The Lazarus Gate

by Mark Latham

  When I ventured outside the tent at last, the sky was a deep blood red, and the atmosphere in the camp was subdued after the excesses of the previous night’s revelry. I ate a hearty stew, got to know my hosts a trifle better than before, and eventually managed to steal a few moments with Rosanna.

  She was in a melancholy mood, reminiscing about her late father, perhaps because I had reminded her of her loss. It was strange to see her that way—the very solemnity that she had accused me of was now surrounding her like a cloak. I sat with her for an hour at least, talking of my own childhood—the happier times—and reminding her that she had many reasons to be thankful. Her sisters loved her, her people respected her, and she had the freedom to roam where she wished and live how she wanted. As we watched the moon rise high in the sky, the mandolin player strummed a sad song, and Rosanna placed her head on my good shoulder. I breathed in the scent of her. I had had no wine that night, and did not need any, for her company was intoxicating.

  When I returned to my tent, I felt the oddest mixture of sadness and elation, as if my heart was being pulled in two. I felt so at home amongst the gypsies, and yet so out of place, and thoughts of Rosanna filled my mind as though I were a love-struck youth. When I fell asleep, there were none of the feverish nightmares or fitful awakenings that had so characterised my nights of late. No dragons, no burning cottages, no sinking ships or devilish siblings. Instead I slept soundly, and dreamt of childhood and balmy summer days, of pretty girls in yellow dresses, and of lavender scents.

  THIRTEEN

  It was good to be back in the saddle again after so long. Rosanna had presented me with a piebald horse—a good-natured, broad-backed animal—and she had been surprised at how quickly I had taken to such a large beast; but in truth it was not much different from riding the tall, muscled hunters of my old regiment. I felt better for my change of attire also. Gregor had done well, presenting me with a set of tweeds and a flat cap, so that I resembled a country squire (albeit one on a rather scruffy mount). Rosanna, as expected, looked radiant and exotic, wearing a loose blouse, beaded waistcoat and baggy silk trousers beneath a skirt made of brightly coloured scarves.

  The further we rode from the sheltered camp and into more cultivated land, the more familiar it all seemed. I was so near to my old home—albeit one that I had not seen for almost twenty years—that even my encounter with Lazarus and Agent Lillian Hardwick could not quash the lure of nostalgia that swelled within me. We spent a pleasant morning riding along beaten tracks and field boundaries, along vaguely familiar country lanes and towpaths. Now and then we skirted hop fields and saw plumes of smoke drifting idly from the chimneys of the oast-houses. As we neared Faversham itself we rode along the boundaries to the great cherry orchards, shaded from the sun by trees fifty feet high. The weather was fine, the conversation easy, and I felt more at home than I had at any time since my return to England. There was something special—safe, I suppose—about the pastoral bliss of Kent. It seemed a million miles from the dangerous alleyways of the East End, though it was not far at all: not far enough, leastways.

  We passed by the creek to the north of Faversham, and stopped to eat our picnic, lying on a hillside for a while watching the clouds drift by. They were growing dark again, and we knew that the break in the weather would not last long. As we lay there in a companionable silence, Rosanna’s hand reached for mine. I thought at first to withdraw, but then told myself that to do so would be folly—how often does such a perfect moment occur in one’s life, especially in the life of a man such as I, scarred and broken as I was. I squeezed her hand, and thought how soft it felt in my own. I remember being surprised by the roughness of my own hands—that told its own tale; an artistic life spurned for a decade of war and toil. Was it any wonder, then, that in that moment I rejected the reserve of my upbringing and instead indulged fully in the tenderness of that beautiful woman? If my father could have seen me, lying beside a gypsy girl in a meadow, he would have been incensed. It was then that I had the most curious thought—I did not care a fig! All my life I had tried to please my father—or my father’s ghost, at least—and if there was one thing that his dreadful ‘reappearance’ on the banks of the Thames had taught me, it was that I had spent my life pursuing the wrong goals. Those goals had brought me nought but pain. In my darkest hours these past days I had come to rue the day I’d ever signed my commission, or donned my uniform. I cursed the name of Marcus Hardwick.

