Portugal
Chapter 3
Elizabeth had to work hard to convince her uncle, Mr. Edward Gardiner not to go barging into Longbourn and thoroughly thrash his brother-in-law, when she told him and her Aunt Maddie about what had transpired there.
“It is absolutely pointless Uncle. Mrs. Bennet will do exactly the same thing the next time when the occasion arises, and so will Mr. Bennet. She will shriek from the top of her lungs all day long and he will hide from her in his book room, content as long as he cannot hear her. He has no voice in that house and as he lost it a very long time ago, there is little chance that he will regain it now. I do not wish to return there, ever. I told Mr. Bennet as much.”
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner looked at each other in dismay, noting that their beloved niece now referred to her parents as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, as she would of any indifferent acquaintances. They loved all their nieces dearly, but they loved Elizabeth the most because she was the kindest and the most sensible of them all, with a zest for life and an intelligence that they have rarely seen in one so young. Her bitterness and the latest events at Longbourn showed them just how dysfunctional the Bennet family really was.
“You are very welcome to stay with us for as long as you wish” Mrs. Gardiner said kindly. “If you do not wish to ever return to Longbourn we certainly will welcome you in our house.”
“Thank you for your kind invitation and your goodness Aunt Maddie, but I do not mean to impose on you forever.”
“There would be no imposition” both Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner protested.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I wish to be useful and independent. As I do not wish to become a governess and I am too young and lack the knowledge of the world needed to become a companion to a lady of the society, I was thinking that I should very much like to become a nurse. We are at war after all, and nurses are very much needed.”
“A nurse? In a war zone?!” Mrs. Gardiner gasped in dismay.
“Yes Aunt. I do not intend to marry anytime soon, if ever. You know how I loved to help Mr. Jones, the apothecary of Meryton care for our tenants. But although I learned very much from him, I am sure that I need to learn a lot more to be able to help wounded soldiers. But this is something that I would like to, and what I am determined to do.”
“Are you sure that this is what you want?” Mr. Gardiner asked with concern etched on his features.
“I am Uncle” Elizabeth nodded with conviction.
“If you are indeed determined to pursue this path, I shall introduce you to Dr. Carmichael” Mr. Gardiner said quietly. “From what I heard, he is training nurses for the war.”
“Thank you Uncle Edward” Elizabeth cried happily, hugging him fiercely.
“Well, if you are sure that this is what you wish to do…”
“It is” Elizabeth assured him firmly.
“But even if you wish to become a nurse, it does not have to be at the war” Mrs. Gardiner protested. “There are many other…”
“Oh, Aunt! I love you so much and I hate to create any anguish for you, but I would much rather help our poor soldiers than a pampered elderly lady who fancies herself too ill to lift a glass of water to her lips. Those men are fighting for all of us, ensuring that we do not fall under the tyranny of that abominable upstart Napoleon, who is invading Europe. They are dying for our wellbeing and our continued freedom. The least we can do is to help in any little way we can” Elizabeth embraced her aunt, her eyes welling with unshed tears.
Mrs. Gardiner nodded sadly and enfolded her niece into her arms.
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Two months later, Elizabeth was standing on the docks with her aunt and uncle, ready to board HMS Richmond for the shores of .
“Are you sure that you still want to go through with this?” Mr. Gardiner asked as he held her in his loving arms. “It is not too late to change your mind, my child.”
“Yes Uncle, it is. Although I do wish we could have learned more than just basic bandaging techniques and invalid feeding” she said wistfully, “I think I learned as much as I could from Dr. Carmichael and I believe that now I am as ready as I will ever be to start.”
“It is a hard life and a very dangerous one” he shook his head in dismay.
“Where would the world stand if everybody shrank back from a little danger?” she laughed shakily. “And should I die in a skirmish, I hope that I shall be remembered as the Jeanne d’Arc of England” she grinned. “The virgin who gave her life for her country.”
“This is no laughing matter” her aunt admonished gently, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief to dry the tears she was not even attempting to hold back.
“No, it is not” Elizabeth replied with a sobered mien. “Yet, the truth is that our soldiers will need all the care that they can get as they fight for our country and our freedom. Someone needs to be there for them and I am proud to be one of those who will try to help them, no matter how meagre my abilities might be. I may not yet be very experienced in nursing, but I can dress a wound and I can tell a story to cheer up a poor lad who misses his family or who just lost a limb.”
“How about your own family?” Mr. Gardiner asked gently.
