behind my back and write to them!’
It was just the reaction Dorothea had feared but she tried to stay calm and reasonable. ‘Of course I had the right. It is a serious matter if Captain Harvington has no family backing. I’m surprised Father didn’t ask about his prospects. You are too young to know what it means to marry for love to a man without a secure income; you’d have six months of happiness followed by a lifetime of worry and petty resentments.’
Lucy was intractable. ‘Charlie will make his own money. Major Dodds speaks highly of his prospects in the army and he’s extremely well liked in the regiment. Extremely.’ She swept her hairbrush off the dressing table, her temper clearly building by the minute.
‘He can’t advance up the ranks without family money to buy another commission. You know that, Lucy-loo.’ Dorothea used the childhood pet name and reached out to touch her sister’s shoulder in a conciliatory gesture but Lucy batted her hand away.
‘This is my one chance to be happy and I will not have you spoil it. You’re jealous and bitter and I hate you!’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘I wish Mama were here. She would love Charlie as I do, and she’d be happy for me.’ Lucy turned her back but Dorothea could tell that she was crying.
She paused: their mother had been very similar in character to Lucy – lively, gregarious, but hopelessly impractical. No doubt she would have reacted with frenzied excitement to the marriage announcement and would already be planning dress fittings and floral arrangements. But that didn’t make it the right thing to do.
Dorothea tried another tack: ‘Have you thought about the danger you would be in overseas, with Russian guns aimed at your living quarters, wherever they might be? There would be none of the amenities you take for granted. Imagine – no running water, no clean, pressed clothing, no meals served at a dining table or servants to serve them. Lucy, do you even know where the Turkish lands are? They are fifteen hundred miles distant, across rough seas. And once there, perils lurk all around: vapours that rise from the land and cause fatal disease; snakes and scorpions that kill with one bite; not to mention the horrors of battle. It would not be some nursery game of soldiers.’ She stopped, wanting to comfort the sobbing Lucy, but the set of her sister’s shoulders did not invite affection.
Lucy’s words were muffled by tears. ‘Don’t you think I’ve considered all that myself? Charlie will protect me now. I’ve had a lifetime of being patronised by you and I’m fed up with it.’
Dorothea tried once more: ‘I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever marry Captain Harvington. I’m just saying wait till after the war …’
‘Don’t you understand that I can’t be happy for a single moment without him?’
Dorothea sighed. ‘You know I have to show Father this letter, don’t you? He will have to rethink his decision once he knows Captain Harvington’s precarious situation.’
‘I see you are determined to ruin my happiness. Well, get out of my room. Just leave me alone.’ Lucy was shouting now, completely beside herself.
Dorothea paused in the doorway, but could think of nothing more to add and so she closed the door softly behind her. She could only hope that her father would see sense and, if not, that Mr Goodland’s letter would have the desired effect and Major Dodds would talk some sense into Charlie. It seemed Lucy wouldn’t listen to any point of view that didn’t agree with her own.
The next afternoon, Dorothea returned from her work at the Pimlico hospital to find an agitated Henderson waiting by the door.
‘Apologies, Miss Dorothea, but I didn’t know how to contact you. Captain Harvington came around noon with a coach and four and Miss Lucy asked me to carry down her trunk and help the driver to load it on board. Your father did not seem to appreciate …’ He paused, trying to find a tactful way of expressing himself.
‘My father didn’t try to stop them, you mean. Did she leave a letter?’
Henderson handed her an envelope and Dorothea hurried into the drawing room, threw herself into an armchair, and tore it open. Lucy’s normally pretty handwriting scrawled all over the page with rage emanating from every line. ‘I will never forgive you for trying to stop my marriage,’ she wrote. ‘Never. I am going to stay in lodgings with Charlie and as soon as I turn eighteen we will be wed without your presence since we are to be denied your blessing. I’m sorry that your jealousy led you to try and ruin our happiness but our feelings for each other are so strong that was never a possibility.’ At the end, she wrote the most hateful words of all: ‘I want nothing more to do with you. Charlie is my family now.’
Dorothea buried her face in her hands and curled forward into a ball. ‘Oh God, no. What have I done?’ She wanted to cry but all that came out was a keening sound. How could everything have gone so badly wrong? She’d only acted as she did because she loved Lucy more than any other human being on the planet. Now she had caused her to run off into goodness knows what kind of danger. Anything could happen. Her good name would be ruined, and her very life might be at risk. All she could hope was that war could be avoided, or that Major Dodds would forbid Lucy from accompanying the troops. While Charlie was away, she would surely have to come home again and that would give Dorothea a chance to repair the damage she had caused. Oh please, let that be the case.
An agonising four weeks later, Mr Woodland received a curt reply from Major Dodds and he called round that evening to share it with Dorothea. It read that Lucy and Charlie had been married on 20th February in Warwickshire and that the Major had been honoured to act as Charlie’s best man. The regiment was still waiting to hear if they would sail for the Turkish lands – the decision was in the hands of politicians – but in the event they did, he would be happy for Mrs Lucy Harvington to accompany her husband.
‘Your sister is a foolish young girl,’ Mr Woodland began. ‘I shall reply to Major Dodds in the sternest terms insisting …’
‘No, don’t.’ Dorothea rose to her feet, suddenly finding his pomposity unbearable. Whatever he had written to Major Dodds had clearly exacerbated the problem. Had he been more tactful in his letter, she was sure the reply would not have been so abrupt and unhelpful. ‘You must forgive me, but I find myself quite overcome. I must be alone. Perhaps …’ Tears were not far away and she was unable to finish the sentence. She turned and fled from the room.
‘Of course,’ Mr Woodland said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ Though by then there was no one to hear.
During the winter months of 1853–1854, Dorothea had a particular favourite patient at the Pimlico hospital. Edward Peters had been a soldier at the Battle of Waterloo almost forty years before but had since fallen on hard times. He had no children and no family members came to visit but Dorothea enjoyed the company of this softly spoken old man whose health was slowly but surely failing. Every day she brought him her father’s copy of The Times from the previous day because he liked to keep up with the news. He had trouble reading because his spectacles were not strong enough (she guessed he couldn’t afford another pair), so she would sit and read aloud the articles that interested him most, namely those about the impending war in the Turkish territories – which were, naturally, of great concern to her as well. Mr Peters interjected his own comments as she read, fiercely critical of government procrastination: ‘All this time we could be preparing for action and instead the politicians sit chin-wagging. They’re yellow, I say.’
‘We’ve
