‘It is worse than that,’ DuQuelle answered slowly. ‘What you see is the fury of true good, when it has been thwarted. Sir Brendan’s pain will know no bounds; for at the very end he will understand what could have been.’
Katie shuddered at the thought and instinctively reached for James’s hand. It trembled slightly but his face was still, almost stern. DuQuelle turned to the young man. Again, Katie saw that passing flicker of human sympathy. And then he said the words, sincerely. ‘I am so sorry, James. You father has been found. By Lucia.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Truth
Travelling with a Queen is never easy, but travelling incognito with Queen Victoria was very difficult indeed. They had booked a first-class carriage on the train, and the first thing she did was to fling open the windows. Steam, soot and icy air filled the carriage within seconds. Bernardo DuQuelle, who hated the cold, suffered cruelly. But the Queen was undisturbed. She reached eagerly for the hamper packed specially for the trip.
Queen Victoria, in spite of her great grief, had regained her appetite. Florence Nightingale watched in horror as she consumed compote, roast beef, cold potatoes and a whole boiled fowl. Afterwards she confided to Miss Nightingale, ‘I suffer from such indigestion, it is a mystery to me.’ Florence Nightingale sympathized but made no suggestions. She knew a hopeless case when she saw one.
They transferred to horse and carriage one stop before Windsor to avoid suspicion. As they pulled up at the top of Castle Hill, several of Victoria’s ladies came running out. ‘We have been so worried,’ they cried to Bernardo DuQuelle. ‘Why would you not let us come to her? We didn’t know what to do, and we didn’t want to alert the newspapers!’
‘That would have been disastrous. I worried as well, so I travelled secretly to Osborne House to speak to the Queen. I do apologize for the delay. I took weeks to convince her. I brought my friend, Miss Florence Nightingale . . .’ DuQuelle replied. The ladies had been fussing and curtsying to the Queen. They turned now, awestruck. The great Miss Nightingale.
Though grief-stricken, the Queen had no intention of being upstaged by a nurse, even if she was the heroine of the Crimean War. Throwing back her veil, for the first time in months, she strode over to Miss Nightingale. Queen Victoria was a tiny woman, but she still had royal stature. Florence Nightingale curtsied, very low. ‘My little friend, Miss Nightingale, has been an invaluable aide,’ the Queen said. ‘She has helped me to see, again, my duty. I think I shall keep her with me for a time.’
Katie noticed that Miss Nightingale’s demure smile tightened that little bit. Spending time with Queen Victoria could be quite a challenge. She exchanged a long sideways glance with Bernardo DuQuelle. For the hundredth time, Katie wondered about their relationship.
DuQuelle came to her rescue. ‘I quite agree, ma’am. Miss Nightingale will be very helpful to you. I am certain she will help you make decisions on the restrictions of diet, proper exercise and the occasional closing of a window.’
The Queen had no intention of following any dictates on these matters. She began to change her mind. Perhaps Miss Nightingale’s visit should be a short one. ‘I have much to do,’ the Queen said, rather abruptly. ‘The red boxes are certain to have piled up.’ She sighed at the idea of her lonely study, where she would be working ceaselessly and alone. There would never be anyone now who would have the right to address her as ‘Victoria’. That was gone forever. But she had begun to think again of other friendships – perhaps beyond her ladies-in-waiting.
The Queen lowered her eyes, and under her lashes, glanced at Bernardo DuQuelle. She had always liked him, so clever, in that way of certain foreigners. And she had a weakness for the exotic. Prince Albert might have questioned M. DuQuelle’s motives, but to be fair, DuQuelle had always acted in the interest of the Crown. And he was so amusing . . . so well informed . . . so admiring and respectful . . .
The Queen cleared her throat. ‘M. DuQuelle, you have long been my beloved husband’s Private Secretary. I wish you to assume that role for me. You are certain to be of great assistance in helping me carry out his wishes in every way.’
Several ladies-in-waiting stared and the Queen turned slightly pink.
DuQuelle showed no surprise, but then he never did. He bowed very low to the little, round woman, dressed entirely in black. ‘Ma’am, I will serve you, to the best of my ability, to the end of our days.’ And he did.
