A Desperate Fortune

by Susanna Kearsley

  Then they’d come over the last of the hills and found…nothing.

  A ruin.

  A hollow of stones where the cottage had been, partly tumbled and blackened by fire, and the wind blowing lonely and weeping across the scarred earth.

  The earl said in a somber tone, “I’m told MacPherson said nothing. Did nothing. He stood and he looked, that was all.”

  For what else could he do, Mary wondered, when all of his memories and hopes had been struck from the place where they ought to have been? When the light in the window that beckoned him home had been naught but a false fire that died in the darkness? She saw him again standing out in the night at the farmhouse near Maisonneuve, chopping at wood as though killing the demons that Effie’s sad Highland lament had released, the song of the warrior who had outlived all his loved ones and had none left now who could comfort him. Which way, she’d asked him that night, is your home from here? And he had looked to the stars and had pointed the way. Do you miss it? she’d asked. And she understood now why he’d answered, There’s nothing to miss.

  The earl told her, “The saighdearan dearg—that’s what they call them in the Highland language. The red-coated soldiers, the government soldiers, not all of them English unfortunately. In the wake of the Fifteen, they punished those men who’d come out for the king.”

  Little knowing or caring that Hugh’s father lay dead already at Preston, the red-coated soldiers had burnt both his home and his livelihood, setting the loom ablaze, and finding no men to punish they’d turned to the women and…and…

  Mary could not imagine the terror and pain that Hugh’s mother and sister had suffered. Nor what he’d suffered in learning their fate, knowing he had not been there to shield and protect them.

  Again a small piece of the puzzle that was Hugh MacPherson fell into its place, and she knew why he’d stepped in where others might not have, to safeguard the honor of one who had none to defend it, that night in the yard of the inn at Valence.

  “He carried but two things away from his old home,” the earl said. “A piece of the wood, not yet burnt, from the loom of his father, and part of the blade of the sword that was left for his mother to use to defend herself if need be, that he found broken and left in the dirt. You’ll have seen both these things if you’ve spent any time with him.”

  Mary knew where. He had fashioned them into the dagger—the dirk—that he wore at his belt. The wood-handled dirk that he used when he killed to protect those he guarded. The blade that he touched to his lips when he swore an unbreakable oath.

  Mary nodded and looked away, seeing the golden light scattered like small shattered dreams on the river they strolled beside. She’d asked Hugh on del Rio’s ship how he had made the journey from a man who liked to fix things to a man who killed. And he had fallen silent and his mouth had twisted in the smile that was not like a smile, and he had told her: Step by step.

  And walking now beside the Tiber while the earl continued telling her the story of that summer, Mary pictured in her mind the steady striding steps Hugh would have taken while he was half helping and half carrying the earl’s ill brother through the rugged Highlands, every one of those steps taking him a little farther from the man he might have been, and leading him along the path to what he would become.

  He got the earl’s brother to safety and a ship across the Channel, and the three men meeting up in the Low Countries had then found their way again to Spain. For nearly nine years after that, Hugh guarded the earl’s brother through his various adventures in the Spanish service, into France and out of it, and all through the five-month-long siege of Gibraltar, until the earl’s brother, on finding that being a Protestant stood in his way of advancing his rank, finally went into Russia to join the service of the empress there.

  “It is not an easy thing, gaining admittance to Russia,” the earl said. “The invitation sent to Jemmy was for him alone, and so MacPherson could not follow.”

  Since then, these past few years, Hugh had been serving the Earl Marischal, loaned out upon occasion to his friend the Duke of Ormonde, who at length had heard from Paris that a trusted man was needed there to guard the warehouse keeper of the Charitable Corporation.

  “And from there,” the earl said, “I believe your knowledge of MacPherson’s actions will be fuller than my own.”

  They walked a little ways in silence. Then the earl remarked, in tones more casual, “He’d kill me if he knew that I had told you this.”

  She glanced at him. “Why did you tell me?”

  “I could say, because you asked me to,” he speculated. “Or because I thought that you should know what manner of a man had brought you here from Paris, though I rather think you know already, do you not?”

  She told him, simply, “Yes.”

  “Then I could say I told you of MacPherson’s life because he would not tell you it himself. He did not tell me most of it, I learned it secondhand and sometimes even that was difficult. He is a very pri—”

  “Private man,” she finished for him. “Yes, I know.”

  She felt his gaze upon her face but kept her own steadfastly on the river and the dancing play of light.

  “Then let us say,” the earl said finally, “that I told you what I did because he would not kill a sparrow.”

  Mary did not know if the Earl Marischal had heard tell of her story of the huntsman, or if he had somehow guessed at her connection to Hugh’s unexpected show of mercy, and the earl did not choose to enlighten her on that count for already he had moved on to a newer subject.

  “But I’m meant to be showing you some of the sights of Rome,” he reminded her.

  They had by this time come round a long bend of the river and were now approaching a small island set in the Tiber, attached by an ancient arched bridge to the shore.

