mrs Jolyon
winked at her before replying, “Oh it was, very. Never less than
three changes of dress a day for the ladies.”

Mrs Trotter’s
eyes widened.

“Really?”
There was another lurch and then a loud bang as the gangplank from
their deck of the ship was lowered.

Mrs Jolyon
held out her arm to Mrs Trotter.

“I think it’s
our turn now. Shall we make our way forward? They will send our
trunks on from our cabins.”

Mrs Trotter
looked relieved at not having to take control.

“Well, yes, of
course. Let us go.”

Holding
tightly to Mrs Jolyon’s other hand meant Isabella’s head could
swivel at will. She felt she’d never be able to take it all in.
Most of the first class passengers had been taken from the dockside
by their carriages, pulled by fine, matched horses. As soon as they
reached the bottom of the gangplank, a footman in a pale blue satin
livery presented himself to Mrs Trotter.

“Madam. Lady
Molesey has me convey her best wishes to you, and bade me escort
you to her carriage for your continued journey to her home at
Mayfair.”

“By all
means.” Mrs Trotter turned to Mrs Jolyon. “Thank you so much Mrs
Jolyon, but we must now away to meet Lady Molesey, who has kindly
offered us lodging for the night. Good luck with your new
position.”

Mrs Jolyon
smiled.

“Thank you,
Mrs Trotter and a bon voyage for the rest of your journey.” She
gave Isabella a kind smile and disappeared into the crowd around
them. Isabella and Mrs Trotter moved toward Lady Molesey’s
carriage.

“I thought Mrs
Jolyon was very nice, didn’t you?” Isabella asked, but Mrs Trotter
was looking vague.

“Well I did…
yes… charming.”

“And yet you
didn’t speak to her at all during the voyage, when actually her
company would have been very pleasant.”

Mrs Trotter
was, by now, eyeing the steps up to the carriage with some
nervousness.

“Yes, I
suppose it would have been.” Isabella sighed. Sometimes, watching
Mrs Trotter think was like watching spilt water roll across a
table. At that moment, a huge black coach rolled swiftly past them,
causing the carriage horses to nearly shy and unsettle. Mrs Trotter
stood, with her skirts pulled above her ankles, in preparation to
mount the steps to the coach.

“Well
really…”

But, it was
too late and Mrs Trotter overbalanced, and so had to enter Lady
Molesey’s coach with skirts covered in mud and a hat with a broken
feather.

The journey
from the port to Lady Molesey’s home took an hour, and there was no
part of it during which Isabella found she could drag her eyes away
from the scenes outside. Their carriage, though often given right
of way over less grand vehicles, still took some time to thread its
way through the narrow alleys and byways which led from the City of
London to the West End.

“Well, what do
you think of London, Isabella?” said Lady Molesey, plainly so
excited to be home, she was willing to overlook her dislike of
Isabella.

“I think, so
far, it is beautiful,” she replied carefully. “But I wish it were
warmer.”

Lady Molesey
laughed.

“You’ll get
used to it.”

Isabella
doubted very much that was the case. Her homesickness was
increasing with every mile the horses covered, but she was
intrigued by this city, its energy and its size. The horses were
moving more swiftly now, and yet houses and shops were still all
around them. The roads were well-made and laid with straw, and
there were carefully constructed gutters down each side to collect
the rainwater.

And the
rain!

How much could
one country contain? It hurled itself against the glass, crept
under the doors making her hair curl with its dampness; wetness,
which seemed absorbed by everything around it. Even the coach,
upholstered in velvet and polished wood had a smell about it, a
musty smell, a hint of tiny things growing beneath the seat
cushions. She pulled her cloak tighter, feeling a tickle in her
throat. She was well-used to rain, but the monsoon had been warm
rain that the parched Indian ground sorely needed. This cold
creeping damp was something else. She couldn’t imagine even the
Indian sun able to dry up such all-encompassing wetness.

Still, the
well-lit shops broke up the morning gloom looking far more
sophisticated than any Isabella had ever seen before. Ladies’
dresses were far more opulent here, their hats and wigs so large
Isabella wondered how their heads remained upright. Some of the men
were also wigged, though only the ones descending from grand
carriages and whisked inside graceful buildings by footmen carrying
umbrellas.

There were
poorer people too.

It was
strange; she’d thought London to be a city paved with gold, when
she’d heard others speak of it, but she could see, all too clearly,
starving children clumped in threes and fours, huddled for warmth.
As the carriage sat at a junction, Isabella saw one boy dart out
and take a bun from a bakers cart, just missing being caught.
Catching the scent of the just baked bread, warm and sweet,
Isabella didn’t blame him. At least in India you could be warm
whilst you starved to death. Here, looking at the children’s blue
feet and lips, it would be a race as to whether cold, or
starvation, got you first.

