Fortune's Soldier

by Deryn Lake

  ‘I pray he will,’ answered the Countess. ‘I pray that this time next year we will have darling Horatia — and John Joseph, of course — back with us once more. If only she had married a British Army man.’ She felt Caroline’s gaze on her and hastily added, ‘Of course John Joseph is a perfect husband and son-in-law. It is just that I hate the thought of my girl in a prison cell.’

  Caroline would like to have retorted that it was not the first time a Waldegrave had been behind bars, but she bit her tongue. It was no good raking up the past — and it was no good speaking ill of poor George who, like his brother, had died so sadly and so young.

  So she said instead, ‘I hear that Frances is considering restoring Strawberry Hill.’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Anne, ‘and so I should think. It was she and George who stripped it and abandoned it in the first place. But Heaven alone knows if the scheme will ever come off. It is probably just one of her ideas.’

  Her dislike of her ex-daughter-in-law had grown stronger with the passing years and now she added spitefully, ‘It is said that old Mr Harcourt is thoroughly annoyed by the constant parties Frances insists on giving in his home. I do declare that she imagines herself one of the rising political hostesses of the day.’

  Nobody quite knew how to answer — for it was all perfectly true. The parties at Mr Harcourt’s house, Nuneham Park, were spoken of as the liveliest and gayest there were. And Frances’s penchant for private theatricals and her insistence on acting some wretched piece called ‘Honeymoon’ over and over again had become something of a joke in the family.

  Now Algy said mildly, ‘It is her home too,’ and was rewarded with a viperish look from his wife.

  There was another slight pause and then Ida Anna’s voice broke the silence.

  ‘I heard Giles weeping in the Chapel last night,’ she announced gloomily. ‘There’s bound to be a disaster in the family. It’s supposed to be a sign of that.’

  Her stepfather looked cross as a pug.

  ‘Really!’ he said. ‘There are youngsters present! Mind what you say, young lady.’

  Her bootbutton eyes narrowed to pebbles but she made no reply, merely tossing her head disdainfully. However, Caroline’s eldest son Charles — now eight years old and as bright as his parents — said, ‘Who is Giles?’

  Nobody answered and after a moment his father — who had extremely progressive views on child care and did not believe the dictum that they should be seen and not heard — said, ‘He is supposedly the ghost of a jester.’

  ‘Ghost?’ chorused all the bigger children together, while little Emily — Caroline’s youngest but one — said, ‘What is a ghost, Papa?’

  Francis, realizing he had taken on more than he could cope with, said airily, ‘A kind of fairy.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ muttered Charles — but an icy look from Caroline reduced him to silence.

  But afterwards when all had been cleared away and the family had withdrawn to the Music Room — a grand title for a place where once Sir Richard Weston’s lads had slept — he whispered to his brother Frederick, the next in age to himself, ‘A ghost is the spirit of a dead person come back to walk the earth.’

  ‘I know. I heard at school,’ came the reply.

  ‘Then shall we hunt for Giles tonight? Charters Minor — the spotty one in my form — went on a ghost hunt in an old abbey once and saw a headless monk.’

  Frederick went a little white and gulped but, nonetheless, said, ‘All right. Shall we ask Archie and George to come?’

  ‘No. They’re always fighting. They’ll spoil everything.’

  ‘I just thought ...’

  ‘No. Listen, Mama is looking at us so we’d better be quiet. I’ll meet you at midnight in the Great Hall. It’s a nuisance that I’m sharing a room with Archie but he snores like a pig so I doubt he’ll wake up.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And don’t go to sleep and miss it.’

  Frederick, looking pale but determined, answered, ‘Don’t you either.’

  And that was how, when cards and music were finally finished on that Christmas Day of 1848, two small boys, aided by the light from flickering candles, came to be creeping, in their bare feet, up the East Staircase to the Chapel which had once been a Long Gallery.