  I turned my head to look at Rosanna, and found her already looking at me, and I thought that perhaps it was all worth it. Whatever I had been through, whatever destiny or providence or whatever it was might yet visit upon me, there was still this. There was still her.

  ‘I could lie here for ever,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts. Perhaps she had been.

  I smiled at her simply, for I could not find the words. She seemed to understand. Then a great splotch of rain hit me on the forehead, then another and another, until it was clear that the heavens were opening. We did not move at first, so caught up were we in the moment. Our smiles turned to laughter, and as the April shower grew heavier we leapt to our feet and dashed to the shelter of the nearest tree where the horses were tethered.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ Rosanna asked.

  In response, I produced my watch-chain, upon which hung an iron key. It had stayed with me even as I’d half-drowned in the Thames, and fate had brought me back to that white farmhouse that harboured so many mixed feelings and memories for me.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked.

  ‘A key to the past, I think. I am going to take you home.’

  And with barely another word, we mounted our scruffy horses and rode off into the deluge.

  * * *

  The farmhouse was exactly as I’d dreamed it, set back from a narrow lane, hidden by tall hedgerows. The whitewashed walls, the thatched roof, the paint peeling off the front door; nothing had changed in well over a decade. The gravel drive at the front of the house led to a small lawn that, curiously, was neatly trimmed, although it was a different story at the rear of the property: the grass was tall, the little apple orchard had run wild, and the kitchen garden was all bare earth and weeds. The garden gate, so vividly rendered in my dream, was there still, set into the wall leading to the pasture, surrounded by honeysuckle. The nagging sense of dread and apprehension, conjured by the remnant of my nightmares, was exorcised almost in an instant by my sheer joy at seeing the old house again.

  Rosanna was sheltering from the rain under the little porch at the front door, waiting somewhat impatiently for me to tether the horses in the small lean-to beside the house. I noticed that the outbuilding, too, had been used fairly recently to house at least one horse. Before I could launch a further examination of my old playgrounds, I was interrupted by Rosanna’s call, asking me if I intended to leave her in the rain all day. I returned to my companion, pausing momentarily as I saw the carved stone crest above the porch. I had almost forgotten it.

  ‘John?’ Rosanna frowned.

  I reached up and traced my fingers over the wet stone. The emblem of the dragon was worn, but still proud, a heraldic sigil left by whomever had built the cottage a hundred years ago. It was doubtless the origin of my fevered dreams, and only now did I remember the fanciful stories that the crest had inspired during my childhood.

  I broke from the daydream as Rosanna tugged at my arm. With the rain still tumbling down from a grey sky, I returned to my companion, and we bundled into the house.

  For a moment I was overwhelmed by how perfectly my old home had been preserved, like a doll’s house that had never been played with. Then I realised that it was for a very simple reason—the house had been used. There was barely a cobweb, nor any speck of dust. The fire grates had been swept, and dry logs were stacked in the inglenook of the living room. Casks of paraffin for the lamps were lined up on the floor of the pantry, and we found tapers and matches in the kitchen drawers. Though there was nothing perishable in the house I was th
ankful to find a canister of tea, and there were plenty of pots, pans, utensils, tools and crockery. I was surprised to find my father’s old shotguns still resting in the gun cabinet, looking as clean and pristine as ever. When I thought of my father, I thought of his armchair by the fire in the living room, and was perplexed to find his favourite book still sitting there on the side table, Stendahl’s Le Rouge et le Noir. I reached out to touch its worn cloth cover with some trepidation, as if doing so would summon the man himself back into his armchair like a ghastly apparition. But no ghost was forthcoming; I touched the lettering on the cover, and tried to remember my father reading the book to me as a child, in an effort to teach me French.

  Rosanna looked around the rest of the house and found that not all of the rooms were so well kept; some were cleared of all signs of human activity, though had the odd packing-box here and there full of old ornaments, bedlinen, scores of books, and children’s toys—most of which I recognised as though I had seen them only yesterday. I leafed through a few old volumes of foreign gazetteers and maps of the Empire—they brought a smile to my lips even now. I could not resent those treasured old tomes for starting me on this life of adventure any more than I could resent my own mother for having given birth to me. A man makes his own decisions, and carves his own destiny—though admittedly it had become increasingly difficult to keep telling myself that.

