A Terrible Beauty (Season of the Furies Book 1) Read online

  “A Terrible Beauty”

  Season of the Furies - Book 1

  a novel by

  Stephanie Patterson

  © May 18, 2012

  This book is a work of fiction and although it references and contains certain historical incidents and figures, the names, characters, places constituting the rest of the plot line are products and therefore the intellectual property of the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locals or organizations are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2012 © Stephanie Patterson

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Dedication

  For my Mother who made a habit of placing pivotal books in my hands knowing that they would lead me somewhere. Her choices that led me here – “The How and Why Book of Florence Nightingale” and “Nurses Who Led The Way.” Nurses were among my first heros – right next to Wonder Woman. Many of us realize that they are actually one in the same. I also dedicate this book to Florence and Mary who didn’t understand the meaning of ‘no,’ nor the term, ‘a woman’s place,’ and to the thirty-eight other brave female souls who walked through the doors of Barrack Hospital and changed the future.

  Prologue

  Barrack Hospital, Scutari, Constantinople, Turkey

  November 5, 1854

  The stench struck her before they’d even reached the hospital entrance – the stench and the sound of hundreds of men moaning and crying for help. Belle lifted her handkerchief to cover her nose, fighting the impulse to gag as she leaned heavily against railing of the steps. It was as if the very odors of death, rot and contagion had formed on impenetrable wall, halting their progress. The air was thick with flies, their constant buzz creating an audible hum throughout the area. The insects landed on their caps, their cloaks, crawling on them – too many of them to be driven away. She looked around frantically for anyone, anything the least bit familiar. One of the nurses bumped into her back and Belle heard her gasp.

  “I can’t do this,” the young woman said. Belle thought her name was Molly. “I can’t go in there. I won’t.”

  Good, I won’t be the only one to run away, Belle thought as she turned to grasp the other woman's hand. Surely no one would blame them for leaving. No one could. A movement in front of her caught her eye. Miss Nightingale, her face, a study of calm, stood at the entrance to the maelstrom. Her very presence commanded obedience from the women who’d come to know her and to trust her as they trusted no one else. Her voice called out clear and strong and Belle clung to it as if it were a rope pulling her out of a roiling, black sea. “Ladies,” she began, “we are trained to ease suffering and the sights and sounds of suffering, even as egregious as these, must never deter us from our duty. Nursing is not a job to be laid down when it becomes too difficult. It is a calling, a vocation. I ask you for the sakes of the men in this desperate place to begin as you mean to go on. It is not only myself who asks this of you, but it is your Queen as well. Just as surely as these men showed so such bravery under fire, you too must now show the courage of your conviction. Care for the sick and wounded. Help them as you can and if nothing else, ease their passage from this world. The next few weeks will be among the most difficult of your lives, but with determination and our faith in God, we will prevail.”

  Tears threatened Belle’s eyes – tear’s of humiliation because for all of her noble intentions she’d been so willing to cut and run before they’d even begun. And where would she go anyway? “Begin as you mean to go on,” she whispered to herself. Belle turned to the white-faced Molly and linked arms with her.

  “Come on, Molly,” she said, trying for bravado, but only managing a sound above a whisper. “We’ll face perdition together. Besides, we’ve spent all our money on our kits.” They clung arm in arm as they moved up the steps and Belle attempted a slight smile as they passed Miss Nightingale. The other woman inclined her head in acknowledgment.

  Belle heard there had been a fire at Barrack Hospital and the evidence remained. Soot still smeared the walls and the floors were completely burned away in some places. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The smell inside was much worse than outside and Belle fought to keep from vomiting. She was certain that the only thing preventing any of them from fainting was their fear of contact with the floor. Filthy straw lay everywhere, trapping blood and worse against the slippery wood. Rats darted brazenly down the corridors, unnoticed by the orderlies who were powerless to stop them given their sheer numbers.

  Open buckets of human waste were scattered haphazardly among the rows of wounded soldiers. The men themselves lay abandoned on rotting piles of straw used as makeshift pallets. Those with enough strength, tried to knock away the rats who sought to feast on the men who had no strength left to defend themselves from the rodents' onslaught. Those who’d died, however, suffered the worst indignities of all from the rats’ attack. One by one, the nurses succumbed to the filth and devastation around them. Molly ran to the closest window. Belle kept walking, tears running down her face, her head turning back and forth to look at the dying men who lay in agony in the tattered and blood-soaked remnants of their uniforms. Some called for help, reaching their trembling hands towards her. They had no blankets, no medicine because the supplies were still being unloaded from the ship. Belle felt weak and useless. She had nothing to offer them, nothing to bring them comfort nor peace – not even hope.

  Two of the orderlies pushed past her, cursing her for getting in their way. They dragged the body of a soldier off a straw pallet, and carted him off. A wave of stench hit Belle as they passed her and she was unable to hold down the gore rising from her stomach. She barely made it to the window in time. Once she began retching she feared she would never stop. With every gag she remembered how she’d come to be here in this place that God, himself had turned His back upon. She hated her stepfather. She hated Michael Lassiter. God, she even hated her mother at this moment for being so weak and foolish as to marry that monster. Most of all, she hated herself, because if Andrew Lassiter ended up in this hell hole, she was the person who'd put him here.