  “There’s a bridge on the far side to match it,” the earl said. “The island itself was shaped into the form of a ship, with this end of it here as the stern, and the bridges at each side are set as its oars, which itself is a pretty arrangement.”

  There were several buildings clustered on the island—a church, he pointed out to her, and a hospital, warm plastered walls and uneven tiled roofs in a picturesque huddle, but Mary admired the bridge most of all. It was not very wide, and curved up and across in a gentle arc. Built in the time of the Caesars, its softly red bricks showed the signs of their age, but the parapet where she was leaning felt very strong. Doing his part as her guide, the earl showed her the twin pillars set on the parapets, one very near to the place where she leaned—a squared stump of pale marble with faces set round it, their features now worn by the years and the weather.

  “These were not set here when the bridge was first built, but some few hundred years ago. I have been told they are meant to show Janus.”

  The god of the Romans who stood at the gates with one face always turned to the future, and one to the past.

  “’Tis an emblem well fitted for Rome,” said the earl, “for although it is beautiful here, it seems always some part of this city must stand as a monument to what has already passed.” The earl moved to lean on the parapet next to her, looking as Mary did down at the river that flowed swiftly under the arches beneath them and folded itself on the rocks into two white-laced currents that sent up a sound like the roar of the sea.

  Mary knew what he meant. She felt it herself here, the strange juxtaposition of ruins and life, of things all at once moving and stuck in their place, like this oar of a bridge and the ship of an island beside them that held but the shape of those things and would never go anywhere, held fast forever in bedrock and mud.

  “’Tis an emblem as well for the court of our king, at the moment.” The earl spoke more gravely, and when she glanced over he showed her a half smile. “I always have and always will do what I can to serve King James, but you will find it is an open secret here that I do not approve of
his reliance on Lord Dunbar, and I will not stay where such counsels prevail as cannot frankly be told to an honest man; where none but mean servile souls are welcome, and those who have spirit are forced to be silent.”

  She focused on one part of that speech alone. “You are leaving?”

  “We are. I have written by this last post to my friend the Duke of Ormonde, to help us get away with the least noise, so as not to do hurt to the cause nor the king. As soon as it is possible, I hope before this month is out, MacPherson and I will return to Spain.”

  Her heart became a heavy weight that dropped a fraction lower in her chest and pressed against her ribs until it caused her pain to breathe. She raised a hand to shade her eyes, although the sun by this time was behind them, sinking ever lower, and deliberately she looked ahead and asked, “What is that bridge?”

  It was not properly a bridge, for it did not go all the way across the river, having fallen at its middle and collapsed so that it only touched the farther bank.

  “That,” he said, “they tell me is the oldest stone bridge left in Rome. It has a proper name but you will hear it called most often here the Ponte Rotto, meaning ‘Broken Bridge.’”

  A view that, at the moment, seemed appropriate, so Mary thought. A bridge that none could cross, that nevermore would lead a traveler home. She moved her hand to shield her gaze more closely, blinking back the stinging of her eyes. “Why is it broken?”

  “Because it stands just where the current is strongest. No matter how often they try to rebuild it the river keeps beating away at it, taking it piece by piece.”

  “And yet it stands.” She said that in a small voice that was nothing like her own, and she was not sure why she said it.

  It was only that just then, she felt a kinship with that ancient bridge that was forever being carried off in tiny pieces by the unrelenting current, and yet did not have the sense to yield, to let go of the shore and simply fall. It stood, as she had done her whole life, trying to stay hopeful in the face of what she’d lost; and as their king had done through all the changes in his fortunes that had brought him to this distant place. As Hugh had done, so stubbornly repairing things and setting them to rights when all he loved had been reduced to ash and memories.

  The Earl Marischal had turned towards her, unable to hear her for the rushing of the river underneath them. “What was that, my dear?”

  She told him in a stronger voice, “I said the bridge still stands.” She let her hand fall to her side and looked at him. “And surely every broken thing can be rebuilt.”

  The earl stood regarding her much as her uncle regarded a wine that surprised him with quality.

  “Yes, Mistress Dundas, I’d like to believe so.”

  She noticed his gaze had gone past her, and turning she saw the tall man now approaching the bridge from behind her.

  “I’d very much like to believe so,” the earl said again, as he lifted his hand and called out to MacPherson, who’d noticed them both by this time and was coming towards them with slow, even strides.

  Chapter 42

  No more shall I find their steps in the heath, or hear their voice…

  —Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Three

  Rome

  May 15, 1732

  Mary tried to compose herself, grateful the light was now softening so if she turned from the lowering sun Hugh might not have a definite view of her features, for although her traitorous moment at hearing the news he would soon be departing had passed, and she was in control of her face and emotions, she could not be certain he’d not see some lingering trace of it and she had no wish to show him such weakness.

  He wore not his fine Highland clothes but a more common suit of a deep earthen red that looked well with the old Roman bricks of the bridge as he set foot upon it. His own face gave nothing away of his thoughts.

  The Earl Marischal greeted him first with, “Did you find the man you were after?”