  It was most curious to me that the bedchamber, bathroom, living room and kitchen were so homely looking, whilst the rest of the house stood silent and unlived in. If my feelings of nostalgia for the house had not been so strongly rekindled, I would have felt as though I was intruding in someone else’s home.

  ‘It looks as though the estate manager has taken a few liberties of late,’ I remarked. ‘Baxter, I believe his name is. Still, I cannot blame him for staying here occasionally, I suppose, and his endeavours have certainly done us a good turn today. Nevertheless, I shall go to see him tomorrow and inform him that I have returned. Lord only knows when I’ll be able to lay my hands on the requisite paperwork to prove my identity, though.’

  ‘He will just have to take your word as a gentleman,’ said Rosanna, putting her arms around my neck and looking up at me with her large, dark eyes. ‘You are still a gentleman, aren’t you?’

  As our lips drew close, I realised the irony of her question. Gentlemen do not, I was sure, take wild gypsy women to isolated cottages. Nor do they wear stolen clothes, or fight thugs in the East End. These were things I might expect of the treacherous Ambrose Hanlocke, who had called me the ‘last honest man in London’. But I was not in London, and if there was one thing I had learned in the past weeks, perhaps more so than in all my time fighting abroad, it was that life is full of surprises, and that a man must adapt to them to survive. As I kissed her, it did not feel like ‘survival’, but it did not feel ungentlemanly either.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘that you are not the only one who has rules to live by, and to break. Being here with you would be considered shameful… if my sisters behaved this way, I would be expected to banish them. But I am the head of the family now, and I decide which rules to live by, and which to break. Is it the same for you, my wounded hero? Do you control your own destiny at last?’

  ‘Let me make up a fire to dry our clothes,’ I said, changing the subject rather clumsily, ‘and then I must secure the house in case the caretaker tries to gain admittance. If Thomas Baxter braves the weather and calls today, he will find his new employer in attendance.’

  * * *

  It did not take long to get the fire going—I guessed that the chimney had been swept regularly too. Even though it was still afternoon, we were forced to light some oil lamps, as the dun sky cast a grey and gloomy aspect throughout the house. We sat by a crackling fire, huddled in thick blankets and talking of every topic under the sun whilst our clothes dried on the clothes-horse and the rain pattered off the window panes. We ate the remnants of our picnic for dinner, and drank tea when the last of our wine had gone. I asked Rosanna, perhaps too forwardly, if the others would miss her back at camp if she did not return that night. She smiled at me so sweetly, and beheld me so intently, that I fair melted. It was all the answer I required. When it became apparent that we would stay the night in the farmhouse, I waited for a break in the rain—or as good a one as could be hoped for—and dashed outside beneath my woollen blanket to locate some feed for the horses and ensure that the little stable was secure. When I returned to the house, Rosanna was standing by the fire, with no blanket around her, her form silhouetted in the orange glow of the flames. The curtains were closed, and she turned to look at me with the light of the fire dancing in her dark eyes. If this is immodesty, I thought, then perhaps it is not such a bad thing.

  As the first peal of thunder of the coming storm rumbled outside the farmhouse, I took her in my arms and kissed her, breathing in the scent of her and revelling in her warmth. She held my hand, and led me upstairs to the bedchamber. Even as I look back on that night, there is nothing that feels wrong—the opposite, in fact. Perhaps society will judge me more harshly for my ‘impropriety’, but in that moment I loved her like no one before, and I daresay like no one who will come after.

  * * *

  The house was aflame. Somewhere behind me I could hear my mother sobbing. I had tried to get her to leave but she would not; not until Lily had come back. I stood on the kitchen step, feeling the heat of the flames licking at my back, gazing out to the garden gate. The sky was red as blood, and the dragon wheeled and arced far above us, unconcerned with us now. Perhaps it, too, was looking for a loved one.

