Fortune's Soldier

by Deryn Lake

‘Yes, Major Wardlaw?’

  ‘Put this in the post, would you, Jenks.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And, Jenks ...’

  ‘Yes, Sir?’

  ‘I shall need my dress uniform cleaned and ready for a wedding soon.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. What date, Sir?’

  ‘May 17, damn it.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that I wish the bridegroom had chosen any other day of the year but that.’

  ‘Not very lucky, Sir?’

  ‘No,’ answered Jackdaw slowly, ‘not very lucky for those connected with that wretched house. Thank you, Jenks. That will be all.’

  18

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Webbe Weston, leaning briefly out of the window and turning the palm of her hand towards the sky, ‘I believe it’s going to rain. Oh it mustn’t, it really can’t. All those guests! Oh dear.’

  Family weddings, family funerals and family births were always a great strain to her; part of which was the uncontrollable role played by the weather. Would it be too hot for the ladies, might the bride faint clean away; would the baby shiver at the font and catch a fatal bout of bronchitis; could the earth of the graveside slip in the wet and feet slide precariously over the newly-dead? All serious matters to be watched with eyes cast above to look for portents.

  And tonight was no exception. With Number 6 St Catherine’s Hill — the small terraced house she had taken since her husband’s death — packed to the doors, a downpour started, casting a faint gloom over what should have been a jolly party. For everybody had come a very long way and relished not at all the thought of a soaking on the wedding day.

  Little Violet Wardlaw — looking no older now that she was Mrs Bertram Berkeley — had travelled the farthest of the home-based guests, undertaking the journey from Shropshire unaccompanied, for Bertie did not believe in children being left totally in the charge of servants. But Mary and Matilda had travelled from Paris and brought their husbands with them, having no such worries about leaving their broods. Caroline, on the other hand, had brought all three of hers, and Francis as well, and was occupying an entire suite at The Angel. On the floor above them were staying Mr Hicks and Lady Waldegrave.

  Mrs Webbe Weston sighed with stress. Uncle Thomas Monington — her late husband’s brother — and his family were due to arrive first thing on the following morning, and Jackdaw Wardlaw was coming on the last train and was to be picked up at Woking by John Joseph.

  Organizing their sleeping quarters had been a nightmare, as The Angel was packed with Hickses and had no room for anybody else, but fortunately Sutton Place was reasonably fresh — old Blanchard and Cloverella having rounded up the remaining half dozen estate workers for a scrubbing party — and the bridegroom and best man were to spend the night there.

  Mary and Matilda and their respective partners had a small bedroom each at St Catherine’s Hill and Mrs Webbe Weston had put the Ladies Horatia and Ida Anna into the third. In desperation she had decided to take the servant’s attic bed for herself and put the girl on a shakedown in front of the fire. All very trying for a widow woman. But at least there was no supper to worry about as Mr Hicks was giving a grand dinner at The Angel, to which every member of the wedding party had been invited.

  So it was with a sense of relief that the bridegroom’s mother heard Mr Hicks’s three carriages — he had brought all of them from London to ferry the guests — arrive outside the front door. And it was with a type of curiosity that, having been handed into the leading carriage, followed closely by Ida Anna, she saw her son kiss Lady Horatia’s hand and observed the bridal pair look at one another in silence. She wondered, with all of her funny boring little brain at work, what they were thinking.

  If only she could have guessed that both were merely reacting — feeling in a dream, unreal. Everything — for the pair of them — had happened so fast that both were aware they were marrying a stranger.

  ‘I will see you in half an hour,’ John Joseph said. ‘I’ll take the small carriage to Woking and collect Jackdaw. Then we will come straight to The Angel.’

  Horatia blushed very slightly in the darkness, knowing full well that this was the same Jackdaw who had pursued her carriage in Hastings years ago and fallen flat in his attempt to make her stop.

  ‘I can’t wait to see him,’ she replied — with only the merest hint of anxiety.

  *

  ‘Oh God!’ said Jackdaw. ‘This can’t be happening to me!’