  In their ears were the hundred and one noises made by a sleeping house. From before the dying fire in the Library — into which the brothers could peep if they looked back through the banisters — Polly and Anthus sighed dog sighs and everywhere timbers groaned and creaked as they cooled and settled. The huge grandfather clock in the Great Hall chimed a quarter and then resumed its sonorous tick, while somewhere a little carriage clock — a few seconds slow — tinkled a response. And from somewhere else above them, a floorboard moved as if a person had just walked.

  They both jumped violently and Frederick said, ‘What was that?’ But Charles only went ‘Shush,’ and continued his stealthy stalking.

  Before them lay the Chapel, lit by a frosty moon, shafts of silver light falling on to the floor at regular intervals from the ivy-clad windows. And in one of these shafts a man, wearing a thick shirt of some material like cambric and dark-coloured trousers, tied round the legs with criss-cross string to his knees, sat grinning at them. His face was so reassuring, so crinkled and jolly, and his eyes so twinkling, that he was not in the least frightening. And Charles — knowing perfectly well from Charters Minor that ghosts either wore white sheets or had no heads — was quite the reverse of frightened and walked boldly up to him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  By way of response the man rose to his feet and executed a nimble cartwheel.

  ‘I say,’ said Frederick, coming up to them, ‘that was jolly good. I wish I could do that.’

  ‘It’s easy, young Sir,’ answered the man with a bow, his voice slightly accented, reminding Charles of some gypsies he had once heard. ‘Look.’

  He did it again and then fell to the ground in a rolling ball, his hands round his ankles and his head tucked into his chest.

  ‘Gracious,’ said Charles, clapping. ‘Can you do any more?’

  ‘Sit you there, young masters, and I will give you a show. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  They sat down on two of the Chapel chairs, side by side in their nightshirts, and watched a display of tumbling that took their breath away. Regardless of obstacles the man traversed the length of the Gallery with a series of leaps, jumps and falls that had them gasping. He finished with a high split jump, landing on one knee before them.

  ‘I always ended like that,’ he panted. ‘Least I always did for Francis and Catherine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Francis and Catherine Weston. They used to live here, long ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles, who had little knowledge of Sutton Place’s history, other than that it had been inherited by his great-grandfather. ‘Did you live here too?’

  ‘I still do,’ answered the man, grinning like a split pumpkin, ‘in a way.’

  ‘We haven’t seen you,’ ventured Frederick.

  ‘Not many people do. They hear me sometimes though as I go round and about.’ The boys looked slightly nonplussed by this and the man added, ‘But I wanted to tumble for you — as it’s Christmas and all. Now I think you had better go back to bed. It’s very cold.’

  It was — freezingly so, though the boys had not noticed it in their enjoyment.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ said Charles. He held out his hand, ‘Well, thank you ... what did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t, young Sir. I didn’t. Now goodnight to ye.’ He bowed before them.

  ‘Goodnight then.’

  They began to go, a little awkwardly, glancing back at him over their shoulders. He stood watching them, his great smiling beaming face aglow, until the moment they turned to wave from the top of the stairs and he had vanished.

  ‘I wonder how he got out,’ said Frederick.

 
‘There’s another entrance to the Chapel at the far end — the one used by the public.’

  ‘Oh! Nice, wasn’t he? I wonder who he is. Jolly good at tumbling, didn’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. Pity he came in a way though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, no ghost would have dared appear with him threshing about.’

  ‘That’s true. Oh, well! See you in the morning, then.’

  ‘Yes. Goodnight Frederick.’

  ‘Goodnight Charles.’

  And with that the two little boys went back to bed without another thought.

  *

  After that Christmas came a winter so severe that every country in Europe seemed to have moved back to the Ice Age. The vast rooms of Sutton Place became unheatable — nowhere was it quite so freezing as in the fortress of Carlsburg. Every night John Joseph and Horatia would share a narrow pallet, lying fully dressed and clutching each other to keep out the cold, the dog at their feet. But often one would wake, without the other, and shiver — the only warmth they had that of their love.