James and Katie found Princess Alice in the Blue Room. She had gone every day to lay flowers on her father’s bed. She knew this is what the Queen would have wanted. The courtiers rarely came to this room. So it was a quiet place to think. For Katie and Alice there were hugs and tears, hundreds of questions and breathless explanations. But Katie could see, something was worrying Alice deeply. And from the way she greeted James, she suspected it had to do with him.
James seemed unaware of the trouble. ‘I wish you could have seen Brislington,’ he was telling Alice enthusiastically. ‘It’s the perfect specimen of how not to run a mental hospital. Within just a week, Miss Nightingale’s makeshift reforms were proving helpful. I’d never been that interested in mental health before, but now . . .’
‘James, Katie, I need to tell you something,’ Alice interrupted. Alice was not an interrupter; her manners were always impeccable. This must be important. James looked at her, his face open, his mind still fixed on medical matters.
‘Maybe I should just go . . .’ Katie mumbled. ‘I have some things I need to do.’
Princess Alice took hold of her wrist. Katie noticed her grip was tight and her fingers were ice-cold. ‘No,’ Alice said. ‘You need to hear this too.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I am leaving, in a week. Sailing on the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert from Gravesend across the Channel and then on to Hesse-Darmstadt.’ At first James’s face simply looked puzzled, and then Katie saw it darken. He’d put two and two together: the Christmas Ball – it seemed so long ago – the handsome young man with a dark mustachios in the style of her father. ‘I am going to visit the family of the Grand Duke,’ Princess Alice faltered on. ‘My father arranged it, before he died.’
‘You are going to visit the Grand Duke . . .’ James said slowly, ‘the Grand Duke and his son?’ There was a long, painful silence.
‘Yes, a visit to the Grand Duke . . . and his son.’ Alice didn’t have it in her to lie. Katie watched the struggle on both her friends’ faces.
Then James bowed, very formally. ‘Thank you for telling me . . . ma’am.’
Ma’am. That little formal address hurt Alice to the quick. She clutched Katie’s hand for support. ‘I promised my father, on his deathbed, that I would go. Whatever comes of this visit to Darmstadt, I will have to . . . accept. But I must speak with you now, James – and Katie too. It is immodest enough, what I wish to say, and certainly not for James to hear alone.’
James steadied himself. ‘You don’t need to say anything.’
‘But I want to,’ Alice replied with a hint of the regal. ‘The friendship the three of us have shared is the greatest of my life. My affection for my brothers and sisters is strong; my respect for my mother is boundless. I love my father . . .’ Her voice wavered at this last word, but she continued on. ‘Yet it is the two of you, with whom I have shared the most of me. I did not have to be a sister or a daughter with either of you. In particular, I did not have to be a princess. You know more about my mind, and my heart, than any two people in the world.’
Poor Alice, Katie thought. Brislington was terrifying, but Alice had been left at Windsor all alone. She blinked hard. Alice was saying goodbye then, to both of them. While they’d been at Brislington, Alice had been wrestling with a future she did not want.
‘I love Katie so dearly, but I knew she could never stay,’ Alice continued. ‘I know we will part soon, but I always have the hope we will see each other again. Don’t cry, Katie. I’ll cry then too, and I won’t have the courage to say what I need to say.’
Katie did cry, though,
and through her tears she saw Alice hold out her other hand to James.
‘My parting with you is of a different sort. While Katie is so funny and unusual, she is a girl; our friendship might be questioned, but in the end it is accepted. But James, the deep friendship we have . . . it would be frowned upon.’ James started to deny this, but Alice held up her hand and touched his lips with her fingers. ‘Any bright spark within me, any flicker of knowledge – it has been coaxed out of me, James, by you. Our lives will no longer be together. It always had to be this way. But look what you have given me. James, you’ve made me into the person I will grow to be.’
James did not cry. Katie almost wished he would. He’d gone stone stiff with misery. He cleared his throat three, four times. ‘There is one life we can have.’
Alice shook her head, but James, always less polite than she, interrupted. ‘The life of the mind.’
‘The life of the mind?’ Alice questioned.
‘No one can stop us from sharing that,’ James continued with growing firmness. ‘I couldn’t go on – to learn, to strive, to achieve anything – unless I was able to tell you. We can still share our ideas. We can write.’
