Wounds of Woe

Prologue

I look at the numbers swimming in the columns of the account book and sigh vexedly. I close my eyes, but when I open them again, the numbers still will not stay stationary.

‘What is the matter, Nell?’ Nancy St Clair, my business partner, sets down the sheer cotton chemisette she is hemming. ‘Are you unwell?’

‘I do not think so, Nancy. I think there must be something the matter with my eyes. Perhaps I need spectacles. I cannot seem to follow the entries across the page; the numbers go in and out of focus. It gives me a headache, and it makes me feel distinctly queasy.’

‘How long have you been feeling this way, Nell, dear?’

I consider. ‘For several days, I guess. I am not sure when it began. I have experienced the same difficulty with fine stitches. I do not think that I am ill, but I cannot name the problem.’

She smiles mischievously. ‘I think perhaps I can.’

‘Oh, can you indeed?’ I challenge her fondly. Nancy is more than just a business partner. She is the sister I never had. ‘Well, then, Miss Physician, what is it?’

‘I do not think the entries are the problem. Rather the reverse.' When I start to protest, she says, 'Let us look at the symptoms together. Would you characterize them as malaise?’

‘That seems to be as good a word as any.’

‘Has your appetite changed recently?’

‘I do not know if I can say that; it is more that I have had no appetite at all. The only things I have found appealing are apples.’

Another wicked smile. ‘When was the last time Lieutenant Anson was here? It was the last week in May, was it not?’

‘You know perfectly well, Nancy, because I took the day off from the shop, as he was only here overnight. I still feel a bit guilty about that. But do not think that I am pining for him; I never have before.’

‘Oh, pooh, Nell. I did not begrudge you a single minute. But count, silly girl. This is the seventh of August. Eight weeks.’

It dawns on me what she is inferring. ‘Oh, no. No, Nancy, that is impossible.’

‘Is it? Have you looked at yourself? You are radiant. Apart from being a bit interestingly pale, your eyes are brilliant, your breasts are fuller, your arms are rounder, and I would wager that if you could see yourself from behind, your bottom and hips would be curvier. You are decidedly embonpoint. Mr Gardener was looking at you with unabashed admiration yesterday.’

‘Mr Gardener has no business looking at me at all,’ I retort, but there is no heat in it. I am too bemused to be indignant.

‘When did you last have your courses?’

‘Before the accident,’ I reply firmly. ‘That is why it cannot be what you are suggesting. The doctors have told me that I can no longer conceive.’

‘I do believe that the doctors are wrong, my dear.’

‘Nonsense,’ I say; but even as my head denies it, my body remembers… and it knows that she is right.

* * *

1 August 1797

HMS Theseus

My Dear Mrs Anson,

I write to you on behalf of Admiral Nelson. It is with the deepest regret that I must inform you of the death of Lieutenant Scott Anson at Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 24 July 1798. He was a good and noble officer, and a credit to His Majesty’s service.

Admiral Nelson was wounded in the siege and has lost his right arm as a result of his injuries. He must return to England, and bids me send you his blessing and deepest regard. He regrets exceedingly that he cannot write to you personally at this melancholy time. He prays you will remember happier days.

Yours most respectfully, John Castang

I gasp and clutch the back of the chair before sinking into it, my eyes still on the letter. I read it again, and then a third time. My brain does not want to accept the information it imparts.

There has never been a Lieutenant Scott Anson. But I fear that I have lost the one person most dear to me in all the world.

* * *

Henrietta Bowling pours the tea and hands the cup to me. ‘It was a fitting memorial service. I am sure that you would have wished to have had his body to inter, but that is neither here nor there,’ she remarks practically. ‘We all end up in the same place in the long run.’

I sit ensconced upon one of her old-fashioned Rococo armchairs, in her tiny sitting room adorned with luxurious ornaments, gifts from a lifetime of admirers.

‘You are bearing up well, my dear. But do not be afraid to lean on your friends. What good are we to you, otherwise?’

Mrs Bowling is my landlady, but she has become a friend as well. Once a celebrated beauty, she is reputed to have been the mistress of an admiral, although everyone is rather coy about which admiral it was. She is now more formidable than beautiful, even though she is barely five feet tall. And she has reached the stage in her life when she speaks her mind with cheerful impunity.