  Yet of the physical expression of this love there was little, as until the first week of February they had shared their cell-like room with an old Austrian soldier. But then he had died of pneumonia and in the brief privacy that followed John Joseph held Horatia — as naked as they both dared in that temperature — and kissed her beautiful mouth and breasts, his shaft at last where it had longed to be for weeks.

  They had feasted on this lovemaking, aware that at any time another occupant might be found for the now empty bunk. And then one early morning, just as they had moved apart, and were in the light sleep that followed total fulfilment, they heard the bolts on their door draw back. But instead of the new occupant they expected, a guard stood there, grinning broadly, and saying in German, ‘Come along, Missus, you’d better put your clothes on.’

  His eyes ran up and down Horatia’s body and she drew her shift to her chin.

  ‘Why?’ said John Joseph angrily, adding, ‘If you stare at my wife like that I’ll knock your bloody head off.’

  The guard ignored him and continued to grin. ‘The General-in-Chief is here and wants you to translate for him,’ he said to Horatia.

  ‘But I don’t speak Hungarian.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter — he wants you. Now hurry up!’ John Joseph began to leap out of bed but Horatia put her hand out.

  ‘I’ll be all right. Don’t worry.’

  But as she marched the long stone corridors, hearing her footsteps echoing as if someone was behind her, she was not so sure. It went through her mind, quite without reason, that she might be going out to meet her death. And, as she had heard happened to dying people, her life flashed before her. She saw lazy river days at Strawberry Hill; she saw her father dropping at his birthday party; she saw her poor dead brothers — and then she stopped herself.

  Horatia Webbe Weston straightened her back, brushed her eyes with the back of her hand and refused to think such grim thoughts. Instead she said to the guard, ‘Be so good as to tell me about the General.’

  ‘He has just arrived, Missus. He’s a very big high-up — but I don’t know much more except that his name is Klapka and he is a Magyar.’

  ‘But why does he want me?’

  The guard winked his eye. ‘He saw you out exercising your dog, Missus, and said you would be the very person to translate for him.’

  ‘Well, translating is all he will get,’ muttered Horatia.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  They had reached the end of the corridor and stopped before an oak door, heavy with hinges. The guard gave a deferential knock and a voice said, ‘Come.’

  At first Horatia could see nothing in the high-vaulted room, bedecked with regimental banners and antlered stags’ heads and obviously, at one time, the mess of the officers who served the garrison. But then the clouds of cigar smoke that filled the air with rich-smelling wisps parted a little and she saw that, behind a desk, the back of a tall chair was turned towards her. From the chair a pair of muddied riding boots stuck out, and a hand which held the potent cheroot — and which, she also noticed, was bedecked by a large gold ring bearing an eagle’s head.

  ‘You may go,’ said a disembodied voice in Hungarian. ‘Yes, Sir.’

  The guard executed a rapid salute, banged his feet on the floor and marched out, closing the door behind him. Just before he went, he caught Horatia’s eye and leered.

  It was then that Horatia realized she was not alone with the General because, from the shadowed recess by the window, the fortress Commandant stepped forward and said in Hungarian, ‘Would you like me to leave also, General Klapka?’

  ‘No, my dear fellow, that will not be necessary. But I must look at the English lady close to — I forget myself.’

  The chair swivelled round to reveal the General richly, if somewhat dustily, apparelled in scarlet, his medals glinting upon his chest. Horatia saw black whiskers and moustaches and long dark hair — a typical Magyar noble.

  He rose to his feet and bowed and said in German, ‘My English is very poor, Madam, but as you can hear I command the German tongue. Perhaps you, with your knowledge of both, would help me to communicate with other English prisoners.’

  Relief! He genuinely wanted a translator. Horatia gave him a brilliant smile and then regretted it as he advanced towards her with his bright eyes twinkling.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘You are pretty, aren’t you? I can see that I am going to enjoy travelling with you.’

  ‘Travelling?’