  But it was. In the downpour that was drenching London and the Home Counties a carthorse had slipped in the wet and the brewer’s dray it was pulling had overturned, slewing barrels all over the road.

  ‘Sorry, Sir,’ said the driver of the hansom cab. ‘We’ll have to take another way round. Never get through here in a month of Sundays. Hope you’ve plenty of time for your train.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I’ve only just come off duty.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’

  But it wasn’t quite good enough and Jackdaw limped on to the platform just in time to see the last train to Woking steam away. His old mistrust of the railway system reasserted itself and he swore imaginatively. Then, being a sensible Army man, he made his way to the one and only telegraph office in London and sent a message down the system that was still in its infancy — less than ten years old. Samuel Morse had begun it all with a demonstration to the Franklin Institute and now there was a key in London with sounders in most major towns. Jackdaw knew, as he booked himself into a room in a nearby railway hotel, that his message — in the original Morse code — would now be tapping out to the sounder in Guildford and would be taken by special delivery direct to John Joseph at The Angel before the soup course had even been cleared away.

  And so it was.

  ‘A telegram,’ said Mrs Webbe Weston — and fainted.

  As she plunged forward, narrowly missing her bowl, there was a fuss and diversion and the opening of the envelope was delayed a few moments. But when it was finally torn, John Joseph smiled.

  ‘Missed train owing to carthorse stop,’ he read. ‘Will go straight to Sutton Place tomorrow stop. Don’t proceed without me. Signed Jackdaw.’

  ‘He’s missed the train,’ he said aloud. ‘He’ll join us in the morning.’

  Mrs Webbe Weston groaned feebly and said, ‘Who’s dead?’ without opening her eyes.

  ‘Jackdaw’s missed the train, that’s all, Mother.’

  ‘Died in pain?’ said the silly creature, and lost consciousness once more.

  They had to take her home after this and the dinner party broke up somewhat earlier than anticipated.

  And so it was — as had often happened in the past, though not one of them had been aware of it — John Joseph, Horatia and Jackdaw all dreamed upon the same night.

  The first to do so — being the first into bed — was Jackdaw. He dreamed to begin with that he woke up. There in the hotel bedroom, a shaft of moonlight full upon them, were the three magic children, who stared at him without saying a word. He got out of bed and went to stand before them, bowing low. He noticed that they all wore black and that each had a mourning ring upon the index finger.

  Pernel noticed his gaze and said, ‘You will not see us again in this life, Jackdaw. It is time — and we will none of us survive the other two by more than a month. You, of all people, know how fortunate this is.’

  He nodded his head and his grandfather spoke. ‘Jackdaw, your most testing experience is about to begin. Do not break faith.’

  Jackdaw said, very simply, ‘Am I to meet her at last?’

  ‘You will gain and lose everything — but in the loss is the gain. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must do nothing to break the law of destiny.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Here,’ said Uncle James, ‘is a present for you. Do you remember this?’

  He held his hand out, his jet ring flashing a million sparkles in the moonlight. Drawing closer
, Jackdaw saw that there was no colour in the trio at all — they were entirely made up of shades of black and white.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look. Look closely.’

  The pale hand unclenched its fingers and there, lying in the palm, was a little green sphere.

  ‘My marble!’ said Jackdaw. ‘My funny old marble. I travelled through time with that once. Where did you find it?’

  ‘That is not important. What is important is that you do not lose it again. It can help you to understand yet more than you do now.’

  The magic three were beginning to fade even as he watched them.

  ‘Don’t go! Give me your blessing before you do.’

  ‘Go in peace, Jackdaw; grow in wisdom. That is our wish for you.’

  ‘God bless the souls of the magic children,’ he said. They were gone. There was nothing but the sparse hotel bedroom, the small hard bed — and the twinkling green sphere in his hand.

  Even as Jackdaw moved towards wakefulness, Horatia walked — in her sleeping mind — down a long and graceful beach. She had been there once before in her dreams but still did not know where it was. Above her — and slightly to her right — rose a crescent of houses, perched on the side of a hill. In their midst was a colonnaded chapel from which bells were chiming out ‘Haste to the Wedding’.