‘You are not the first woman to bring the child of a dead man into the world, nor will you be the last. Do not do anything rash and remarry just so the babe will have a father. The child will not know differently for several years.’

I have become accustomed to her directness.

‘Has the Admiralty contacted you regarding his pension?’

Since Lieutenant Anson never actually existed, he did not have a pension. I am not sure how to address this deficiency, so I reply simply, ‘Not yet.’

What I will receive, although Mrs Bowling does not know it, is the pay due a widow’s man named Edmund Buckley. Ned Buckley also met his demise at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

So much to mourn. I look down at my lap, where my gently rounding belly is disguised beneath fashionable widow’s weeds, and wonder what happens now.

Chapter One

I rest my infant son on my shoulder and regard the solicitor stoically. He is a dusty-looking individual in an old-fashioned wig and a fading black coat. Incongruously, he wears a dandy’s figured-silk waistcoat in silver stripes, and lace ruffles. It might make me inclined to like him, except for the fact that I am sure he has called me to his office to turn me out of my home.

Ned nuzzles my neck and twines his tiny fist in my hair. I rub his back gently. He is a quiet baby, apart from the frequent episodes of colic that make him miserable. I am prepared to bargain, beg, and stonewall this lawyer in order to remain in our two rooms until Ned is just a little older. I am not worried so much about finding other accommodations, as I am about disrupting my baby’s life. It is bad enough that he has lost someone else who loved him.

The solicitor shuffles pages on his desk and produces a sealed envelope. He clears his throat several times, as if his voice is something he only takes out of storage on special occasions.

‘Mrs Anson, I have before me the last will and testament of Henrietta Bowling of Gibraltar. It is very concise.

‘Mrs Bowling, as she styled herself, has disposed of her property, and the entire contents therein, in bequest to you. This is the freehold.’ He lays a document on the desktop and slides it across to me.

I am certain I did not hear him correctly. ‘To me?’

‘That is what it says here, Mrs Anson. “Having no known living relative…,”’ he pauses and clears his throat again, ‘“… and they having had no interest in it, nor any entitlement to it even were they still living; I do hereby give and bequeath my entire property to my tenant, Mrs Eleanor Anson, widow, of the same address.” It is duly witnessed; and was prepared by myself upon 28 February of this year.’

Only a month before she died. She did not tell me that she was ill, and I was too preoccupied with Ned to see it. She had even rocked him and soothed him during his bouts of colic in the depths of the night. Grief threatens to undo me.

The solicitor clears his throat once more and raises his face to me, and I see desolation in his eyes. I realise with a jolt that he is as grief stricken as I. He sees the recognition on my face and drops his eyes to his papers again before speaking softly.

‘I loved her,’ he admits frankly. ‘We were together for twelve years. I never knew why she picked me.’

‘Mr Winter… I am so sorry. I did not know.’

He makes a choking sound, and for a moment I am horrified that the man is going to cry in front of me, before I recognise it as a rusty laugh.

‘No one did. I asked her to marry me many times. She told me she was not the marrying kind.’

He picks up the envelope and offers it to me. ‘This letter is addressed to you alone. I received a similar one. She did not want any emotional farewells. Take it home and open it there.’

I accept the envelope and slip it and the freehold into Ned’s basket. ‘Mr Winter. Will you… is there anything of hers that you would like to have? Please come and take whatever you like; she had more things than I know what to do with.’

He shakes his head. ‘I have those things which were important to me already.’ He bows his head and looks at me over the rims of his spectacles, an effect that makes him look both shy and earnest. ‘She asked me to look after you and the baby. I suppose you have inherited me along with the property.’

A tear slips unbidden down my cheek. I bite my lip and compose myself before telling him, ‘Then you must know that my home will always be open to you, Mr Winter. I trust Mrs Bowling’s wisdom implicitly. And I am bewildered and humbled by her generosity.’

‘There was a side to Henrietta that few people were privileged to see,’ he murmurs. ‘She guarded it carefully.’