  The days passed in a blur. Endless, mind-numbing hours of scrubbing the wards – floors, walls and windows with Eau de Javelle and carbolic solution. Miss Nightingale had brought supplies from England, purchased with donations, as well as with her own funds. It gave Belle a sense of pride to know that her mother’s jewelry suite had gone for such a noble purpose. She’d never have been able to stand the sight of the amethysts again, much less bear to wear them. The orderlies put the bedsteads together, grumbling the entire time at having to follow the directions of a woman. Even the most resistant of them was no match for Miss Nightingale, however. Under her orders sewer drains were repaired and the waist buckets cleared away. The decomposing rats beneath the floor boards were removed and any holes repaired to deny access to the vermin. Wounded soldiers received baths and clean nightshirts before being transferred into actual beds where they received regular food, water and what medications were available.

  Belle stored the last bottle of carbolic solution and then began counting and storing the bottles of zinc sulphate. She frowned as she checked the inventory list. Two bottles of ferric chloride and three of camphorated vinegar were missing. She’d have to check the supply closet they’d set up in the sixth ward. Perhaps they’d been placed there by mistake.

  “My hands are so cracked they keep snagging on the bandages and linens,” Molly complained, stret
ching her back, “and my Ned used to love my hands. ‘Mol,’ he’d say, ‘I never knew hands could be pretty ‘til I seen yours.’ Now look at them.” She held up her hands for Belle to examine. They were cracked and raw. So were Belle’s, but she still sympathized with the other woman. A year ago she’d had long fingernails and a maid who’d rubbed rose water and glycerine into her skin daily. She smiled wistfully. “There’s lanolin salve. We’ll smell a bit like mutton I expect, but we’ve smelled worse.”

  Molly chortled. “Better than goose grease.” The other young woman put a hand on her hips and studied her friend for a moment. Belle knew what was coming – the inevitable questions about why was she here and not tucked away somewhere in England, happily married with several children. She’d kept her distance from the other nurses, friendly in a quiet, reserved way, but nonetheless remote. Of all the women only Molly continued to ignore her polite, but firm boundaries, claiming a particular kinship with Belle since they’d faced the horrors of Barrack Hospital together on the day of their arrival. Molly believed that kinship granted her special license to press Belle for answers and Belle couldn’t refute her logic. The two young women may have came from vastly different backgrounds, but they still had much in common. They’d both known sorrow and loss. Molly, only a few months older than Belle, had already buried her husband and their child.

  “You never talk about your people,” Molly began.

  “I’m not much of a talker,” Belle said as Molly came to stand beside her.

  “No, you’re not and I can’t help feeling it would be better for you if you were. You keep too much inside yourself, Belle. Everyone says so.”

  “Everyone is entirely too curious about me. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Molly returned shrewdly. “Except where you learned to hold your knife and fork the way you do, or why you drink your tea like you was sitting in a parlor with some duchess or other. You speak like quality and I’m thinking that before you took your training you’d never done a real lick of work in your life.” Belle turned back to the crate she was unpacking, but Molly, as usual, would not be put off. “So I’m thinking there’s a real story here, Belle. Why else aren’t you married to some handsome, young gentleman. A face like yours can make a man overlook a lot.”

  “Somethings are best left alone, Molly.” Belle said, quietly.

  “Maybe. Just so you know you’re not alone should you ever need to talk.” Belle met her eyes and saw the kindness there. “We all came here to help for our own reasons,” Molly continued. “Some reasons better than others, I suppose. Just know that I’ll stand as your friend no matter what.”

  Belle felt a lump form in her throat and she longed for the emotional release of a good cry. She’d lost her capacity for tears, though, at least the ones for herself, shortly after arriving in Scutari where the world was one enormous wound that never healed. She wanted to tell Molly that if any of the nurses had known Belle before her fall they would have despised her. She wanted to confess her list of crimes and explain why she’d committed them – to tell Molly the whole sorry mess her life had become before being brought to the hospital on Harley Street. However, now was neither the time, nor the place. Instead she whispered, “Perhaps one day, Moll, when I’ve sorted it out myself.” Molly nodded and squeezed her arm.

  Sudden commotion in the corridors caused both woman to abandon their tasks and follow the sounds. Within moments their matron had them scurrying into position at the admittance tents. The ships from the Crimea, carrying the wounded from the battle of Inkerman had landed. Now all their training as nurses, all their preparations would be put to the test.

  Belle took her place in the reception tent ready to clean and tend the wounded before they were taken into the hospital. Before the day ended she would help tend more than fifteen hundred men and boys and among them she would find her salvation.

  Araby

  Chapter One

  London, February 1853

  “The Bloomquists hold such haphazard affairs,” Lady Arabella Winston remarked to her friend behind the confines of her fan.