  Two men walked with her down the beach but she could not see their faces — and yet she had her arms linked with them both.

  ‘Are we going to the wedding?’ she asked.

  ‘Only two of us can do that,’ answered one.

  ‘Which two? Am I allowed to go?’

  ‘You can always go — because you are the Bride.’

  She laughed but the other one said, ‘It is true. You will be well loved, Horatia Waldegrave.’

  And with that the man holding her left arm broke free and ran towards the sea. She watched helplessly as he plunged into the waves and swam off towards the horizon.

  ‘Will he come back?’ she said.

  But to her horror the second man had started to walk rapidly away from her and she stood alone. She remembered in this dream another — the great, fast-flowing river, the sense of total desolation. She knew just such bewilderment and despair before she moved into a lighter level of consciousness and began to sleep more peacefully.

  And for John Joseph, bedding down in the chamber known as Sir John Rogers’s room, sleeping and waking became horribly intertwined as he dreamed that Giles the Fool was walking in the Chapel that had once been the Long Gallery. He heard, in his sleep, the rattle of the jester’s stick against the wall, the sad sobs of anguish. And he woke to find that it was reality — something was moving in that part of the house.

  He got out of bed very crossly indeed, convinced that Jay was up and about and being naughty. But when he crossed the Great Hall the pricking of his spine told him that the atmosphere was loaded with fear and that no little boy could cause such tension.

  Nonetheless he called the child’s name as he proceeded up the Great Staircase. There was no reply — only a deep and unnerving silence coming from the very heart of the house.

  ‘Jay?’ he called again.

  And then ahead of him were a million whispers, a million shadows, in one deep sad sob.

  ‘Giles, damn you,’ John Joseph shouted, suddenly furious, ‘why are you weeping? Don’t you know joy from sadness? I am getting married tomorrow — today. There is happiness in Sutton Place again. What’s the matter with you?’

  The shadows danced wildly over the walls as the Lord of the Manor of Sutton lunged forward in search of the jester long dead; Giles, who had served Sir Richard the builder until he — the Fool — had died of a cancerous growth. But then John Joseph’s attention was attracted by something on the wall. He drew nearer until he stood directly before the small, crude painting. It showed John the Baptist — wild of hair, mad of eye and half naked — immersed to the waist in a grey-watered river. Before him stood Christ — again an unusual concept; black-haired, dark-eyed, a young preaching Rabbi.

  But it was not at the realistic approach of the artist that John Joseph now stared; instead he looked at two trickles of water that welled down the canvas unchecked. His mind went back twelve years. He sat in the library of Sutton Place and heard a voice speak to him out of the shadows. He heard again that thin reed say, ‘Do you know the legend of Sir Richard Weston’s portrait?’ Heard himself reply in the negative and heard the voice go on, ‘It hangs in the Long Gallery. It shows John baptizing Christ.’

  John Joseph’s heart began to beat wildly as he picked up a piece of plate from the altar and attacked the rotting canvas. The paint fell away in large damp flakes. Beneath, John Joseph could dimly perceive something black. He struck at the canvas harder, holding the candle tree above his head to give more light. And then he saw it — the portrait of a man in black, white-ruffed, and skull-capped; two widely spaced eyes gazing out.

  But to his immense horror he saw that those eyes wept. He put out his finger and licked the substance that fell upon it. He tasted salt beneath his tongue.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ said John Joseph. ‘Oh Christ! Oh Christ! Why?’

  He sank into a corner, his knees to his chin and his eyes staring wildly, trying to remember the rest of that terrible conversation before Death had turned into a bird, as legend decreed it must.

  And then it came to him: the date. May 17, the day on which the portrait of Sir Richard Weston wept. Of all the terrible and grim coincidences he had chosen the blackest day in the history of Sutton Place for his marriage to Horatia Waldegrave. John Joseph leaned back against the wall at that, and cried on the dawning of his wedding day.