‘I hope you will tell me more about her. I was only just beginning to know her.’

‘She adored you,’ Mr Winter says.

* * *

‘My dearest Nell,

If you are reading this, then I am dead.

I have always wanted to write that! Forgive me my theatrical turn, my dear.

I am leaving this house and all that is in it to you. There is no one else likely to lay claim upon it. It was given to me, and I am giving it to you.

Elwood has been instructed to give you the freehold. He has kept it for me for many years; but should he decide to retire now that I am gone, it should be in your possession. I would suggest that you find a reliable solicitor to look after your affairs, as Elwood has always looked after mine. Regardless of whether he continues to practice law, go to him should you need anything, and he will see to it. He may not look like much, but he is a formidable opponent and will be your champion.

Look after Elwood for me. I do not want to see him dissolve into dust, as he is likely to do without supervision. Remind him that it was my dying wish that he buy himself a new coat.

My greatest regret is that I will not get to see darling little Edmund grow up. Remember what I said, my dear. Do not remarry in haste. A great love affair can never be replaced with a mere substitute. Wait for the right man, who will love Ned as his own. I have no doubt that he will grow up to be a man of character and accomplishment like his father.

Forgive me for choosing not to tell you about the cancer. Elwood knew, but he was the only person apart from the physician, who since he could do nothing for me, was dispensed with. Do you like that? ‘I dispensed with the physician.’ I suppose it would have been wittier if I had said I dispensed with the apothecary. But that would be untrue. I have had a very good relationship with the apothecary. Laudanum is my friend.

I plan to slip away quietly when all the world is sleeping. I have not told Elwood; I do not want him to agonise over my decision. I am only expediting the inevitable. He and I will meet again.

As, I trust, will we, my dear girl.

I am off to meet my Maker, from whom no secrets are hid. Thank goodness He knows all of mine already. I will not need to recount them all.

Yours most affectionately,

Henrietta Bowling

I sit by the fire in one of the slightly ratty wing chairs, Ned in one arm and Mrs Bowling’s letter in my other hand. The letter is a powerful echo of its writer and makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

As is my habit when I nurse my son, I have taken off my gown and dressed in the old woollen banyan that once belonged to Admiral Nelson. It is warm and comforting, and sometimes I imagine I can still smell the scent of its former owner, a subtle hint of lavender and bergamot.

Ned has finished feeding and has fallen asleep against my breast. I lay aside Mrs Bowling’s letter and carefully shift him to my shoulder, rubbing his little back and hoping the milk does not disagree with him tonight.

At seven weeks old he is starting to lose the helpless look of a blind puppy, but he is not as round and rosy as I am told he should be. He still has dreadful episodes of colic that make me ache for him, and sometimes he vomits the milk back up after feeding. Mrs Castillo, the baby nurse, has told me it is not unusual, and I should not worry unless he begins to do it regularly.

His father was subject to bouts of indigestion, too.

One-Eyed Jack, my cat, comes into the room from prowling Mrs Bowling’s apartments. Actually, ‘apartments’ is probably too grand a word for the three small rooms upstairs, each one filled with things that I will have to sort through and find owners for. The very thought is exhausting.

Jack was once a ship’s cat, and he possesses the character of a pirate—which is ironic, since it was a Royal Navy ship that he belonged to. He is territorial and possessive, and suspicious of newcomers, so I was apprehensive about his reception of Ned. I was astonished when, a week after Ned’s arrival, Jack decided to share my lap with the baby and curled up beside him, purring. It calms my son to hear Jack purr, and it did not take me long to realise that before he was born, when Jack used to sit against my belly and purr, Ned was hearing him.

Jack plunks himself on the hearth rug and regards me critically, then lifts a leg behind his ear and begins grooming his ankle. ‘Exhibitionist,’ I tell him. He ignores me.

Long after I am sure that Ned is deeply asleep, I continue to hold my son. He is the bridge between a life that is past, and one that is just beginning.

You might be tempted to say that I have the luck of the Devil and as many lives as a cat. Whether that is true I cannot confirm, because I’m only on my third life. And as to luck… well, it was not always so.