Princess Alice smiled. ‘We can write,’ she repeated. It was the saddest smile Katie had ever seen.
Bernardo DuQuelle came into the room and bowed slightly towards the bed with its wreath of flowers. ‘A sad site for a reunion,’ he said. ‘No wonder you are crying.’ But Katie sensed he already knew what had transpired.
‘I have interesting news for you, James O’Reilly,’ he announced. ‘The Queen and I have had a very long discussion about your future.’ DuQuelle was already enjoying his preferment at court. Katie suspected that soon he would become even more intolerable. ‘She is very impressed by your early work on the germ theory of disease. In the lamentable case of her late husband, she accepts that you were above reproach. Indeed, if you own diagnosis had been followed, Prince Albert might be alive today. The Queen understands, now, the folly of taking Sir Brendan’s advice.’
This praise from such high places did not cheer James. He looked even more miserable. At least Princess Alice could legitimately mourn her father. James could only despise his.
Katie flung a furious look at DuQuelle. ‘What’s all this leading to,’ she asked, ‘other than you showing off about your great relationship with the Queen?’
DuQuelle looked slightly offended. ‘It is leading to an opportunity that will change James O’Reilly’s life.’
‘My life has already been changed,’ James replied dully.
DuQuelle gave him a thoughtful, kind look. ‘He must know,’ Katie decided.
DuQuelle then passed James a folded note. ‘This is a letter of introduction to M. Louis Pasteur at the École Normale in Paris. The Queen has just sent him a personal message, outlining your abilities, with an added postscript from Miss Nightingale.’
James couldn’t quite believe it. A moment ago he had thought his life was over. But now he felt the very faintest whisper of excitement. Pasteur! Why, he was at the forefront of disease. And even better, the French academies had accepted Pasteur’s work and were funding it. Anything happening in the field of germ theory would happen at the École Normale. James looked less like a statue. Princess Alice actually clapped her hands.
Florence Nightingale entered just then. She looked at Alice with slight disapproval. ‘This does seem an inappropriate place to romp,’ she said, exchanging that long, communicative glance with Bernardo DuQuelle.
She obviously knew too. Everyone’s relationships seemed to be unfurling. James and Alice would leave each other, but they had reached an understanding. And, in a way, they would never be parted. The Queen would go on, a powerful figure swathed in black, aided by Bernardo DuQuelle. He would play his part to perfection. But what was Miss Nightingale’s role?
Katie decided she’d had enough of mystery for one day. ‘Florence Nightingale, Bernardo DuQuelle, I think you should come clean,’ she burst out. ‘What exactly is your conection?’
Florence Nightingale looked disconcerted. Bernardo DuQuelle was ever so slightly amused. ‘You will never guess,’ he said.
James O’Reilly and Princess Alice sat down, Katie noted, side by side. ‘I would never dream of guessing,’ Alice said, ‘though we have always been curious.’
DuQuelle’s face softened when he turned to Princess Alice. He had always found her admirable and though she’d clapped with joy at James’s great prospects, her sweet face still looked so sad . . . Perhaps that is what decided him. ‘I will tell you a tale of times gone by,’ he said. ‘By chance it might give you some heart’s ease today.’ Alice blushed, but nodded.
‘Long ago, for you, but not so long for me, I made a friend,’ DuQuelle continued. ‘He was a fine man, a tremendous bibliophile – I believe it was our need of books that drew us together.’ This made sense to Katie. DuQuelle needed words – in fact, it was this world’s ability to communicate that had brought him here. DuQuelle smiled at Katie. ‘Always the words,’ he said, ‘they lead us both on. I don’t do friendship, as Katie might say, but this particular man was different. He spoke many languages, not anything like my range, but enough; and he understood the value of words. We formed a group, three or four of us. We worked together and published a learned work: Curiosities of Literature, it is still in print.’
‘I’ve read it,’ James said. ‘Your friend must be Isaac D’Israeli.’