  “Aye.” Hugh looked at Mary, and he gave the short nod of greeting she’d come to miss while he’d been gone. Then he turned his impassive gaze back to the earl as a pupil might look to his tutor to lay bare the meaning of something inscrutable.

  The earl offered nothing but, “And did he finish the work that you paid him to do?”

  Hugh nodded curtly.

  “Good. All is well, then.” The earl, with an elegant ease that told Mary he was long accustomed to facing Hugh’s silences, added, “I feared I might have missed the time I’d told you I would be here, for at the Castel Sant’Angelo I chanced to meet Captain Hay and as usual we fell to talking. A fortunate delay, as it turned out, for it gained me the company of this enchanting young lady.” Smiling briefly at Mary, he told Hugh confidingly, “I see now why you were so disapproving of the men put forward to escort Mistress Dundas back to Saint-Germain, and why you did advise Lord Inverness he should choose none of them, for had I been her guide so long, as you were, I would also wish to choose with care the man who was to take my place.”

  He might as well have spoken to a statue but he did not seem bothered. He cast an unhurried glance skyward and lifted his eyebrows. “But it appears my delay, although fortunate, makes it impossible for us to do as I’d planned, for I have not the time for it now, else I’ll risk disappointing the little duke.” He turned to Mary. “Have you had the pleasure yet to be presented to our two young princes? No? The younger, Henry, Duke of York, is serious for one so small. I never saw any child comparable to him.” His tone held indulgence. “The Prince of Wales, his brother Charles, is already unruly, but the little duke is so determined to be on his good behavior that he’s ordered a journal be kept of his actions, that I may see and tell the world how well he does behave. He made me promise to buy him a special book just for this purpose and bring it to him before bedtime tonight, so I must buy one now else he’ll count me a man of no honor at all.” Looking at Hugh again he asked, “There was not a stationer’s shop, by chance, near to your silversmith?”

  In watching Hugh, Mary had noticed a faint line that showed in his hard cheek when he was amused or, much more commonly, exasperated, and she saw it now. He told the earl, “No.”

  “Ah.”

  Mary said, “There is a stationer quite near the Corso, where I bought a journal for myself just yesterday.” Bound with bright colorful boards and tooled leather it was much more decorative than the one Colette had given her, and yet she doubted she ever would hold it so dear.

  She thought of Hugh standing at Fontainebleau holding her journal within his hands, and wondered what he would think, with his practical Highland ways, of the impractical manner in which she had ended that book today, writing:

  In truth there is but one man in the whole of Rome whose honor I am certain of, whose friendship I have come now to rely upon, and if it were my choice to make I would lay all my heart before him and refuse to leave his side.

  A most foolish sentiment, surely, she told herself, and one he’d hardly have welcomed, but as she had gone on herself to acknowledge, her father’s dour philosophy of life had been a true one: for though my aunt once reassured me I would always have a choice, if there is one before me now I do confess I cannot see it, so instead I must—

  And here, having run out of space in the first journal, Mary had opened her new one and inked her pen carefully and marked the date again and carried on:

  —content myself with having briefly touched that wider sky that Mistress Jamieson did speak of, for being brought to earth again I’d rather have the memory of flight and bear the pain of losing it, than to have never flown at all.

  Brave words, she thought, and tried to match her actions to them now as she gave the Earl Marischal directions to the stationer’s.

  He thanked her and bowed gallantly and kissed her hand and said, “I have enjoyed our walk. I trust MacPherson will at least approve himself to be your escort back to your ho
tel, since he seems loath to recommend another.”

  With a final nod to Hugh he wished them both a pleasant evening and walked off in the direction of the Corso and the palace, leaving Hugh and Mary standing on the bridge.

  She watched the earl’s departing back and thought she understood why Hugh would serve a man like that—a man of decency and honor and intelligence. And given that the earl belonged, as he himself had owned, to a more noble branch of Hugh’s own clan, by serving him Hugh could quite rightly claim to be no broken man, but one who was yet bound by faith and duty to his family.

  She had gained a deeper understanding of MacPherson this past hour, as these past weeks had given her a deeper knowledge of her feelings for him, yet she could share none of it but held it all within her as she faced him in the fading light. Behind him the whole western sky had now softened to pink streaked with turquoise, and Mary knew they would not have long to talk, so she wasted no time.

  “If you truly are given a say in whom Lord Inverness will select as my guide, I would ask you a favor.”

  He neither denied nor confirmed his involvement, but waited with evident patience for her to continue.

  Mary said, “I would not give you trouble…” Then she caught herself, remembering the times she’d been a bother to him on their journey down, and added, “Though I do suppose that it is rather late for that.”

  Again the line showed for a moment in his cheek. He told her, “Name the favor.”

  “Mr. Thomson claims he will be set at liberty quite soon, and I would rather not be sent to travel in his company.”

  Hugh did not ask her to explain, so she was spared the complicated task of giving voice to her unsettled view of Thomson and his character; her indecision whether he was a good but misguided man or a dissembling traitor.