“I know that you shall miss me and you shall grieve for me should anything happen to me” Elizabeth tearfully hugged her aunt and uncle. “But please, do not worry too much about me. I promise you to be very, very careful with my life. My only worry in what those at Longbourn are concerned, is that now that I will be gone and firmly out of her reach, Mrs. Bennet will try to coerce Jane into marrying Mr. Collins. Her letters demanding that I return and marry our cousin prove that she did not give up on the idea that through one of us marrying him, she will be able to continue as Mistress of Longbourn for the rest of her life.”
“Do not worry about that my dear” Mr. Gardiner reassured her. “We will be sure to hear about it if that happens and be assured that I shall intervene if that is the case, even if your father does not. However, I know that your father will be deeply chagrined by your decision and the perils you are going to face.”
“He shall be just fine, as long as he has his books and manages to keep Mrs. Bennet out of his book room” Elizabeth chuckled bitterly. ”Besides, I am very well prepared for hostile territories. Mrs. Bennet saw to that for nigh seventeen years” she said with such a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that neither her aunt nor her uncle could help chuckling.
“You make sure to take good care of yourself Elizabeth Annelyse Bennet, or you shall be facing my wrath” Mr. Gardiner said with mock severity. “And write to us as often as you can, dearest.”
“I would not dare disobey you, Uncle Edward” Elizabeth answered with a cheeky smile.
It was time to board the ship and Elizabeth hugged one last time her dearest relatives, then she hurried aboard, surreptitiously dabbing at her eyes. She was quite terrified of what might lay ahead, but she will not turn back to her life at Longbourn. Ever. That life was now in the past, where it belonged.
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Standing by the railing of the ship, Elizabeth watched the English coast recede beyond the horizon. This was the end of her life as she knew it. She was a new person now, with new ideals and new prospects. She did not regret the life she was leaving behind. Definitely not her mother’s disparagement, and most certainly not her father’s inability to stand up to her mother’s hysterics and his lack of involvement in their family life.
Life at Longbourn was a trial for everybody who lived between its walls, but most acutely so for Mrs. Bennet’s least favourite daughter. Elizabeth and Mrs. Bennet were so different from each other that neither could understand the other. Elizabeth was a highly logical and practical person while Mrs. Bennet was nonsensical and flighty. Furthermore, Elizabeth’s love of nature and books was incomprehensible to Mrs. Bennet who never stirred from the house on foot, nor did she read anything beyond the odd letters she exchanged with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Gardiner or the gossip columns in the papers that Mr. Bennet discarded.
Elizabeth loved her father dearly, but she was not blind to his weaknesses. Not that she blamed him solely for everything that was wrong in their family, but she did hold him responsible for not trying to get a better hold of his household and a better care of their estate. She knew that her father married her mother because he had been infatuated with her beauty. In her youth Mrs. Bennet used to look much like dear Jane, so Elizabeth could very well understand the attraction. Sadly, contrary to Jane who was the embodiment of gentleness and goodness, Mrs. Bennet was vain and selfish, a fact that Mr. Bennet discovered as soon as his infatuation faded, but unfortunately for him by then it was much too late.
However, instead of trying to guide his wife and endeavour to make her more sensible and have her behave in a more genteel manner, Mr. Bennet retreated into his library and there he stayed throughout all the crises and the happy times their family faced. He was the ever-absent member of the family. He paid minimal attention to the management of the estate, despite Elizabeth’s gentle nudges trying to get him to be more proactive. He shrank from any confrontation with his wife, preferring to let her have her way rather than try to rein her in. As a result, he was neglecting his children just as much as he was neglecting his wife and his estate. True, he made them all read instructional books, but he never followed up to see if the reading has been done or whether it achieved its intended purpose. Elizabeth wondered what will become of Mary, Kitty and Lydia without any proper parental guidance. At least she and Jane had benefitted from their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner’s gentle care, but by the time their younger sisters were old enough to benefit from it too, her little cousins took up much of their aunt’s time and their visits in London were much less frequent and of a much shorter duration.
As she was watching the English shore become a thin line in the far distance Elizabeth was wondering what will become of her and her family. However, now she had to look forward, not back. The times were changing. She had a brand new life ahead of her, one that she felt in charge of and she was determined to live it at its fullest, whatever the future held for her.
Deep down, she knew that she did wish to marry at some point as she dearly loved children, and she certainly wished to become a mother someday. But she also wished to lead a meaningful life, one that encompassed more than just running a household, setting a good table for her husband and his friends, and rearing children. Not for the first time in her life, she wished she were born a man. Men had so many more options than women, especially gentlewomen, did. But wishing for something she could not change was meaningless. She just had to focus on her goals and do her best to reach them.
The task ahead of her right now was to become as good a nurse as she could be, and try to ease the pain of as many people as she could. She had no idea what a battlefield looked like. She had no idea of what a battle wound looked like, despite Dr. Carmichael’s efforts to prepare them as best as he could. She was way out of her comfort zone, but she had faith that she was there for a reason and that, hopefully when the time came, she will learn quickly what she needed to do.