Lady Molesey
snorted.

“I can see
they still haven’t sorted out the street children problem. It’s
just as bad as it was when I was here last.”

“When was
that, Lady Molesey, remind me?” Mrs Trotter twittered.

“Back in 1815.
Five long years, before Sailor Bill was crowned. I wonder whether
he’ll be able to clear up any of the mess his father left.”

“What sort of
mess, Gertrude?”

“Well, all
that mess with his sons and their high living – all those,” and
here Lady Molesey’s voice dropped “ illegitimate children…. Still,”
she continued in a more normal tone, “we’re settled now and let’s
hope that’s the end of it. Very bad for the empire.”

“What is?” Mrs
Trotter was looking confused.

“Instability,”
bellowed Lady Molesey, putting Isabella in mind of a she-elephant
protecting her calf. “If there’s trouble at home, there’s trouble
abroad, you mark my words. Why do you think we’ve had so much
trouble from Russia?”

Poor Mrs
Trotter. Isabella could see her struggling.

“I don’t know,
er, have we?”

“Yes we have,
and all because we had no king,” Lady Molesey bashed the arm of the
seat. “Just that pea-brained Prince Regent without a thought in his
head for anything other than his own amusement.” Mrs Trotter nodded
in agreement. “Ahh, about time. Here we are!”

The carriage
drew up in front of a beautiful cream cake confection of a house.
They were ushered inside by a manservant, who then showed Isabella
to a room on the fourth floor with a sloping roof and a bed with a
maroon counterpane. The wooden floor had a worn patterned rug on it
and the wood around the rug had been painted black. There was a
knock and a maid with a mobcap on put her head around the door.

“Pardon me
miss, but Lady Molesey says a luncheon tray will be brought to you,
but you are to have dinner with Mrs Trotter in her apartments on
the second floor.”

Isabella
nodded.

“Thank
you.”

Isabella took
off her cape and hat and hung them carefully on the back of the
door. Then she unpacked her bag into the chest of drawers. Lying at
the bottom of her bag, tightly enclosed in an old sari was her
father’s satchel. As she unwrapped it, the sari brought unexpected
warmth to the room, its colours almost too bright for the gloom of
November.

She sat on the
bed and held it close, and then she opened it and spread its
contents out on the bed. Though there wasn’t much, it was still
worth a king’s ransom to Isabella.

She ran her
fingers over the rough wood of the picture frame gazing at a pair
of eyes, so very like her own, which smiled up at her from her
mother’s face. The frame had two sections and had once contained
two pictures. The first, a drawing of her mother just before
Isabella had been born. The other, now missing, presumably on some
far Afghan hillside, a picture of her with her father, sketched in
a blustery moment at the regimental mounted games. Her father had
carried the picture of her mother, ever since she could remember
and had added the one of the two of them as soon as it had been
done.

How fortunate
she was to have this one with her now.

The next thing
she took out was her silver locket, worn smooth with love and
polish. But it was the third object, in a way her most precious
possession, though she’d have fought to the death for any one of
them; Abhaya’s medicine pouch.

It was a
battered and stained cotton roll, worn soft with use and tied with
four leather laces. When unrolled it revealed one hundred small
pockets, all labelled in Hindi in Abhaya’s graceful script. Here
were the herbs Abhaya had collected over the years, cultivating
them in her herb garden when she couldn’t find them growing wild.
Isabella pressed the pouch to her nose and inhaled deeply, memories
of her childhood rushing back helter-skelter. There wasn’t one
ailment which Abhaya hadn’t been able to treat from this pouch.
Wounds, fevers, even broken bones, once set, would heal quickly and
without incident. There had always been a steady stream of people
trickling through Abhaya’s bungalow.

“What are they
here for?” she would ask, irritated by their monopoly of Abhaya’s
time.

“Many things,
Isabella-Bai.”

“But they
don’t look ill, Mama-gi.”

“No, but there
are many ways to be sick. Some illnesses can not be seen at all,
but they are just as deadly.”

Isabella was
wide-eyed.

“How so,
Mama-Gi?”

“The mind can
break as well as the body.”

“Really?”

Isabella had
thought for a moment remembering a lady in their compound who’d
lost her husband in battle, and thereafter changed, from an ample
mother of four, to a wasted wraith, who joined her husband in the
afterlife after a scant three months.

“Is that what
happened to Mrs Sampson?”

Abhaya had
held her close.