  *

  Jackdaw awoke abruptly as the first finger of dawn crooked and beckoned over the grey of London’s skies. For a good minute he did not know where he was. Then he remembered. The poor carthorse splaying its feet in the cut through to Waterloo; the barrels tipping everywhere; the missed train.

  But most vividly he remembered his dream of the night before: the farewell from the Gage children — the progeny of Garnet who had known no magic himself yet whose daughter and twin sons had spread their wisdom in the world for nearly one hundred years.

  He felt beneath his pillow. Very much as he had expected, the green marble was there. The dream had been too real, too disturbing, to be just a figment. He smiled to himself and got out of bed, putting the sphere into his overnight bag. It did not seem blasphemous that it should snuggle in safety beside his shaving brush.

  Having washed and scraped his chin, Jackdaw put on his dress uniform and, his bill settled, hastened to the station. The train for Woking was huffing and chuffing at the platform like a steam-powered Algernon Hicks and he jumped aboard and was out of London within minutes. And then it was easy. A hansom cab from Woking direct to the great gates of Sutton Place itself.

  It was still only eight thirty in the morning as they swung open before him, outlined against a sky that threatened to rain but yet withheld its cruel drops from the people below.

  As always, whenever Jackdaw saw the house after an interval, it took him by surprise. Of its many moods, reflected so accurately by its amber brickwork, it had today its fresh look, as if it had been built only fifty years. The stones round the doorway, newly washed by last night’s downpour, blazoned the initials of the builder for all the world to see. R.W. and the tun — the rebus on Weston.

  And, as the Middle Enter was opened for him by Old Blanchard — once a postillion to Mr Webbe Weston senior — Jackdaw glimpsed the transitory change in the Great Hall. The gloomy place, shut away and neglected for so many years, blossomed like a hot-house. Sheaf upon sheaf of flowers decorated the trestle tables, three in all, set out for the wedding feast. And to add to their fresh-smelling sweetness there were sprays of tumbling ivy, woven hard around with forget-me-not and cornflowers and blue varieties of which he did not even know the names. Somebody with great skill had transformed Sir Richard Weston’s dining hall into what i
t must have been when Francis — first heir to the manor of Sutton — had married his childhood sweetheart.

  Now Major John Wardlaw took a step within and felt something of all the brides and grooms who had trodden the place before. How many weddings, how many consummations, how many conceptions, how many births, had gone into the great and wonderful history of Sutton Place? And, again, his magic gift brushed something of the old happiness upon him and he rushed up the West Staircase calling out, ‘John Joseph! John Joseph! I’m here — Jackdaw!’

  His friend, clad over all in the uniform of Captain of the 3rd Light Dragoons of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and wearing about his neck a riband bearing the cross of the Knight of the Order of Malta, appeared in the doorway and called out, ‘Jackdaw, thank God you’re here!’

  Immediately there was rapport between them; the old ways, the boyhood friendships, revived at a glance, so that there was no hesitancy when John Joseph said abruptly, ‘You realize what the date is?’

  And there was no silliness on the part of Jackdaw as he answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘It just didn’t occur to me!’

  ‘Well, so be it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I say.’ Jackdaw climbed the stairs and drew level with his friend. ‘It is chance, a coincidence, a mistake. That is how you must regard it.’

  ‘But Jackdaw — my dear old friend, how are you? — it has happened. I have somehow managed, quite blindly, to pick the accursed day.’

  ‘John Joseph, leave it to work itself out. You can only worsen the situation by adding negative thoughts.’

  The Captain smiled for the first time. ‘You are right — as always.’

  ‘Then are we bound for St Nicholas?’

  ‘Yes. Horatia and the wedding party meet us there at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Horatia?’ said Jackdaw — and his jewel eyes grew shuttered with the secrecy of his thoughts.

  *

  It was very still in the old church; all the incense of three hundred years melding into one aromatic whole to heighten the senses of those who sat in the congregation. Even the old uncles, William — the Earl Waldegrave now that George had died without issue — nodding quietly to himself; and Thomas Monington for once smiling and benevolent in the haze.