  The gate flew open, and a man in black was framed in the glowing embers of the burning field behind him. It was my father, and he had a bundle in his arms. I ran to him, crying out, but he ignored me and marched past me towards the house. My sister was dead or dying, soaked to the skin and unmoving in his arms. Her knotted hair stretched across her face, which seemed pale and almost blue. Her left arm hung limp, swinging with every step that my father took towards the burning house. The dragon roared, the fire crackled, my mother screamed. Through it all I stared back towards them, as if there was nothing else in the universe, and became transfixed by the swaying of her small hand, with droplets of rainwater running from her wrist to her fingertips, and dripping from her nails. They seemed to splash to the ground with more force than all the distractions around me, as if my senses were heightened to some preternatural degree.

  As my father stepped over the threshold, with my sister in his arms, the fires that had threatened to consume the little farmhouse were magically extinguished, and the painted kitchen door slammed shut behind them, leaving me standing agog in the dark kitchen garden, tears streaming down my face. Just like that, all was silence, until I heard it—a whisper that seemed to circumvent my ears and grow like a fully formed idea in my mind.

  The sins of the father shall be visited on the son.

  It came from behind me, I was sure of it; from the garden gate. I turned slowly, not wanting to see whoever it was that had spoken. Yet no one was there. The gate was closed once more, and I was quite alone. Then it came again, the voice in my mind, yet which I was sure was coming from the gate. I found my courage, and stepped towards it. I could smell the honeysuckle, and feel the wet grass beneath my bare feet.

  I reached the door in the high wall: the garden gate that Lily had always called the ‘secret door’. I held out my hand—a child’s hand, I noticed for the first time—and traced the cracks in the old blue paint with my fingertips. I reached down to the latch tentatively, until my small fingers closed around the cold iron. I swung the gate open towards me, and stared into the abyss that was just moments ago a field of glowing red embers. Except now, behind that gate stood a man, staring back at me with only one eye. An eye-patch covered his right eye—but he looked like me. I put my fingers instinctively to my missing left eye…

  * * *

  …And then I woke with a start, fair jumping out of my skin.
In my bleary, half-awake state, it was difficult to take in what was happening. I was outside, by the garden gate. My feet were bare, I was dressed only in long-johns, and I was soaked through as the rain pummelled down at me. I was standing at the garden gate, which was flung wide open. However, instead of looking upon the pasture beyond, I was staring at my own reflection. I could scarce comprehend what was happening—it was as though someone had placed a mirror in the gateway. I was dreaming no longer, of that I was certain.

  As I looked closely, I saw that each time a drop of rain hit the ‘mirror’, a small ripple appeared in its surface, smoothing out again with a fizz. I could hear a strange trilling hum, so quiet as to be almost inaudible, like bees on a summer’s day. I stared at my reflection—it was certainly me, and not some imposter from another universe that stood before me; I could see that from the long-johns and eye-patch—but I saw a strange yellow light around the edges of the reflective pane, which periodically crackled with some sort of electrical force.

  I rubbed at my face, using the cold rain to revive myself, then I chanced a look back to the farmhouse to ensure that Rosanna was not witness to these strange events. The house was dark, and the curtains were drawn. Satisfied, and feeling somewhat restored to wakefulness, I turned to the portal. I knew that this was a gateway to the other side—I did not need William James to tell me that I stood before one of the wondrous portals that paved the way to the ruination of our great Empire. But what to do? I thought hard, and was struck by a sudden fear—how long exactly had this portal been here? I had not opened the gate when we arrived at the house, so it could have been there all along. The house had been tidy and lived in; I had assumed that the caretaker had stayed on his last visit, but what if it was serving a more nefarious purpose? Lazarus was in London, and London was less than fifty miles away. This house—my home—could well have been used as a safe-house for Otherside agents for goodness knows how long. And in fact… the thought occurred to me so suddenly that my heart raced at the wild ideas passing through my mind. Could it be? Could this portal be the Lazarus Gate? Could Lazarus be using this very doorway, Lily’s ‘secret door’, to pass to and fro between the worlds?