DuQuelle’s eyes glittered green. ‘It is Isaac D’Israeli I speak of. I was as fond of him, as, well, as one like me can be. His sister Devara was even more brilliant. Her Greek, Hebrew and Latin were perfection, her ear for languages pitch-perfect. I do not believe there is, or was, another woman like her in this world. I married her,’ he said, enjoying the dumbfounded look on each face. ‘We had a child.’
Princess Alice gasped, and then covered her mouth with her hand. Katie was astounded. How could this be? DuQuelle wasn’t even human. She’d seen him cut himself and bleed – not blood, but words. And from this . . . a child?
DuQuelle seemed to enjoy their shock. ‘You’ve always found me rather heartless,’ he said. ‘Will you accept this as proof of something akin to a heart?’
James opened his mouth, with a thousand medical questions, but Princess Alice gave him a discreet nudge. Her royal manners had kicked in. ‘We congratulate you,’ she said. ‘I do apologize for our initial reaction. I will admit we are surprised.’
Bernardo DuQuelle bowed to her. ‘I thank you for your rather belated felicitations. A surprise, yes. No one was more surprised than I. But Devara was delighted.’ He paused, and then seemed to relive times past, in the way only DuQuelle could. His green eyes glowed. Katie watched him carefully. He’d lost his ominous, mysterious air. He seemed . . . almost . . . happy. And then his countenance grew cloudy. ‘It was short-lived. As often happens in this world of yours, my wife died.’
The warm light in DuQuelle’s eyes died. He didn’t just look old. He looked ancient and so tired. He tried to speak, to finish his tale, but nothing came out. The words he had fought so hard to gather and use failed him. Katie noticed that Florence Nightingale had lost her usual competent demeanour. It wasn’t sympathy washing through the room, it was something else.
Katie began to suspect the answer to her original question. ‘What happened to the baby?’ she asked.
Florence Nightingale drew a deep breath and continued the strange story. ‘With such a father, no one knew how this child would develop. Isaac D’Israeli decided it would be best to place his sister’s infant with a more traditional family. One of their literary friends had recently married. That man agreed to spirit the baby into his home, and raise it as his own. He loved letters and was known as W.E.N. He did the best he could with the child, though his wife was always resentful. It caused much disruption in their home.’
Alice stood up, wide-eyed. ‘W.E.N!’ she exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ Florence Nightingale said. ‘You will know him, alway
s called W.E.N. – an abbreviation of William Edward Nightingale.’
Bernardo DuQuelle came to stand next to Florence Nightingale. He did not embrace her, or kiss her, but he did look proud, and protective. ‘Florence Nightingale is my daughter.’ It took them all quite some time to absorb this strange fact. DuQuelle had been right about one thing: Alice and James and Katie forgot their own troubles in this new wonderment.
Finally Katie spoke. ‘This explains so much,’ she said. ‘The way you can read each other’s minds. Those things Florence did to me in the Crimea. Her understanding of the Little Angel, it all makes sense now.’ Katie was getting more excited by the moment. ‘It kind of seems to me that, with Florence and DuQuelle and Lucia, we really could defeat the Malum. We could find the Little Angel and . . .’
Florence Nightingale sighed and shook her head. ‘You are not the first to think so, Katie. But it is not to be. My powers are more than yours, though less than M. DuQuelle’s. It is the mixture of the two worlds – one might say the sublime and the ridiculous – that gives me such understanding. And I know, better than they know themselves, the Verus and the Malum will continue their battle.’
Katie started to protest, but Florence Nightingale raised a hand – small, white and commanding – for silence. ‘Neither will win, because they are in balance. Good and evil. Peace and war. Benevolence and brute force. They will continue to coexist. But we must be vigilant. Lord Belzen has a more willing audience, and it is easier to swell the ranks of his armies. I believe you saw some of his children. Ignorance, want and fear are always with him, always on his side. That is why you are so important, Katie. Unlike the other Tempus, you can choose. And each time the challenge comes, you choose what is good.’
Alice linked her arm through Katie’s and gave her a squeeze. ‘I’ve always known, from the beginning,’ she said.
Katie felt a wave of pride, quickly replaced by shame when she thought of the darkness she had hidden in her heart. ‘I almost went the other way,’ she said. ‘This time, I got so jealous of Alice and James – I just felt lost. And then I got angry.’
The Chronicles of the Tempus Page 65