  ‘But of course. I cannot stay here more than twenty-four hours. I am at the front, my dear young lady, and you are about to accompany me — in your official capacity, of course!’

  The Commandant gave a short gasp as Horatia said in English — and swearing for the very first time in her life — ‘Oh no I’m bloody well not.’

  The General advanced to within an inch of her and stared right into her eyes, his pupils almost touching hers.

  ‘Oh yes, you bloody well are,’ he whispered.

  It was Jackdaw!

  21

  To end that cruel winter came a snowfall, dropping from a sky as grey as Arctic sealskin, and hiding beneath its white nun veil all the flowers that trembled with rebirth in the dark ground below. But then, when the flakes had melted, the sun at last showed his great face and burst through in a warm roseate mist. At this the crocuses flowered with the snowdrops, lambs were born and gambolled in the English meadows and the waters of the Danube threw off the last vestiges of ice and sparkled blue and deep as any Italian lake. All of Europe lay beneath a sky as wild and fine as a meadow of flowering violets. Everyone knew then that the ordeal was over, that spring had come to give them new life, that the earth had survived and had been born again.

  In the crisp early morning air Mr Hicks’s sensibly gaitered legs swung out as he headed through the Home Park with Polly and Anthus nuzzling and muzzling amongst the roots behind him. And Anne, well booted and dressed in serge, was only a step or two away with Ida Anna, who grumbled about the muddy terrain and wondered how long it would be until luncheon. But for all that the youngest Waldegrave was happy, glad to know a letter from the War Office in Vienna had arrived to say her sister and her brother-in-law had been released from captivity and that John Joseph had been able to rejoin his regiment. Not that she had thought a great deal about Horatia and her husband, too preoccupied was she these days with the worrying notion that she might be ‘on the shelf’. Oh horrid and sickening phrase! For after all she was twenty-three now and men were not springing up in abundance, to put it mildly. She blamed it all on Sutton Place. For who would call there, to that haunted old pile?

  And thinking these thoughts made her sigh aloud and say, ‘Do you think I could stay in Vienna with Horatia, Mama? I hear it is the gayest capital in Europe.’

  ‘It was,’ answered Anne, ‘but it has been in the hands of revolutionaries so goodness knows wha
t has taken place. But, perhaps, when this dreadful war is over, a trip to Europe might do you good. After all, there are a lot of young Englishmen in the Austrian Army and I am sure John Joseph knows many of them.’

  ‘But when will the war be over?’

  ‘Your stepfather believes that it should be any time now.’

  ‘How strange it is,’ said Ida Anna, apparently changing the subject but not really doing so, ‘that some women have three husbands and others have none.’

  ‘Are you thinking of Frances?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There is nothing strange about that,’ answered her mother with pursed lips. ‘She knows how to please men.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you,’ said Anne, observing the strict conduct of the times.

  ‘Well, why can’t I do it? Please men, I mean?’

  Anne looked a little flustered and said, ‘We really ought to be getting back now. Come along, my dear. I am sure you are hungry.’

  But Ida Anna’s bootbutton eyes held a wondering gaze and she made a mental note to ask Cloverella what to do to be pleasing. For, after all, if her mother would not talk about it it was bound to be interesting.

  But her attention was distracted when she got home by the arrival of another letter — this one from Horatia herself.

  Dear Mother, Stepfather and Ida Anna (it read),

  How pleased I am to be able to tell you that John Joseph and I are back in Vienna, which has been badly bombarded but other than that has not changed a great deal. I cannot say too much about our two miraculous releases from custody — after all, the war is still on and certain things, by law, must not be stated in writing. However, the stories will certainly interest and amuse you when you do hear, which will be when we eventually get home on leave. Oh wonderful, wonderful thought!

  Meanwhile we are both very well and very happy and you must not worry about us at all. We leave to rejoin the regiment on Monday and hope and pray that it will not be too long now before the wretched war is over and we can settle down to family life.

  Our dearest love to you all,