  Lady Katherine Saunders gave her own fan a dismissive flick. “They invite all manner of people with no real regard for their suitability,” she agreed. “There's definitely mutton loose amongst the lamb tonight.”

  Both young ladies surveyed the ballroom from the relative seclusion of the potted palms used to decorate the northern end of the room. Their faces held similar looks of haughty disdain, a warning to others not to trespass on their privacy. The ballroom was their kingdom and other debutantes, as well as young gentlemen, knew better than to garner their displeasure. Lady Katherine and her friend were members of an exclusive and notorious trio of young beauties known as, The Furies. Earning their wrath led to crushing set downs, missed social opportunities, even outright ostracism and Lady Arabella Winston, known to fashionable society as ‘The Incomparable Araby,’ was their leader.

  The Furies glided through the ballrooms and salons of London rending hearts and hopes at whim, three nineteen-year-old goddesses united by their power to captivate those around them. Their gowns were not merely fashionable, they set the fashion. Their wit was pointed and as far-reaching as a javelin. The Furies' power was absolute, their judgments, inescapable and without mercy. For marriage in fashionable society was an earnest business and never something to be left to chance. Fierce rivalries were commonplace when competing for the season's crop of available peers and no one was better at outdistancing the competition than The Furies.

  Lady Katherine brushed at an errant crease in her gown, her lips forming a displeased pout. It was all artifice. Katherine Saunders didn’t pout. She held a keen intelligence coupled with a rapier wit and used both freely. However, she’d recently decided that a slight, pouting expression, used sparingly, made her more alluring to a certain young viscount. “One can hardly navigate the ballroom without treading on some member of the merchant class or another. Don’t they have curfews for commoners, or something?” she asked. She tugged at the wrist of her glove in annoyance. “Where’s Sarah, by the way? She should be here by now. I want to know what happened. Nobody's so much as mentioned Damaris Kingsford all night.”

  Araby drew a steadying breath at the mention of her rival’s name. She’d longed to remain at home this evening. It was only her wish to avoid another confrontation with her stepfather that forced her to attend this evening’s event. “You just mentioned her yourself,” she replied coolly, though she was far from feeling the boredom she affected. So many things remained at stake for her, for them all. Damaris hadn’t come to any real harm she reminded herself, and the entire incident may have been successfully covered up. Still, if connection were made between the Furies and Damaris Kingsford's abduction, then society’s patronesses would exact swift and terrible retribution against all three of them.

  The abduction scheme was a desperate attempt by Araby’s stepfather, to ruin Damaris Kingsford, thereby eliminating her as Araby’s rival for Jules Wentworth, the Earl of Arland and heir to the Strathmore dukedom. Araby only hoped the Furies would emerge unscathed from last week's series of catastrophic events. She could worry about securing Arland later. Perhaps Damaris had been returned home with none the wiser – an unlikely outcome if Lord Elkton, her stepfather’s fellow conspirator had his way. Araby shuddered delicately.

  Lord Elkton, a man of questionable grooming habits, was a lecherous hanger-on who'd gambled away his own fortune long ago and needed a well-dowered bride to refill his coffers. Damaris Kingsford, in spite of her ordinary ancestry, suited his needs perfectly. Her guardian had settled a sizable fortune on the girl making her near irresistible to a man of Elkhorn's stamp.

  Araby would feel better once Sarah, an avid indulger in scandal sheets, penny dreadfuls and lurid gossip, appeared and told them what tales had made the rounds of today’s salons.

  As if summoned by her friend's thoughts, Sarah Jane Melbourne hastened through the crowd, clusters
of her mahogany-colored ringlets bouncing around her jaw-line. Without a word Araby led them all towards the terrace. Once outside, she held up her fan to insure no one spoke before she'd satisfied herself that none were close enough to overhear them.

  “What have you heard?” she asked Sarah without preamble.

  “She’s safe, no thanks to us,” the other girl replied, her tone a blend of fear and anger. Sarah had always operated as conscience for The Furies, restraining their actions before any lasting damage occurred. Araby wished that they’d listened to her a week ago before everything with Damaris Kingsford had gotten so far out of hand.

  “Good. That’s an end to this dreadful business,” Katherine stated. “When Arland returns....”

  “It's hardly the end,” Sarah continued, her eyes still searching Araby’s face. “They’re married.” Araby’s stomach dropped to her knees.

  “Damaris and Elkhorn?” Katherine whispered.

  Sarah shook her head. “Damaris and Arland.” Araby gripped her folded fan so hard its spines made a cracking sound. The night spun around her. She’d known it was a possibility once Arland learned the truth and set out to rescue Damaris. Still, she’d believed her own hold on Arland great enough to prevent his complete defection. Katherine placed a hand on her shoulder. Araby jumped at the unexpected contact. Oh God, what would become of her now. “What will he do to me?” she whispered, not realizing she’d spoken aloud, however softly.

  “Arland will likely tarnish all our names,” Sarah began, “and it’s no more than we deserve. This is by far the worst thing we've ever done.” Her head drooped as if the shame was almost too much to bear.

  Katherine glared at her, “Arland is the least of her problems, you dolt.”