She wiped a stray tear that rolled down her cheek and she turned her back on the English shore. That was her past and she had to let go of it in order to embrace her future.
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The sea voyage was almost two weeks long, as they encountered some really bad weather. The roiling seas made most of the people on the ship sick and they were thrown off course. Elizabeth was one of the very few lucky ones, outside the of ship’s crew, not affected by the rough seas.
She worked along those who did not get ill to try to assuage the sufferings of those who did. It was for the first time in her life that Elizabeth was doing laundry, and in cold, salty water at that. Her hands were stinging from the rough soap and the salty water but she ground her teeth and saw to her task with fierce determination.
In addition to the troops, the ship carried ten nurses and two doctors, Dr. Porter and Dr. Murphy. Both doctors were married and travelled with their wives. While Dr. Porter and his wife were approaching their middle ages, the Murphys were much closer to Elizabeth’s age. Elizabeth and Mrs. Murphy became very close friends during the passage. Mrs. Murphy was two and twenty, only a few years older than Elizabeth, and they soon discovered that they had many things and interests in common, as they worked side by side to help those who were ill. Elizabeth was grateful for the other lady’s friendship and drew a lot of strength from it in her lowest moments, when she missed her loved ones and her familiar surroundings, headed into the great unknown.
After most of her fellow nurses found their sea legs, they busied themselves preparing bandages. Most of the nurses were young women like herself, some of them of gentle upbringing, others tradesmen’s daughters, with a couple of older widows among them. On the long days while they were sitting around the table tearing up linen and rolling them into neat bundles, they spoke about themselves, about their families and their lives before deciding to become nurses. Elizabeth was astonished at the diversity of their backgrounds and their motivations. She found that most of them chose this path because they did not have any other means to support themselves, but there were a few who just like her, chose to become war nurses because they wanted to help the fight against Napoleon’s invading armies.
By the end of their voyage, Elizabeth felt that she knew the other ladies quite well and she felt a close kinship with them.
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Just like she had been watching the shores of England disappear, Elizabeth was now watching out for the first sights of land on the horizon. A new land, a new country. A country troubled by war. But weren’t all countries more or less troubled? Open war was surely the worst of all, but there were strives and social struggles everywhere, even in her beloved England. The war was taking a toll on all of them, whether they were on the front lines or behind them.
Finally, Elizabeth saw the thin line on the horizon which had a different colour than the rest of the ocean. She wondered if it was the land they were headed for or only an optical illusion, or maybe a layer of mist hovering over the vast expanse of water. Soon however she heard the shout of a sailor far above her shouting “Land ahoy!”. It was the new land she was at the same time excited and dreading to set foot on.
She wondered at the kind of people living in this foreign country. Where they anything like the people in her own country? Did they have the same hopes and challenges like people of her own country had? Or were they as passionate as her readings led her to believe them to be? Elizabeth laughed at herself as this last thought crossed her mind. She wondered how a stranger would describe English people? Cold blooded and unflappable she decided, still chuckling as she descended to her berth to start packing her belongings. No matter how different from herself the people of this unknown country might be, they were all human beings with the same joys and sorrows, even if they might express them differently. Shaking her head, she decided to try to get to know them as much as she could and try to make as many new friends as she could amongst them.
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“This will be your room senhorita 1 ” the kind woman smiled at Elizabeth, opening the door to a small but neat and very clean room.
“Muy obrigado 2 ” Elizabeth smiled back, very much liking the short, dark haired woman with dancing black eyes who was welcoming her into her house.
Elizabeth entered the room that was to be hers for the near future. The soldiers were encamped just outside Lavadores, the little fishing village on the outskirts of Porto. The officers, the doctors and the nurses were housed with the fishermen’s families.
“Where can I get some water to wash?” she asked her landlady.
“I shall fetch you some” the woman nodded, ready to go doing just that.
“Thank you but I should like to do it myself. I am not expecting you to wait on me.”
The woman’s smile broadened as she was looking at this independent and unaffected young lady. “I will show you, senhorita. Please call me Maria.”
“And I am Elizabeth” Elizabeth’s smile mirrored that of her landlady.
“Ah, Isabella!” the woman beamed. “Lovely name.”
“So is yours” Elizabeth laughed. “Obrigado 3 Maria, the room is lovely and I am sure I shall be very comfortable in your house. Thank you for having me.”
“Você é muito bemvenido, senhorita Isabella 4 ”
1 Miss
2 Thank you very much
3 Thank you
4 You are very welcome, Miss Isab ella